Episode 38 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on November 12, 1986 and known in the English dub as Five Murasakis, wraps up the fight on the fourth floor of Muscle Tower. Ninja Murasaki, convinced his boomerang has finished Goku off, quickly has to think again and plays his last card: a ninja technique that seems to multiply him. The trick, though, is far more down-to-earth than it looks.
Summary
In the control room, White and Murasaki celebrate: the boy is not moving. A moment later Goku gets up rubbing the back of his head, and the ninja takes to his heels. As he runs he hurls a volley of throwing stars, which all lodge in the tree Goku ducks behind. Goku collects them and throws them back; Murasaki flips up a floor mat and blocks them all. Convinced his opponent is out of ammunition, he starts taunting him, and the last star hits him square in the forehead.
In his cell, the mayor of Jingle Village hears the fighting. The soldier bringing his meal explains with a sneer that it is just a little boy who came to rescue him and will soon be torn to pieces. The old man, outraged, asks whether he would treat his own son that way.
Murasaki's escape stops at a pond. The ninja puts on floating shoes and walks across the water, then warns Goku that the pond is full of piranhas and, to prove it, tosses in a fish that is devoured in seconds. Goku takes a run-up and jumps the pond as if it were a puddle.
Desperate, Murasaki resorts to his secret technique, the art of multiplication. The lights dim and suddenly there are five Murasakis, each with a different weapon: swords, guns, blowpipes, chains. Goku barely dodges, cannot tell which one is real and takes refuge in a tree. Then the ninjas give themselves away by talking to each other: they are not copies of one man but quintuplet brothers. Trick exposed, Goku uses his afterimage technique to take out three of them at once and flattens a fourth with his staff. The last Murasaki runs to a locked cell and releases his ace in the hole: Android 8.
Our take
The episode rests on a single idea, but it is an excellent one. The multiplication technique is a staple of ninja stories, and Toriyama dismantles it in the simplest, funniest way possible: there is no magic, just five identical brothers. It is the same irony that runs through all of Muscle Tower, where every threat turns out to be sillier than expected.
How Goku wins is interesting too. The afterimage he picked up watching Jackie Chun at the tournament becomes a real weapon here, used as if it were second nature. It is a small sign of growth: the boy soaks up everything he sees.
The anime's best addition is the exchange between the mayor and his jailer. It is brief, but it gives a voice to the Red Ribbon's victims and reminds viewers that behind the tower's comedy there is a man held prisoner and a village held hostage.
Trivia
- The episode adapts the second half of chapter 61 and chapter 62 of Akira Toriyama's manga and drew a 28.0% ratings share in Japan, the third highest of the saga.
- The scenes of Suno with her father, who comes home and hears about Goku's mission, are an anime addition.
- The Blue Water dub went with Multi-Murasakis vs Goku! as its title.
Did you know? The shoes Murasaki uses to walk on water recall the mizugumo, a legendary device attributed to Japanese ninjas for crossing moats and ponds.
Characters
- Goku
- Ninja Murasaki and his brothers
- General White
- The mayor of Jingle Village
- Suno and her parents