The fourth episode of Dragon Ball, first aired in Japan on March 19, 1986, introduces Oolong, the shapeshifting pig who would stick around for the rest of the franchise. The Japanese title means "Oolong, the Kidnapping Monster"; Funimation's dub called it "Oolong the Terrible", and in Harmony Gold's unreleased version the pig was renamed Mao Mao. It is also the first episode with no sign of Pilaf or his henchmen.
Recap
Bulma is still sulking about not being able to ride the Flying Nimbus and, distracted, rides her motorcycle off a slope. One of the Dragon Balls falls from her bag and starts to glow: just ahead lies a village, and that is where the radar was leading them. The place looks deserted. Goku breaks down a door and a terrified man brings an axe down on his head, leaving nothing more than a bump: he thought Goku was Oolong, come to take his daughter.
The villagers explain. Oolong is a monster who can change his shape. He has already kidnapped three girls and now demands a fourth. An old woman in the village owns the Six-Star Ball, a family heirloom she refuses to give up. Bulma proposes a deal: she and Goku will beat the monster and bring the girls home, and in return they get the ball.
The plan is simple: Goku dresses as the bride and waits for Oolong in the girl's place. The monster shows up as a demon in a tuxedo with a bouquet, then turns into a handsome young man who makes Bulma swoon. The ruse falls apart when the "bride" needs to pee and does it standing up. Oolong becomes a giant bull, but the moment Goku squares up, he bolts. Outside the village Goku finds only a little pig, who points him the wrong way: it is Oolong himself, in his true form. His secret is that his transformations only last five minutes.
Exposed, the pig tries to bluff, daring Goku to break three bricks with one hand. Goku breaks them with one finger. Oolong escapes as a bat and then as a rocket, with Goku chasing him on the Nimbus, until the five minutes run out and he drops from the sky. Once caught, he leads everyone to his "shack", which is actually a mansion. The kidnapped girls are perfectly fine: they live in luxury, boss him around like a servant, and Oolong begs their parents to take them back. The old woman keeps her word and hands over the Six-Star Ball.
Our review
This is the first episode built as a self-contained adventure: one village, one monster, one plan, one final twist. The twist is the best part. We expect an ogre and get a cowardly pig; we expect desperate captives and find three spoiled girls who have bled their kidnapper dry. It is Toriyama's comedy at its finest, tearing down fairy-tale clichés while acting them out.
Oolong is also an open nod to the Chinese classic Journey to the West, the novel the series springs from: he is Toriyama's take on Zhu Bajie, the greedy, lazy pig who travels with the Monkey King. His name, like Puar's, comes from a type of tea.
Director Minoru Okazaki gets the most out of the transformations, which become a string of visual gags: the dapper demon, the heartthrob, the bull, the rocket. Differences from the manga are minor. In the comic the village is found with the radar, without Bulma's tumble, and the old woman hands over the ball as the group sets off for the mansion, not after checking that the girls are safe.
Trivia
- With a 27.9% share, this is the most-watched of the first seven episodes in Japan.
- Oolong's mansion bears the characters 烏龍, the name of oolong tea in Chinese and Japanese.
- The five-minute limit has a reason: Oolong was expelled from shapeshifting school for stealing the teacher's panties, before he could finish his training.
Did you know? Years later, in an episode of Dragon Ball GT, it is Trunks who dresses as a bride to trick a monster threatening a village, and Goku remembers doing the same thing with Oolong.