It’s kind of a shame that the show’s 50th episode, which is normally a major milestone for a television show, is rather uneventful. The last couple of episodes have been much more tense, but here the show slows its pace, takes a breather, and gets into a little bit of boring filler shit.
Not to say that it’s
a bad episode, or that nothing of value happens in it. The rest of the heroes
other than Bulma learn that Goku is going to be on Namek in a few days.
Krillin, who was on the verge of giving up on the whole venture, can finally
have something to be happy about, as can Gohan. Poor Dende, of course, has no
idea what the hell is going on, generally.
Imagine being in this
kid’s shoes. Not literally, because his feet are small and his shoes look
uncomfortable with how they come to a sharp point. But imagine your entire town
gets murdered, your childhood friend killed right in front of you, and you
scrape by only because some strangers swept in at the very last second and
saved you. Next thing you know, you’re taken to this house that seemingly came
out of nowhere and introduced to this alien who has a gender you’ve never even
seen before, and then they all burst out into effusive celebration like a group
of cultists when it’s revealed that GOKU is going to be coming to Namek soon to
kill Frieza! Goku’s lucky he kicks so much ass, otherwise this would come off
as very, very creepy.
Speaking of creepy,
we have Vegeta just a-creep, creep, creepin’ on our heroes, nearly catching
them just by sniffing out their power levels, only to be sidetracked by a huge
sea-beast which he assumes is the source of the power level. Vegeta is not
having it, he is going to seek and destroy anything that isn’t Frieza or near
Frieza, and to be honest, he’s turning into sort of the second protagonist of
the show for me. A little naughty to say, I know, because he does such awful
shit while he’s on Namek, but you root for him in the same way you might root
for Seto Kaiba or Sesshomaru, just to name some other anime examples. He’s often
a thorn in the real protagonists’ side, but what makes him interesting is his
existence as a spanner in the works and his own private motivations as opposed
to the benevolent OR malevolent intentions of other cast members.
I could go on and on
about how cool Vegeta is in this saga, so I guess we might as well talk about
the most despicable thing he does on Planet Namek by a longshot, since… well,
it gets started in this episode, and gets worse in the next. Vegeta manages to
scout out a Namekian village that Frieza and his men haven’t touched. Up to
this point, we’ve only seen Vegeta pay evil unto evil, dishing out some vigilante
justice/vengeance on Frieza’s gang, and even the people who’ve never seen this
show are probably getting the sense that Vegeta’s going to join the good side
sooner or later, even if just out of necessity. Well, if you thought Vegeta was
going to be any gentler with the Namekian innocents than Frieza’s crew… let’s
just say I have a bridge I want to talk to you about, next review.
Meanwhile, Goku
deals with some bullshit on his ship, I dunno.
Anyway, this was a
pretty decent episode, nothing great, and I…
*sigh* Okay, fine,
let’s talk about the Goku subplot.
Goku’s ship veers
off course, sending it careening toward a nearby star, and Goku has to avoid
his spaceship being immolated in a terribly fiery tragedy by going out onto the
surface of his ship and re-plot it with the remote help of Dr. Briefs. Now, let’s
just get this straight: shit like this in the middle of other, more dire stuff
happening is just a pointless distraction. Everybody knows Goku is not going to
train in 20g for three straight episodes only to be randomly murdered in the vacuum
of space by faulty technology. It’s ridiculous from a narrative standpoint and
it would piss off everyone you can imagine if the creators of the show actually
went in that direction. It would be the poster child for anti-climaxes, the one
to end them all.
But, okay, let’s be
a little more fair and look at this in a vacuum: a man has to go out onto the
surface of his spaceship and divert its course before he flies directly into
the sun. When you put it that way, hell yeah, that’s a thrilling premise, and
if it weren’t happening in the middle of the Frieza arc in DRAGON BALL FUCKING
Z, it may even be justifiably the premise for two or three full episodes. But
here, it isn’t, and furthermore, a lot of what drives the drama of this segment
is Goku’s stupidity. He glues himself to his own goddamn ship by his boots, he
has to shoot a Kamehameha at a LITERAL SUN to divert his course, and when it’s
all said and done, he’s still going to hit Namek in about six days. Whatever. I’ve
never seen the movie Armageddon with Bruce Willis, but I’m aware it takes place
in space and has a lot of action. I wish Goku could be the protagonist in all
of the Bruce Willis films.
(3/5)
A Few Final Thoughts:
-- Vegeta: “I should have figured out how to sense power
levels a long time ago.”
--The nametag on Goku’s suit says “Gokuh,” so I guess that’s
what we need to call him from now ohahaha I’m not fucking doing that.
-- Even Vegeta is surprised at how easily he defeated
Dodoria.
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