Ch 239 the PMMM soundtrack isn't too bad a fit for some of these chapters (The Worn-out Warriors) it begins Vegeta raises his arms and... kind of seems to blow himself up? Like I know that can't be right, but that's very much how the art reads to me. It seems like it was more just an explosion in Vegeta's general vicinity that caused a big energy/dust cloud. (Yajirobe gets blown around and we are subjected to a shot of his loincloth. By all that is good and holy can he please wear boxers at the very least) When Vegeta lowers his arms, he's on a little hill at the center of a leveled area. Looks like Goku, Gohan, and Krillin have been thrown out of the blast zone, and all three are still alive. Vegeta's disappointed in himself for not offing them with that attack. it's not surprising, vegeta, you're fucking exhausted But he pulls himself together to finish the job. First up is Gohan and uh hold the phone there's something different about this picture I... had to include this because I just really like this picture of exhausted, bloodied, end-of-his strength Vegeta. Sorry for the many Vegeta pics. I can't always say I like him, despite calling him one of my favorites, but I am heavily invested all the same. (Also I like his design, stupidly egregious widow's peak and all.) Anyway. Gohan's grown back his tail! Piccolo probably had no idea that they might grow back, and so didn't do whatever it was that Kami did to make sure Goku's tail wouldn't sprout again. (Then again, Vegeta's never grows back, as far as I know, so I wonder if it's maybe a thing that you can do as a kid but not as an adult? Like how kids generally recover faster from injuries and whatnot. It might be useful if a Saiyan kid gets into something and loses their tail; it doesn't mean they're forever doomed to be unable to turn oozaru.) I wonder if it's weird for Vegeta to be able to look at the "moon" and not transform. I FUCKING -- LIKE I FORGOT ABOUT YAJIROBE AGAIN. EVEN AFTER ALL THIS TIME AND EVERYTHING THAT'S HAPPENED. when will i learn my lesson. I may have to change my stance on Yajirobe AGAIN because he comes flying in from nowhere and just viciously slashes Vegeta across the back with his sword. Vegeta pitches forward (and Yajirobe also manages to fall over somehow). He makes it back to his feet and does the thing that I'm forever telling people not to do: makes a lot of fuss about winning and mocking Vegeta for getting "done in by me, Yajirobe!!" (Which... is a little bit of an insult to yourself as well.) But, as was mentioned before, Vegeta's one tanky mofo, and Yajirobe's attack wasn't enough to finish him off. Yajirobe tries to make friends but I doubt it would work on basically anyone, let alone a Vegeta who's just had one of the worst days of his life, probably, and is running on mostly unfiltered anger and wounded pride at this point. Vegeta spend a page beating up Yajirobe (with unfortunate consequences for viewers who don't want to see his loincloth). FINALLY, Goku yells at Gohan to look at the unusual light in the sky. Like shouldn't someone have been saying this before?? Vegeta's like "!!" and dashes over to try to prevent it, but it's too late: Gohan's already in the terrible in-between Animorph stage of transforming. Ch 240 (Monkey in the Moon) Vegeta still makes an effort to stop Gohan, first with some punches that do seemingly nothing, and second by trying to pull of his tail. Gohan responds by hitting him with one huge fist right in the head. Gohan destroys some more environment as Vegeta tries to scramble away, but Krillin yells at Gohan that he has to kill the Saiyan, and it seems to get through, at least somewhat. He tries to crush Vegeta with a rock, although Vegeta dodges. !! oh no Vegeta uses his knockoff kienzan to slice Gohan's tail clean off, and has both accomplished his goal (remove Gohan's tail so he won't be a threat anymore) and fucked himself over (because Gohan, despite un-transforming, is still very large and Vegeta is trapped underneath him). Spoiler: nsfw a severe blow to your pride, i'd imagine Even after all of this, Vegeta's not dead. He reaches into his breastplate and pulls out a smartphone-looking thing, which summons his spacepod from where they crash-landed... yester..day? Earlier today? I've forgotten how time works because this battle has been going on for approximately 100 years. This disquiets some workers who are investigate the crash site. hey at least right now you recognize the limits of your strength, you get real fuckin' bad at that later on. like, just so incredibly incompetent at it that it's hard to remember that you could do it at all at one point
Ch 241 when will I see my favorite green alien again (Goku's Request) Roshi, Karin, and Bulma (plus maybe others, I'm not sure) are en route to where the battle's happening. Oh, Chichi's there too and is strangling Karin because she wants to know if Gohan's okay or not and he can't tell her for sure. No mention of Goku. I understand if her priority is Gohan, but I'd think she'd be at least a bit concerned about Goku too... I mean, I know I would be concerned about my husband if we were in this situation. At least I think I would be. Roshi mentions that he's been having a hard time sensing any ki from them. Back at the battlefield, Vegeta's spacepod finally sets down for a landing and opens its hatch. Vegeta has been reduced to being unable even to stand to walk to it, and seems to be having a hard time even with the short distance he has to crawl. hell yes, krillin, dispatch him with all possible haste. what a stone-cold badass krillin can be sometimes. a) speaking of which, what exactly... do you do? why shouldn't you play favorites? are you some sort of god or what? do you have duties you have to attend to? I'm actually extremely unclear on what your job is, besides living on a tiny planet and maintaining your car. b) I'm sorry but I'm gonna put an "extreme doubt" stamp on the statement that Vegeta has plunged the whole universe into terror. just like... the entire universe? how could that even remotely be possible. Unless this universe is just a wee little one. I mean, Vegeta can't be that much older than Goku, right? He just hasn't had anywhere near enough time to do enough to terrorize everyone. At least, that's what I think. almost time to never have to deal with Vegeta ever again But someone asks Krillin to wait just as he's about to stab Vegeta through the chest. Nope nope nope, don't listen to him, Krillin, that's a bad plan, you should just get rid of Vegeta now oh good, krillin's a reasonable dude who can see sense Unfortunately, Goku is not. "... What a waste" All this time, Vegeta is slowly making his way into his spacepod, by the way. goku you goddamn battle-freak And fucking Krillin, despite being a sensible dude in most respects, agrees! He just agrees to let this asshole go! And uses the same excuse that Tien used back when Goku was fighting Piccolo fourish years ago: the Earth wouldn't even be around if not for Goku, so he's earned the right to let Vegeta live. My reaction is the same as it was last time, which is, basically, has he really earned that right?? Really?? maybe just because i love being in small, enclosed (but comfortable) spaces, i wanna ride in one of those pods. looks cozy. Krillin makes Goku promise that the next time he fights with Vegeta, he'll be much stronger; Goku agrees. juuuuust can't resist getting the last word in, huh, vegeta Vegeta takes off, safely ensconced in his little ship, and the planet is safe, at least for the moment. Krillin picks up Gohan and Yajirobe finally rights himself (he'd been left upside down after Vegeta was done beating him). He makes a very good point about how Krillin should have finished Vegeta off when he had the chance. (Having said that, I suppose I can't honestly say that I absolutely think things would have been better had Vegeta been killed after this first encounter. He certainly does uuhhh Some Shit, but then again, he very occasionally plays a positive role, and who knows how things might have gone had he not done some of the things he did. Maybe worse!) oh yeah i totally forgot for a bit that with Piccolo killed, Kami's gone too, and the dragon balls aren't gonna work. Luckily, it seems that Krillin's had some sort of idea regarding what to do about that. I'm glad he's a pretty quick thinker and in general seems to be one of the better planners/tacticians of the main group. Just then, Bulma, Roshi, Karin, and Chichi arrive in their transport ship. Oh man, Chichi is gonna flip out when she sees the state of her family.
