As a compromise between my genuine emotions and what death becomes in Dragon Ball: (Would Piccolo, at this point, been able to spit out another egg with Piccolo Jr Jr? Could we have a matryoshka doll of little green dudes? Could Kami do the egg thing?)
Ch 225 * misses Piccolo for the next god-knows-how-many chapters * (Vengeance) Nappa swears he'll get Goku for that. sick burns Nappa makes a sort of sparky energy-coating and attacks Goku, who easily dodges and eventually ends up standing on Nappa's head, which, yes, it looks very appealing to try to stand on. Kind of like those large concrete posts that exist in places for god-knows-what reason. I always like to try to stand on those, and his head seems like it has a similar circumference. It's also especially aggravating, which is a plus. Goku does some big hits for Chiaotzu and Yamcha and then cancels out an energy blast attack by shouting at it, always a favorite trick of mine. Two more big hits (one for Tien and one for Piccolo) and Nappa is spurting blood (kind of comically) and Vegeta has to yell at him again. Not many caps this time because I don't like Nappa I guess. Ch 226 (The Mystery of the Kaio-ken) Will This Be The Chapter Vegeta Unfolds His Arms? Find Out Inside! Nappa finds a way to make himself even worse by getting incredibly veiny. He uses some sort of explosive attack to drive Goku into the air and they exchange some blows. terrible. I know where this is going and I don't like it. There's just something so much more unpleasant about mouth-originating attacks. Goku counters with a kamehameha, thankfully from the palms and not the oral cavity. (it might be a requirement to do the hand/foot thing with the kamehameha?) talk about the goddamn pot calling the kettle black That's the problem with fighting this VIT-heavy people, even if you have real high STR or DEX (or INT if you're a magic type, I guess) it just takes for-fucking-ever, and even if they're not super powerful they can do a lot of damage to you in the meantime. But before we can get into that kind of long, drawn-out fight, Vegeta calls Nappa off and tells him to step aside, it's Vegeta's turn. WHO WOULD NAME THEIR KID AFTER THE GOTDAMN PLANET??? WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?? "Oh yeah, I'm the king of Earth, here's my kid, his name is Earth" just listen to that sentence you said and think for a minute before going with the first thing that comes into your head. Also did they just know he was gonna be good from birth or did they wait a while for him to prove himself before naming him Vegeta? Did he have a different name before that? was it potato. god i would love that. (well, maybe he wouldn't be a root vegetable... celery?) I realize I may be overreacting. I apologize. Anyway. Nappa continues to be shitty and flies at Gohan and Krillin, necessitating Goku using the as-yet-unrevealed technique that's called "kaio-ken", and he severely fucks up Nappa in about 0.6 seconds, tosses him on the ground in front of Vegeta, and tells him to GTFO. Be still my heart. Ch 227 (The Last of Nappa) Kaio-ken infodump forthcoming! thanks Goku-sensei! oh. guess them big ol' ears ARE just for show. where'd your eavesdropping talent go, Vegeta? Goku explains that the kaio-ken's not something to be taken lightly, because if you don't control it well it fucks you up. Kaiou told him not to go beyond 2x strength, which, HAH, even if I hadn't seen anything I would absolutely be predicting at this point that we're not gonna stick to that restriction. Nappa's still alive, but not for long, because (in a particularly character-establishing moment) Vegeta just annihilates him. I think it's even more of a moment because this is the first time... that we've actually seen Vegeta really do anything, and it's to his own comrade, and he's apparently just crazy powerful. that's probably a very, very good idea, although I suppose Nappa might still be around being a nuisance if you two had left earlier. Krillin has some sort of plan to bring people back, even though Piccolo's dead (and so Kami is too and the dragon balls are useless without him), so it's time to move the fight elsewhere to preserve the remaining bodies. Poor Chiaotzu, there's nothing left of him :( and Tien's missing part of his arm too. Goku tells Gohan they can go fishing or something when he gets back. (please take piccolo too, i want him to fish as well) vegeta is just so... short. even if you count his hair.
