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duhragonball · 5 years

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Dragon Ball 153

Ox King’s castle is still on fire, and he’s still trying to protect his dead wife’s wedding dress so Chi-Chi can wear it for her wedding ceremony with Goku.

The flames are mystical in nature, so the only way to put them out is to stop them at the source, which happens to be the Eightfold Furnace on the opposite side of the world.

But it’s not that simple. The Pyre Keeper, Annin (also known as Tojoro), isn’t too fussed either way, but she doesn’t understand why Goku would be willing to plunge the world into chaos just to save one man.

She offers Goku some noodles...

And Goku’s like “I don’t want any damn noodles!” which is how you know he’s serious about this.

This whole episode is kind of weird, because it all seems to hinge on miscommunication. Annin seems to change motivations from one scene to the next. Sometimes she’s sympathetic to Goku and Chi-Chi’s plight, other times she seems completely aloof. Through it all, Goku gets more and more impatient with her, despite Gohan’s best efforts to explain the situation to him. It’s even weirder when you consider that they always have the option of resurrecting Ox King with the Dragon Balls. Maybe that’s why Toei added the wedding dress to the story, just so there’d be something at stake that couldn’t be so easily restored.

Annin tosses her bowl at Goku, and when he dodges it, she seems impressed. So I think this might be one of those situations where a godlike being tries to teach the hero a lesson in a roundabout kind of way, but Annin’s a lot harder to read.

She directs Goku to a shutoff valve that will turn off the furnace, but Gohan begs him to stop. Goku refuses, and even shoves Gohan away...

...And then Annin steps in and grabs Goku with those orange things on her hat, and flings him up high enough to where he can see the top of the furnace.

Basically, the Eightfold Furnace is responsible for establishing the passageway between the living world and the hereafter. If Goku shuts off the furnace, that passageway will be closed, which will trap the souls of dead people on Earth, and lead to various horror movie-style complications.

It sounds a lot like the plot to DBZ Movie 12, and that kicked ass, so I’m with Goku, let’s do it.

Chi-Chi proposes turning off the furnace for just a little while, long enough to save her dad, but that won’t work, because it would take centuries to rekindle the furnace, so it’d amount to the same problem.

She does offer one other option...

Then she starts attacking Goku out of nowhere.

Like I said, Annin seems to have been taking Goku’s measure this whole time, so maybe she’s not as indifferent as she pretends to be.

Goku manages to score a blow on Annin...

And Gohan gets upset with him. Dude, she started it. I think Gohan’s attitude during this episode was what confused me so much about it. You’d think he’d understand what’s going on here a little better than this, but he’s been dead for a while, so he probably doesn’t see Ox King’s life as that big a deal compared to respectng an important deity like Annin. Also... well, we’ll get to that.

When Gohan explains that she’s been tending the furnace for thousands of years, Goku remarks that she’s an old lady, and that really annoys her.

So she gets huge and attacks Goku that way. Again? But that trick never works.

Why do long-lived female anime characters always get uptight about their age? Annin’s probably immortal, so why does she care if Goku calls her an old lady or not? And she looks great, so what difference should it make to her what he says? Then again, she’s only testing Goku, I think, so maybe she’s just feigning outrage.

Annin does this cool think where she swings her cape to make a gust of wind, so Goku whips out the Basho Fan, which he brought along for some reason, and responds in kind.

And that puts an end to the fight. Once Annin sees the Basho Fan, she tells them that there might be a way to save the Ox King after all.

Okay, so this is confusing. She acted like there was a chance earlier, when she started attacking Goku, but she didn’t know he had the Basho Fan then, so what was she planning up to that point? Or was she really just trying to clobber Goku?

Okay, so the short version is this: The fire on Mt. Frypan is being caused by a hole in the Eightfold Furnace that’s allowing some of the fire to spill out. This is also affecting the quality of Gohan’s noodles, and I assume at some point it would adversely affect the overall function of the furnace as well, so this is Annin’s problem too, whether she admits it or not.

Wait, that isn’t the short version. Let me start over.

Okay, so they have to fix the hole in the furnace, but they can’t shut it off, so Goku will have to use the Basho Fan to part the flames, then jump down to the bottom and replace the missing tile.

Unfortunately, the repair work will require special materials: a piece of eggshell from a Fire-Eater Bird, and special honey from bees that make octagonal honeycombs.

Turns out Chi-Chi already has all that stuff from their previous adventures, so they’re all set.

Of course, Goku still has to dive into a blazing hot furnace to make this work, so there’s a ton of risk here. But Goku gave his archenemy a senzu bean, so this is actually a pretty mild risk he’d be taking here.

Annin pours water on him, then she raises the lid. Goku swings the Basho fan to part the flames...

He spots the missing tile, glues in the replacement with honey...

And then he jumps back out, using the Nyoibo for a boost.

And it all works. The fire at Mt. Frypan goes out, Goku makes it safely out of the furnace, and Annin’s furnace is repaired. She apologizes to Goku and Chi-Chi, but I’m not really sure what she’s apologizing for. I wouldn’t say it’s her fault for the furnace getting damaged, and she only attacked Goku to test his mettle. Or because Goku was kind of being a dick. Either way, it’s all good, Annin.

Gohan compliments Goku for how well he and Chi-Chi handled this crisis. It bodes well for their marriage.

