Have you seen this spiky-haired kid with a red stick? He's not in trouble or anything, I just think he's neat. Take a look.
This episode introduces Panzy, the mysterious girl who botched a heroic uprising in the previous episode. Goku saved her and finished the job by clobbering every Gomah henchman in town, but as they leave, Panzy confronts them and asks who they are.
Panzy has a lot of questions. Who are these guys? Why does one of them have round ears? What Demon World are "Saiyans" from? Where are they going? Why are they going to Kadan Castle? Can she go with them? Glorio wants nothing to do with her, but he's too low key to yell at her or anything, so she keeps following them. Also she gives Goku a rice ball, so now they're stuck with her.
Panzy finds the name "Goku" strange, so he tells her his other name is "Kakarot". Shades of the final scene of the DBS Broly movie, where Goku introduces himself by both names. I know some fans find this out of character, since Goku vehemently rejected his Saiyan heritage in the early episodes of DBZ. But he started to embrace that heritage and reclaim it in the middle of DBZ. Goku insisted he was an Earthling when he fought Raditz, but he called Vegeta a "fellow Saiyan" when he asked Krillin to let him escape. He introduced himself to the Ginyu Force as a "Saiyan from Earth", and when Frieza asked him who he was, he shouted "I am the Super Saiyan, Son Goku!"
The last time he rejected the name "Kakarot" was in the original Broly movie from 1993, where he told Broly that he was not Kakarot, but Son Goku. But he let Vegeta call him "Kakarot" the whole time. That moment probably said more about his anger at Broly than any resentment for the name.
And now we have scenes like this one, where he refers to "Kakarot" as an alternative name for himself. It's not out of character; it's just the character changing over the course of a long period of time. I know it's also a popular joke in the fandom that Vegeta is "deadnaming" Goku whenever he calls him "Kakarot", and I get it, really. I'm sure a lot of people who have changed their name can relate to Goku having two names and preferring one over the other.
But it is also valid for a person to have more than one name, and to go by all of them at once. Lots of people in the Bible have two names, for example. Abram/Abraham; Jacob/Israel; Esau/Edom, Simon/Peter, Saul/Paul. Or look at Gandalf, from Lord of the Rings.
"Many are my names in many countries. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves, Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not."
I'm pretty sure in the East, Sauron makes all the orcs call Gandalf "Jerkstore", but he's not gonna dignify that one. My point is that if Gandalf can have four or fives names at once, there's nothing wrong with Goku having two. Also he can touch his nose with his tongue. Because he's legendary.
Panzy wanted to know what magic he could do, because all Majins can do at least one magic thing, and apparently flying and clobbering lots of henchmen and touching your nose with your tongue doesn't count. Goku asks what she can do and she uses the Force to lift a rock. She can't do it for very long and it's a small rock, but it's pretty cool. Goku is impressed, although Frieza threw a whole mountain at him like that once, so he's seen it before.
But Panzy's true specialty is tinkering with machines, which will make her essential to this group by the end of the episode. See, I remember pointing this out about Pan in GT last year. The big problem with GT Pan wasn't her bossy attitude, but that she didn't have any useful attributes to balance out her personality. Contrast with Panzy here, who has this annoying kid sister vibe to her, and Glorio and the Supreme Kai would probably rather be rid of her, but she can fix stuff, and they can't. Eventually we'll have Bulma in the mix, and she can fix stuff, too, but it's taken her days to repair the Supreme Kai's ship. Panzy's from the Demon World, so she probably knows its technology better.
Speaking of the Supreme Kai, she recognizes him as a Glind, just as Glorio did a while back. She heard that most of the Glinds left to the outside world long ago, so it sure sounds like the Kaioshin are all Glinds who once lived in the Demon Realm, but that still doesn't tell us if the Supreme Kai himself was born in this place.
Panzy is suspicious, because Second Worlders like the Glinds wouldn't come to the Third World for anything other than business, and these guys won't discuss that with her. Glorio refuses to tell her his name, but he says it when Goku mispronounces it. He's been doing that lately, and it took me a while to notice that it's a running gag. It's kind of funny how he won't say his name to strangers unless he needs to correct Goku.
