We’re back with another recap of the best season of Dragon Ball Z! When we last left our hero, he had just helped Videl stop a new gang from taking root in Satan City! Will they continue to work together to fight crime, or will circumstances tear these two apart!? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to keep on reading!!
The episode begins with Gohan on the hunt for his little brother Goten. He eventually finds him hanging out in some giant nest.
Apparently this is a Dragon’s nest and the baby living there (Chobi) appears to be missing. After this bit of foreshadowing, the two of them head back home and we cut to the GREATEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED!! He’s currently doing what all great men have done at one time or another; revel in their previous accomplishments!
Videl approaches with a drink in hand and asks him about the former champion. Hercule then goes on to overcompensate like crazy and starts talking mad shit about Goku. The thing is, it’s not like Hercule is a weakling by any stretch. He’s probably in the top twenty or thirty greatest fighters alive! Sure, there’s a huge fucking drop off between him and the Z fighters, but how many of them have managed to turn that into a successful career? Oh sure, you can say that the he’s a sell out and the Z Fighters are “keeping it real” but that’s just a cop out. HERCULE RULES!! What the hell was I talking about? Oh right! After that, we cut Gohan and Goten who are back home and find out that the baby dragon has been kidnapped by some shady ass circus.
Gohan goes there the next day to see how the poor creature is being handled. I honestly have no idea why this terrified baby is such a boon for business. I mean the place is fucking PACKED and all the little guy does is tremble on a ball while some dude cracks a whip near him. FUN AND EXCITEMENT!!! WOO!!!! Gohan tries to convince the circus owner to let the poor kid go, but it goes about as well as you’d expect.
The circus owner is fucking great in this. He flat out admits that he kidnapped the baby dragon and DARES Gohan to do a fucking thing about it! The circus owner doesn’t realize who he’s fucking with though because Gohan transforms into The Great Saiyaman to take the dragon back after the show is over. I gotta say dude, the giant fucking helmet and the red cape aren’t all that helpful when you’re trying to be stealthy. Sure enough, one of the circus goons sees him in the act and tries to knock his fucking head off.
Of course Gohan takes this bulky dude out without any effort with his hands more or less tied behind his back. Have I mentioned how much I love the fact that Gohan’s a legit superhero? I FUCKING LOVE THE GREAT SAIYAMAN!! A lot of shows with super powered characters will sometimes pull out a super hero episode and it’s almost universally a low mark for the series. The Great Saiyaman is definitely an exception because Gohan is believable as both a guy who can be a super hero and dorky enough to be sincere with its silliness. IT’S SO ENDEARING!!! The bald guy runs to the circus owner and informs him of the bad news.
How much fucking money is a baby dragon (that doesn’t do anything) bringing into this place!? The guy has stacks of money in front of him and cackling his ass away which means he probably doesn’t have that kind of money on regular basis. This dragon is making fucking BANK for this guy somehow! So when he hears that it’s been kidnapped, not only does he calls the cops and starts looking for it but he somehow forces his way into the front seat and starts yelling at the cop driving to run over The Great Saiyaman!!
So Gohan’s running with the baby dragon through the streets (he can’t fly because of plot contrivances) and ends up giving them the slip when a tanker truck almost smashes into the police cruisers. He’s not free just yet though because Videl comes out of fucking nowhere in her badass flying machine and confronts Saiyaman. She starts to yell at him about being a common crook and betraying what he stood for and blah blah blah.
Okay, here’s the problem with your little speech Videl. He’s a vigilante. OF COURSE he’s going to break the law! He hasn’t been sanctioned by any legal authority to fight crime. Now that I think about it, YOU’RE A FREAKING VIGILANTE TOO!!! Oh wait; the police probably gave you some sort of extrajudicial authority. Well isn’t that nice miss “I’m the daughter of the most powerful man in the world.” Of course you don’t have a problem with following the law, because the laws have been written around you! You think anyone else can get away with flying that weird helicopter thingy the way you do; i.e. at street level where you could hit pedestrians? Besides, I highly doubt that the circus dude grabbed this baby dragon in any way that would be considered legal. None of this matters to Videl though, who frankly just wants an excuse to kick his ass and unmask him. She proceeds to try and kick his ass, and considering he’s the most powerful person on the planet, she does a find a way to knock him off guard.
