Episode 53 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on March 4, 1987 and known in the English dub as Blue, Black and Blue, is the duel between Goku and General Blue in the heart of the pirates' lair. The Japanese title puts the spotlight on the general's secret weapon, the glowing stare that has already taken Krillin out of the fight. In the end, though, the real hero is the smallest onlooker of all: a mouse.
Summary
Goku demands that Blue leave Krillin and Bulma alone and deal with him instead. Between giggles, the general pumps up his muscles to intimidate him, but the boy says he just looks like a balloon. Bulma tries to help by pointing at something on the ceiling to distract Blue; the one who looks up, however, is Goku, and he takes a kick square on.
The boy gets back up and takes control: he dodges, hits Blue in the stomach and finishes with a kick to the jaw that loosens one of the general's teeth. Furious, Blue falls back on his specialty. His eyes glow and Goku freezes, at the mercy of his blows. With the cave shaking harder and harder, the general decides to speed things up: he pulls a shotgun out of a capsule, presses it to Goku's head and asks where the Dragon Ball is. Bulma admits that, according to the radar, it is in the pool nearby. Blue thanks them on behalf of the Red Ribbon Army and gets ready to shoot anyway.
At that moment a mouse scurries past his feet. Blue, who cannot stand rodents, loses his focus and the paralysis wears off. Goku does not waste the chance: when the general tries to lock eyes with him again, Goku jabs them with two fingers and then sends him into the wall with a punch, knocking him out.
The cave begins to collapse. Bulma and Krillin run for the pirates' submarine, while Goku dives into the pool. At the bottom he finds the Three-Star Ball among the rest of the treasure, but brings up only the ball. Blue comes to, sees the gold and thinks he is rich, just before vanishing under a rockslide. Goku races through crumbling tunnels looking for the way to the dock, while at the sub Bulma decides they cannot wait any longer and wants to leave without him, much to Krillin's anger.
Our take
This is the natural conclusion of the Blue fight and one of its best-remembered scenes. The mouse saving Goku is classic Toriyama humor: the Red Ribbon's most fearsome general, with powers no one else has, falls apart over a cartoonish phobia. It is a gag, but it says a lot about the character, all looks and control, who crumbles the moment control slips away.
The fight itself is well paced. Goku wins on the physical level without question, and the only way Blue can turn things around is by cheating. The eye poke, fingers spread like scissors, is the perfect answer: Goku neutralizes the stare in the most direct way possible.
The ending, with the escape from the cave and Bulma ready to abandon her friend, sets up the next episode nicely. Her decision does not make her look good, but it fits the survival instinct we have seen from her many times.
Trivia
- The episode adapts chapter 77 from page 12, chapter 78 and the first two pages of chapter 79 of Akira Toriyama's manga. It drew a 26.6% ratings share in Japan.
- In the manga the Dragon Ball sits under a rock; in the anime it is lodged in a skeleton's mouth at the bottom of the pool. Blue waking up in front of the treasure is also an anime addition.
- It is the first episode to use music written for the first Dragon Ball movie, Curse of the Blood Rubies.
- The dub title is a pun on "black and blue", the color of bruises.
Did you know? In the Japanese version, Bulma's attempt to distract Blue involves shouting that there are pandas having a picnic on the ceiling.