Sub Thoughts - Dragon Ball: Episode 6: Midnight Callers

Episode Data
Original Japanese Airdate: April 2, 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: Yamucha attacks at night in an attempt to steal Oolong’s capsules! As Yamucha looks into the condition of their opponents, he learns about the Dragon Balls. Yamucha and Puar try to steal Goku and the others’ Dragon Balls through any means necessary, but fail!! At this point, they come up with the plan of waiting for Goku and the others to gather all seven Dragon Balls, and then steal them. Unaware of this, Goku and the others aim for Mt. Frypan in search of the sixth Dragon Ball.

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I've been waiting for this one. This is honestly one of my favorite humor episodes in this arc. I mean, we've got Pilaf and his cronies running around up to no good; Yamucha and Puar running around up to no good; Oolong making plans that are, again, not good. And the entire time, essentially, Goku and Bulma are out of it. This is where the new background characters get to really shine, and I love it.

My liking for the episode also has absolutely nothing to do with the Bulma shower scenes, I assure you. Totally not a factor. At all. ...Moving on.

Speaking of that scene though, Yamucha just got his first peek, and Furuya's voice is growing on me a bit more, but he still just sounds way too background character for my liking. It's just not a voice that grabs my attention, even though the acting is an excellent job. Unless he whips out something amazing before this arc is done, I think I'm going to always prefer Sabat for this character.

Getting another major LOL, at Goku thinking the reason Bulma got mad at him, was that he was supposed to keep the lack of 'certain parts' a secret. He's so freaking clueless.

Past the halfway mark now, and I'm finally realizing what this familiar vibe I get off of Pilaf's crew's antics is. They're severely reminding me of Team Rocket from Pokemon, maybe they partially inspired those characters?

Yamucha's pretty dense too though, considering...yeah. How does he mistake 'those curves' for Dragon Balls!

And as of his other big meltdown, I'm still much preferring Sabat over Furuya. The line 'One breasts, two breasts...' is cracking me up though.