Ch 242 fell asleep in the middle of this chapter and now i've become detached from reality, which should make this an interesting installment (The Bittersweet End) I love how Roshi is waving out the window of the ship as they approach for landing. Chichi barrels out of the ship and leaps straight over Goku without so much as a glance >_> She grabs Gohan from Krillin, who suggests that maybe she should check on Goku, who's a lot worse off than Gohan is, but she completely disregards him. Krillin leaves her to fuss over Gohan (with kind of a disgusted look on his face) to break the news about everyone besides Goku, Gohan, Yajirobe, and himself being killed. this is where I woke up after falling asleep (probably because I had the heating pad on my feet and it's kind of dark in here because we changed the white xmas lights for rainbow ones) and boy i have no idea what's happening anymore. I guess it's nice that I left myself a handy summary. Naps are hell. Uhhh... so Bulma's just gotten the news that Yamcha's dead and so is Piccolo, so there are no dragon balls at the moment to bring anyone back. you said it my man you're a god even among cat sages, Karin-sama! Thank you for finally bringing it to people's attention that medical treatment is necessary! Yajirobe and Roshi carry Goku onto the ship (hhhhhhhnnnngggghhhh be careful please), and they set off to retrieve the rest of the bodies... well, what's available to retrieve, anyway. Chiaotzu's... not really possible, due to the self-immolation. Maybe they can put Tien's hand back on? Bulma's crying and Chichi's still fussing over Gohan, who got wrapped in something so we're no longer subjected to any egregious nudity. please krillin, i need something to keep me going, please have a good idea that will shed a ray of hope into my dark and benighted soul somehow it's worse when he's all covered up and lying there than it was before :( it'd be nice if someone would at least clean up his face a bit. Even his hair seems dispirited. Before there's a reveal on Krillin's idea, they stop by the first battle site and pick up all the possible bodies. No mention of whether or not they grabbed Tien's arm, or if they let it go the way of various tails and torn-off Piccolo arms. (I just want someone to bury them. I know it doesn't matter but I just don't like the idea of there being a half-decomposed green arm lying around somewhere.... even Vegeta's tail, I feel like someone should bury it.) Bulma takes over piloting from Roshi. Gohan wakes up! Well. That's why she just leapt over Goku without so much as a glance. Well... I get it. Your son was away from you for almost a year, out in the wilderness, with a dude who hitherto was like... one of the most dangerous people around. And then he was part of what could have easily been a deadly fight. That makes sense to be really upset about! It would have been terrifying and made you feel helpless and hopeless! But... at least right now, with the way things are, the earth is necessary for Gohan's future. You can't care about the one without caring at least somewhat about the other. Be angry at people for not being strong enough to fight without Gohan, sure, but don't throw the earth out with the bathwater, as it were. Finally, Bulma steers the conversation back towards Krillin's idea, which is: if they go to Namek (where the original Piccolo-Kami union came from), there might be dragon balls there that can be used to make wishes (at the very least to bring Piccolo/Kami back, so there'd be dragon balls on Earth again). plz bring dad #2 back!! ("piccolo-san" is just so goddamn cute, i can't deal. gohan's such a polite kid. hard to believe he's goku's sometimes, except for the face and tail and frightening fighting prowess) Bulma brings up one of the big issues with this idea (finding the planet in the first place), and Goku offers Kaiou's help with that! It's so lucky that you made friends with a GPS/long-distance phone in the shape of a very round pointy-eared blue humanoid with antennae, Goku! Ch 243 (Destination Namek) thanks i don't get it at all And it looks like nobody but Bulma does either. She does some quick calculations while Kaiou waxes nostalgic about planet Namek and the Namekians, of which there are apparently maybe 0? He checks it out with his antennae, and finds about 100 of them still alive!! Awesome! So there's a chance that there'll be dragon balls there, maybe more powerful than the ones on Earth! that would be fun fuck off yajirobe you don't know shit about shit Apparently the Piccolo Sr/Kami union Namekian was corrupted by shitty stuff happening on Earth, which he would never have been exposed to had he stayed on Namek. :/ Sorry that you had to end up on this crappy planet with its evil inhabitants, dude. You probably would have been better off somewhere else. Bulma breaks up the Namek speculation with some bad news: it'd take close to 4500 years to get to Namek in a spaceship made by her dad. Krillin has the potential solution to this problem in his pocket though: the remote that Vegeta dropped earlier! (Wouldn't that be a trip if it summoned not Nappa's pod, but Vegeta's, back from wherever he's set off to...) If Bulma can get her hands on it, she might be able to make something work! Looks like everything might work out after all! And FINALLY Goku, Gohan, and Krillin get some medical attention. Goku was, to put it mildly, severely fucked up, and is going to take a long time to recover (if he does at all, JFC, kaio-ken + Vegeta = not a good combination for a person's health). Gohan and Krillin are very much on the mend, though, and are set to be released in a couple of days. (Thankfully this part is pretty short; I get kinda antsy with hospital stuff now, and especially seeing Goku so immobilized and remembering how it was for me after only 3ish weeks in the hospital... recovering from that is really, really hard.) Bulma barges in with a whole new big-hair perm going on (QUITE a different look from the rather modest ponytail she was wearing before) and turns on the TV, which is showing the Saiyan ship. She presses some buttons on the controller Krillin found (having stated she spent all of last night figuring it out). whoops but everything is fine because Mr. Popo shows up outside the window (scaring Bulma half to death) and says that someone should come with him, there's a spaceship!
