#colonel yellow

Draw All of Dragonball!!

Starting off 2023 with returning to Dragonball proper.

150 - Bora, the 1st person to be revived w/ the Dragonballs in the series

151 - Colonel Yellow, I like the idea of a Tiger pilot.

Commander Red Saga!   Nothing against the first 57 episodes (except 29, boy did that one suck) but this is where I really started to get into the original Dragon Ball anime.   I don’t remember when or why I started following this show closely on Toonami, but I’m guessing that it had to do with the fact that I had finished watching the end of DBZ, so this was all that was left to see.   Also, I was pretty interested in seeing how the Red Ribbon Army would recover from the loss of Blue Unit.   What could they possibly throw at Goku next?  As the late Mean Gene Okurland might say, we are now in the shank of Dragon Ball.   From here on out, this anime goes from terrific to great... and beyond.

We start with Captain Yellow.   I was super-excited about Captain Yellow, because General Blue had been a fixture in Dragon Ball for like a dozen episodes, so I assumed Yellow would be the next long-term antagonist.   Turns out he doesn’t even survive this episode, but he had a nice run while it lasted.  While White and Blue were busy hunting their own Dragon Balls, Yellow was assigned to track down a Dragon Ball in the Land of Korin.  His men finally find it in a volcano, but before they can nab it, the volcano erupts and sends the ball flying. 

The Land of Korin’s most notable feature is Korin Tower.   At the base of the tower, a father and son live a fairly simple existence as protectors of the land.  Captain Yellow lands his team there to set up a base camp on their homestead. 

Bora refuses and demands that these goons leave.   When Yellow notices that Bora has the Dragon Ball they’re after, he orders his men to open fire on Bora, but guns don’t work on him, because he’s super strong.   Bora clobbers Yellow’s entire unit all by himself.   Bora’s pretty friggin’ awesome.  

So Yellow runs away and reports back to base, probably hoping for reinforcements, but Commander Red’s run out of patience.  Their radar shows Goku is already on his way to that location, so he wants Yellow to get the Dragon Ball within the hour or else he’ll bring in Mercenary Tao.

Everyone is horrified by Red’s decision to involve Tao in this situation, but Red is adamant.   He wants the Goku problem solved and the Dragon Balls found immediately.    If Yellow can’t make that happen, then he can just have Tao eliminate him while he’s at it.    So at this point Yellow can either die to Bora, die to Goku, or die to Mercenary Tao.  

Yellow’s solution is to kidnap Bora’s son Upa and hold him hostage unless Bora surrenders the Dragon Ball.   I should point out that Bora doesn’t even care about the Dragon Ball.   He was just offended by the presence of unruly, violent men on sacred land.   Now that Upa’s life is at stake, he’s perfectly willing to trade, but he insists on Yellow landing his plane, while Yellow doesn’t want to risk Bora attacking him.  The deadlock is broken when Goku shows up, sees the RR decal on Yellow’s plane, and takes him down immediately.  

Goku quickly befriends Bora and Upa, and he explains to them what the Dragon Balls are and why the Red Ribbon guys are after them.   Bora is already impressed with how Goku saved his son’s life, but he’s even more amazed to find that Goku doesn’t even want to make a wish.   He just wants the Four-Star Ball as a memento of his grandfather.