In which Vegeta obtains and then has a ball, all the while creating terrible tragedy for the already put-upon Namekian people.
Vegeta’s brutality in this episode does two things: first,
it establishes to the audience that Vegeta may be fighting against Frieza’s
cohorts, but that by no means makes him a remotely sympathetic character. When
it comes to his tactics against the innocent Namekians, he is equally as brutal
as Dodoria and Zarbon, murdering every living thing in the entire village to
get what he wants, and nothing he wants is for the betterment of Namekians, or
his own race, or any race in the universe. He wants that ball because he wants
to kill Frieza, and he wants to kill Frieza because he wants revenge. He is a
villain protagonist in the purest sense of the term, and as the enemy of
Krillin, Gohan and Bulma’s enemy, he is not their friend. Not by a longshot.
Second, Vegeta’s destruction of the Namekian village
solidifies how doomed the Namekian race is. Between Vegeta, who can track them
with his own power and not the use of a scouter, and Frieza, who is still
several orders of magnitude stronger than Vegeta, the Namekians have no hope of
altering their fate. We know as viewers that it took the combined strength of
Krillin, Gohan, Yajirobe, and Goku to take down Vegeta, and by just barely.
Now: Goku isn’t going to be around for a week, it’s only Krillin and Gohan, and
not only is Vegeta skulking around, but if Frieza catches a whiff of anyone
trying to take away his dragon balls, it’s curtains. There just doesn’t seem to
be any hope in the near future for the Namekians, and with Vegeta hot on the
trail of anyone with a ball, the near future may not be soon enough.
Besides Vegeta destroying the shit out of a Namekian village
and getting a dragon ball for himself—which he promptly hides in a Namekian
lake at a random location—nothing much happens here. We get a spot of cool
news, though, even if it’s something that’s not going to matter for a long
time: Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu and Piccolo have made it to King Kai’s planet and
are undergoing a little training with the man himself! We’re going to have
periodic visits to King Kai’s planet for the rest of the saga as Piccolo and
the gang work on getting stronger, and for the most part, it’s filler.
Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it's dull as shit, and sometimes it just serves
as an opportunity for us to get reactions from other people regarding what’s
going on with the Namek situation. It’s a pretty epic reveal, too, happening
right at the end of the episode when King Kai telepathically communicates with
Goku as he’s training. Everyone’s trying to get stronger, knowing the dangers
lying ahead.
We get to see Bulma come up with the same idea as her future
lover: all they need to do is take one ball and hide it! After all, the balls
are useless unless you have all seven! Crucially, however, Gohan points out
that Frieza and Vegeta will just become even more genocidal trying to find that
last ball. To be fair, however, Frieza and Vegeta are already being ridiculously
genocidal in their methods. I don’t think there’s such a thing as being mildly
genocidal. You’re either murdering the entire population of a planet, or you
aren’t. I guess the argument is that if the Namekians are killed more slowly,
it gives time for Goku to show up and start kicking some ass, but I’m pretty
sure most of the Namekians are dead anyway, with how many dragon balls Frieza has.
It's in this episode where Krillin and Dende decide to go visit
the Eldest Namek, who should technically be called the Eldest Namekian, but I’m
being pedantic. Gohan stays behind with Bulma, which is smart. Gohan can
protect Bulma, and Krillin can protect Dende! Or, at least, Krillin can protect
Dende in-between bouts of crying to himself about the fact that he’s going to
die having never had a girlfriend before. You already died without a girlfriend
once, my man, this should be standard fare for you by now. I will say, Krillin
is at least trying. He’s whining the entire time, but he’s not shirking his
responsibilities. He's absolutely going to keep trying to get those dragon
balls.
What else is there? Oh, well, there’s Frieza and Zarbon
callously brushing off the death of Dodoria before Zarbon goes out with Appule
to hunt down the last two dragon balls blind. Good luck with that. I guess
between the two of them it’s possible they could find a village in the next few
days, but my impression of Namek is that it’s similarly-sized to Earth, and it
also has a handful of villages in it. It’s not like all of the Namekian
enclaves are metropolis-sized megacities with fucking McDonald’s or McDende’s
at every other block—it’s all tiny farming villages with populations of not
much greater than 20. So, the Frieza gang has their work cut out for them. They
should consider getting the shit beaten out of them by Gohan, Goku, Krillin and
Yajirobe. It seemed to work out pretty well for Vegeta, I don’t know why it
wouldn’t work for Zarbon, Appule or Frieza. Y’all are fucking amateurs.
(3/5)
A Few Final Thoughts:
--The village elder tells Vegeta he’ll never find their
dragon ball. He immediately finds it, in one of the five or six houses comprising
the village. Something tells me the Namekians are not hide-and-seek champions.
-- Bulma: “Sounds like you guys had a rough time out there!”
She is way too used to shit like this by now.
--If you and about 50 of your friends have a guy—say, Vegeta—surrounded,
and he just starts laughing at you, you should probably just run. He’s either
superpowered or he has a bomb strapped to his chest.
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