Every great saga has a beginning, and this one starts with a simple boar.
Did our porcine friend realize what his actions would bring forth on this day? Did he know that the Driver’s Ed episode of Dragon Ball Z would be born from his decision to chase after a woman walking home from the Mt. Paozu IGA? Maybe, but I’m more inclined to think that he just wanted some of the potato wedges Chi-Chi picked up from the deli.
Meanwhile, Goku’s training for the androids. Well, not at this exact second. Right now, he’s watching clouds sexually harass other clouds. Cloud Master Roshi belongs in Cloud Jail.
As Chi-Chi hoofs it back home after narrowly escaping the boar, she sees the couple from the other mountain driving home in their car.
When Chi-Chi gets home she’s greeted by her husband and son, who toss their filthy training gear in front of her and head for the tub.
And that tears it. She bawls out Goku for not driving her to the store like other husbands, and when he says he doesn’t have a license she tells him to go get one. Oh, and he can take Piccolo with him, since his useless green ass doesn’t have one either, smh.
Oh, and if they fail, she won’t cook for them. I’m not sure why that should matter to Piccolo, since he only drinks water, but maybe Chi-Chi makes some really tasty water.
So the next day the boys go to the “institute” to take driver’s ed. Piccolo doesn’t know how he got roped into this, but he doesn’t seem too interested in backing out, either.
What makes this episode a classic is that they’re both wearng civlian clothing for this aventure. Goku is dresed in what I like to call “Stealth Fred Flintstone Cosplay.” Piccolo, of course, is dressed in blue jeans and two shirts. One is purple with long sleeves, and one is yellow with the words “POST BOY” written on them.
In the dub, Goku asks him where he got such a ridiculous outfit, and Piccolo replies “Your wife got them for me... out of your closet.” That’s not in the Japanese version. Really, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Goku to own this outfit, since Piccolo’s at least 18 inches taller than him. Then again, Piccolo has Clothes Beam powers, which could also be used to alter clothing to fit other sizes.
Besides, we know he got the hat from Goku, since it has the word “GOKUU” written on it. I think it’s safe to assume that the POST BOY outfit is definitely something Goku owns.
Here come the instructors. They have Capsule Corp. logos on their coats, so I assume this means this whole institute is run by Capsule Corp.
Somewhere in this episode, the old guy says he’s been teaching driver’s ed for 70 years, which puts him somewhere over 90. Personally, I headcanon him as gettng into the driver’s ed game much later in life. His wife divorced him at 53, and he struggled to find new purpose after that, until he got a taste of the driving school life, and he knew he would never be the same. Oh, he tried to get out of this world. But it kept calling him back like a siren song. The fame, the money, the women. He just couldn’t stay away. And by 55, he became a full-time instructor. Now he’s 125 years old.
I don’t know anything about this lady, except that I’m pretty sure she wants to fuck Piccolo in the backseat of a car while it speeds along a highway at 100 miles per hour. I guess Piccolo could use the Multi-Form technique to steer while he does his business in the back, but she doesn’t know that.
Piccolo-- excuse me... I mean Post Boy, has some dificulty with the seat belt.
Did you think I was kidding about this lady? Because I’m not. Back seat. 100 miles per hour. No one at the wheel.
Unfortunately, this car doesn’t have a back seat, so she just floors it and drives really, really aggressively.
EVEN POST BOY IS AFRAID
Meanwhile, the old man can’t even get the door open. I like how the hair on his head turns red, but his mustache and eyebrows don’t.
Goku starts dissociating in the parking lot.
Meanwhile, the Brief family is still amazed by Vegeta’s insane training regimen. I feel like these scenes are really trying to pressure Bulma into getting it on with the guy. “Boy, those Saiyans sure do have tough bodies, eh, Bulma? Such wonderfully tough bodies. Oh, and he’s living in the spaceship now. That’s how dedicated he is. You know, that spaceship would be a great place to have sex in, just throwing that out there. You could scream as loud as you wanted and your parents would never be able to hear it.”
Anyway, here’s Vegeta doing some pointless bullshit that isn’t driver’s ed. Let’s move on.
I guess Gohan’s studying while the boys are learning to drive. Of course, he can’t concentrate knowing that Piccolo’s running around in the Post Boy outfit. Check out this sweet fan art Gohan drew for this episode.
