#mutaito

Kuririn = Mutaito

It appears to be that Toriyama's design of an older Krillin was meant to resembles Master Mutaito.

His hair and mustache are similar to Mutaito's except Krillin's hair isn't fully gray & his moustache is shorter. Both Krillin & Mutaito are of short stature as well. And another visual similarity is that Mutaito has a nose that is barely pronounced & Krillin is noseless.

Son Gokū = Grampa Gohan

Toriyama's drawing of Oldman Goku has a moustache that resembles his Grampa Gohan's, but he's also holding Roshi's staff.

There are aspects of Sun Wukong that were used for Grampa Gohan as well. Example being how Gohan being friends with Gyumao (Ox King) when Wukong was friends with the Ox-Demon King in Journey to The West. So, Goku is in a way, a continuition of Son Gohan's story which is inspired by a portion of Sun Wukong's story.

Last time on Dragon Ball... OH FUCK KRILLIN’S DEAD

He had gone back to the arena to fetch Goku’s Nyoibo and Four Star Dragon Ball, and then Goku found him and the World Tournament Announcer laid out on the floor.   The Announcer, at least, is okay.   He explains that some monster barged in and took the Four Star Ball and a copy of the Tenkaichi Budokai roster.   Krillin tried to fight the creature, but it was just too strong.  

Goku is livid.   A lot of people have asked why Goku didn’t just turn Super Saiyan right here.   Personally, I think there’s more to turning Super Saiyan than the emotional shock of your best friend getting killed.   For one thing, Goku wasn’t there when it happened.    I think there’s a difference between finding Krillin’s dead body and watching him get slaughtered while you’re powerless to stop it.  Also, Goku isn’t nearly as strong now as he will be on Namek, and I think that has a lot to do with it.

Nevertheless, this scene has a lot to do with Goku being a Super Saiyan.    It’s all well and good to talk about Goku “transforming” into a Super Saiyan, but you can argue that he always was a Super Saiyan, since he eventually figured out how to tap into that form.   And this righteous fury we see from him is what sets him apart from most of his species.   Nappa and Raditz never felt this way in their lives, or they never allowed themselves to feel this way.   Goku has this capacity throughout his whole life, and so when he’s finally strong enough to cross the threshold, he has the emotional intelligence to carry him to the other side. 

He grabs his Nyoibo, asks Bulma for her Dragon Radar, and rushes off to hunt down Krillin’s killer.   Roshi tells him to wait, even orders him to stop, but to no avail.   After all, Goku’s hungry and tired, and any monster who could beat Krillin so easily would probably be too much for Goku while he’s less than 100%.

Oolong finds a piece of paper on the floor with a mark on it.  

And once Roshi sees it, he realizes that he knows who’s behind all this.

King Piccolo.  

Okay, so here’s my perspective on this.   I watched DBZ first, and it was pretty clear from casualy watching the early episodes around 1998 or so that Piccolo was the bad guy before Z got started.  All we really knew about him was what little the edited dub revealed in flashbacks or exposition.   Goku said that he wanted to take over the world, though he never understood why, and it was pretty clear that Goku had been the only thing standing in the way of that goal.    While the early sagas of DBZ involved the good guys having an uneasy alliance with Piccolo, it was clear that no one really trusted him, and they were terrified of what he might do if left unchecked.

All of this led me to wonder just what Piccolo had done as a villain.   I think he struck me as a sort of Dr. Doom or Skeletor archetype at the time.    He wanted to conquer the planet, which suggested that he probably pulled some schemes that might have almost worked if Goku hadn’t come along and punched him in the face.   Yeah, he was super strong, but he must have been fairly restrained if the world was still in one piece.

Then I finally get to the first episode of the King Piccolo Saga, and it turns out to be way, way worse than I ever imagined.   Krillin’s dead, and that’s just for openers.   Piccolo had once terrorized the world a long time ago, and he had a horde of demonic creatures helping him kill innocent people right and left.  