Ch 228 Hell yeah 12 hour day over time to settle in for some quality DB action (Mano a Maniac!!) (I can believe I had to type that with my own two hands) i will never get over goku in a baseball cap. where does all that hair go. It's Time..... ... .... for Goku v Vegeta Vegeta's just full of self-importance and superiority. well that answers some questions anyway, but raises even more There's some preliminary skirmishing, nothing serious until Vegeta gets a good elbow in on Goku and looks positively gleeful about it. Enjoy it while it lasts, Vegeta. quit holding out on me, man! oh yeah, vegeta's some hot fucking shit Goku does use the kaio-ken and turns a very lovely shade of pale red. He manages to smack Vegeta around a bit, but ultimately it seems that Vegeta still has the upper hand. this. this is the kind of shit that gets everyone in trouble. Ch 229 (The Decisive Battle at Last!) Saiyans can apparently affect the weather. Vegeta shows his "super elite" power off and creates a rain-free thunderstorm, which he then disperses in a single moment. I guess headbutting transcends the Son family. Vegeta then proceeds to whale on Goku for a while, driving Goku to use the kaio-ken and flee upwards, where Vegeta tosses a crazy fireball-type attack at him. Goku manages to dodge it, but barely, and ends up with a super-ripped shirt and (sadly) a scorched pec. Of course the only reasonable reaction at this point is to lose the other half of the shirt, so he does. It's time to use kaio-ken 3x, because 2x is just not cutting it. i just have no words for you at this point yajirobe. Ch 230 (Too Much Power?) Vegeta is still loving the sound of his own voice and deriding Goku as low-born, scum, etc., etc. Goku's not really paying super much attention because he's thinking about how he has no choice but to try kaio-ken 3x if he wants to have any chance of winning. extremely relatable sentiment, honestly. Hoping that your dumb body will hold up for just a bit longer and let you accomplish that one thing without letting you down. I may be projecting just a little. he can and will. sorry kaiou-sama. he's not an obedient pupil. Bulma's been keeping tabs with the scouter, and it breaks because Goku's power level shoots up too quickly. They're so sensitive, and they sit on your ear and go over your eye - like, that seems dangerous! A good way to lose an eye! Luckily Bulma seems fine, just a little startled by its sudden demise. 3x kaio-ken is some serious business and Goku gets a very satisfying hit in on Vegeta's face before making some good use of an afterimage to get a second one. Vegeta completely passes through one rock formation and ends up in the middle of another one, before doing the thing I love and busting out by just shattering the rock. (I suppose it's because rock is, what, more brittle than a human-analogue body, but it's pretty incredible that they can destroy rock formations and whatnot and not just completely pulverize body parts.) Vegeta's not having quite such an easy time of it anymore, and is fuckin' pissed about that. I just liked the diversity of opinions here.
I just don't see why the scouters explode. Like, a moderately high power level tends to kick up dust and rocks, but doesn't seem to have a specific effect on other electronic devices. So scouters are either the most fragile-ass devices ever conceived, or they're specifically vulnerable to the thing they measure. This is like a thermometer that melts above 50° Celsius.
I had planned on keeping pace with this thread but I just finished reading all of the dragon ball. My last two reading sessions were like a hundred chapters each. I am in Dragonball hell but I love my beautiful trainwreck sons and I am going to keep reading the heck out of this thread.
