Episode 42 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on December 10, 1986 and known in the English dub as The Secret of Dr. Flappe, is the epilogue to the Jingle Village adventure. The Japanese title cheers on Hatchan, Android 8, who has one last problem to solve: the bomb inside him. Removing it means visiting his creator, Dr. Flappe, but along the way an old enemy everyone thought was buried under Muscle Tower resurfaces.
Summary
At Suno's house there is a big celebratory dinner, and Goku eats for three. The girl would like him and Hatchan to stay, but Goku has to move on, and only then does he remember he never found the ball he came all this way for. Hatchan has it. The android found it long ago in an ice cave near the tower but never handed it over to White: he knew that once the general had the ball, he would wipe out the villagers. Goku is happy, even though it is not his grandfather's four-star ball.
Hatchan cannot stay either: with a bomb inside him, he would put everyone at risk. Suno has an idea: Dr. Flappe, a scientist living alone in the snow, could remove it and maybe fix Goku's radar too, broken during the fights in the tower. The three set off.
From the ruins of Muscle Tower, meanwhile, Ninja Murasaki emerges, bent on revenge. He follows them in secret, but his bad luck holds: crossing a frozen lake he falls through ice cracked by Hatchan's weight, and later, disguised as a bear, he tumbles down a slope and turns into a giant snowball.
Dr. Flappe recognizes Hatchan at once. He built him back when he worked for the Red Ribbon Army, before leaving it. As he prepares for the operation he finds Murasaki in his room: the ninja takes Suno hostage and forces the scientist to steal Goku's backpack, where the Dragon Balls should be. Goku notices and chases Murasaki, who flees on a snowmobile. A Kamehameha triggers an avalanche that buries the ninja, and Goku recovers the bag. Inside there is only his packed lunch: the Dragon Balls were left at Suno's house.
With great patience Flappe extracts the bomb from Hatchan's chest. Goku throws it away just in time: it lands right on the head of Murasaki, who has just dug himself out of the snow, and explodes. The radar, however, is too complicated for the scientist. Only one person can fix it: Bulma.
Our take
This episode is almost entirely an anime invention, and it shows: the plot is an excuse for one last adventure with Suno and Hatchan before the goodbyes. But it has heart. Hatchan's reveal, that he hid the ball to protect the village, closes his arc in the best possible way: he was on the right side all along, even when he looked like just another enemy weapon.
Murasaki, reduced to a Wile E. Coyote in a ninja suit, supplies a few gags and a rather abrupt end, one that weighs more than the light tone suggests. It is one of the few moments in this stretch where comedy and Red Ribbon violence rub against each other uncomfortably.
Then there is the Dr. Flappe problem. By making him Hatchan's creator, the anime contradicts what the manga would establish years later about the Red Ribbon androids. Later official material patched things up by making him a collaborator of Dr. Gero.
Trivia
- The episode adapts the opening pages of chapter 67 of Akira Toriyama's manga; the whole trip to Dr. Flappe is original. It drew a 23.0% ratings share in Japan.
- It is the last episode with the Goku-and-Oolong eyecatches used since the very first one.
- In the original broadcast, half of the preview again promoted the ticket contest for the first Dragon Ball movie.
Did you know? At the end, Dr. Flappe privately admits to a detail he did not have the heart to tell Hatchan: he was the one who installed the bomb in the first place.
Characters
- Goku
- Android 8 (Hatchan)
- Suno and her parents
- Dr. Flappe
- Ninja Murasaki