Dragon Blog Daima #26: Collar
a.k.a. the Animeister.
I mentioned last week that I felt like Dragon Ball DAIMA was starting to repeat itself, which was causing me to repeat myself. And although the action that we had seen ramp up over the past month felt lacking here, the flow of the episode was refreshingly different, even if the plot only got nudged forward a tiny bit in the process.
Also, the lore validated some of my assumptions from previous episodes, and as a content creator, I enjoy the feeling of validation, so please give me your energy and grant my wish by clicking the Follow button to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, commenting at the bottom of this post, helping out my ad revenue as you read so I don't have to deal with Third Demon World problems, and following me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
In kind of a nod to GT, this leads into Bulma explaining that Shin's old "airplane" crashed because one of the parts was damaged and she tried to run the craft without replacing that part because it runs on an element that might only exist in the Demon Realm. Vegeta basically asks Bulma if she's Tony Stark from Iron Man 2, but unlike GT Bulma (who can pull a Brutz Wave Generator cannon out of her...back pocket...any time the plot demands it), she isn't able to build a particle accelerator/ion laser combo on a flying palace with a box of scraps, so everyone's stuck.
Except that giving up hope is the secret password to make Hybis show up, acting all put upon that he missed his appointment at the beauty salon (or is it a date with an imaginary girlfriend?) to play chauffeur to a bunch of rickin' morties.
Again, despite Hybis' "plane" being identical to the one Goku's group are currently using (which made the transitions between groups seamless but rather confusing) and having plenty of room for an extra passenger, only Hybis, Bulma (who, as I suspected when the Beaut Bugs were introduced, is enamored with the idea of a Majin Buu-ty Parlor - sorry), Vegeta, and Piccolo (so that Chris Sabat can talk to himself when the dub finally gets streamed) end up going, leaving Kibito behind to... *looking it up* "look after the temple."
Read that as "he would have been too useful," and that's probably closer to the truth, especially considering what we saw in the Buu Saga and will see later in the episode.
That said, Hybis is a fun character. I love his droning but melodic line delivery, and his mundane motivations (beauty products, ballet, and worm pizza) are perfect for the franchise's subversive humor. Plus, he has that cool, multiversal radar so Bulma can be a relevant supporting character by having him to talk to about tech and cosmetics.
Meanwhile, the Third Demon World's landscape proves to be more lush than previously shown, as we get some color variety (like the treetops we saw in the episode preview last week) and different lighting to bring out more shades of the existing pink-on-yellow pallete. But little time can be wasted on the scenery because the Gendarmerie are back, having tracked our heroes through Panzy's collar (it's in the title!) and stopped them yet again for some follow-up "questions." Variations on a theme are important (because if this series is going to be heavily influenced by Star Wars, we must break out that George Lucas quote about movies rhyming like poetry), but at some point you have to realize that you've run out of four-inch door hinges, and that rhyming orange with orange is just unartistic porridge. Which is my way of saying that this encounter and the one from last week could have been combined into a "Gendarmerie" episode with this as the ending fight, or just paced down into one scene because we're now seven episodes into a twenty-episode series, and lore and fights (not that either of those have been bad so far) have taken precedent over plot progression.
I guess this episode's Gendarmerie sequence is an improvement in itself, as it takes the stop-and-frisk from "Lightning" and the squash fight from the end of "Chatty" and combines them together while amping up the scale (Glorio and Panzy shock the goons unconscious and Goku, Shin, and Glorio casually toss around and blow up enemy fighter craft), and the suspense behind how Goku evades notice at first (instant transmission, which Panzy doesn't know about, hinting that Yardratians may not have been demons originally) is competently built. Great fight in the moment that gives everyone something to do, but in retrospect, pacing continues to be an issue; their plane is damaged...again!