I absolutely would do the same thing if I wasn't doing this thread! It takes a surprisingly long time to read a single chapter when I do it this way, so my progress is pretty slow. ETA it takes so long for each post and I still make mistakes where I leave out words or wander into another sentence in the middle of a separate thought, lol * goes back and edits *
Ch 231 the real casualties of DB: clothing (Battle in the Red Zone!!) Vegeta's having a rough day. Poor guy. What a hardship. The last straw for him is that he's actually bleeding (has that split lip going on), and so he decides to just blow up the planet. Even if he saves himself, he's probably not gonna be around for long if the planet's destroyed... Speaking of which, Vegeta, what do you plan on doing at that point? Unless you can survive in space, which nothing has lead me to believe you can. There's only one thing to do, and that's a 3x kaio-ken-powered kamehameha. um. did i completely wipe this from my memory or was it translated differently in the dub? because I have exactly 0 recollection of ANYTHING relating to garlic. The two beam attacks meet in the middle (Yajirobe is, yes, still around, and getting tumbled all over the place by the energy release going on). Vegeta and Goku seem to be at a bit of standstill, evenly matched; Vegeta's not destroying the planet but Goku's also not fighting him off. 3x just isn't cutting it, so Goku goes 4x and finally overpowers Vegeta, sending him flying and breaking some of the panels of his armor. goku's in kind of a bad way after so much 3x and then also going 4x. :( Ch 232 (The Moon) yeah i feel this way too when i have to get up from the lab chairs Yajirobe runs over to celebrate. should you really be calling vegeta an "awesome dude" right now? also maybe don't... touch goku right now, much less smack him on the back. i get that you have no idea what's going on but it puts me right on edge. Let him alone. Goku tells Yajirobe to get out while he still can and reveals that yep, Vegeta's still around. Yajirobe assumes Goku's got this in the bag, but Goku tells him he may be at his limit, so Yajirobe takes off with a "good luck with that". Meanwhile, Vegeta's fallen off the end of the beam and so not been blasted potentially out into space. His tail's come loose too and... dare I say?... it looks like it gets a bit poofy in anger. poofy anger tail. Anyway, Vegeta's still full of self-importance and superiority and just can't deal with Goku maybe being a match for him. He does't want to admit that he has to go so far in order to beat a person of a lower societal rank, but he decides to go oozaru anyway and crush Goku with his (quote Vegeta) overwhelming power. Only one problem. HAHA SUCK IT VEGETA PICCOLO TOOK CARE OF THAT SHIT AGES AGO (altho kaiou makes it seem more like the plan was to foil the Saiyans, rather than "o shit gohan's gonna wreck shop on the earth gotta do something right now", which, hmmm, don't think is super accurate. more like it was a nice bonus that it would fuck with any saiyans who wanted to transform while on earth.) Kaiou reminds the audience of the existence of the genki-dama, which I had forgotten all about, personally. I was distracted by Piccolo, Vegeta's frankly astounding hair, and the kaio-ken reveal. Goku's waiting for Vegeta to come back down (wondering what the heck he's doing up there). Vegeta continues to search for the moon in vain for a little bit before deciding to do.... Something. (Also he thinks that Goku did this... which is a reasonable assumption, even if it's wrong.) Vegeta flies back down (finally) and starts rambling about moons and being outsmarted and transformations. It is completely incomprehensible nonsense, but what else is new? (Goku's still a bit lost on the whole "transformation" bit, it seems like.) science teacher vegeta performing a demonstration for the class (what a terrible teacher he would be. don't let him teach genetics.) He tosses his little energy ball up into the sky and turns it into a super bright fake "moon" and begins to transform. mmmmmm i hate the transformations so much but what can you do oh yeah, this is probably the first time Goku's actually seen something like this; doesn't seem to have much in the way of memory from his own transformations, was dead when Gohan did it, and of course Raditz didn't do it either. If nothing else, at least during transformation Vegeta's armor seems capable of growing with him, so he probably won't be buck-ass naked at the end of it; i don't know if i could deal with that.
