Episode 128 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on September 28, 1988 and known in the English dub as Secret of the Woods, is the second anime-original chapter of Goku's training. After his failure on the lightning mountain, Mr. Popo changes tactics and sends him into a forest to find someone who can train his mind. Goku expects a legendary warrior. What he finds is a huge family, a grandfather with a fishing rod and a lesson he never saw coming.
Summary
Goku wakes up at the temple after three days out cold. The Goro-Goro challenge was apparently too much for him at this stage, so Popo gives him a new one: somewhere in a distant forest lives a person who can teach him what he is missing.
Starving, Goku follows the smell of food and walks straight into a net set by Mousse, a woodsman. He breaks free easily, and the misunderstanding ends at the dinner table. Mousse's family is enormous: his wife Eclair and nine children, all named after desserts. When Grandpa Korinto comes home with the day's catch, a feast is laid out and, as always, nobody can believe how much Goku eats. Over dinner he hears about Yaochun, the strongest man in the area, who can supposedly dodge lightning.
Back at Kame House, Krillin, Tien and Yamcha ask Master Roshi why he has stopped training them. The old master replies that he has nothing left to teach: if they want to grow, they must find their own path.
Soon after, Korinto leads Goku to Yaochun, a giant meditating by the river. Goku challenges him, and the so-called champion goes down in seconds: he is not the man Goku was looking for. Disappointed, the boy meets up with the grandfather on the riverbank. Korinto teaches him to fish without looking, by feeling the river, with a mind as calm and quiet as the sky. Goku sits down, focuses and, for the first time, begins to understand, while Kami and Mr. Popo watch from above.
Our take
It is a small episode, almost a folk tale, and that is exactly where its charm lies. The structure is a classic parable: the hero seeks out the famous master, discovers he is all bluster, and true wisdom comes from the person he least expected. The old fisherman does not lecture; he simply shows.
The Mousse family brings warmth and a few gags, in keeping with the series' love of themed names. The most interesting moment, though, takes place at Kame House. Roshi refusing to keep training his students is a passing of the torch: Goku has gone up to Kami, and the others must stop waiting for someone to lead them.
Finally, the title sums up the whole lesson better than any explanation could: staying still, quiet as the sky, is harder than moving faster than lightning.
Trivia
- This is an anime-original episode with no counterpart in Akira Toriyama's manga. It drew an 18.9% ratings share in Japan, the highest among episodes 123 to 129.
- In the Japanese version Roshi is much harsher: he tells the three they will never catch up with Goku if they keep training together the same way every day, while Goku chose to carry on alone. The English dub replaces the scolding with an unrelated story about a girl from Roshi's youth.
- Yaochun is called Palepaw in the Funimation dub. In Japanese he is voiced by Daisuke Gōri.
Did you know? Mousse's children have names like Pudding, Crepe, Donut and Biscuit, a tribute to the themed naming that Toriyama always loved, from vegetable-named Saiyans to Bulma's family.
Characters
- Goku
- Mr. Popo
- Kami
- Mousse and his family
- Korinto
- Yaochun
- Master Roshi
- Krillin
- Tien Shinhan
- Yamcha