New Characters:
[fa:vxxx -- First Appears in Volume xxx.]
Silver: A commander from Red Ribbon. Very strong and fast.
Doesn't
wear a shirt under his jacket. Is in charge of the
western desserts. [fa:v5]
Red Sousui: Leader of Red Ribbon. In the TV series, Red is VERY
short. Has a patch over one eye, always smokes a cigar,
and has no patience at all. [fa:v5]
White Shogun: Commander of the northern regions. Located in
Muscle
Tower. Bulky, strong, and tricky. [fa:v5]
Metallic Gunsou: White's 3rd floor robot guard. [fa:v5]
Murasaki Souchou: White's military aide and 4th floor guard.
Sneaky
ninja master. [fa:v5]
Zombie 8: White's 5th floor guard. A Frankenstein monster who
later
changes his name to Hatchan (diminutive form of 8-chan.)
Involuntarily recruited to guard the Tower. [fa:v5]
Gomu: One more of White's guards. A rubbery monster. (Gomu is
Japanese for Gum.) [fa:v5]
The battle between Jackie and Gokuu continues in book 5.
[As a recap, Kuririn had defeated Bactarian, Jackie beat Yamcha,
Yamu
overcame Ranfawn, and Gokuu had triumphed over Gilan. In the
second
round, Jackie easily knocked out Kuririn, and Gokuu overpowered
Namu.
We pick up with the contest to determine the greatest fighter in
the
world.]
Gokuu decides to try using monkey style combat, and succeeds
until
Jackie gets mad enough to try hypnotizing him. This puts Gokuu
out, and
everyone is convinced he's going to lose. Then, Buruma yells out
"Gokuu, supper!" The announcer has to assure the boy
that supper will
be served when the meet is over, which makes Gokuu that much more
resolved to win. He then uses "Janken" style, a
technique where you make
an attack sound that matches the punch or kick you use. Jackie
easily
counters the attacks, and Gokuu is convinced that the old man had
known
his dead grandfather (since the deceased man was the one who'd
taught
janken to Gokuu.) Gokuu says that he's going to use janken again,
and Jackie tells him that nothing will change -- but he gets
punched in
the nose; Gokuu called out "ba" while making a
"gu" attack.
[Note: Janken is actually the Japanese name for
"scissors/paper/stone."
Gokuu punches (stone) and Jackie counters (paper.)]
This makes Chun furious. He invokes Bankokubikkurishou, a
lightning
attack that stands a good chance of killing Gokuu. Chun demands
that
Gokuu surrender, which Gokuu won't do despite the pain and
warnings of
his certain death. Then, Gokuu looks up and sees the full moon.
The
lightning attack has no effect on the were-monkey, which starts
trashing
the grounds, (Jackie is startled, because Kamesennin hadn't heard
about
this side of Gokuu before.) While the spectators run away in
fear,
Jackie starts a full-power Kamehame-ha. Yamcha rushes forward to
stop
what looks like Chun's killing blow. Too late. The blast knocks
everyone back, and when they've recovered, Gokuu is gone. People
accuse
Jackie of being a murderer, until he points out a space in the
rubble
where Gokuu, reverted back to human form, is peacefully sleeping.
Jackie states that he wasn't aiming at the boy, but rather at the
moon
(which is no longer in the sky.)
Shaken, the announcer needs some prompting to start the count,
and
starts just before Gokuu wakes up again (Jackie complains about
this.)
Gokuu is willing to continue fighting in the nude, but is
convinced to
dress in Kuririn's outfit. Both fighters are wearing down: Gokuu
is
starving, and Jackie had used up his Kamehame-ha power. Gokuu's
Kamehame-ha is still strong enough to make Chun jump back, and
he's
vulnerable to the kick that sends him out of the ring. It looks
like
Jackie has lost, and everyone is declaring Gokuu the winner when
the old
man asks the announcer to come over to his edge of the ring.
Turns out
that Jackie's foot is embedded in the ring's wall, and he hasn't
yet
touched the grass. So, the fight continues. There's only one
chance
left for Jackie to win, and it occurs when Gokuu agrees to a
hand-to-hand attack. They leap forward, and kick each other in
the
face. Looks like Gokuu is still in better shape, but he does
collapse
completely -- Jackie was counting on his longer legs giving him a
slight
edge when the impact occurred.
Gokuu loses, and Jackie Chun is declared the winner of the
Tenkaichi-Budoukai. It's a fair fight, and no one has any hard
feelings. Jackie accepts the 500,000 zenii prize before leaving.
Gokuu
suffers a hunger strike. Kamesennin quickly changes out of his
disguise
(the hair glue really hurts when he rips off the wig) and meets
up with
the group. Gokuu and Kuririn fill in the details of the fight,
and they
decide to have supper with Kamesennin paying the tab (Gokuu is
happy.)
The final bill comes to 470,000 zennii.
As people discuss their plans (Buruma and Yamcha invite
everyone to
come with them,) Kamesennin states that he's going back home, and
Gokuu
tells them that he's going off to find the Dragon Ball that
contains his
grandfather's soul. Kintoen arrives to whisk off our hero as the
rest
wish him good luck. Afterwards, the van runs out of gas.
Some time later, Gokuu wakes up to drink some water, and to use
the
Dragon Radar he'd received from Buruma. But, there are other
people
looking for the Ball... Two men from Red Ribbon, under Silver's
command, are also out searching the dessert. Gokuu treats them as
a
joke, until they start shooting at him. Gokuu finds the Ball,
which
isn't the exact one he wants, and flies off. The men radio
Silver, and
he rushes outside his field office to use a LAW to destroy
Kintoen.
