#monaito

Okay, so let’s back up a bit and go over why Granolah wants revenge in the first place.  About forty-odd years ago the Cerealians were invaded by Frieza’s forces, including a lot of Saiyans.  I think they showed some other aliens in Frieza uniforms, but it’s mainly Saiyans using Oozaru forms.  The Cerealians managed to neutralize the giant ape business, but the Saiyans were still strong enough to kill them all.  There was also a small community of Namekians living on the planet Cereal, and they all died as well.  There were only two survivors: The Namekian Monaito, who inherited the Cerealian Dragon Balls from the village elder, and Granolah, who found refuge in a building with his mother. 

However, Granolah and his mom were discovered by a Saiyan named Bardock.  He probably would have killed them on sight, except they happened to remind him of...

His wife and newborn son, whom he saw recently before this mission.  Turns out Bardock was the one who came up with the name “Kakarot.”

So instead of killing the two Cerealians, Bardock tells the rest of his squad that he’s going to stay behind to take out any survivors.  Then he scans the area and locates Monaito.  He then takes Granolah and his mom to Monaito and asks him to take them in.  Then he leaves, or he tries to, anyway.

Afterwards, Granolah grew up craving revenge on the Saiyans and Frieza, and he must have had no memory of Bardock’s act of mercy.  Monaito’s known all along, and he kept it a secret this whole time, but he’s telling Granolah now because he wants him to stop his attack on Goku and Vegeta.  And as he explains all this, he notices that Goku bears a striking resemblance to Bardock, and that’s when Vegeta explains that Bardock was Goku’s father. 

But wait, if Bardock saved Granolah’s mother, then who killed her?  Ah, well you see...

Shortly after Bardock saved those guys, the Heeters showed up.  They worked as planet brokers under Frieza, so once Planet Cereal was vacant, they started making plans to sell it to the Sugarians.  Naturally, they planned to overcharge the Sugurians and give Frieza a modest cut. 

But then they happened across Bardock, Monaito, Granolah and his mom, and Bardock had to pretend that he was preparing to take Monaito prisoner to cover his tracks.  Elec then shot Granolah’s mom just to simplify things.  This infuriated Bardock, who then attacked the Heeters, which led to a fight with Gas.  Bardock won that day, although Monaito didn’t get to see that part, for some reason.

So why didn’t Monaito tell Granolah about the Heeters?  Why didn’t he say anything when Granolah started working for them? 

Because Monaito knew he’d go off on some half-baked revenge scheme and get himself killed.  This is probably why Monaito allowed Granolah to believe it was the Saiyans who did it, because once Frieza destroyed their home planet, there was no one for Granolah to go after, and he seemed to understand that Frieza was too strong.  But that backfired on Monaito, because once Granolah found out about Frieza returning and some Saiyans still being alive, he... went off on some half-baked revenge scheme. 

Anyway, Elec knew Granolah had talent, and since he never knew about the whole murdered-his-mom thing, Elec thought he could recruit him for his organization.  After that, Monaito couldn’t tell him the truth, because Elec would kill them both.

Anyway, while all this exposition is happening, the Heeters find the Cerealian Dragon Balls and make their wish...

... which is basically the same wish Granolah made at the beginning of this arc, only they asked for Gas to become the strongest warrior in the universe.  And since the wish was granted, that means Gas must be even stronger than Granolah is.

So they fight, and Granolah gets his ass kicked.  Gas’ whole deal is that he uses energy constructs, sort of like Green Lantern but without the ring.  This isn’t a new power he got, it’s something he’s always been able to do, and through much of this battle, he tries to win with the power he had before Elec made the wish. 

Goku comes up with a plan to handle Gas.  He wants Vegeta to eat his senzu bean and fight with Ultra Ego again, but Vegeta left the bean in his armor, which he took off while fighting Granolah.  So first he has to go find it, and Goku will try to hold Gas off in the meantime. 

But Vegeta gives the senzu bean to Granolah instead, insisting that he’s the one who wants revenge on these guys, so it should be him who settles things. 

On his way to fight Gas, Granolah makes up with Oatmeel and puts him back on, assuring the computer than they’re a team.  Awww.

So this is just Gas vs. Granolah, with Goku and Vegeta reduced to spectators.  It’s an interesting choice to say the least.  Gas should have the advantage on power, but Granolah stays competitive for a few reasons.

