Episode 153 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on April 19, 1989 and known in the English dub as The End, the Beginning, is the final episode of the original series. Goku takes on the keeper of the magic furnace, plunges into the flames to save the Ox-King and finally marries Chi-Chi. One week later, Dragon Ball Z took over its time slot.
Summary
Annin explains why the furnace cannot be put out. Its fire guides the souls of the dead into the afterlife: without it, spirits would scatter everywhere, and relighting it properly would take two hundred years. Goku will not hear it, because meanwhile the Ox-King is about to be roasted alive. At that point Annin attacks him without warning and, when she sees the boy can hold his own, grows to giant size. Goku answers with the only weapon he has: the Bansho Fan.
The sight of the fan stops her. The fan, she explains, comes from this very place, and it can open a path through the furnace's flames. The fire at the castle is caused by a leak at the bottom of the furnace, and with the fan Goku could reach it and plug it. Sealing it, however, requires two ingredients: honey from a special hive and the shell of a Fire-Eating Bird egg. Chi-Chi has both, the jar from Grandma Hakkake and the fragment she picked up on Mt. Kiwi.
While Annin lifts the massive furnace, Goku fans his way through, descends into the heart of the fire, seals the leak and bursts out just in time, into Chi-Chi's arms. On Mt. Frypan the flames die at once: the Ox-King is safe, and so is the wedding dress. Goku says goodbye to Grandpa Gohan, who congratulates the young couple on the first task they have tackled together, and heads back to the castle. The wedding finally takes place. In the closing scene, Fortuneteller Baba offers to read the newlyweds' future in her crystal ball, free of charge.
Our take
It is the end of an era. After three years on air, the little boy with a tail who went looking for the Dragon Balls bows out as a husband, and the original series' final image is not a battle but a wedding. It is a bold choice and, watched today, a perfect one: Dragon Ball began as a picaresque adventure, and it ends with a fairy-tale happily ever after.
The finale ties together every thread of the mini-arc. The eggshell Chi-Chi kept and Grandma's honey, which looked like mere details, turn out to be the key; the Bansho Fan, lost since episode 8, finally does what it was made for. And Annin testing Goku before helping him reads as the last trial before the wedding, as if the afterlife itself wanted to make sure the groom was worthy.
There is a quiet legacy too. Grandpa Gohan, who witnesses the birth of the new family here, will lend his name to the couple's son. When Dragon Ball Z picks up five years later, Goku arrives at Kame House holding little Gohan's hand, and the peace lasts one afternoon: Raditz lands from the sky, and the story changes scale forever. This episode is the last breath before that leap.
Trivia
- Anime-original episode with no counterpart in the manga. It drew a 17.4% ratings share in Japan.
- Written by Takao Koyama, directed by Minoru Okazaki, with animation direction by Minoru Maeda.
- In Japan the episode was followed by a preview of the first episode of Dragon Ball Z, which aired on April 26, 1989. That preview is missing from the Dragon Box DVD release.
- In the English dub, the narrator signs off by inviting viewers to follow Goku's further adventures in Dragon Ball Z.
Did you know? The last character to appear in Dragon Ball is Baba: when the narrator wonders what the future holds for the newlyweds, the fortuneteller peers into her crystal ball and then covers it, keeping the answer from the audience.