But Panzy is more useful than Glorio wants to admit. When she points out a faster route to the castle, Goku and the Supreme Kai follow, and Glorio has to go along.
On the way, they discuss the way Gomah's men were draining life force to punish anyone who couldn't pay their taxes. From this, we learn that demons live about a thousand years, and Panzy herself is eighty-two. So I guess stealing nine years from that villager isn't quite as harsh as it seemed. It still sucks, because they'll probably keep coming back for tribute, and I assume Gomah finds the life juice more valuable than poor subjects.
Meanwhile, King Gomah has some lady reading fairy tales to Baby Dende. He scolds her for her lackluster reading performance, and at first I thought maybe he was getting sweet on the li'l guy. Like, he originally kidnapped him as insurance. A hostage in case Dragon Team tried to come after him, or at least a way to prevent them from using the Earth's Dragon Balls again. But now he's got him in a crib with a caretaker and so forth. And Dende's so cute he could warm any heart…
… Except for King Gomah, though. He's not taking care of Dende out of tenderness. He plans to raise Dende into a Namek who will make a new set of Dragon Balls for him. You suck, King Gomah. I hope you trip on your stupid cape.
Back in the Third Demon World, the gang finally reach Kadan Castle. Oh, good, I was beginning to wonder how long this would take. Glorio tries to shoo Panzy away, and when she insists on joining them, he tells her she'll just get turned away by the guards. But what he doesn't know is that Panzy is the Princess of the castle.
So, King Kadan. He's a lot like the Ox King or King Yemma, by which I mean a big huge guy who looks mean but isn't all that bad. Panzys says he only steals from the rich and only kills bad guys. Kadan himself says that he can't stand Gomah's reign, and he wants him out of the way so that he can rule the entire Demon Realm himself and restore the peace. So that's why he sent Glorio to request the help of Goku, right? Wrong. Glorio came to Kadan with this plan, offering to bring him the powerful fighters who defeated Majin Buu. Kadan approved, but he knows nothing of them personally, and he had no idea that Gomah had turned them all into children. Clearly, Glorio's up to something.
Then again, his scheme might not be all that complex. We saw him in Gomah's palace watching the same videos of the Buu Saga that Gomah and Degesu were watching. He even overheard Arinsu's suggestion that the Z-Fighters might come to Demon Realm someday and threaten Gomah's reign, and Gomah's plot to turn the Z-Fighters and friends into children. So it's not hard to guess that he went to Kadan to get access to a plane so that he could bring Goku to the Demon Realm.
The only real question is why he didn't bother to let Goku, the Supreme Kai, or Kadan in on his plan. They're all united against Gomah, apparently, so why all the intrigue? Unless Glorio doesn't trust Kadan or Dragon Team. Maybe he's got a different agenda after all.
Anyway, Kadan is so on board with the "Goku Clobbers Gomah" plan that he offers to let Goku marry Panzy if he succeeds. Panzy objects to this idea, and Goku has to explain that he's already married with children. The Supreme Kai tells them that they need to rescue Dende or collect the Demon Realm Dragon Balls to return to normal, and Kadan is astonished that Goku would even consider fighting the Tamagami who guard the Dragon Balls. But if he be beat Buu, it might work. Glorio requests a new plane, but first Kadan asks Goku for a demonstration of his power. Goku's always down to fight.
So yeah, this is basically another Goku brawl, only this time he's fighting Kadan's best warriors. Kadan forbids them from killing Goku, and he's about to tell them to fight without weapons, but Goku's like "Nah, this will be good training," so everyone tries to get him with weapons.
What can I say, except that this is the third "Goku vs. a bunch of guys" fights in three episodes, and it still rules. I hope he does this in every episode. I mean, he doesn't have to, and it's probably better that they don't do this too much more often, since the stakes can only escalate so far. This time, the soldiers try to dogpile Goku, so he briefly turns Super Saiyan to knock them away. So it's the debut of Super Saiyan Mini Goku, even if it didn't last very long. Sooner or later, he'll have a fight where he uses Super Saiyan for a sustained period of time, and then a fight where he and Vegeta both use Super Saiyan, and so on. Of course, we have no idea how long this show is supposed to run for. The hardest number I've been able to find is something like "at least 20 episodes", so maybe 26 or 39, if we're following the "cour" system used for a lot of Japanese television shows.