Ch 244 spaceship spaceship spaceship!!! (The Mysterious Spaceship) um excuse me what I'd like Goku to tell us more about these ancient gods, but Krillin brushes it all aside to ask about the spaceship. Ancient gods??? Like Enma-sama??? Or is he talking about Kaiou and the rest of them? Are they... gods? Because they certainly don't seem like most of the time. Although they do have some godlike hair occasionally. I'm into it. Mr. Popo is even more mysterious than I originally thought he was. I do not understand what kind of being he's supposed to be. They send Bulma off with Mr. Popo, because she's the only one who knows anything about spaceships. Bulma and Mr. Popo end up in a cold, windy place (did they teleport??) that's apparently called Yunzabit and is halfway around the world from the hospital they were just in. Must be something like teleportation. it's a silcoon!!! So... apparently Kami kinda went through something similar to Goku, in regards to head-hitting? Mr. Popo tells a bit about Kami's past, that he lived here as a kid with no memories and no parents, only a note telling him to wait for them to come. Goddamnit, I'm already sad about Piccolo not being around, don't make me retroactively sad about Kami all the time because well fuck now i'm sad about kami ;.; smol namekians are one of my many, many weaknesses. So! "Piccolo" is actually a command that opens up the "house" (=spaceship), and the source of, well, Piccolo's name. Doesn't explain at all where Kami picked his up from - just the job title? Although I don't know if the title even is "Kami" or not. (I wonder if other Namekians would think Piccolo has a really weird name, like meeting someone called "Open up" or something. Also, you could never talk about/to Piccolo and use his name in the ship, lest you open up the hatch. >_>) The ship opens up and Bulma and Mr. Popo check it out. Bulma surmises it uses voice commands and HEY ALRIGHT I WAS WRONG! Piccolo means "other world". Not quite as weird as meeting someone named "Open sesame", but still it feels like it might just be a bit of an odd name. Anyway. The commands have to be in Namekian, and all hope seems lost until Mr. Popo reveals that he can speak it. They test it out by telling it to fly to somewhere around Jupiter. That's quiiiiiite a trip for something that's been sitting around on Earth for 100+ years, growing moss and lichen! also it go real fast Ch 245 (3... 2... 1... Lift Off!) my boy is on the title page!! With a halo and everything!! It's an easy identifier of who's dead and not, especially when dead people show up on Earth, but it's still kind of funny... the whole association of halos/angels/goodness/etc. I don't know exactly how karma and such transfers with reincarnation, or if things get resolved when dragon balls are used to bring people back who've died, but mmmmmmm it's possible that Piccolo doesn't really deserve a halo. The spaceship will be ready to go in 5 days. Mr. Popo won't be going, so Bulma's going to have to learn Namekian so she can control the ship (as the resident genius and also engineer, Krillin remarks that Bulma kind of has to go). (Hope she's good at learning languages! Or is there a Rosetta for Namekian she can take with her to help her learn on the way?) It'll take a month to get to Namek, even in this ship, so Bulma rejects Roshi as a potential traveling companion (god, what a miserable voyage that would be for a person who doesn't like to be sexually harassed). She asks Krillin instead, who somewhat reluctantly agrees. Gohan volunteers, much to his mom's distress. ;.; Gohan gets into a bit of a disagreement with Chichi and tells her to "shut up" in extremely large text. (I got super tense as soon as I read it, lol.) Gohan's point is that he can fight, and feels responsible for helping to bring back the people who died trying to protect the Earth. (・・；) And so Gohan gets his mom's permission to go to space. Bulma's dad is helping out with the retrofitting of the spaceship, and admires it a lot. They neaten it up, so it's not quite so mossy anymore! On the day of departure... Bulma's gotten a new haircut and has an awesome spacesuit-looking thing. (Krillin's just wearing some everyday clothes, although not a gi, so I guess he's gotten dressed up for the occasion.) Chichi, her dad, and Gohan arrive. i love bowl cut gohan GOKU NO They board the ship and Bulma's in a really bad mood, I guess because she feels she cut her hair and is wearing a bulky spacesuit for nothing? But I really like this haircut on her, and I think the spacesuit is cool.... Looks better than Gohan's outfit, that's for sure. (Sorry Gohan, I'm just not feeling the blazer + short pants look for you.) Bulma launches them without waiting for Krillin or Gohan to get buckled in (no need to take out your upsettedness on them, Bulma). But they leave the atmosphere incredibly quickly, and Bulma says that things should be calmer now and goes to change out of her spacesuit. Gohan changes too, into a Piccolo-inspired outfit (!) that he made himself (!!). Bulma also changes into a cool outfit, although she's still pissed off about stuff (sigh).
