They're all OP enough 'mass energy conversion' is a legitimate answer. Some of the energy they use powering up is converted to hair. For some reason. Probably coolness points, because if your hairstyle doesn't require multiple teratons of energy, why even bother?
Maybe Piccolo is just not super demonstrative about feelings. Would seem IC. Also yes hair is clearly energy storage.
Ch 477 stuck in the lab for 40 minutes with nothing to do.... (Goku Goes Back) Oh, is it finally time for fusion 1000 chapters after it was introduced? Because Goku has like 20 minutes left before he's gonna dematerialize back to the afterlife, we're putting aside the matching-ki practice and going straight to the hard part about fusion. This is a Very Serious Situation and Time Is Short so it's absolutely vital that the kids learn this and remember it perfectly. Fusion starts with matching ki and... identical posing. mhm alright a...huh oh god i would fail this so hard i'm so uncoordinated okay i'm gonna say namekian fusion as a species skill is definitely a Separate Process from this There's a problem with Goku's demonstration: he doesn't have a partner and is only showing one half of the process. And it's hard to visualize what the other person has to do! Fusion requires both partners to be moving identically, although in a mirrored form, from each other. oh boy very very very good The kids think it's lame, but, it's what you gotta do. Time for them to try it themselves. embarrassed piccolo is best piccolo (goku you oblivious dolt)
knew this was gonna happen with whatever chapter this came up in, lol (continued) me too my dude Boo lands in the middle of some tiny town with a plan to make a house for sleeping in, causing an immediate panic. The screams bother him, so he levitates everyone who's screaming/trying to escape and turns them into clay. Not for eating; for constructing a house out of. That sucks. Boo levels the rest of the (completely serviceable) houses and buildings in the area to prep for his construction project, then starts making... a very strange building that kind of reminds me of a grub mixed with the alien from Alien. it's weird The house is furnished with everything a proper house needs! A table, facilities, running water, a toothbrush, pajamas.... Somehow. Time for bed! Boo sleeps for five seconds, the perfect amount of sleep, and then is all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for murder again. yes. But aww beans, it's almost time for Goku to leave. The rest of the fusion stuff is up to Trunks, Goten, and Piccolo. one child is not a substitute for anotherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Videl thinks that Gohan is still alive. Nothing concrete, she just has a feeling. Goten gets a hug from his dad, despite some initial shyness. awww thanks goku
All I can think is that I really really really want the next chapter to be called "Both of You, Fusion Dance Like You Want to Win!" Or "Dance Like You Want To Fuse", maybe. Either one. I'll show myself out.
Ch 478 unfortunately this chapter is just called (Where is Gohan?/Son Gohan's Whereabouts) ... which is incredibly disappointing now that I was witness to the Best Potential Chapter Names of All Time. Oh well, there's still... 42?... chapters to go. (only 42 chapters what the fuuuuuuck man it was just the other month i was like "wow i read 20 chapters!! :B") Goku's back in heaven and he's cutting the queue (of dead people's souls) to talk to Enma-sama, the big guy at the desk who apparently keeps track of all the souls that come through with the hat with the cow horns on it. Goku has a question for him: did Gohan come by? Nope, no Son Gohans in the registry. Well, at least not recently. is that really how that works? Anyway, alright about Dabra I guess, although to be quite honest I kinda thought Enma was a demon too, but, big ol' shrugs all around about deities/other powerful entities in this universe. What are they? What can they do? Who knows. Definitely not me. The upshot of all of this is now Goku's in the know about Gohan not being deceased. Weird, though, that Goku couldn't sense his ki while he was on Earth. Where exactly has that son of his gone off to? Of course, very shortly after that he picks up on Gohan's ki and of course the only thing to do is to teleport to it to see what's up. i just enjoy the variety of exclamations Goku explains what's been going on and why he's not still on Earth despite a full day not having passed already. Presumably Gohan also explains the deal with the sword he's swinging around. Goku asks to see it and agrees: yep, it's a heavy bastard. But cool about the incredible power! Anyway, can he stay here until Gohan has to fight Boo? Shin grants him permission. given your experience with food in the afterlife (or wherever the fuck this place is), i don't know why you're so confident no thank you please We're spared from the sight of super saiyan 3, at least for the moment. The day of the tournament has