Monday, March 18, 2013

Sub Thoughts - Dragon Ball: Episode 17: With Life at Stake! Milk Delivery


Episode Data
Original Japanese Airdate:
June 18, 1986
Major Cast: Son Goku (Masako Nozawa), Kuririn (Mayumi Tanaka), Kame-sennin (Kohei Miyauchi), Lunch (Mami Koyama), Bulma (Hiromi Tsuru), Yamucha (Toru Furuya), Oolong (Naoki Tatsuta), Puar (Naoko Watanabe), Narrator (Joji Yanami)
Synopsis: The basic training finally begins! To start off, Goku and Kuririn are given milk delivery as their early morning training! Carrying the milk boxes, they do things like skip and zig-zag around rows of trees!! Furthermore, they climb stone stairs that rise high into the air, cross over a valley on a large tree, cross through a desert of quicksand and a raging river while keeping their balance, and get chased by dinosaurs as a bonus! This is their ultra-hard milk delivery training that surpasses ordinary knowledge!!

---

Having Lunch ponder why she transforms when she sneezes before the title card is a bit of a red herring to me, since we never get to see that ideal followed up. Why DOES she change when she sneezes? For that matter, where'd Toriyama come up with the idea for that one in the first place? Entirely original, or did he get it from somewhere even if it's his own take on it?

Okay, I guess it sort-of leads into the joke of her sneezing in her sleep and transforming, but still.

The Roshi training is my favorite of all the training we get to see, it's the most well thought out even while it's among the silliest ones.

Now that Roshi has mentioned back when Gohan and Gyu-mao trained like this, it's something I wish they'd used as filler to pad this episode a bit, not that it needs any. I'd have loved a flashback to a young Gohan and Gyu-mao training just like this. I've always imagined their relationship to be very much like Goku and Kuririn's, though I think the age difference would have to be bigger.

And the first mention of the Tenkaichi Budokai at last! The fights may not be as earth-shattering as even the DB fights set outside in the world, but there's a special kind of charm to tournament matches that I'm looking forward to getting to again here.

No comments:

Post a Comment