Ch 246 I actually love how much everyone's hair changes (even if I don't always like what it changes to) (The Return of Vegeta) oh boy oh boy! but first Her (?) sketchbook has a couple of doodles of Krillin and Gohan, which I appreciate. It's been a week in the spaceship, which explains the mess (although not why Bulma is wandering around in only panties and a crop top; not to be too much of a prude or anything, but it seems like she should at least put some pants on). Krillin and Gohan may look angry about the mess, but no, they're just doing something called "image-training", which seems to involve a shared mental imagery of fighting. Gohan wins, I guess. Bulma makes them clean up her mess, which is patently unfair. While cleaning, they have a discussion about Vegeta and where he might have gone off too; being so badly hurt, he probably went somewhere to get healing, but where could that be? The planet Vegeta was destroyed a while back, so it can't be there. Bulma guesses he's gone to one of the conquered planets. And turns out she's right! Having provided the perfect segue, it's time to see where Vegeta ends up. #78? #78???? please for the love of god just give them different names, having at least 78 planets with the same name, only distinguished by numbers, is a situation rife with opportunities for shit to go wrong because someone wrote #10 instead of #20 or whatever on some official paperwork There are some aliens hanging around when they get a signal from Vegeta's pod. They call him "Vegeta-sama", which logically I knew was probably happening at some point or other in the Japanese version, but it feels really weird to think about any of them having titles/honorifics (the exception being Gohan calling Piccolo "Piccolo-san", which is just cute). (Nappa only gets a -san; not as highly ranked as our Vegeta, I guess.) Vegeta's pod crashes down in a specially-designed landing spot, where a couple of grunts are waiting for him. They rush him off for medical treatment when they see the state he's in. He gets stuck in some sort of tank and an alien rather reminiscent of Piccolo Sr.'s pterodactyl subordinate tends to him. Spoiler: nsfw, naked butt ah... huh? it will? does it??? how do you know? have you lost your tail before? Was it as an adult or as a kid, because I have ((some very slight)) reason to think that it might work differently. also, nice butt. After his time in the healing tank, Vegeta's ready and raring to go. He gets dressed in some new duds (that are the same as the old ones but missing some of the waist armor panels; out of all the armor types available, I like Vegeta's long-sleeved, full-pants, breastplate look the best), but leaves behind the scouter with the doctor-alien. He runs into another soldier alien who he seems to have some kind of beef with, or at least to hate, who's named Cui or something similar and who has a distressing head. Cui comes bearing the news that someone named Freeza-sama/Lord Freeza is upset with Vegeta for knocking off to go to Earth without saying anything, but that because Vegeta enabled him to learn something useful, he might be merciful. seems like that's on everyone's destination list at the moment oh? so you're not the strongest in the universe? that's strange, you sure were making a lot of noise about that just a few chapters ago Cui, who just kind of seems to want to make trouble for whoever he can, also reveals that this Freeza plans on eliminating the Namekian survivors after wishing for immortality/eternal youth/some variation on that theme. Hearing this, Vegeta immediately rushes off, hops in a pod, and takes off for Namek. No idea how far away this planet is from Namek, so don't really have a good idea if the Earth Team will get there before, after, or concurrently with him. But we'll probably find out soon, because Team Earth has finally arrived at Namek, a mere 34 days after leaving Earth. Ch 247 (Planet Namek, Cold and Dark) Landing successful, on a planet with a green sky and turquoise grass/groundcover plant-analogue, and trees with blue foliage. Bulma wants to test the atmosphere for human breathability, but Gohan and Krillin have already stepped outside and seem to be doing just fine. which, good for them, but seriously, whyyyyyyyyyy the fuck would you do that, you absolute fools wrong (check out that hat tho) Bulma angrily checks the radar, and lo and behold, there are dragon balls here! Bulma and Krillin dance, but Gohan senses a cluster of powerful kis in the distance. Bulma steamrolls over all protests and insists they must be Namekians (remember how strong Piccolo and Kami are!) and convinces Krillin, despite the fact that the ki feels a bit evil. speaking of evil.... look who just showed up! Well, not that you would have the information to be able to say this, but it's kind of looking like there are a number of other people it could be. But good on you for using the data you have to make educated assumptions. Krillin tells Bulma to contact the people back on Earth and then get the heck out to bring reinforcements. With the radar, Krillin and Gohan will have an advantage, so they're gonna try to hold out for... two whole months on Namek, with Vegeta running around, plus whatever else is out there. Guess you picked one up before you left, huh. who the fuck is that then??? On a different part of the planet, we see our first Namekian who isn't one of the Kami/Piccolo duo, and they're dead. :/ Pan up just a bit...
mmmmmmMMMmmmmmmMMMMMM I hate it loving those thigh-highs though, that's a style I could get behind despite my usual entreaties for everyone to put on some goddamn pants. So ship #2 was Cui. Makes sense, probably left very shortly after Vegeta did. Not digging the news that they've already got wind of Krillin and Gohan though. Better keep the power levels dampened down, boys.