finally ended. Today is the last day left for Trunks and Goten to get the hang of fusion, so Piccolo kicks them out of bed nice and early and gets them back to work. Meanwhile... GOOD FUCKING CHRIST???? holy shit???????????????????? While I'm still trying to recover from learning that Boo's offed 2/3 of the world's population, he's off to increase that count and comes across a lone person making their way along a mountainous path. Because apparently he's out to kill everyone on the entire planet, he flies down to accost them. It's a kid with shaggy hair and ragged clothes. A blind kid. Boo gets real upset because if the kid can't see, they can't be afraid of him. Hmm. A quandary indeed. He sticks his hand out and puts it over the upper half of the kid's face and tells them to open their eyes. They can see! (Makes me wonder about how this kind of "healing magic", for lack of a better term, works. Like, there are any number of reasons why someone might be blind, and ways that that might be corrected. Does the "magic" somehow restore things to some "typical" configuration, or... diagnose the problem and apply a specific fix? I'm curious.) Now Boo can get the reaction he wants! ... or not. The kid obviously doesn't know what's been happening; they ask Boo if he's from another country, because they don't have antenna like that in this one. Boo responds with a question of his own: does the kid think he's cool? Well, probably! Speaking of, can the kid give Boo some money for the whole curing thing? He was gonna buy milk, but no one was open. Boo bites the proffered coin and isn't impressed. He takes off to pick up the milk instead. Of course, this involves finding someone he can turn into a bottle of milk. Which he then gives to the kid. Which is terrible. Poor kid doesn't know they're drinking milk that used to be a person. That sucks. ~_~ Boo leaves the kid to it, notices a city in the distance, and destroys it proudly. Jesus. You do know you're gonna have to come back for that one if you really want to kill everyone on Earth, right? Meanwhile, Gohan's gotten a lot better at the swordsman class. dad + shin cheering team SEEMS LIKE A BAD PLAN BUT OK!!!!
I just think maybe you try it on, I dunno, a watermelon or something first. Follow the hierarchy of Sliceable Things.
aah thanks! (and DANGIT i just remembered i vowed to myself that the next time i drew him it'd be in full Prince regalia... i have failed myself)
Ch 479 let's CUT some ROCKS (The Zeta Sword/The Z Sword and Another Kaio-shin) gohan is INTO it. nothing quite like heavy bladed objects going through other objects oh? gonna put a stop to the madness? NO ONE CAN RESIST THE ALLURE OF CUTTING THINGS UP!!! Shin produces a nice cube of something he calls "klangite", aka the hardest metal in the universe. (...) This will be better than some dumb old boulder for testing out the legendary sword's cutting prowess. what a nice happy gohan face :') Goku pitches the cube at Gohan, who squares off and swings the sword at it. Of course, it breaks. Just shears right in half. I'M GONNA FUCKIN EXPLODE Oh well, maybe it was just overrated! Gohan's feeling pretty great after having had such a strenuous sword workout, so maybe the "limitless power" is just the fact that it'll make you swole. Or more swole than you already are, if you're already pretty far up there on the swoleness scale. Shin agrees, mostly to save face, I think. How embarrassing, putting so much faith in this old sword that turned out to be just... a sword. But having gained so much strength, Gohan'll probably be even better when he turns super saiyan! Must be it. No question. kibito's eyes bugging out of his head give me life Who's this old dude? Apparently, a kaioushin from 15 generations ago. (Kaioushin have generations? How the heck does that work? How long-lived are they? Where do they come from in the first place, anyway, especially if there's only one (?) kaioushin at a time? Is that even the case? Do they all have mohawks????) The elder kaioushin explains that there was this bad dude (almost as bad as Boo) who sealed him away in the sword because he (the bad dude) was scared of the kaioushin. Huh. Alright. Goku's not too impressed with this old dude, but maybe there's more than meets the eye! godamnit, goku. The elder kaioushin is hit right in the face by Goku's testing blast. He's not seriously hurt, but he is seriously pissed off that someone just shot him in the face with a ki blast, which is entirely understandable, honestly. He yells insults at Goku, who's dismissed him as a faker. (WHAT THE FUCK GOKU YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT SHIT HOLY JESUS.) Anyway, the bad dude wasn't afraid of his strength; it was his special power he feared!! This gets Goku's attention, but the elder kaioushin isn't feeling particularly hospitable towards the person who, once again, shot him unprovoked in the face. so up until this point we have NO indication that the elder kaioushin might be interested