Episode 147 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on March 1, 1989 and known in the English dub as Goku Hangs On, pushes the final of the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament to the brink of survival. Piccolo Jr. plays his last card with a blast that wipes out the entire arena; Goku takes it and answers with a Kamehameha that seems to settle things. But the count never reaches ten, and the demon's surprise attack leaves Goku with a horrifying wound.
Summary
As Piccolo builds up energy, Goku struggles to persuade his friends to leave: nobody wants to abandon him. Tien finds the answer, blasting a deep hole in the ground with a Tri-Beam so everyone can take cover. Goku stays standing alone, ready to take the hit. The charge drags on amid the onlookers' terror and the demon's taunts, until Piccolo Jr. unleashes the Hyper Explosive Demon Wave (Chō Bakuretsu Maha), an explosion on the scale of a nuclear blast that flattens the stadium and most of the island.
When the dust settles, Goku is still there. Drained by the effort, Piccolo cannot respond to the flurry of kicks that follows; Goku pins him to the ground with a punch to the stomach and buries him under a huge Kamehameha. The demon lies motionless at the bottom of a crater and the announcer starts counting. Everyone thinks it is over.
At nine, however, Piccolo lifts his head and fires a beam from his mouth that goes clean through Goku's upper body. A distraught Chi-Chi begs for the match to be stopped. Piccolo Jr. climbs out of the crater and kicks Goku right in the wound; Tien and Krillin want to step in, but setting foot in the ring would cost Goku the match, and the demon makes it clear he would happily kill them anyway. Just when it seems all is lost, Goku gets back up: the beam missed his vital organs. Battered and bloodied, the two fighters square off once more.
Our take
The original title roughly means "nothing more can be done," and the episode wants viewers to feel exactly that, twice: first after the explosion, then after the mouth beam. It swings back and forth between hope and despair with real patience, and the anime's extended version of Piccolo's charge makes the wait even more nerve-racking.
The kick combo and Kamehameha are the perfect answer to the most destructive attack the series had shown so far. Goku does not win on raw power; he endures and strikes when his opponent is running on empty. Piccolo's last-second sucker punch, meanwhile, is a reminder that King Piccolo's heir has no respect for the rules, written or unwritten.
The Funimation title, Goku Hangs On, captures something true as well. By the end neither fighter is willing to give an inch, and the final shot of two wounded warriors staring each other down is an image of pure stubbornness.
Trivia
- The episode adapts chapters 190 and 191 and the first six pages of chapter 192 of Akira Toriyama's manga. It drew a 19.8% ratings share in Japan, the highest of the episodes covering the final.
- It was written by Toshiki Inoue and directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi, with Masayuki Uchiyama as animation supervisor.
- The anime stretches out Piccolo's charge-up considerably, giving more time to the worried chatter of the onlookers. Chi-Chi's reaction, pleading for the match to end, is also anime-only.
- Sources disagree on exactly where Goku is hit: Toei's official synopsis says the shoulder, while Kanzenshuu and the Dragon Ball Wiki describe a hole through his chest.
Did you know? To dig the shelter that saves everyone from the blast, Tien uses the Tri-Beam, the same technique he had fired at Goku three years earlier in the final of the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament.
Characters
- Goku
- Piccolo (Ma Junior)
- Chi-Chi
- Tien Shinhan
- Krillin
- Kami, Master Roshi, Yamcha
- The tournament announcer