Original Japanese Airdate: May 21, 1986
Major Cast: Son Goku (Masako Nozawa), Bulma (Hiromi Tsuru), Yamucha (Toru Furuya), Oolong (Naoki Tatsuta), Puar (Naoko Watanabe), Pilaf (Shigeru Chiba), Shu (Tessho Genda), Mai (Eiko Yamada), Narrator (Joji Yanami)
Synopsis: Goku and the others have been captured once again by Pilaf. That night, Goku looks at the full moon, and suddenly turns wild and starts transforming into an Oozaru!! He smashes the prison that they are imprisoned in, and Yamucha and the rest manage to escape, but having lost his reason, Goku continues to rampage!! Yamucha then cuts off Goku’s weakness, his tail! Goku wakes up after returning to normal. The party promises to reunite, and the Dragon Team splits up.
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Hmm...part of the roar for the Oozaru sounds just like it does in the dub for the Great Ape. I'm guessing it's a mix of whatever sound effect is there and an actor in both versions? Either way, to compare - they both work, though I'm liking the work of Yasuhiko Kawatsu better just for the sake of realism. It doesn't sound like some guy making roaring noises. Mind you, Shane Ray who did most of the Great Ape roaring sounds good to me too, he's the best of the guys they had to do Great Ape roars. He certainly did a better job than Sabat, and don't even get me started on the few episodes Justin Cook did with his Super Buu yelling. So it's definitely Yasuhiko Kawatsu or Shane Ray for me.
...Okay, how did I NEVER think this before. It's spread out, but the whole fight against Oozaru Goku has to be a King Kong reference. Instead of a tower he's on top of the castle remains, but he is trying to swat down a plane that's shooting at him. Then later, he's got hold of Bulma. Sure, it's not an exact homage since he's not being shot at while holdin the girl, and he doesn't have the girl because he likes her, but still. It's way too similar for me not to think it was done on purpose.
They took a pretty big risk taking the tail off now that I think about it. For all they knew that was going to remove his only weakness, not revert him. It's not like they had a lot of other choices to go for, but still.
And so exits the Pilaf gang for now. Darn it, I'm going to miss them. I wish they had come up a bit more often than they did. At least I'll have some more of them in DB at least, but they're definitely gonna be missed once I hit Z.
I think I read someone mentioning this already, either in Champion's thread or somewhere on Daizex, but it's a bit ironic - Oolong's guess is that Goku's an alien. If only they knew.
Oolong just referred to the dragon as Shen Long out of the blue! Where the heck did they catch his name though? *pulls hair out of head* I shouldn't be thinking this deeply, it's Dragon Ball, but still.
And so ends the first arc in the long adventure of Goku. I've often wondered in the past how anime as a whole would have been affected if the story ended here. I think this is maybe where it would have had it not caught on like it had, because it feels just as open-ended as a lot of Toriyama's shorter works. At the very least, if it'd ended here I bet we wouldn't have One Piece, so that definitely would have been a shame.
Anyway, that's all from me for now. Next time I'll start in on the next arc! I can't wait for it personally, as there'll be a lot of new characters for me to hit for the first time in Japanese, as well as the first appearances of one that I already know I love the seiyuu for. In fact, next episode is the debut of Mayumi Tanaka as Kuririn. I can't wait! Unfortunately, I must, as do you. Until my next review post - o-genki-de!
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