Then Icarus shows up and Gohan decides to sneak out of the house to watch his dad and Piccolo driving. I thought Episode 118 was Icarus’ last appearance, but I guess not. Pretty sure this is it, though.
See, I told you this guy has been in the business for 70 years. What’s got him flustered is that Goku can’t seem to remember anything he tells him. I mean things like “Push the pedals to make it go,” and “Welcome to driving school.”
What’s with this guy’s neck?
I think he was trying to get Goku to back into a parking place, but he ended up zooming forward instead.
Then they end up on the highway, and inside a tunnel going down the wrong lane. Now, in the dub, the guy tells Goku to “give him the wheel” I think. So Goku chops it off so he can give it to him. In the original script, he keeps saying “Cut in the steering handle”, which seems like an odd choice of words.
The end result is the same: Goku’s car flies out of control and lands in a body of water. The instructor tells him it’ll take him three years to pass the course, and Goku protests that he can’t wait that long, on account of the androids.
Later on, Goku seems to have gotten the hand of shifting the gear, but he still doesn’t grasp going slowly. Post Boy sees him zip past and thinks it’s a race.
Nearby, Gohan and Icarus show up in time to see this unfold.
The lady seems genuinely impressed by Post Boy’s off-road driving stunts. The tragic thing about this story is that Post Boy seems to have mastered this skill, but he never gets credit for it in the form of a license.
Anyway, one thing leads to another and now Goku and Post Boy are wanted for manslaughter. Just kidding, the instructors are fine.
Later, they have to drive around on public roads, and if they screw around again, they’ll get expelled.
To their credit, both of them seem to be doing a lot better this time.
Goku waves at a bus full of school kids, but the old man deducts a point for taking his hand off the wheel. When Goku protests, he takes another point off for taking his eyes off the road.
Then Goku slams on the brakes, causing Piccolo to rear-end him. Everyone’s confused, but the reason he did it is because...
The bus ahead of him got caught in... uh, an avalanche? Of water?
It’s going to fall off the road and over a cliff, is the point.
Goku flies through the windshield of his car to help...
... while Post Boy elbows the door off of his car. With authority!
They catch the bus,then Goku heads over to shoot falling debris so it won’t hit anything.
Post Boy helps too. So, a second ago, both of them needed to hold the bus, and now Post Boy is holding it one-handed. Why did Goku even leave the bus if Post Boy could hold it and shoot up at the same time? This episode proves that power levels are bullshit.
The instructors are astonished.
Goku waves goodbye to the kids while Post Boy stands with his back turned, all stoic-like. A watchful protector. A silent guardian. A Post Boy.
Goku apologizes for the disturbance, but the instructors are all smiles. Goku asks if they can resume their practice, but the old man refuses.
As he puts it, Goku and Post Boy are such skilled men that there’s no point in them learning from a driving school. They hardly need licenses when they can fly, right?
Now, in the dub, they kind of take a different approach with the punchline. The instructor praises their rescue of the bus, and their amazing powers, but he makes it clear that these two knuckleheads have no business behind the wheel of a car, so they’ll never get their licenses, ever. But so what, right? They can fly, so what difference does it make?
Either way.... I bet Chi-Chi won’t like this...
Yeah, I called it.
Why is Icarus in the house?
Sometimes, you have to have your heroes lose. It builds character, and it makes them feel more like people. It also makes it even more inspirational when they triumph. That is the lesson of this episode. Yes, Post Boy failed today, but he’s not going to dwell on his failures. He’s going to pick himself back up and keep living his life.
Anyway, Chi-Chi passes out from the shock of it. No, seriously, why is Icarus allowed in the house but Post Boy isn’t?
Anyway, from here, we flash forward three years and.... holy crap, I never noticed before, but they have a car in this shot! A few dozen episodes after this, we’ll see Goku driving, and Chi-Chi explaining how he got his license, but I never noticed that this very episode made it clear that Goku went back and tried again. That’s awesome.
It’s the morning of May 12, and it’s time for the fateful Android invasion. Chi-Chi offers the boys a box lunch for the day, but Goku declines.
No, Goku’s taking an early lunch today, around 10am. His meal: a couple of no-good androids. Big, marshmallow-y androids.
This is it. The waiting is over, the future is now. The Z-Fighters will either change history or they will become history. Z stands for the end, but not yet.
