Episode 132 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on November 2, 1988 and known in the English dub as Hotter than Lava, wraps up the volcano adventure that began in the previous episode. Tien, Krillin, Yamcha and Chiaotzu each try to stop the lava in their own way, and learn that none of them can do it alone. It is also the last episode before the three-year time skip that carries the story to the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament.
Summary
On Kami's Lookout the game of tag goes on, but the blindfolded Goku still cannot pick up Mr. Popo's energy. He needs a lot more practice than he thought.
At the foot of the volcano, meanwhile, the villagers are running for their lives. The four friends try to divert the flow individually, with little success. Just when the worst seems to be over, the volcano erupts again, more violently than before. Krillin tumbles into a crack in the ground and only survives because Chiaotzu catches him in mid-air; Tien, watching, suggests that Krillin should learn to fly too. In the village, the elder refuses to leave, and neither Mint nor her brother Paoru can make him budge. Tien manages to push part of the lava aside, but the houses are still in danger.
Krillin, still tipsy and convinced he can do anything, rushes to rescue Mint, who will not abandon the old man. So he tries to block the lava by shoving a giant boulder into its path. Yamcha, who cannot stop comparing himself to Goku, comes up with a better plan: he blasts open a lake, and the water floods into the forest, cooling and hardening the lava. The woods end up underwater, but the village is spared. The respite is brief, because the volcano blows yet again. This time the four fight as a team, each firing his strongest attack, and the blast throws up a wall of rock that turns the flow away from the houses. Mint thanks Krillin, and everyone goes back to training. The next tournament is three years away.
Our take
The second half of the volcano story moves faster than the first, and its core idea is simple but sound: four strong fighters, taken one at a time, are no match for a force of nature. It takes teamwork. That is a lesson Goku's circle will put into practice again and again, especially in Dragon Ball Z, where hardly anyone wins alone.
The best moments once again belong to Krillin, with his heroic drunkenness and his clumsy attempt to hold back lava by pushing a rock. There is also a detail worth noticing: Tien telling him to learn how to fly. It is a line that looks ahead, since in the years to come flight becomes second nature for the whole group. Yamcha gets a moment too, with an idea worth more than any punch, even if his constant comparisons with Goku betray a streak of insecurity.
Goku's training, by contrast, stays in the background. The point has been made, progress is slow, and that slowness is precisely what makes the grown-up Goku we meet after the time skip believable.
Trivia
- This is the last of the run of anime-original episodes that began with episode 127, so it adapts no chapter of the manga. It drew a 20.0% ratings share in Japan, the highest among episodes 130 to 135.
- It was written by Takao Koyama and directed by Minoru Okazaki, with Minoru Maeda as animation supervisor.
- In the final combined attack you can spot Krillin's and Yamcha's Kamehamehas alongside Tien's Dodon Ray.
- It is the last episode in which Stephanie Nadolny regularly voices Goku and Laurie Steele voices Krillin in the Funimation dub. From the next episode, with both characters grown up, Sean Schemmel and Sonny Strait take over.
- In the Japanese version, this is the last episode to use the third version of the ending sequence.
Did you know? The original title, "Hotter than Magma", uses the wrong word: what pours out of the volcano is lava, yet in the Japanese version of this episode and the previous one everybody calls it magma.
Characters
- Goku
- Mr. Popo
- Tien Shinhan
- Krillin
- Yamcha
- Chiaotzu
- Mint
- Paoru
- The village elder