This is one of the best filler scenes I’ve seen so far.   While Roshi tells the story of King Piccolo’s first reign of terror, we’re treated to this horriffic sequence of scaly green monsters flying around, blasting energy beams out of their mouths, stalking frightened humans, and crushing any and all resistance.  

This monster was about to descend on an innocent woman, until some guy tried to beat him up with a pipe.   But the pipe just bent around his body like it was nothing, and then the monster mauls him instead.    Now imagine that the entire world is like this, and you start to understand the horror of King Piccolo.

And through it all, King Piccolo’s just enjoying the whole thing.    Why did he do all of this?   Why turn the whold world into a charnel house?   We never really get an answer to that.

Piccolo’s monsters eventually came after the dojo that Master Roshi and the Crane Hemit used to belong to.   He doesn’t really mention why this conflict happened, but my guess is that that Piccolo’s creatures were just going after everyone.    There was probably no strategy to it at all.

I’m pretty sure these are Roshi and the Crane Hermit, although I have trouble telling which one is supposed to be which.  The one on the left looks a little more like Roshi, though.   

I’m not sure when this was supposed to have happened.   I’m pretty sure the Funimation dub established it was fifty years ago, but that doesn’t make much sense.   For one thing, of all the characters Roshi is telling this story to, only Tien has even heard of King Piccolo, and he hasn’t heard much.  If King Piccolo had been around only fifty years ago, then Bulma’s parents would probably know about him, since her grandparents would have surely lived during that time.

Also, Roshi is well over 300 years old, so if he looked this young fifty years ago, he must have aged really badly since then.   So I’m pretty sure Funi goofed, or I’m misremembering something.   It makes a lot more sense if the King Piccolo crisis happened a lot longer ago.   Two hundred years, minimum.

Whatever the chronology, Roshi and the Crane Hermit were only able to beat back Piccolo’s minions, and never King Piccolo himself.   Not even their master, Mutaito, could stop Piccolo, although he swore to oppose him with all his power.   

Piccolo wounded the guy, but he managed to survive, thanks to his superhuman vitality.   Only, he left Roshi and his other students before he was healed, and he promised to return one day.

Roshi thinks that the magnitude of the Piccolo crisis was what turned the Crane Hermit into the villain he is today.   That’s pretty heavy stuff.  Piccolo is so evil that he inspired other evildoers to turn to evil. 

Getting back to the story, one day, years later, Mutaito returned, having finally mastered a technique that would save the world from King Piccolo.

So he went right up to King Piccolo and zapped him with the Mafuba, also known as the Evil Containment Wave.    It didn’t kill Piccolo, or even hurt him...

Instead, it directed him into a vessel, which could be sealed with a sacred talisman.   I don’t know why he picked a rice cooker, but his options may have been limited in those days.

The only downside to the Mafuba is that it kills the user.   So it was up to Roshi to deal with the imprisoned King Piccolo.

So he dropped it into the bottom of the sea.    The only way King Piccolo could possibly have returned would be if someone found the jar and opened it.   Tien and Chiaotzu wonder if the Crane Hermit might have done it, but Roshi says that he never would have dared to unleash such horror again.   So the question is: Who would be dumb enough to find King Piccolo and set him free?     What sort of colossal idiot would... oh, who are we kidding?   It’s Emperor Pilaf.

Worse, Pilaf told Piccolo about the Dragon Balls.    He thinks King Piccolo would want to wish to rule the world...

But no.    Conquering the world is easy for him.   What he wants is eternal youth, so he can have the vitality and longevity to rule the wold forever!

Pilaf tries to suggest that Piccolo should share half the world with him in exchange for all of his help.    It was Pilaf who found Piccolo’s jar, released him, set him up in this cool airship, and he told him about the Dragon Balls and the Tenkacihi Budokai.   Piccolo replies that he’ll think it over.

As for the Dragon Balls, Piccolo has one of his goons named Tambourine looking for them, and he’s on his way back with one right now.    What the Pilaf gang doesn’t understand is why he had Tambourine steal the tournament roster while he was at it.    Piccolo explains that it was a martial artist who sealed him away for so long, and so he considers martial artists to be the only possible threat to his plans.   Any one of them might possibly know or reinvent the technique that sealed him away, so he plans to kill them all, and the Tenkaichi Budokai roster makes a nice list of strong fighters to kick off his purge.