Ch 248 them's some big-ass dragon balls tho (The Mysterious Strangers) Cui has orders to kill Vegeta. Vegeta invites him cordially to try. two months.... is a real long time. Chichi's never going to forgive you for leaving Gohan there, even if he's with Krillin. Oh, lol, Krillin actually wants to go back with Bulma, but Gohan and Bulma kind of talk him out of it ("Vegeta can't get the dragon balls here, that's too dangerous" and "There's a chance that he'll kill the dragon after using them, and if so, we're fucked"). Convo's interrupted by the arrival of two Freeza henchlings (not that Team Earth knows that right now). why does his arm-weapon look like a tsuchinoko AW SHITFUCK NOT THE GODDAMN SPACESHIP! Krillin and Gohan, having been building power but still keeping it under wraps (... somehow), let it all out to take care of the henchlings, which is accomplished in a couple of panels. They congratulate each other on their fancy moves. krillin picked up his cap again! Team Earth leaves the spaceship and sets off for safer (?) pastures for the time being. Back to Vegeta and Cui.... Cui's confident he'll win, because his power level is higher. He also says he's Vegeta's rival, which makes me wonder about their history. Vegeta is extremely smirky and seems to have a great time revealing that he's learned something new while on Earth, and that's how to control his power level at will. Pretty spicy stuff, Vegeta! Ch 249 (Vegeta's True Power) these fucking things. THESE FUCKING THINGS!! Power levels, man. Apparently Vegeta's somewhere around 24000 right now, which is quite a difference from when we first started talking about power levels and 1000 was high. Raditz really was just a chump. (By that metric, well, so were Goku and Piccolo and everyone else on Earth at the time....) Cui tries basically the same thing that Yajirobe did, i.e. try to make friends (although at least he didn't attack Vegeta with a sword first, so he does have that leg up). WHAT why would you fall for that Vegeta I'm so disappointed Not that falling for it does him any harm; he was too quick for Cui's attacks. Cui does the prudent thing and runs, but Vegeta catches up to him easily, punches him, and makes him explode. Not even with a beam attack or anything, just by pointing. He plans to find a single dragon ball and then steal the rest from Freeza once they're all gathered. Might find that a little bit harder once he sees how large they are; even if he had any pockets in his basically skintight outfit, they'd never fit. Certainly they wouldn't fit in his breastplate like his pod remote control. Freeza is completely unconcerned about Cui being defeated, and he and his coterie take off for the next group of Namekians. Gohan, Krillin, and Bulma are stuck on the ground right now, because flight takes too much energy and would give them away very quickly. They happen upon a convenient cave, and just in time, too, because someone's on their way and will be passing by them. Who?? That's a cliffhanger for next time!
I mean, the Namekian dragon balls are quite a bit larger than the ones on Earth, which might fit in Vegeta's armor somewhere, so it's not an unreasonable plan, although Vegeta never actually saw any of Earth's dragon balls while he was there; did Raditz make any mention of how big they were?
I don't... believe so, although it's possible it happened and we didn't see. Gohan did have one on his hat, but I don't think Raditz knew what it was, if he even noticed it. It was only when he was dying that Piccolo was talking about them. I don't think it's a bad plan, I was just imagining Vegeta trying to wrangle 6 of them at once to transport and laughing at the idea of him trying to force one down his shirt.
Well, if his uniform fits even when he's a giant gorilla man, he should probably be able to jam Dragon Balls down there too. He'll just look. Real dumb.
Ch 250 Kinda sucks when I don't get a chance to sit down and read some until 10:30 at night :/ especially since lately I've only been able to do two chapters a post (Goku Returns! Again!) Here's a handy chart! Now I now which henchperson is which. Zarbon has the braid and Dodoria is thorny. Poor Goku, he looks so sad, relegated to the corner like that and wrapped up like a mummy. It's been a month, there should be some senzus grown by now. if I could sense ki it would be so useful. i'd be able to tell who was coming into the lab without peering out from around my desk like a weird goblin scrutinizing everyone who comes into her cave. people wouldn't startle me when I have headphones on either The ki belonged to Freeza and his troop, who are flying right past that handy cave from the last chapter, in which Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan are hiding. Bulma's unaffected, but Krillin and Gohan are having a bad time of it. Krillin tells Bulma to check the radar, and Krillin's fears are confirmed: the cluster of four dragon balls they noticed earlier are traveling; the people who just went past definitely have them. We already have some idea that Freeza's bad news, but now Team Earth has an inkling about that too -- they may have an advantage with the radar, but they're up against something real bad. and can i just say i hate everything about Freeza's design with a fiery passion. The "ears", the weird bone (?) helmet thing, the face, his tail just hanging out of the floating pod thing, the lips.... Extremely unpleasant to behold and it only gets worse before it gets better The flying group is headed right for another dragon ball and some ki that's probably Namekian. Krillin wants to go check it out, and Gohan wants to go too. They leave Bulma in the cave and set off to travel as quickly as possible without flying/exposing too much energy to be traced. This involves a lot of hopping from point to point. On Earth... Goku has managed to get out of his capsule-bed, and most of his hair's been freed too! He's doing some sit-ups while wearing the hospital gown, which is pretty fucking courageous, if you ask me. Those things do not provide the most coverage and tend to come untied at the most annoying/inopportune times. Anyway, he still looks pretty banged up but it obviously very much improved from "completely immobile". A doctor and nurse come in and Goku gets scolded for pushing himself and helped back into the hospital bed. Roshi follows them, bearing cake and sexual harassment (sigh). He's there to deliver the latest Namek news: yes, Team Earth made it safely there, but Vegeta's there too, along with a bunch of other nasty guys, and their spaceship got destroyed. maybe yajirobe keeps catnip in his pocket so that Karin likes hanging out with him Goku gets a senzu right away and is back to 100%! He breaks out of his casts (lol), disrobes in front of everyone, and gets right back into his usual gi (kame on the front, kaiou on the back). There's the small issue of getting to Namek, but not to worry -- Dr. Briefs is repairing the ship that Goku arrived in, all those years ago. Goku hops out of the window and zooms away on kinto'un. uuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh have you perchance forgotten that your only child is trapped on the planet with said someone Ch 251 (Son Goku's Spaceship) bulma's mom you are married and goku is married and you are not married to each other (well actually i'm making assumptions about bulma's parents i guess but in any case my point still stands!!) jeeeesus he made it gigantic! I'm sad that he doesn't have his little black cat hanging off of his shoulder though Inside, there's a training area with an artificial gravity machine that goes up to 100x gravity. Pretty nifty! Plus, it'll get to Namek in 6 days, a big improvement over Kami's ship, which took almost six times that long. Unfortunately, it's not quite ready to go yet. is bulma's dad my dad because this would be his priority too also my dad would probably like having a small black cat hang out on his shoulder he already likes having a large orange one sleeping on his arm Goku tells him that Bulma and the others are trapped on Namek because of the spaceship situation, and that sort of convinces Bulma's dad that the speaker placement isn't a huge deal. i don't trust goku to drive anything, let alone a spaceship, but i guess there's not much choice, and no one to really bring along... all the usual candidates are dead. oh, and when i said the other one go real fast? this one go real fast Goku sets the gravity to 20x, which is, what, 2x Kaiou's planet? And starts his training there. Meanwhile, Krillin and Gohan have made their way to the location of the fifth dragon ball and are observing what's happening from some high ground overlooking what seems to be a Namekian village. More Silcoon-looking structures with domed windows and random spines. first non-Kami/Piccolo, non-dead Namekians! please do not kill the tiny ones, i love them, they are small and green and defenseless (i mean don't kill the others either but.....)