Anyway, Goku makes short work of Kadan's guys, so we cut to them loading up their new plane. Kadan has to have the plane's computer "rewritten" because it's not the same one Glorio had registered when he traveled to Earth in Episode 2. This way, he can use the same PIN number he used in Episode 3. This is probably a violation of the rules, Warp-Sama enforces, but I still don't know whose rules those are, so I don't know how serious an offense this would be. Mostly, I just like that Kadan's people have ways to get around the barrier. Whoever implemented the PIN number system isn't absolute.
Speaking of that, the Supreme Kai mentions that their friends are going to try to join them here, but they have no PIN number to get access. King Kadan can't do anything about that, but then he asks a guy named Hybis to go fetch them. I'm not clear why Hybis can do this. Maybe he's just using the same registration process Glorio followed before? Anyway, Hybis needs a mid-sized plane for the job, so Kadan orders three of his guys to go steal one from the Nemophy Gang. It wouldn't shock me if the Nemophy Gang were the guys who stole Glorio's plane in the first place.
So with that all settled, Panzy invites herself along for the ride. Kadan objects, but she's good with machines, and she can fix the plane if it breaks. Glorio doesn't care for Panzy, but he's not good with machines, so that settles it. And the Supreme Kai is suspicious of Glorio, but he knows the way, so we're kind of stuck with him too. I guess Hybis and Bulma will have to catch up.
Glorio tells Goku it'll take four days to reach the Tamagami protecting the Three-Star Dragon Ball, and Goku whines about being cooped up in the plane for that long. But it doesn't matter because the plane crashes almost immediately and they all die. Whoops.
Well, that's a weird way to end the show, but it was fun while it lasted… oh, wait, they're okay.
So now that we're at the end of the episode, let me try to circle back and see what we get from all of this.
I guess the first thing we should do is talk about the GT connections. I thought this show was deviating from GT pretty decisively after Glorio's plane got stolen, but Episode 5 gives me pause. I mean, in Episode 5 of GT, Goku goes to the Imeckian ruler's palace and beats up his strongest henchman, Ledgic. They get their ship back and head off with their new pal Giru to resume hunting Dragon Balls. In Episode 5 of Daima, Goku goes to the Third Demon World's royal palace and beats up King Kadan's strongest warriors. They get a new plane and head off with their new pal Panzy to begin hunting Dragon Balls. And both shows feature the de-aged Goku using Super Saiyan for the first time. Eerie, right?
I'm not sure what to take from this. I was pretty confident that the GT parallels would end altogether, or at least become a lot more tenuous. This is either a huge coincidence, or someone genuinely pitched this as a writing challenge. "Let's take a few plot points from each GT Episode and use them to outline a new series."
The simplest explanation is probably that all of these Dragon Ball series are going to have some similarities, because they all feature the same characters in the same world with similar situations. On top of that, they're always doing callbacks to past scenes. The sabretooth tiger that chases Gohan in DBZ Episode 1 shows up again in other episodes, for example. Gohan himself is a walking reference to Kid Goku. Dr. Mu looks just like Dr. Gero. Omega Shenron dies to a Spirit Bomb just like Kid Buu. Lord Slug is just King Piccolo with a spaceship. And so on.
But it also goes to show that you can never be too sure where a story is heading. I mean, I kind of expected Panzy to turn out to be the Princess of the Third Demon World, but that sort of leads into my next point…
I like how this show is connecting all of the characters together. Panzy and Hybis aren't just new additions to the supporting cast who merely happened along. They're connected to King Kadan, who is conspiring with Glorio to overthrow King Gomah. The Supreme Kai is in this story because his brother and sister work for Gomah. It's not clear what he intends to do about that, but he specifically joined this mission because of the family connection.