1) Gas doesn’t want to use his full strength, because he thinks he should be able to win with the power he had before the wish.  That doesn’t work, so he eventually relents and uses his full power, but he wastes a lot of valuable time and energy this way.

2) Gas hasn’t fought much at all in this arc, mainly because Elec always wanted to keep him in reserve as a last resort. We know he fought Bardock decades ago (and lost), so he’s clearly gotten a lot stronger, even without that wish to beef him up, but he lacks experience with this power.  Granolah had the same problem when he fought Goku and Vegeta, but now he’s got the advantage, because he... just got done fighting Goku and Vegeta.  If he can beat those two, he can hold his own against Gas.

3) Granolah has his Cerelian perception, which makes his attacks far more precise than anything Gas can do.  

It’s also possible that Gas’s heart just isn’t in this.  He seems distant from the priorities of the other Heeters.  When he has difficulty fighting, Elec removes the headband of teeth from his head.  The other Heeter wear these like necklaces, and apparently they’re not decoaritive.  Somehow they restrain their powers, and if you remove them, they become stronger, but also go berserk.  Wonder Woman’s bracelets used to work this way.  If she lost them, she’d go apeshit and kick everyone’s ass.

According to Monaito, the same thing happened when Bardock fought Gas forty years ago.  Gas took off his headband thing and transformed into a gonzo monster.  Bardock won somehow, but Gas is far more powerful now, and this time he attacks everybody.  But Elec isn’t worried, because if Gas is truly the strongest in the universe now, then he ought to be able to regain control over himself.

And that’s exactly what he does.  Not sure how he got his clothes back after he hulked out of them, but maybe the dragon gave him the Clothes Beam technique along with all the other upgrades. 

And this brings me to the end of volume 18 of Dragon Ball Super.  Volume 19 won’t be published in English until September, and I don’t want to wait that long, so I guess I’ll have to find the next several chapters elsewhere. So hopefully I can pick this up tomorrow...

Oh, right, Bardock. 

So, Bardock showing up in this arc caused a lot of agitation in the fandom.  I think this was mostly because of lingering frustration with Dragon Ball Minus retconning all the Bardock lore from the 1990 TV special.  That, and there’s also a lot of Bardock Fatigue in the fandom, because the franchise has been shoehorning Bardock into every video game and merchandise possible.  For many, working him into the DBS manga was just another crass marketing ploy. 

Also, chapter 77 marks the moment when Goku finally learns about his father, which is a big deal for the character, but a milestone like that is always going to be controversial, because there will be fans who think the series was better off when Goku didn’t know.  It’s like when Clark Kent told Lois he was really Superman.  You can’t unring that bell. 

I... don’t particularly care about any of that.  For my part, Bardock’s a cool character, and I don’t mind seeing him or his cute wife.  Anything Toei or Shueisha does with Goku’s parents is a fair play in my book.  It’s no different from having Tien or Android 17 show up.  But there seems to be this special status that’s been assigned to Bardock, where he’s either too cool or too overexposed, and that makes him off-limits.  Well, I don’t buy into made-up rules like that. 

I get the sense that there’s this edgelord contingent of the fandom that wouldn’t accept any version of Bardock short of him murdering Granolah’s mom and eating Monaito’s face or something.  I don’t understand these fans, because the “Father of Goku” special is just Bardock getting the shit kicked out of him from start to finish.  Tooru kicks him in the head, then he goes to Planet Meat and Dodoria beats him up, then he flies to Planet Vegeta and dies to Frieza.  How is this guy a badass?  Because he dominated Dodoria’s goon squad?  Well Guldo could one-shot all of them, so why isn’t everyone fawning over Guldo then?

People got mad because Bardock said “tummy”, which isn’t a very badass word to use.  You never hear Guldo say “tummy”, and he’s hard as nails.  My thing is, if you imagine Sonny Strait delivering the line in that cool voice he uses, it sounds a lot more natural.  Yeah, if he said it in the Krillin voice, it’d be goofy, which is why he doesn’t use the same voice for both characters. 

I’d chalk it up to a translation issue, really.  I mean, it’s probably accurate, but the people at Viz should have used different wording.  Sometimes you have to punch up the dialogue, make it sound more like something Guldo would say.