Ch 233 pffffft Vegeta's oozaru form has a bit of his spiky hair thing going on. that's pretty good. (The Energy Sphere) Gohan and Krillin update! They've nearly made it back to the Kame House when Krillin notices something weird. piccolo let gohan's hair get super shaggy. well, unsurprising, he doesn't have any himself and so probably doesn't really think about how it grows and stuff. oooh man, i bet it was so matted and terrible after spending ~11 months in the wilderness. Gohan senses that he has to go back; if he doesn't, Goku's going to die. what a precious determined child Gohan takes off without waiting for a response from Krillin, who follows along because of course he would. He's a fairly stand-up dude. Back in the epicenter of all of this... Yeah, I don't like it either, Goku. It's almost worse that he keeps his clothes, just makes it that much more grotesque, somehow. AAAH AND HE CAN TALK TOO! Just like the clothes, that makes it worse somehow. Keeping the trappings of civilization and whatnot while being in a that kind of form. I dunno. in very basic terms? Vegeta got big and toothy and much much hairier because he made a fake moon out of fightenergy and he really wants to kill you. :( not the greatest time for this particular realization Demon prince Vegeta (good deductive reasoning, yajirobe) Vegeta kicks Goku and forces him to use the kaio-ken to avoid a follow-up punch. Goku wants to use the genki-dama, but needs time to focus and gather the energy to create the "dama" part of the attack - the ball of energy. He only needs a little bit of time, 10 seconds, but Vegeta's so fast in this form he can't find an opening. In a flash (heh) of brilliance, he remembers a trick that worked before on an opponent - the taiyou-ken, Tien's fun bright blinding attack. Goku retreats some to give himself time and space to focus on prepping the genki-dama, and is very polite about asking for just a small fraction of everything's energy. Ch 234 (All That Power...) It doesn't take too long for Vegeta to recover the use of his eyes (which are pupil-less, by the way, and kinda eerie). And apparently 10 seconds really was all Goku needed to get energy from the whole earth (!!) well shitfuck Goku (and Yajirobe, who is still hanging around for some inexplicable reason) both get blown away by possibly the most powerful mouthlaser we've seen so far. Certainly the largest. Slightly less goofy than when I thought Piccolo was dead and then he wasn't. hold on just a little longer, Goku! Gohan and Krillin are almost here! What they can do I certainly don't know, but maybe they can do something Vegeta tries to step on Goku and misses once, but not the second time, and man is it real bad. Both legs, just crushed by god-knows-how-many tons of oozaru. The art isn't particularly explicit with injury, but there are a couple of very effective panels that make me extremely unhappy. goddamn fucking asshole and that's your priority right now?? Vegeta tries to crush Goku, but Goku hits him right in the goddamn eye with a precision beam attack.... That's two eye-focused attacks in like 5 minutes, Vegeta's probably not feeling so hot and is particularly upset that he's gonna have a scar on his face, how dare Goku wound his face of all things (chill, Vegeta, it's really not an issue later on.) So he grabs Goku and just squeezes, which is possibly the worst thing that's happened so far. Even giant!Piccolo didn't do that (although I will say: no vore this time, so that is an improvement). Please hurry, Gohan....
Ch 235 can Goku not... be hurt at all this chapter, please? (The Last Heartbeat) YAJIROBE ON THE GOTDAMN TITLE PAGE ART I CAN'T DEAL Vegeta completely disregards my plea to just leave Goku alone and continues to squeeze him, being sure to explicitly state that he's gonna make Goku suffer before he dies. Meanwhile, Yajirobe's having a bit of an internal struggle about whether or not he should do something to help ("Not my battle", "Goku's already dead" [no he isn't], "I shouldn't have been here in the first place", etc.). Krillin and Gohan arrive! And land somewhere behind Vegeta, who is absorbed with continuing to hurt Goku and continuing to be an asshole about it. yajirobe you just took 5 years off of krillin and gohan's lives with that little stunt Krillin has plans to chop off Vegeta's tail (with his bladed disk energy attack, probably) and incorporates Yajirobe seamlessly