Bulma, Vegeta, and Piccolo feel somewhat less relevant to what's going on now. We already have a bossy princess who can fix the ship, and a Super Saiyan, so Bulma and Vegeta don't seem all that necessary at the moment. And the Namekian connection to the Demon Realm seems less important now. But that's fine, because Bulma, Vegeta, and Piccolo haven't shown up yet to join the others.
I really like this setup with the main cast taking separate cars to the plot. It gives us time to introduce and develop Glorio and Panzy, and probably Hybis too once they get around to him. If the others were here while all this was going on, they'd be standing around with nothing to do. Or worse, they could get stuff to do and it would get in the way of the main story and overcomplicate things.
I call this principle "Klingons do not have fun." It's not a very good name, but it's a reference to Worf on Star Trek. In actual Worf-themed episodes, which are among the best of the entire franchise, we'll see Worf explored as this complex, layered character, with all sort of passions, insecurities, doubts and ambitions. But not every episode can be about Worf, so in a lot of episodes he's just in the background, and the most he might get is a brief scene where he compares Geordi's problem to some Klingon tradition. Or he'll just recommend security measures because it's his job. Or someone will make small talk with him and ask him what he does for fun, and he'll bluntly reply that "Klingons do not have fun."
And we know Klingons do have fun, because there's episodes where they party and go hunting and make out and stuff, but Worf's kind of a gloomy Gus most of the time, and he tends to assign his personal issues as a cultural feature. The Worf-focused episodes get into all of that, but the ones that focus on the other characters will just reduce him to a soundbyte or two. It'd probably be simpler to write him out of such episodes altogether, but he's part of the crew, so you can't just pretend he isn't there when it's not convenient.
Dragon Ball does this sort of thing as well, but Akira Toriyama also took advantage of opportunities to isolate major characters. The early Namek episodes focused on Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan, because everyone else was dead or back on Earth. Goku was mostly on his own in the Red Ribbon arc because he was on a training excursion by himself. And here, there's two ships, and Bulma's still working on the second one. They'll only arrive when the story is good and ready.
And so it might be worth having an extra tech girl in the story. There's a scene of Bulma and Panzy working on something together in the closing credits, so they'll probably bond or butt heads when they finally do meet later on, but we don't have to rush into that.
Speaking of Panzy, her reveal in this episode kind of reminds me of George Lucas' commentary track for Empire Strikes Back, where he compared Yoda to some archetypal "frog on the road". I'm not sure if that's the trope's "official" name, but you probably get the idea. Glorio is quick to dismiss Panzy as unimportant at best, or a nuisance at worst. He doesn't get too mean about it, mostly because he doesn't lose his cool very easily, but he still thinks she's a pointless distraction, and then she turns out to be Kadan's daughter, and far more important than he realized. It's a nice reversal for Glorio, since his mysterious stranger persona makes it hard to really get into his head. At least this way we can finally see him make a mistake and react to it.
And he's not entirely wrong about Panzy. She puts too much luggage on their new plane, and that's apparently what crashes it. But she'll probably be the one who fixes it too, so there's a sort of push-pull kind of thing with her. It keeps Glorio from getting too comfortable with his plan, whatever it might be. He never counted on Panzy being part of it, no matter how helpful she might be.
Also, I like Goku repeating their mission statement across multiple episodes. We have to rescue Dende. He also wants to fight the Tamamgamis, but Dende comes first. In GT and Super, there were a lot of times where Goku seemed kind of unfocused, usually to set up a gag where he didn't get what was going on. Someone would ask for his input and he'd say he was hungry or whatever. And Goku does get hungry in this show. He eats something in every episode, and I'm pretty sure less than 24 hours have passed since Episode 1. But he also stresses the importance of saving Dende, and he gets into fights, so you get a well-rounded Goku experience every time. The fights aren't just Goku having fun either. He's getting acclimated to the environment, preparing himself for the major battles that lie ahead. Panzy keeps asking him how he got so strong, and he's like "Kid, did you see me beat up all those guys? That's how I got so strong."
Somewhat hyper-fixated on Dragon Ball lately so here's another Daima drawing and it probably won't be the last Dragon Ball post from me in the foreseeable future. Sorry