Thankfully, Panzy thought to pack a communications-jamming device (that looks like a Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers accessory I had as a kid before my late parrot-bro chewed it in half) and a hacker on speed-dial (named Peral), and there was an abandoned Gendarmerie vessel parked conveniently offscreen so they can use Warp to travel between Demon Worlds even though they're all fugitives now.
But what about the collar...or the lore? One's in the title, and the other is in every episode!
Well, that's where Shin comes in to both validate my speculation from a previous episode and totally piss me off. Remember when I said that Shin probably isn't his real name because it doesn't end with the -su suffix like his siblings or Kais from other Universes? Well, I was partly right. Shin is just a nickname based on his Japanese title. But his birth name is revealed to be Nahare, which doesn't fit the convention either. So what's up with this -su business? Well, written with one kind of kanji, it's the phonetic representation of a name ending with the letter s, and translates to vinegar (according to Google Translate, anyway). Written with another kanji, it means an animal's dwelling or breeding place (den, beehive, rookery, etc.). So, is Shin lying about being a Glind? Is he still hiding his true name to protect himself from some force in the Demon Realm that he secretly fears? Moreover, Goku tries addressing Shin as Nahare and says it doesn't feel right before settiling back on Shin (Kaioshin-sama in Japanese), and there's been a running gag where Goku can't say Glorio's name correctly. So maybe Glorio is a fake name, too?
The part that pisses me off (and could create even further levels of granular classism in the Demon Realm) is the reveal of what Panzy's collar is made of. It's katchin metal (called katchintite in the subtitles), which we last saw in the Buu Saga when Shin was forming and throwing blocks of it during Gohan's Z-Sword training, and again in Super as the basis for the ring in the Tournament Of Power. So we know that, while he cannot create katchin, he can manipulate its structure into different shapes, and it's shown here that he can also use a spell to shatter its forged structure. His statement that anyone can learn the spell suggests that Kibito knows the spell, too, and as he is stated to be Shin's assistant, and they shared a mind for some time as a fusion, and it was said in the previous episode that Kibito is a Glind from a different tree than Shin (therefore of the same species but a different family), so why didn't Kibito step up and repair the crystal from the damaged component of Shin's old ship?
So the plot, sluggish as it has been, can happen.
As for why this "anyone can learn the spell to break katchin" concept is bad for the Demon Realm's classist structure? Well, if you teach the spell to the wrong people, it could incite a revolution if the lower class Third Worlders learn it first and get their hands on some Gendarmerie staves, or make the Third World even more of a hellhole if its aristocracy learn the spell first.
At least Panzy's voice actor gives a powerful dramatic performance this episode, but with that political nightmare unleashed onto the viewer's psyche, it's finally time to go fight Tamagami #3...in the next episode because our heroes (who are supposedly in a hurry to rescue Dende) need to stop in another town so Goku can eat (even though there is a supply of dumplings in their belongings that are worth two meals each), use the bathroom (because Goku pooping offscreen counts as a running gag now that it's happened three times since "Panzy"), and find out how to challenge the Tamagami (which he could have done earlier when they were right next to it, just by saying "hi, I wanna fightcha!").
That said, I like how boisterous Tamagami #3 is, like Neva designed him to act like a Super Sentai character (which, I can totally believe the Demon Realm having a tokusatsu series that's been on the air for five thousand seasons), and cliffhangering the episode as the fight is about to begin so that the next episode can be all spectacle just adds to the comfy but hype, "I'm watching Dragon Ball Z again" feeling of the episode, but better because I don't have to watch the first two and a half sagas on repeat for five years before I give up and start watching the Buu Saga on Telemundo like I did twenty years ago.
The preview looks like the next episode is going to deliver on the choreography and spectacle, and then some, so instead of spoiling it for you like I did most of this episode and every episode so far, I'll just roll on into the closing call to action by reminding you to please give me your energy and grant my wish by clicking the Follow button to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, commenting at the bottom of this post, helping out my ad revenue as you read so I don't have to deal with Third Demon World problems, and following me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
Mini Animeister,
Out.
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