Episode 127 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on September 21, 1988 and known in the English dub as Quicker than Lightning, kicks off a run of anime-original episodes about Goku's training on Kami's Lookout. Mr. Popo wants him to empty his mind, but Goku struggles to grasp what that even means. So Popo puts him to the test on a mountain where the lightning shows no mercy.
Summary
At the temple, Goku works on cutting out wasted movement. Popo has him meditate while an insect buzzes around his head and walnuts come flying at him; then he blindfolds the boy and asks him to catch a cat with a bell tied to its tail, while ringing a second bell himself to throw him off. Down at Kame House, Krillin and Tien face off in a sparring match.
Goku wants more, though, and asks for the same training Popo himself went through long ago. The task sounds simple: fetch the sacred crown from the summit of the Goro-Goro Mountains, known in the Funimation dub as Mount Rumble. Popo sends him there, and with directions from a little girl named Chu Lee, Goku reaches the top. He grabs the crown and puts it on, but it sticks to his head and draws every lightning bolt in the sky. Goku tries to dodge, is not fast enough and tumbles all the way down the mountain into the river.
Chu Lee and her mother fish him out and nurse him back to health. The girl has lost her pet bird, Pippi, and Goku promises to help find it once his mission is over. The next morning, though, Chu Lee finds the bird on her own: she did not hear it chirping so much as feel it. For Goku it is a revelation. To beat the lightning he must not watch for it, he must sense it coming. He climbs the mountain again and this time dodges the first bolt, but gets cocky, and the second one hits him square, knocking him out cold.
Our take
The anime-original episodes in this stretch have a clear job: to show the three years of training that the manga skips entirely. This one, however, also manages to say something about Goku. The boy who brought down King Piccolo now has to learn to stop, listen and stop relying on speed alone.
The fairy-tale rhythm helps: the forbidden mountain, the cursed crown, the little girl who knows something the hero does not. Chu Lee never fights and has no powers, yet she is the real teacher of the episode. The ending, with Goku getting struck at the exact moment he thinks he has made it, is a small lesson in humility that works better than any speech.
Not everything here is memorable, and the temple segment feels a little disconnected from the rest. But as the first step of an inner journey the episode does its job, and it lays the groundwork for the trials still to come.
Trivia
- This is an anime-original episode with no counterpart in Akira Toriyama's manga. It drew a 17.3% ratings share in Japan.
- In Toei's official synopsis, the principle Popo is trying to teach is to "empty the heart", an idea that keeps coming back in the following episodes.
- In the Blue Water English dub, Chu Lee is renamed Julie. Pippi is female in the Japanese version and male in the Funimation dub.
Did you know? The episode's Japanese title, Faster than Lightning, later became the name of one of Mr. Popo's attacks in the mobile game Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle.
Characters
- Goku
- Mr. Popo
- Kami
- Chu Lee
- Krillin
- Tien Shinhan