Episode 100 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on February 10, 1988 and known in the English dub as The Spirit Cannon, takes the final of the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament to its most extreme point. Tien Shinhan fights with four arms thanks to the Four Witches Technique, but Goku won't give in. So the Crane student plays his last card, the Tri-Beam (Kikōhō), a technique so destructive that it erases the whole ring. When the smoke clears, Goku is gone.
Summary
With four arms Tien has an obvious advantage. His barrage drives Goku almost out of bounds and forces him to jump; Tien catches him by the arms and legs and headbutts him again and again. Goku frees himself by whipping Tien's face with his tail, then moves his arms so fast that he seems to have eight: four against eight, and the exchange is even again.
The two hit each other at the same moment and collapse together. The announcer reaches eight before they get up, while Roshi recalls a similar moment with Goku at the previous tournament. Goku trips Tien and locks his legs in an agonizing hold. The announcer asks Tien whether he gives up, and Chiaotzu wants to help with his powers, but Tien shouts at him to stay out of it. The extra arms try to choke Goku, then vanish as Tien loses focus. With a huge effort, Tien kicks his opponent off and into the wall.
Goku gets up yet again, and Tien decides it is time to end it. He warns Goku: he must dodge the next attack if he wants to live. Chiaotzu telepathically begs him not to use that technique, but Tien reassures him that he won't die. Then he rises into the air, joins his hands in a triangle and fires the Tri-Beam straight down at the ring.
The explosion is devastating. When the dust settles, where the stage used to be there is only a square crater. Goku is nowhere in sight.
Our take
For a milestone episode, the hundredth couldn't have asked for more: the final reaches its peak of spectacle and danger. The Four Witches Technique, with arms sprouting from Tien's back, is an idea straight out of a horror film, and Goku neutralizes it with his favorite weapon: speed, which "grows" him extra arms without any trick at all.
The decisive moment, though, is the Tri-Beam. Tien warns Goku before firing it, and that gesture sums up how far the character has come: two episodes earlier he wanted to kill him; now he wants to win without taking his life. The telepathic exchange with Chiaotzu adds the technique's cost: it is a blow that wears down its user, and it will become Tien's signature for the rest of the saga and beyond.
Trivia
- The episode adapts chapter 132 from page five and the first seven pages of chapter 133. It drew a 16.3% ratings share in Japan, the lowest of the tournament saga.
- In the manga Tien headbutts Goku only once and retracts his extra arms of his own accord; in the anime there are five headbutts and the arms vanish because he loses focus.
- The double knockdown with the count to eight and Roshi's memory of the previous tournament are anime-only.
- In the manga Roshi explains that Goku's "eight arms" are just an effect of his speed; the anime leaves the explanation out.
- In the original American release the title card misspelled "Cannon" as "Canon".
Did you know? Launch, flung across the arena by the Crane Hermit in the previous episode, is back with the group without any explanation.
Characters
- Tien Shinhan
- Goku
- Chiaotzu
- Master Roshi
- Krillin