Episode 36 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on October 29, 1986 and known in the English dub as Major Metallitron, begins the climb up Muscle Tower, General White's fortress. The structure is pure video game: one floor, one guardian. On the third floor Goku meets the saga's first truly unsettling opponent, Sergeant Metallic, a sunglasses-wearing colossus who does not seem to feel pain.
Summary
Goku enters the tower's second floor, where four guards take him for an ordinary kid. They last a few seconds. From the control room, General White watches on the monitors alongside Ninja Murasaki and, taken aback, mentions the next floor's guardian: Sergeant Metallic, whom nobody has ever beaten. His voice booms over the loudspeakers to taunt the boy, who heads up the stairs without hesitation. The mayor is held prisoner on the top floor.
Metallic is huge, and sure he can crush Goku with one punch. Goku dodges by leaping to the ceiling, lands on his shoulder and knocks him down. He thinks he is done, but the giant gets back up behind him, grabs him and starts squeezing. Goku wriggles free, and when Metallic fires a missile at him from his mouth, he realizes it is time to get serious.
The Kamehameha hits dead on and blows the sergeant's head clean off, along with most of his shirt. But the body keeps moving. Under the skin there are wires and circuits: Metallic is a robot. The colossus launches a rocket fist at Goku, and the fight goes on with Power Pole strikes and piercing blows. Finally Goku charges headfirst and bursts right through the robot's chest, yet even that is not enough. As he winds up a second Kamehameha, Metallic freezes on his own: his battery has run out. Goku, a little disappointed, takes the stairs to the fourth floor.
Back in Jingle Village, Suno thinks of him and prays for his safe return.
Our take
This is the episode where the saga changes rhythm. After the escapes and chases, Toriyama comes up with a very simple formula, the tower to be climbed floor by floor, one opponent at a time: a pattern that will return, for instance, with the fighters at Fortuneteller Baba's palace. It works because each floor is a small self-contained story with a clearly defined enemy.
Metallic is an open tribute to The Terminator, released two years earlier, and the headless body still marching forward is a small horror moment for a young audience. The resolution, on the other hand, is a joke: he is not beaten by strength but by skipped maintenance. It is a typical Toriyama punchline, deflating the myth of the unbeatable enemy right after building it.
The anime stretches the fight compared to the manga, where it ends shortly after the decapitation. The most interesting addition is Goku's final blow piercing the robot: an image that will return, far more seriously, in the battle against King Piccolo.
Trivia
- The episode adapts chapters 58 and 59 of Akira Toriyama's manga and drew a 26.8% ratings share in Japan.
- In the anime we learn that Metallic's battery had not been changed since the previous spring.
- In the Funimation dub, Goku greets one of Metallic's comebacks with "You're back!", a wink at the Terminator's famous line.
Did you know? Viz's translation of the manga renamed him "Full Metal Jacket", after a type of bullet and the 1987 war film.
Characters
- Goku
- Sergeant Metallic
- General White and Ninja Murasaki (on the monitors)
- Muscle Tower guards
- Suno