in something like that. unless the idea is that all old men (or male equivalents; don't want to be too presumptive about gender given that kaioushin might function quite differently from humans) are perverted? because if so, mmm, that's pretty fucking unfortunate. even if it's just obviously a played for laughs kind of thing and there's that stereotype/character archetype or whatever. oh hey suddenly i think goku should have done more damage to him. don't do that shit you goddamn disgusting fuck And then fucking Goku offers to let him meet a woman in exchange for him using his special power, and it's bad. First he suggests that Gohan introduce him to Videl, and when Gohan rightly says "FUCK no", Goku asks Gohan to introduce him to Bulma instead. Wow okay! Fuck you! I'm a bit incoherent right now but I hate this shit so much. Absolutely no respect for women as people with agency. Mmmmm I'm all kinds of riled up now. Anyway, the elder's power is that of drawing out hidden potential far beyond a person's normal limits. Yeah yeah yeah, okay, cool. Apparently this is some hot shit beyond what other people can do. He calls Gohan over because he's the one who pulled the sword out. He has Gohan stand in place and then begins drawing out Gohan's hidden potential, which involves going around him in a circle, dancing, and humming. Oh. It's also a long process: 25 hours total. Goku immediately decides it's the perfect time to take a nap and goes to snooze under a tree. Shin and Kibito feel obligated to stay awake for the whole thing, and poor Gohan is stuck standing while this terrible old dude dances around him. Things are still pretty dire on Earth, but at least Goten and Trunks have made some progress. * excitement! *
Ch 480 let's SEE some FUSION (The Fusion Succeeds...?!/The Fusion is Completed at Last!!) Finally! The kids are going to attempt some actual fusion. Everyone gathers around to watch because hey, free entertainment. There's some speculation about the results of fusion. What'll they look like? there's something so fucking funny about this to me. it might just be the word "beefcake" which i am very partial to in almost all circumstances that's... an interesting point and i think it speaks to the question of: what exactly is a fusion? is it its own person, a third entity, or are there still two separate (if united) consciousnesses, one from each participant? is there a third option i'm not thinking of? (probably.) how do two fused people think of themselves/themself? Chichi suggests two possibilities: Gotenks and Trunten, both of which are pretty silly-sounding. Bulma doesn't think it really matters, because the whole thing is only going to last for half an hour, so why do they need a new name? If they even want a new name at all. Well, only one way to find out, and that's wait and see what happens when the kids fuse. If they manage it. Piccolo declares their ki identical. It's time to begin. pfffft i'm so sorry the sideways crabwalk gets me every time ....!! Fusion is a very bright process, apparently. The spectators have to cover their eyes or look away, and when they look back, it's apparent something has happened, but. From the looks of shock and astonishment, it doesn't seem to be exactly what people were expecting. ... oh dear. (but he's... they're... so happy!) poor piccolo probably feels at least a little responsible The audience response is... not great, but Piccolo thinks he knows what went wrong: Trunks didn't make a fist during the "-sion" part of the dance. Hence the, uhhh, less than ideal (in terms of fighting prowess) outcome. He tells them to defuse (hah) and try again. Unfortunately, they have no idea how to do that, so there's nothing left but to wait a half an hour for them to split up before trying again. gotenks it is!! it seems awfully heavy on the "goten" side of the name, but i guess if we're thinking about character distribution in the katakana, they contribute equally to it (ゴテンクス）... two unique katakana for both of them, and then the shared "n" in the middle After half an hour they split apart again, and there's no time to waste. It's fusion time again, as soon as possible. oh noooo i much preferred the other gotenks :( this one looks very very ill This time, the issue was that their fingers weren't pointed quite right during the "hah!!" part. Man. This shit is finicky. Another 30 minutes before another attempt. Time passes and then there's a silly fourth wall-breaking joke regarding copying panels and Toriyama not deserving to get paid for a page that's all just photocopies of what came before, but then.... alright that's probably more like what it's supposed to be like! (which makes me wonder if there's always gonna be very subtle differences from fusion to fusion, because you're not gonna be able to be perfect, just good enough to not completely fail/have a fusion product that's not as ideal for your intended goals) Now this one has some incredible ki, and an attitude to boot. Oh dear.