Ch 252 lunch and dragon ball break at 3:26 pm, this is what my life in grad school has become (Namekian Fear) Hey! I don't like that title! Krillin makes some astute guesses re: armor, Saiyanhood, and who these people might be. I like it when Krillin gets to be smart. couple of different clothing styles going on... Guy in the back looks like he might be wearing something similar to Kami. I still want to know more about Namekian biology, but I'd also like to to know more about their culture. doubt.png sounds exhausting. kinda glad Kami just went "lol whatever" and threw them out to be picked up just by whoever without any kind of test or qualifications. (yes this is probably the better system but then... there are dicks like Freeza who won't follow it.) Vegeta is listening in on his scouter as Freeza talks to/threatens the Namekians, and so gets a bit more information about what's been going on and what the situation is. Handy, those things, despite their propensity for exploding whenever they focus on a sufficiently high power level. Good thing no one ever uses one to scan Freeza, it would probably explode even more catastrophically than usual. Despite very obvious cues from Freeza about killing people, the Namekians are still shocked to hear that other elders gave up their dragon balls so easily. Freeza tells Zarbon (the one with the braid) to demonstrate what they did to persuade them, and Zarbon kills (?) or at least very severely injures one of them with a kick to the head/neck area. This leads one of the other Namekian elders to attack Zarbon with a beam attack (it's the one who's kinda dressed a bit like Kami, I think) -- Zarbon avoids with a leap but it does hit one of the other grunts. Zarbon then fries him with a beam attack of his own. :( The elder in the front with the kids asks what Freeza wants with the dragon balls ("Oh, y'know, just some eternal life") and after hearing the answer refuses to give his up, even if it means his death. Of course, you just know where this is going. I mean, he's had the little ones clinging to him this whole time, it is patently obvious that Freeza wouldn't give a single shit whether the people he kills are children/old/what have you. He threatens them (and even though i know it's what's obviously going to happen, how dare) you leave those kids alone by god There's a short time where Gohan's upset about what's going down and we're lead to believe that Dodoria is picking up on his power, but it turns out that it's the arrival of three younger-looking adult Namekians! They look swole. Ch 253 (Showdown!) The three young adult Namekians are here after hearing rumors about razing and dragon balls being stolen. Now that they're here, they're gonna try to take on the aggressors. my sweet child i love you fuck. oh! i retract my previously-stated "fuck". maybe things aren't quite as dire as I thought. The three of them quickly deal with the grunts (one gets tossed towards Zarbon, who executes a stunning kick and sends him into the water). The elder with the kids has been thinking about the scouters this whole time, and how they're being used to locate the widely-scattered Namekian villages. He destroys Dodoria's scouter and a few others that were left on the defeated grunts. Good thinking, elder! I just hope you haven't doomed all of you to death by doing that! Ch 254 (Ten Seconds of Death) Heyyyyyyyy I really hate this title! Dodoria gets angry and goes to kill the elder who destroyed the scouters, but Freeza tells him to take care of the three younger ones first. yeah i kinda think he might be He goes on to prove it by sticking his hand through one of them (which is extra bad because his wrists are all spiky), immolating one with a mouthlaser, and simply crushing the last one with a headbutt into the side of a cliff. (The last one put up a bit of a fight, but his attacks were basically useless on Dodoria). The elder finally gives in. please never do that again with your face elder I'm 100% on your side but I do feel compelled to say a) Freeza never said anything in response to your plea about leaving the kids alone (he just did an awful thing with his face) and b) even if he had, the agreement was not to take the dragon balls and GTFO but in fact to not hurt the kids. But there's no time to argue about it, because Dodoria attacks the elder. :( Well, at least the kids are still alive... for the moment... but this is the end of Volume 17! Holy crap, that's a lot of volumes! That means there might be some colored pages coming up soon! (I... wow. It's hard to believe that I've read 17 volumes of DB, but I guess 254 chapters is a lot.)