Back at the arena, Roshi has reached the same conclusion.  

Kazama Hideo Densetsu Tale 23 : Real exorcism record 

Inspired by the battle of Master Mutaito & Piccolo Daimao from Dragonball.

Popo isn’t satisfied with Goku’s progress, so he starts him on some new training.   I feel like Goku’s already started and stopped three different training regimens already, but what’s one more?

First, Popo sews Goku a new outfit, since he’s been wearing the same rage he’s had since defeating King Piccolo. 

Goku seems to be touched and impressed by this.    I think it says something about Goku that he’s just as amazed by Popo’s ability to make clothes as his immense strength.  

Popo then leads Goku into the Room of Time, which is covered in clocks.   When I first saw this episode, I had hoped that the “Room of Time” would be the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from DBZ.   When that concept was introduced, Goku said that he had learned of it during this period, while he was training with Kami and Popo.    But it’s a retcon, the Hyperbolic Time Chamber never appeared in the original Dragon Ball anime in any form.

As far as this room goes, I’m unclear as to what it does.    The notion that it “creates time” is ridiculous.   This episode appears to suggest that it’s a typical time machine, since it flings Goku back into the past, but I’m not sure that makes sense either.   

My guess is that the room simply “creates” replicas of past eras, allowing Goku to interact with historical events without altering history or actually leaving the Lookout.  For that matter, I’m starting to wonder if the places Goku visited in the previous two episodes weren’t simulations as well.   The whole point of Goku training on the Lookout was to ensure that Piccolo Junior didn’t track him down and try to kill him before the tournament.   Sending Goku back down to Earth for training exercises seems to defeat that idea.  

Likewise, I doubt Kami would want to send Goku into the actual past, for feat that he might kill somebody’s grandfather and cause a time paradox.    But we never really get a handle on what this thing is or how it works.

Meanwhile, Tien and the others are running around with giant rocks on their backs.   Tien breaks his because he’s frustrated that these kinds of exercises won’t be enough to get them as strong as they want to be.   He later suggest that they all seek out Korin Tower, and receive training there, since it worked for Goku.

Meanwhile Goku tumbles into the past, where he lands on a young Master Roshi, who was trying to peep on a girl taking a bath.  

Okay, so the big problem with this episode is that “Master Roshi” isn’t this guy’s name, and even if it was, this would have been before he became a master.   He’s not the “Turtle Hermit” either, but he introduces himself as “Turtle-chan”, just so we have something to call him.   The Crane Hermit is in this episode too, and he’s just called “Crane” for some reason.   Must be the hat.

The object of Roshi’s lust is this lady, named Fanfan.   Okay, just to clear this up...

Ranfan is the lady who fought Nam in the 21st Budokai.   She has curly purple hair and isn’t above using nudity to win a match.

Ran Ran is Chiaotzu’s doll/wife from the third Dragon Ball movie “Mystical Adventure.”.  

Colonel Violet is an officer in the Red Ribbon Army.     She looks almost exactly like the lady in this episode, except Violet has blue eyes.

But this episode features Fanfan.    Her main distinction from the others is that she lived at least 280 years before Dragon Ball began.   I say this because Master Roshi is at least 300 years old, and his younger self claims to be 18 in this episode.    So maybe Fanfan is the ancestor of Violet and Ranfan?

Of course, this implies the existence of yet another purple-haired woman (or doll) named Fanran.   I’ll let you know if I spot one.

Anyway, Turtle-chan is pissed that Goku messed up his chance to see titties, so Goku shows him his own titties.   Turtle-chan explains that it doesn’t count.    Insert your own Tumblr nipple joke here.

Crane shows up and gives Turtle a hard time, and he claims that one day Fanfan will be his girlfriend.   Okay, so what I don’t get is how both of these guys are supposed to be students of the great Mutaito, but neither of them wear his uniform.    They also have full heads of hair, unlike their previous appearance in flashback during the King Piccolo Saga, where they looked a lot more like Crane’s flunkies in the back.

