Episode 88 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on November 18, 1987 and known in the English dub as Yamcha's Big Break, settles the first quarterfinal of the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. Yamcha plays every card he has against Tien Shinhan, including one nobody saw coming, but the three-eyed fighter is on another level. And once the match is already decided, he does something Goku will never forgive.
Summary
Yamcha unleashes the Neo Wolf Fang Fist, a barrage of strikes that seems to work at first: Tien is forced back and ends up with a cut on his cheek. Then he plants his feet, focuses his strength and absorbs everything without budging. In the brawl that follows the momentum slowly shifts his way, and Yamcha, under growing pressure, goes for broke.
In front of a stunned crowd he brings his hands together and fires a Kamehameha. Tien deflects it straight back at him; Yamcha leaps out of its path, but his opponent is already above him and kicks him into the ground. Yamcha lies still, out cold. The match should be over, yet Tien drops onto him knee first and snaps his leg, while the announcer stares in horror at the unnatural angle of the limb.
Puar turns into a flying carpet and carries his friend off to Papaya Island's hospital. A furious Goku warns Tien that he will pay for this; Tien just smiles and walks off with Chiaotzu, convinced he has eliminated the Turtle School's strongest student.
The first match ends the day. The group visits Yamcha in the hospital, where Goku promises to beat Tien for him, then stops for dinner at a restaurant. At the next table, though, sit the Crane students, celebrating their win and badmouthing Yamcha. Goku is about to lose his temper, but Roshi holds him back; when the Crane Hermit keeps goading, Master Roshi answers by breaking wind, and the two old men end up squabbling like children, to everyone's embarrassment.
The next morning Roshi puts on his Jackie Chun disguise again and joins Goku and Krillin at the arena. There he runs into Man-Wolf, his next opponent, who flatly announces that he intends to kill him. Jackie has no idea why.
Our take
This is the episode that made Tien the most hated villain of the original series. The win itself was in the air; it is the broken leg of an unconscious opponent that makes him unforgivable, and gives Goku a personal reason to go all the way. Without this cruelty, his later redemption would carry far less weight.
Yamcha's Kamehameha is a well-earned twist. Until now it was Roshi's and Goku's technique, and seeing it in the bandit's hands sums up his three years at the Turtle School in a single moment. That it is not enough is the first bitter chapter of a long story: from here on Yamcha becomes, through no fault of his own, the guy who loses the fights that matter.
The second half slows down again, but it delivers some of the most likeable group scenes of the tournament, with the two schools forced to dine side by side.
Trivia
- The episode adapts chapter 117 from page 9 and the first thirteen pages of chapter 118 of the manga. It drew an 18.9% ratings share in Japan.
- In the manga Tien shuts down the Neo Wolf Fang Fist on its first try; in the anime Yamcha at least manages to graze him.
- The remark about the leg bending the wrong way, made here by the announcer, belongs to Oolong in the manga.
- In the manga the whole tournament takes place in a single day; the anime spreads it over four. That is why the hospital visit, the restaurant dinner and the morning run-in with Man-Wolf are all original.
- In the dub Yamcha shouts that his attack is for Nam; in the Japanese version Nam is never mentioned again after his defeat.
- Daigoro Kurigashira, a character from Toriyama's earlier manga Dr. Slump, can be spotted in the crowd.
Did you know? In the Japanese version Goku steps away from the restaurant spat because he needs to pee; the Funimation dub turned it into a more polite trip to wash his hands.
Characters
- Yamcha
- Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu
- Goku
- Krillin, Bulma, Puar and Oolong
- Master Roshi (Jackie Chun)
- Master Shen, the Crane Hermit
- Man-Wolf