Ch 255 HELL YES (Son Gohan Snaps!) HELL FUCKING YES!!! * basks in the glow of this picture * which has nothing to do with what's going on, sadly. the only way that picture could get any better is if they were wearing alt fashions (though I have come to love Piccolo's outfit way more than I ever thought I would when I first saw it). knock over them cones, piccolo, that's how you win at driving But now I have to come back to reality, where at least the elder with the kids isn't quite dead! Although he will be soon, if things keep going the way they seem to be. NO FUCK COME ON * unsurprising development, genuine distress reaction * While the elder is being horrified by this, Dodoria snaps his neck. Gohan, watching, is infuriated by all of this and Krillin tells him he has to keep it together so as not to get killed himself. ;_; not my sweet child please god Dodoria corners the surviving child and is about to kill him, but Gohan intervenes, definitively revealing himself by kicking Dodoria in the face and sending him headfirst into one of the Silcoon-looking houses. Krillin follows Gohan, going "shit shit shit" the whole time. holy shit gohan, having a bit of an awesome moment right now Dodoria gets up, only to be hit in the face again, this time by Krillin. This kind of snaps Gohan out of his badass-ness, which is probably for the best in terms of survival, but a little sad because I like Gohan having a chance to be a big damn hero. Krillin grabs the kid and they take off. Freeza orders Dodoria after them, and unfortunately he seems to be faster than they are. Ch 256 (Death in Flight) thenk you toriyama for my life (piccolo's scrunchy concentrating face is so good) Dodoria's gaining on them rapidly; Gohan wants to stop and fight, but Krillin disagrees strongly with that plan, because according to him, the only reason they're still alive is because they haven't been caught yet. However, he comes up with a plan! The first step of which is MIDAIR CHILD TRANSFER MANEUVER please be careful with my son He tells Gohan to fly on and close his eyes, so... yep, it's gotta be a taiyou-ken. Dodoria's momentarily blinded and Krillin and Gohan take the opportunity to hide in on one of the many little rocky islands. Unfortunately, the blind status effect doesn't last long, and Krillin and Gohan haven't been able to get very far at all -- still in quite a pickle, in my estimation. i'm dead Dodoria, being pissed off at his inability to find them, decides to decimate the whole area. He creates a very devastating blast which levels the islands in the area. Dodoria assumes that it's leveled his targets as well, but Krillin, Gohan, and the Namekian child managed to escape sometime in the confusion and are now hanging out above him, hoping that he doesn't glance backwards/up. Dodoria flies off with no kill confirmation (smh) and without noticing Gohan and the others. It turns out the Namekian kid can fly! Krillin sets him down in the air and tells him that he should probably stick with them for a while. The plan is now to reconvene with Bulma; luckily, Gohan remembers which direction they came from, which is very good because a bunch of landmarks have just been destroyed. Dodoria, meanwhile, is en route back to Freeza when *something* hits him from above (it's important to consider the Z axis as well as the X and Y axes when you're in combat with people who can fly!). He lands in the ocean (I'm just gonna call it ocean, it's probably close enough to what it is), and when he manages to crawl out... sees that his attacker was none other than everyone's 3rd favorite existent Saiyan, Vegeta. Ch 257 (Vegeta vs. Dodoria) Vegeta calls Dodoria "Dodoria-san", which is just weird. I can only think it's meant to be mocking, like, calling him "-san" rather than "-sama" or something, which implies a level of familiarity or equality. I guess Vegeta's been waiting for a chance to get him alone so that they can fight one-on-one, without chance of aid from other sources. Vegeta still has a scouter, and Dodoria tells him to hand it over - a working scouter would solve a bunch of the Freeza group's current issues. Vegeta drops it on the ground and is just so obviously going to break it that I can't help but be incredulous at Dodoria's "hey cool you might live because you gave it up" response. He breaks it and Dodoria is shocked. while i have no doubt in your ability to do it, it just doesn't follow that because Goku can do it and you're both the same species, you can do it too. Dodoria reveals that there are earthlings on the planet and Vegeta writes it off as impossible (although mentions that if they were here, they'd be his #1 priority to take out). There's some taunting on Vegeta's part and Dodoria gets fed up and attacks him with some repeated rapid-fire energy blasts, but Vegeta ends up behind him and easily counters his wild swings. He gets both of Dodoria's arms held fast behind his back and talks about how almost dying on Earth has made him incredibly strong. In an effort to save himself, Dodoria offers to tell Vegeta a secret about Planet Vegeta. what an asshole. Vegeta says he doesn't care about any of that, beyond being mad at himself for not knowing, but he seems kinda exceptionally mad for that to be the case, and destroys Dodoria with a single attack. oh yeah Goku exists and he's still working out on his ship. Maybe a day has passed? Maybe not? I have no idea whatsoever.
Ch 258 pumped up ready to go let's do this thing!! (Hide and Seek) Vegeta gives slightly more credence to the idea that earthlings could be on Namek because of some ki he senses moving away from him. He goes to investigate. Krillin and Gohan sense someone very powerful approaching fast and land in a hurry to try to hide, but there's not much in the way of hiding places where they're at, so they're forced up against the cliff wall, hoping that they get overlooked. I feel like Krillin would be a good babysitter. I'd probably trust him with my kid, if I had one. That protective arm.... It'd probably be better if it was the big one, but no dice: it's Vegeta. And because he's figured out how to do the ki-sensing thing, the Gohan/Krillin/Namekian kid group are kind of fucked, because while Krillin and Gohan know how to suppress ki, the kid does not and still emits a faint signal that Vegeta can follow. Which he does. saved by a fish! Vegeta must be at just the wrong angle to see them hiding behind that rock. He decides a better use of his time is trying to find dragon balls, and so he leaves to go do that. poor namekian child looks so done with all of this in every panel i'm dead again don't scare him!! Bulma gives them the good news: Goku's going to be arriving in 6 days! celebratory dance! (that the poor kid is very confused about) Ch 259 (The Sixth Dragon Ball) Vegeta is enjoying the freedom to do whatever dumb shit he wants now that people no longer have scouters. Unfortunately, the dumb shit he wants to do is collect dragon balls, which will more likely than not involve killing innocent people and generally being a horrible person. He finds an unmolested village and goes to bother it. as i predicted. Meanwhile, Team Earth (+ Namekian child) is having dinner. how (yep, confirmation on the water thing.... One Can't Help But Wonder how they get their carbon/nitrogen/magnesium/sulfur/trace minerals in large enough amounts to support growth, unless the water is just chock full of dissolved organic matter and the like) DENDE! light of my life, apple of my eye, heart of my heart. small green son whom i love. But before anyone can answer his question, something happens that makes Krillin and Gohan rush outside. They can sense people being killed -- Namekians. :( Must be Vegeta, doing his terrible work. (It is -- we get a couple of pages of the end of him slaughtering everyone in the village.) Dende is of course especially horrified about this, and asks them to save his people. Krillin explains to Dende what's up and why they know what dragon balls are. Upon hearing all of this, Dende declares that he has to take them to the Grand Elder.