Despite Videl’s brilliant strategy to try and crush his face with her thighs, he still manages to escape and avoids all of her attacks. While this is going on, the baby dragon starts to scream which catches everyone’s attention. Not two minutes later, two giant mother fucking dragons come barreling towards them! That’s right! The baby just called its parents and they are PISSED!!
So now that two angry flying monsters have just invaded the city, Videl sees fit to break the law herself (I guess) and help Saiyaman get the baby back to its parents. Of course, the circus owner is fucking shit up for everyone by cracking his whip at the poor baby which only gets the dragon parents into more of a tizzy. Gohan tries to calm them down (he’s known these dragons for a long time) and almost reveals himself when he starts to yell his name (he gets as far as “Go”). This doesn’t go unnoticed by Videl, and she starts to berate him!
One of the Dragon’s starts to dive bomb towards the two of them, which gives Saiyaman an opportunity to shift gears away from his identity and to stopping the giant bad ass monster. He’s finally able to get through to the creature, but the peace doesn’t last because the circus owner has to be a fucking idiot. He grabs a cop’s gun (somehow without getting immediately shot) and starts pointing it at the adult dragon. Videl ain’t having any of this shit because she pulls out a set of handcuffs out of nowhere and throws them at the guy like a boomerang!!
All this commotion though sets the dragon off who starts charging towards Videl which forces Gohan to do one of the most BADASS things any person could ever do! HE PUNCHES A DRAGON RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FACE!!!
Don’t worry, the dragon’s fine. In fact, it seems that Gohan took the most damage because he got a huge cut on the side of his face. Now that one of the dragon’s has been subdued and the circus owner now longer has a gun, Saiyaman takes this opportunity to take the dragon back to his home while the mother dragon and the baby follow close behind. While Saiyaman is flying away, the circus owner loses his shit and starts screaming his intent to steal the baby back. The cops however have other plans because while it’s not illegal to steal a dragon, it IS illegal to steal an officer’s firearm. Hold on, back up a second. It’s NOT illegal to steal a dragon from its nest!? That seems like a VERY obvious law to write, if for no other reason than to NOT GIVE THE ADULT DRAGON’S A REASON TO GET PISSED AN GO GODZILLA ON THE TOWN!!! Besides the revelation that the laws protecting animals in this country are woefully lacking, it seems that everything has wrapped up quite nicely for everyone. The next day at school, Gohan’s running late and runs into Videl in the hallway. She’s been waiting for him and finally backs his sorry ass into a corner he can’t escape from. The “Go” that The Great Saiyaman shouted earlier along with the cut on Gohan’s face gives Videl all the evidence she needs to conclusively deduce that Gohan is the masked vigilante.
Gohan’s life is flashing before his eyes which includes his best poses as The Great Saiyaman, but Videl cuts his pity party short with a proposition. She’s aware that Gohan is also the son of Goku, so she wants to fight him in the next World Martial Arts Tournament. She thinks it’d be great to have children of the former champ and current champ duke it out in the ring to find out which one is the best! Gohan knows exactly how this will go down (she couldn’t put a scratch on his half alien ass) but agrees to it because she’ll tell the whole world his secret identity if he doesn’t. Oh I see! Breaking the law is only bad when HE does it!! BLACKMAIL IS A CRIME VIDEL!!! Oh, and she also wants to learn how to fly. Well of course she does! Who the hell wouldn’t!? And so our episode ends with Gohan once again finding himself under the thumb of a bossy lady.
This one was a bit cliché, but the fact that VIdel finally figures out what’s going on makes up for it. I like that they don’t draw this out TOO much, but it sucks that this is basically the beginning of the end for our time at Orange Star High School. Videl as ever is great to watch even if she can be a bit hypocritical at times, and Gohan has a bit of development here where he realizes that what’s considered legal isn’t always what’s right, and that being a super hero means having to make those kind of decisions. Okay, it’s not quite as deep as I’m making it sound. I just wish they’d keep going with the whole super hero angle!!! Anyway, now that Videl knows his secret, we can move into their training together which is going to be really great!! Can’t wait to see the next episode!!!!
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