Episode 45 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on January 7, 1987 and known in the English dub as Danger in the Air, is the first episode of the new year and closes the block the American releases call the Red Ribbon Army Saga. It is an adventure almost entirely invented by the anime, set in an amusement park suspended above the city, where the thief Hasky tries to make off with Goku's Dragon Balls using a high-altitude trap.
Summary
The group enters the new amusement park, Dreamland, trailed at a distance by Hasky and her two henchmen. The mood is not great: Bulma sees girls making eyes at Yamcha and storms off. The thief, meanwhile, works on her plan. During a ride she tries to hit Goku with a walnut, but he catches it in midair.
Hasky changes tactics. She stages a mugging by her own men, gets rescued by Goku and, out of gratitude, offers to read his fortune, claiming to be a fortune-teller. Her "visions" are suspiciously accurate: Goku has been to Muscle Tower and carries two balls hidden in his clothes. Goku, naive as ever, shows her his "balls" by dropping his pants. Then he hears noises behind the tent, surprises the two henchmen and chases them.
Before leaving he entrusts the Dragon Balls to Yamcha. It is the moment Hasky was waiting for: she turns on the charm, until Yamcha trips and uncovers the real fortune-teller hidden in the tent. Unmasked, Hasky attacks him. Just then Bulma walks in, sees the two tangled up, thinks they are kissing and hurls a crate at Yamcha's head. Hasky seizes the chance, grabs the balls, ties Yamcha up and, before leaving, reveals she has hidden a bomb in the park: it is in the hand of a statue in the central square.
Goku returns after knocking out the henchmen, and Yamcha manages to warn him, Puar and Oolong. A long chase begins: Goku on the Flying Nimbus, Hasky in her flying vehicle. Finally he pins her to a wall with his Power Pole, destroys the bomb's remote just in time and recovers the balls, with a bit of tickling as interrogation.
Back at Capsule Corporation, Bulma slaps Yamcha and announces she is leaving with Goku: she will use the Dragon Balls to wish for a better boyfriend. The two fly off into the sunset.
Our take
This is the lightest episode of the whole saga, and it is not ashamed of it. Hasky is a character straight out of an eighties action cartoon, a seductive thief with disguises and gadgets, and her challenge to Goku is never truly dangerous. The bomb in the park creates movement more than tension.
The heart of the episode is the comic triangle of Bulma, Yamcha and their misunderstandings. Bulma mistaking an assault for a kiss and answering with a crate is Bulma at her most typical, and her plan to wish for a better boyfriend sounds, in hindsight, like an accidental prophecy.
In plot terms, though, this is pure filler: only Goku and Bulma's final departure comes from the manga. In the comic they leave at noon, after Bulma's father realizes his daughter has taken his capsule case by mistake, a detail that pays off in the next episode.
Trivia
- The episode is almost entirely anime-original and drew a 24.9% ratings share in Japan.
- In the American DVD releases this episode closes the Red Ribbon Army Saga; the General Blue Saga begins with the next one.
- The Blue Water dub titled it Mayhem in Dreamland!
Did you know? Hasky is an anime-only character: in Akira Toriyama's manga the Red Ribbon Army never hires professional thieves, and the only outsider it brings in is the assassin Mercenary Tao (Tao Pai Pai in Japanese).