Ch 260 i'm all het up and angry just knowing that at some point in the future Dende gets kicked (The Last Dragon Ball) The nice village that was so pristine last chapter is now in ruins and everyone is dead, thanks to Vegeta, who has retrieved the dragon ball from the village. He casually tosses it into the water right near the village, under the assumptions that no one would look for it in the water and he's the only one who'll know its location. I guess he didn't want to shove it down his front. Having accomplished this, he decides to search for the last one (Freeza's group has 5, he just sank one, so that leaves a single ball unaccounted-for). Freeza nad his remaining followers (Zarbon plus at least one grunt) are still hanging out at the village Dende was rescued from, waiting for Dodoria, who's not gonna return. Freeza decides it isn't worth it to wait any longer and sends Zarbon (plus the nameless grunt) to search for villages manually, while he takes the 5 collected dragon balls back to his ship. He can makes them levitate, so there's no awkward trying to carry them around; just sets off in his weird little float-pod with the five in tow like baby ducklings. Returning to Team Earth (plus Dende).... Who exactly is this Grand Elder? a) that's quite the impressive population bottleneck!, b) i'm sure that you have mechanisms to maintain genetic diversity despite the apparent lack of sexual reproduction, but even so c) i feel like your population is probably extremely genetically homogeneous, given that all of you are descended from a sole survivor. so, if d) piccolo/kami was sent out before this climatic catastrophe then e) piccolo and/or kami might represent an incredibly important source of new alleles to help boost that diversity. Just a thought. god i want to know more about namekian biology (specifically physiology in this case) Bulma and Dende have a not-particularly-productive conversation about gender and sex on Namek, but there's no time to really get into the details because, well, shit's going down and Vegeta's new power of sensing means that no one who can't suppress their ki is safe. Krillin's going to go with Dende to the Grand Elder, to warn him about what's happening, while Gohan will stay with Bulma. Unfortunately, it would take too long to go on foot to where the Grand Elder is (about a month), so Krillin and Dende will have to risk flying. Krillin uses some of the flight to worry that Goku might not even be up for it, despite his 5.5 days of intensive training on the way to Namek. don't worry man, I have 100% faith that you can get a girlfriend at some point Meanwhile, Goku is bouncing around at basically normal ability in 20x gravity (he's thinking about turning it up to 30x) when he gets a call from Kaiou, just to be like "hey me and all your dead friends are hanging out (and here's some sass about how long Snake Way took you and how hard they're gonna train)". darling you're my angelllll I love the halo-as-signifier-of-death thing because then i can make stupid jokes like this one Ch 261 (The Four Dead Heroes) Fig 1: Kaiou is a telephone Oh and Chiaotzu's there because Kami made him a new body. Pretty fancy! (... what even is chiaotzu though). Goku explains what's up and why he's on his way to Namek, and that it's all his fault that Vegeta's running around and causing trouble. Also there's a real bad dude on Namek who's even worse than Vegeta. Kaiou has a bad feeling about that and says if it's a guy named Freeza, shit's bad. He decides to check in on Namek and see what's up. He gets a glimpse of Freeza, who's still heading towards his ship. I wanted to make a dumb joke about Kaiou owing Freeza money or something but I couldn't quite get there in a nice subtle way Kaiou tells Goku to stay the heck away from Freeza, because Goku can't hope to beat him and Freeza's very very bad news. In fact, he goes even further: he says to grab Team Earth as soon as he arrives on Namek and get going back to Earth right away. Of course, this backfires a bit because it makes Goku interested in seeing what this Freeza character's all about. Piccolo steps in to give dissuading Goku from interacting with him a shot. OH WAIT NO HE DOESN'T HE TELLS HIM TO DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE (also: friends <3) Kaiou makes Piccolo promise not to go to Namek. "You know, like a liar" Kaiou makes them go through his pun test, which would have been the best thing in DB if it had been shown. what pun did piccolo use. god i want to know. Goku's all fired up from this talk about a super strong guy and turns the gravity up to 50x. Switching over to Namek.... Dende thinks it'll take around 5 hours to get to the Grand Elder at their current speed. Krillin contemplates grabbing him and flying faster, but thinks it'll cost too much energy. Vegeta, meanwhile, is getting angry that he can't find any other villages beyond that first one he found, but he notices something and does the sudden-midair-stop-breaking thing. The thing he noticed? Two energies (uh oh), one of which isn't one of Freeza's posse but also isn't a Namekian (uh oh). what's unsettling is your goddamn head man Krillin, in turn, notices Vegeta's energy coming right for them at top speed. Krillin grabs Dende and dives for an island, only to realize that Vegeta's suddenly changed course - there's yet another terrifying ki out there, and he's headed towards that instead. Surprise, it's Zarbon, who headed out on his own to look for settlements a while ago! it's so weird to me to think of Vegeta of all people using honorifics Looks like there'll be a Zarbon/Vegeta showdown happening soon!