(continued) reminds me of when piccolo fused with nail. although they seem to be different processes with somewhat different results, it could be that that overconfidence from suddenly being so much stronger might be a common thread Piccolo says that they're hardly strong enough to defeat Boo, plus they have no idea what Boo's actually capable of, and Gotenks takes it as a challenge and dashes off to go defeat Boo. a) they're kids, b) they're saiyans, c) have you paid attention to what their dads are like Shortly thereafter, though, Gotenks returns. He's not dead, but he's been pretty soundly beaten. Piccolo is in full-on drill sergeant mode and tells them that tomorrow is for fighting Boo and today is for training. Gohan is still trapped in the old man's dancing vortex. poor guy.
So many great facial expressions in these chapters! Poor life/afterlife choices, but great faces. also "klangite", pfft shin you just made that up
Ch 481 i'm so happy that mohawks are godly haircuts (The Earth's Secret Weapon!) Boo's up to 4/5 of the world's population killed. In a single day. Most of them are "simply [blown] up", and the rest are turned into candy. Jesus H. Christ. Of course, the people of Earth tried some military resistance, which predictably failed very quickly. However. There's still a single hope left. He's been in repose deep in some underground bunker, recovering from the eventful tournament of a few days ago. The man who defeated Cell rises again, ready to take up the mantle of the people's hopes. OH YEAH! It's Mr. Satan! He's out of his bunker and ready to take on Boo. He gets escorted to the location of Boo's alien-grub house by a couple of military men. He's equipped with nothing but his smarts, his devilish good looks, and a bowling bag that contains his "secret weapon". As usual, he throws off his cape and belt and delivers a rousing challenge... at a whisper. One of his military companions "helps" him out by yelling an abridged version at the top of his lungs. how are people stupid enough to believe in you after all this time, when you make stupid mistakes like this He sends the military dudes off and they depart in the jet they came in. Time for Mr. Satan to start his sneaking mission: Approach Boo's House. there he go When he gets close enough, he tosses a rock at the house. No one comes out, so he discards his plant camouflage and moves in to peek in the windows. Still doesn't look like anyone's home, so Mr. Satan's free to be as brave as he pleases. He kicks the house (I guess to teach it a lesson) and declares it such a shame that Boo's not home, because, well, he did his due diligence, now he can go home. He makes a great joke based on the fact that "buu" is a Japanese onomatopoeia for a fart, and then is startled by a lizard. the lizard probably doesn't, but i know for a fact you are. also, just leave the lizard alone, it's just trying to find its place in a new world where 80% of the sentient population has been killed overnight Of course, this is when Boo actually shows up (with a "Yoohoo!" from the top of his house). that expression tho Mr. Satan immediately gets super obsequious, but Boo just wants to know: what kind of candy does he want to be? Oh, he gets a choice. I guess that's something. Wait wait wait, Mr. Satan has brought Boo a present! He digs in his bowling bag and brings out... a box of chocolate. Gourmet chocolate, no less. does it taste as good as chocolate transfigured from people? Boo cautiously eats one and Mr. Satan gloats, because of course the chocolate is poisoned, but Boo declares it delicious and inhales the rest. oh pffff haha i did not actually expect an answer to my silly question Next, Mr. Satan brings out one of those old original brick Game Boys, which turns out to maybe be kind of a mistake; Boo has trouble with the game and starts producing steam again. Mr. Satan switches the game to something easier, and then when Boo's distracted with it, retreats to a safer distance and triggers an explosion. Rigged Game Boy! Unfortunately, Boo finds it kinda fun. friendship level 0 --> 1 In honor of the new friendship (?), Boo gives him some human-candy that he made a while ago and was saving for a hungry moment. Mr. Satan pretends to enjoy, then does the classic "Look over there!" trick to get a chance to spit them out. This seems to give him an idea, because he pulls the exact same trick again, like 2 seconds after the first time, and when Boo looks, he elbows him in the head. It does 0 damage. and then there was a very large explosion Mr. Satan asks for a commemorative photo, and ends up with this: "oh yeah, lying prone on the ground is the hottest way to pose these days" (mr. satan is looking out for mr. satan, as always) He makes Boo dinner and washes his back in the bath (where did the water come from??). He's biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