See, he’s 18.   Feel free to draw all the young Roshi/young Crane Hermit slash fan art you want, kids.

Roshi takes Goku to see Mutaito, who is curious enough about Goku to accept his request for a fight.   

There’s something about Mutaito that reminds me of my dad, and I can’t quite figure out what.    They don’t look that much alike.  

Goku wonders why Mutaito doesn’t adopt a stance for their battle, and Mutaito assures thim that he’s been in one this whole time.    They fight while he sits right there, and then he knocks Goku against the wall without even touching him.

So, is Mutaito supposed to be stronger than Goku is?  

No, because even Mutaito acknowledges that Goku has incredible speed and power.    It’s more likely that Mutaito won that exchange simply because he surprised Goku with moves he wasn’t expecting.

He explains to Goku that he used ki to knock him back.

This whole scene feels a little weird, since we’ve seen Goku use ki before, and he’s fought against other ki users like Roshi, Tien, and Piccolo.   I think the point of this lesson is that Goku’s mostly been using it in very primitive ways.    The Kamehameha is powerful, and Goku learned to bend it around to make it more versatile, but ki could be used for more intricate applications than this.   

Mutaito demonstrates by using a thin beam of energy to divide the flow of a waterfall.   He assures both Roshi and Goku that they could do the same with enough concentration and hard work.

While Goku plugs away at this, he finds some of Fanfan’s laundry in the water.

Fanfan thanks Goku for finding it, and wipes the sweat off his face.

Turtle-chan says he’s sweaty too, but Fanfan points out that he’s drooling.   Master Roshi Turtle Chan belongs in jail.

Then Crane shows up and he’s all “D-Did you get my DM?” and she’s like “Nope.”

I feel bad for Fanfan, because it looks like her only options for romance are a peeping tom and a cranky incel with a stupid haircut.   Goku’s actually 15 in this episode, so I guess he’s almost eigible, but all he wants to do is cut waterfalls in half and show everyone his titties. 

So Crane just punches Fanfan and kidnaps her on the spot.   Man, this guy is the worst.  He tells Roshi to tell Goku to meet him in the harvest field.   Uh, okay?

Roshi brings Goku along...

...And Crane tries to fight Goku, but he can’t even touch the guy.   

Well, I guess he does touch Goku’s fist with his face, but that really doesn’t help him.

Turns out he’s got Fanfan tied to a tree, and his henchmen are going to kill her.

So Goku has to let him beat him up, and somehow even that doesn’t help.   Crane works him over for a bit, but Goku’s not even hurt.    Look at this smug li’l bastard.    Crane Hermit absolutely sucks.   I was mad at him before for hitting Fanfan, but now I’m starting to think she just pretended to get knocked out so she wouldn’t hurt his feelings.

So Crane calls on his other henchman to light a fire around Goku and Turtle.   I guess they poured gasoline all over this field before they showed up?     Is this even a threat?   I’m pretty sure Goku could jump over this easily.

Roshi is panicked, at least.

But Goku remembers what Mutaito told him, and he starts powering up his ki while he’s surrounded by flames.   Foreshadowing! 

So Goku manages to clear a path through the flames. 

And Fanfan kicks one of Crane’s buddies in the nuts.   

The other flunky tries to hit her, but then Mutaito stops him, and he looks pissed.

He tells Crane to either quit the dojo now, or get moved to the back of the class.

Turtle is super-impressed with Goku’s ki power, and vows to train hard to surpass him.    Well, he did beat Goku once, so he’s not totally wrong.  Fanfan promises to wipe the sweat from Turtle’s brow, but only after he surpasses Goku.  I like that because it would have been really hacky for Roshi to get the girl.    He didn’t even do anything in this episode except bring Goku along.   This way, she doesn’t even have to touch the sleazebag until he gets strong enough to beat Goku, which doesn’t happen until after she’s long dead. 

Later, Goku tries to cut the waterfall, but he can’t get his ki power to work this time.   Turtle wonders if what he did in the fire was a fluke.