Episode 32 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on October 1, 1986 and known in the English dub as The Flying Fortress – Vanished!, closes the short run of anime-original adventures built around Pilaf and the six-star ball. Goku frees the Ox-King, says goodbye to Chi-Chi and finds himself in the middle of the first real battle between the Pilaf gang and the Red Ribbon Army, which turns out to be in a different league.
Summary
Colonel Silver's fighter jets chase Pilaf's flying fortress, which hides in the clouds and ambushes the colonel's plane with its missiles. For a moment the little emperor seems to have the upper hand.
Back at the village, Goku and Chi-Chi arrive in time to knock out the remaining soldiers and free the Ox-King, who had been captured shortly before. After a quick meal Goku announces he has to leave. Chi-Chi is disappointed, and it becomes clear why Goku is not worried about the wedding at all: he still thinks a wedding is something you eat. They say goodbye, and Goku goes back to following his radar.
Pilaf's fortress lands in the middle of the desert and burrows under the sand. The signal leads both the Red Ribbon Army and Goku there, but nobody can see a thing. As Goku walks among the dunes, automatic machine guns pop out of the sand and open fire on him. Silver watches the scene and figures it out: there is an underground base right under his feet. He calls for reinforcements and launches a full-scale assault.
Pilaf, Mai and Shu try to escape in the fortress. Goku, who has slipped into the base, clings to the outer wall as the aircraft takes off. In the sky, hundreds of Red Ribbon fighters are waiting for them, and they riddle the fortress until it explodes. Goku is caught in the blast and falls. Pilaf and his henchmen bail out with parachutes, but land straight in Silver's arms, and he forces them to hand over the six-star ball.
Our take
The last of the three Pilaf episodes is also the busiest, with the air of a war movie: fighter jets, missiles, bases hidden under the sand, a show of force the series had never put on before. That is exactly the point. Before facing Goku, the Red Ribbon Army needs to look unbeatable, and the quickest way to do it is to pit it against the villain the kids already defeated. Pilaf, for all his gadgets, is swept aside in minutes.
The farewell to Chi-Chi is short but on target. The gag of mistaking a wedding for food works because it fits the Goku of those years, a child with no idea whatsoever of what love or marriage are. It is a scene that gains flavor years later, when the promise is kept.
The flaw is repetition. Across three episodes the same ball is chased from one place to another, and in the end Goku is left empty-handed. Unsurprisingly, the episode posted the lowest ratings of the whole saga.
Trivia
- The episode is entirely anime-original; in Japan it stopped at a 16.0% ratings share, the lowest figure of the Red Ribbon Army Saga.
- In the American version aired on Toonami, a shot of a fighter jet narrowly missing Goku and Chi-Chi in flight was cut, a decision linked to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
- The second English dub, recorded by Blue Water, kept almost the same title: The Flying Fortress Vanished!
Did you know? The Pilaf gang will get a small revenge: by the end of the saga it is the one holding the last Dragon Ball, the one neither the Red Ribbon Army nor Goku's radar can find.