Goku tells Gohan to enjoy his time with Annin.

And this makes Gohan blush, so I think it’s safe to assume that Gohan is only doing this “part time job” thing so he can shack up with his giant girlfriend. Which is fine, you do you, Gohan. I just think it’s interesting how Goku managed to pick up on that. In the dub, it’s not even a little subtle, as Sean Schemmel delivers the line very suggestively. Goku sounded like he wanted to give his grandpa a high-five or something.

My point is that Goku knows what’s up. He’s had a cute girl practically spooning him this whole time he’s been criss-crossing the world on Kinto Un, and he’s getting kind of... anxious, if you know what I mean.

Back at Frypan, Ox King lives, and he saved the dress, so everything’s coming up Goku.

They do have to hold the wedding ceremony outdoors, though, because the castle is ruined, but it’s a lovely day out, so no worries there.

Chi-Chi grabs onto Goku one more time, but now he’s a lot more into it than he was at the tournament. He’s getting the hang of this marriage thing.

The narrator closes out the show, and Baba addresses the audience, offering to peek at the future to see what’ll happen next.

But she doesn’t actually show or tell anyone what she sees. Well, the joke’s on you, lady, I bought the DVDs.

I’m putting this last screencap here because I wanted to catch the last line of the English dub, which advises the audience to follow Goku’s later adventures in Dragon Ball Z. I don’t know, I just get really excited whenever I think about that.

So that wraps up the Piccolo Junior Saga, and that also means the end of the original Dragon Ball anime. I’ll probably take a break, and then we’ll jump into DBZ before you know it. Doncha dare miss it!

#2019dbliveblog #dragon ball #goku #chi chi #grandpa gohan #fortuneteller baba #ox king #annin #tojoro #23rd budokai saga

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duhragonball · 5 years

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Dragon Ball 152

Okay, so for the last three episodes, the Ox King’s castle has been on fire, and the Ox King is trapped inside, and nothing seems to put out the flames, so Goku and Chi-Chi went looking for the Basho Fan, only that doesn’t work either, which kind of ticks me off honestly.

Goku refuses to give in, and he keeps fanning the castle with the Fan, until Fortuneteller Baba flies in and tells him to cut it out.

Okay, so apparently, Baba’s gotten over her cold, and she’s determined that the Basho Fan was never going to help, because the fire is mystical in origin. It’s coming from the “Eightfold Furnace”, which is located on the opposite side of the planet from Mt. Frypan. So I guess the fire is passing through the entire Earth to burst through Ox King’s castle? Anyway, the only chance they have of stopping the fire is to go to the Eightfold Furnace and appeal to the Pyre-keeper, which the Funimation dub named “Tojoro” for some reason.

Baba shows them the Furnace, and it starts to make sense now why she was getting images of an octogon before. Basically, this whole arc has been driven by strange coincidences and setbacks that turn out to not be setbacks after all. I would complain that it’s a little too convenient, but Toei managed to make it work by introducing the idea of Baba having a cold, which dulls her psychic abilities just enough to guide Goku and Chi-Chi without actually telling them everything they need to know. If she had been healthy in Episode 149, she could have looked into her crystal ball and told them everything they needed to do, step by step, and there would have been no suspense to it at all. Without Baba’s involvement, the plot couldn’t have moved forward at all, because no one had any clue what to do.

So Goku and Chi-Chi need to go to Mt. Gogyo, on the other side of the world, then enter a huge gate that leads to the Eightfold Furnace, where they can meet the Pyrekeeper. Oh, and the whole place lies on the border between the living world and the world of the dead, and there’s evil spirits and monsters. Oh, and no one’s ever made it there alive. Good luck!

I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on the journey, because most of the hazards are actually illusions. But they’re cool illusions, so check ‘em out.

So are the skeletons illusions, or real people who got killed because they were tricked by the illusions? I dunno.

Anyway, Goku and Chi-Chi finally make it to the furnace, which turns out to be huge. Goku calls out to the Pyre Keeper, and who should answer but...

Son Gohan, Goku’s adoptive grandfather. He’s been dead for years, but this place lies on the boundary between the living and the dead, so it makes sense. As it turns out, Gohan’s not the Pyre Keeper, he just works here part time as a watchman for the Pyre Keeper.

Okay, so how much does the afterlife suck if you have to get a job? I mean, is there capitalism in the afterlife? Does Gohan need the money to pay his death-rent? Maybe he’s only doing this because he’s bored, but he hasn’t been dead that long. Also, how much does the afterlife suck if you can get bored? Because that’s kind of a permanent problem in the afterlife, right?

So who’s the Pyre Keeper? That would be Annin, who is apparently also huge...

But she shrinks down to Goku’s size to meet Gohan’s family. She complains to Gohan about the noodles he’s been cooking, which suggests to her that there might be some wear and tear on the Eightfold Furnace.

Goku pleads for her to shut off the furnace to save Ox King, but Gohan warns him that this would cause terrible things to happen. They simply can’t do it, not even to save the Ox King’s life.

Annin doesn’t seem to concerned either way, but she hints that Goku’s request would mean the end of the world, which seems fitting for the final chapers of O.G. Dragon Ball...

#dragon ball #2019dbliveblog #goku #chi chi #grandpa gohan #ox king #fortuneteller baba #annin #tojoro #23rd budokai saga

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