into them: Gohan and Yaj will run around front and distract Vegeta while Krillin sneaks up and does the deed. Gohan and Krillin take off, but Yajirobe does not. Typical. Gohan gets in front and confronts the monstrous Vegeta, who, true to form, is an asshole. Hmm, I'm starting to think it might be one of his core attributes. Maybe it's abbreviated ASH. Meanwhile, Krillin gets on some high ground behind Vegeta and uses his kienzan skill. NO and... he easily dodges Krillin's kienzan energy disk. It cuts the rock Gohan is standing on. yes i think that's what makes it worse that he talks, wears clothes, etc. please don't take away the newly returned dad #1 without even bringing back dad #2 first Vegeta is just about to finish Goku off but HOLY SHIT YAJIROBE EVERYONE DISREGARDED YOU AND LOOK WHAT YOU DID. big fuckin' savior over here There's still a pretty good stump left, which brings up the question: how much of the tail do you have to remove for it to work (or rather, for it to not work)? Goku's and Gohan's tails seemed to be removed very close to the base, so I assumed you'd have to take the vast majority of it off... like basically the whole tail... but this works and Vegeta certainly still has some left, at least in this form. krillin may take the prize for best reactions in DB Vegeta shrinks back to his normal form (thank god, i prefer this one so much) and is also not naked. I wonder if his oozaru form is also proportionately smaller than, say, Nappa's would be. once again, I am left to contemplate the Yajirobe Enigma
Yajirobe's kind of a weirdo, but in a setting full of 'I wanna see this guy at full power' and 'I must have vengeance at any cost', he comes across as very... Self aware? He knows his limits, he sees an opportunity, he goes for it, then he books it. This weird ronin guy is smarter than 90% of the cast.
Ch 236 Total number of saiyans with tails: 0 (Least Resistance) Well... Vegeta might have reverted to his smaller humanoid form, but he's still, y'know, Vegeta. I.e. short, spiky-haired, extremely strong and at the moment? Real fuckin' pissed. So I guess what I'm saying is that yeah, he's no longer quite the same threat that he was a second ago, but he's still a danger to all y'all. Also he has a fun'n'flirty one-eyed look going on right now, because Goku shot him in the right one and he's keeping it shut. what do you mean this isn't fun'n'flirty oh right Gohan wouldn't really know anything about it either. Piccolo probably never bothered to mention what happened. I wonder if Gohan ever even knew what happened with his tail. Krillin keeps on calling out to Yajirobe, who's just like "fuck dude don't draw his attention to me". vegeta has had Enough And his first target is Gohan, who he hits right in the gut (illegal, etc.) and then taunts, because his ASH stat is just so high he can't help himself. Krillin attacks from behind (he's a good guy, very determined to try and do something to protect Gohan even if it gets him killed....), but Vegeta kicks him away and goes back to tormenting Gohan. He picks Gohan up by his collar. what is it with you guys and headbutts? well, I suppose Vegeta has so much forehead it only makes sense to use it somehow eye's looking quite a bit better already, Vegeta He throws Gohan down next to Goku, which might not have been the best of moves, because Goku encourages Gohan and tells him that if he can just distract Vegeta for a while, Goku can get Krillin to finish him off. While this is happening, Vegeta is making a laundry list of who to kill first (Goku, Gohan, Krillin, and finally Yajirobe) who could forget you, yajirobe. who could forget about you. Vegeta leaps down and lands with one knee in Goku's abdomen, which is Very Bad (but Vegeta's pretty pleased with himself about it). He also kicks Goku's face, but it seems like a mild one, all things considered. This, unsurprisingly, makes Gohan mad, and as we all know by know, Gohan can do some pretty amazing stuff when he's mad. Gohan, who said he couldn't even stand before, gets right up and goes for Vegeta, first with a beam attack and then with a kick that sends him flying. They exchange blows in the air, and despite everything Gohan just keeps coming back for more. please vegeta never refer to yourself in the third person ever again. especially not with that particular phrasing Vegeta being distracted, Goku beckons Krillin over and says he's going to transfer (????) the genki-dama to him. Is the energy just... in him somehow? Waiting to be used? I thought it got dispelled when Vegeta used his mouthlaser on him. Guess not! Ch 237 (One More... the Sphere!) And now Krillin's going to get it and use it to finish off Vegeta. Krillin takes Goku's hand and gets the energy while Goku gives him a crash course in genki-dama usage and control. Everyone is pretty bloody now, except for Yajirobe, who only has Vegeta's blood on his hands metaphorically (and maybe a little bit physically, although Vegeta's stump didn't seem to bleed very much). Gohan's getting pretty tired by this point, but Vegeta's still pretty sprightly and is moving around too much for Krillin to easily hit him with the genki-dama (which I think is translated "spirit bomb", which i find to be a very clever translation). Kaiou contacts Krillin out of nowhere to help him out with the targeting business. You don't aim by looking, you aim by sensing his evil ki and throwing it at that. Vegeta does one of his favorite types of attacks, the rapid-fire multi-shot type, and one of the final ones clips Gohan. can Goku even see you from where he is? I'm honestly not even sure he can lift his head up at this point perhaps because Vegeta's doing something especially evil, Krillin's managed to get a lock-on! MOTHERFUCKER WHO'S THE GODDAMN IDIOT HERE?? JUST WHO EXACTLY MIGHT THAT IDIOT BE Thanks to fucking bigmouth over there, Vegeta's alerted to Krillin's attack and dodges it by jumping and letting it pass between his legs, and the genki-dama is headed straight for Gohan (whom Vegeta was charging towards.) Yajirobe. Yajirobe. Yes, we're all very impatient for Krillin to use that thing on Vegeta and obliterate the fucker, but did you have to go jumping around and yelling and generally un-distracting Vegeta??? You damn almost-cannibal, I still haven't forgotten that you might have eaten Goku if he hadn't looked so unappetizing. I let my guard down when you did your hero act and chopped off Vegeta's tail, but now you're back in my bad books. I've got my eye on you.
Ch 238 some shit certainly does happen in this series tho. ((too much of that shit caters directly to my id.)) (The Hopes of a Planet) uuuuuuhhh Gohan please do something like. very very soon oh okay so how does that work exactly? the world's energy will only hurt you if you have evil intent? how is that defined? what if it's evil in the service of some other good? Gohan just kinda pushes it away and off it goes. Gohan's unharmed, just thrown back a little bit. Vegeta? Not so lucky. uh oh Vegeta gets just absolutely blasted by this thing. To the point where I almost feel bad for him (not really after all he's done at this particular moment, but almost). There's some very unsettling art which I'll leave it up to any interested parties to peruse at their leisure. hey am i the only one getting a pretty bad feeling about all of this??? like this goes beyond my usual "don't celebrate until you know", this is absolutely the setup for a horrible reveal in a page or two (or maybe at the end of the chapter) lo and behold: a gift from the sky. sorry, it's not in new and unused condition, you can't return it Well heck! Could just be his lifeless corpse, though. Let's go check it out! REALTALK HERE I LAUGHED AT THIS SERIES OF PANELS FOR LIKE 30 SECONDS, TO THE POINT WHERE I WAS JUST KIND OF WHEEZING AND NOT MAKING ANY NOISE. ALL YOU FUCKERS JUST HAVE SUCH A FLAIR FOR THE DRAMATIC. VEGETA: DOESN'T JUST GET UP AND KILL PEOPLE, OH NO, HE HAS TO WAIT FOR THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS AND MAKE IT A ~REVEAL~ All humor aside... Vegeta is one tanky motherfucker, despite how he looks. (I like how Kaiou spectates with his antennae.) Vegeta hauls himself up and smacks Krillin (who was going to do the right thing and dig you a grave, the least you could do is... not do that). He's going to finish off everyone here, then wait and recover and destroy every living creature on the planet. (To which I say: how exactly do you plan to get rid of all the microbes, huh?) He's not doing so hot, but at this point I think he's sustained by almost pure rage, so I don't doubt his ability to carry out his plans. At the very least... Goku wasn't further hurt this chapter, I guess? That's one good thing, right?? Even if the genki-dama failed? And now Vegeta seems like he's gonna just rampage completely unopposed? :s