Gokuu doesn't know what Red Ribbon is, and doesn't care. So,
Silver
steals Gokuu's bag containing the Ball and Dragon Radar, but
Gokuu
steals it back. This prompts Silver to happily start fighting,
but he
gets trashed.
Since Kintoen no longer exists, Gokuu decides to try using one
of the
RR capsules. The first one gives him a service robot, which tells
him
what capsule to try second. This gives Gokuu a plane that the
robot
then flies for him.
In the Red Ribbon HQ, Red Sousui is talking to his aide about
getting
all of the Dragon Balls. A minion runs into state that one of the
Dragon Balls is moving towards Silver's base. After repeated
tries,
they get Silver on the radio and are told about Son Gokuu. They
also
suspect that "the brat" also has a Dragon Radar like
they do. The two
Balls are moving into the arctic region, towards White Shogun,
and he's
to be told to kill the kid.
Back in the airplane with the kid, Gokuu is freezing; robots
don't
feel the cold. The Ball is below them, when the robot crashes.
White
Shogun, in his Muscle Tower, receives a call about the crashed
plane.
He looks forward to trashing the "baka-brat," as his
men conduct the
search.
The girl (doesn't seem to have a name this early on in the
story,)
has brought the near-frozen Gokuu to her home, where her mother
helps
him recover. They want to know why he was out in the snow, and
then
recoil in fear when he mentions that he's looking for the Dragon
Ball.
Seems that Red Ribbon has kidnapped Jingle village's headmaster
in their
attempts to find the Ball themselves. Gokuu reassures the two
that he's
just trying to find his Grandfather's Ball, when two men find the
trail
leading to the house and break in. After quickly trashing the two
soldiers, Gokuu rushes out to rescue the headmaster from Muscle
Tower.
He rushes back in, suffering from the cold again. He's dressed in
the
girl's winter clothes, and finds out that the white stuff outside
is
called "snow." He thinks it's weird stuff. The girl
thinks that Gokuu
is a weird boy, and her mother expects him to die violently. Then
Gokuu
is off again.
White is impressed at how quickly the brat has taken out his
men, and
wonders whether he can get past the Tower's guards to reach the
top
floor. While trying to figure out where the headmaster is, White
comes
over the PA to ask what Gokuu wants -- to find the headmaster.
White
thinks that Gokuu has come from the village, and then invites him
in.
The guards on the second floor get permission to kill the boy,
but fail.
All this fighting makes Gokuu hot, so he takes off the winter
gear, and
heads up to the third floor. Both White and Murasaki are
impressed, but
the ninja claims that although Metallic will probably win,
there's no
way the intruder can get by his 4th floor command. Metallic
points out
the stairs to the next level, and then states that Gokuu has to
get past
him first. Gokuu's early attacks leave him thinking that the
Tower is
not a challenge (he yells out "Fighto" in victory,
which is probably a
parody of some of the high caffeine energy booster drink (AKA --
"genki"
drinks) commercials on Japanese TV.) Metallic makes a come back,
and
Murasaki is timing the length of the battle. Gokuu is glad that
he had
a chance to practice for the Tenkaichi-Budoukai first. Then
Metallic
fires a mouth-missile that everyone thinks has hit Gokuu.
(NOTE: Whenever ANYONE wins a battle, they hold up the
peace sign, and
say "peace, peace.")
Gokuu decides to try Kamehame-ha, jumps out to
show that he's still alive, and attacks. This blows off
Metallic's
head, but doesn't destroy the robot. Gokuu thinks that the
creature's
soul is still hanging around, and starts praying for the spirit
to not
haunt him. Gokuu still can't figure out what's happening, and
White
tells everyone that Metallic is a robot. White orders Metallic to
kill
Gokuu, but the robot's batteries choose this moment to run down.
Gokuu
rushes upstairs before the robot can recover, and White yells at
his
ninja to get down to the 4th floor to defend it.
On the next level, Gokuu is stunned to find a forest growing
inside a
building. Then the throwing spikes hit the ground in front of
him.
Murasaki boasts about his skills as a ninja, and tells us that
Gokuu is
going to die very quickly. (Note, both Murasaki and White refer
to
themselves as "Ore-sama," or "the honorable Mr.
Me.") While Murasaki is
bragging about his invisibility, Gokuu picks up a rock and throws
it
into the trees. Murasaki decides to try this a second time,
throws out
a smoke bomb, and challenges Gokuu to find him. Gokuu does this
with no
trouble, because the ninja has grabbed the wrong piece of
camouflage (the
American flag.) So, Murasaki makes one last go at hiding from the
boy,
telling him to count to thirty before coming to find him. Gokuu
can't
remember what comes after 18, and catches Murasaki trying to
sneak under
a fake rock. Murasaki complains that Gokuu has ruined his best
ninja
technique (Gokuu agrees that the fake looks just like the real
thing,
but still wants to know what comes after 18.) The ninja gets up
to 23
before saying that counting is not one of the techniques required
by
ninja. He tells Gokuu to just count up to 30, which Gokuu
succeeds at
on the second try. This time, the whistling of the air through a
reed
gives the over-confident ninja away (this water-hiding technique
is
undetectable.) Murasaki complains that Gokuu had almost killed
him with
the hot water poured down the tube, before challenging Gokuu to a
foot
race. Since ninja don't play fair, he uses caltrops to gain an
edge.
Gokuu responds by wearing wooden geta, and outdistances his
opponent.
White thinks that Murasaki's power is all in his head.
End of volume 5.
-- Curtis H. Hoffmann May 30, 1993