Episode 10 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on May 1, 1996 and titled Dance and Attack in Funimation's dub, hands the saga one of its strangest battles. After fending off Beehay's giant worms, Goku, Trunks and Pan find themselves dancing against their will, hypnotized by the Para Para Brothers' music. They break free, but a button pressed at the wrong moment splits the group right when things seemed settled.
Summary
Aboard the heroes' ship, the Para Para Brothers have searched every corner without finding the ball, and conclude that one of the trio must be carrying it. That leaves them in the odd position of cheering for their enemies: if the Mouma eat them, the ball disappears too, and Mutchy Mutchy will turn the brothers into dolls. Outside, Goku works out how to handle the worms, passes a few tips on to Trunks and Pan, and before long the monsters are out cold.
That is when the brothers show themselves and demand the ball. Goku refuses. So the Para Para Brothers peel off their armor, which turns into a set of stereos, and hit play. A wild dance begins, and anyone who hears it has to copy the moves: Goku, Trunks and Pan start flailing and cannot stop, while two of the brothers keep dancing and Bon Para takes the chance to pummel them, even pinching Pan's cheeks to force a smile onto her face.
Rescue comes from the last place anyone expected. The Mouma come to and resurface, and their arrival startles the brothers into cutting the music. Released from the trance, the trio flattens their three opponents with a single punch each and ties them up.
That still leaves the stolen ball. Trunks, Pan and Giru search the brothers' ship and find nothing, because it has already been delivered to Luud. Trunks steps off to wait for the prisoners to wake up and talk; Pan stays aboard with Giru and, fiddling with the controls, accidentally starts the launch sequence. The autopilot carries the two of them straight toward Planet Luud, leaving Goku and Trunks staring at the sky.
Our take
An attack that forces your opponents to dance is the kind of idea only the lightest side of Dragon Ball can get away with, and the charm is that the show does not even try to explain it. The Para Para Brothers are not strong, they are ridiculous, and yet they tie up three Saiyans with a sound system: a reminder that, at this stage, GT wants to resemble the adventures of the original Dragon Ball far more than the battles of Z.
The gag holds up for a few minutes and then starts repeating itself, and leaning on the worms to return at just the right moment is a lazy way out. The Mouma section works better, with Goku showing the instincts of a seasoned fighter coaching the others through a fight, even while he looks like a little kid.
The ending, with Pan flying off alone by accident, is a classic adventure-serial hook. It is also perfectly in character: her impulsiveness already launched the whole journey, and now it kicks off the next chapter.
Trivia
- Written by Aya Matsui and directed (storyboard) by Hiroyuki Kakudō, with Kazuya Hisada as animation director and Tomoko Yoshida as art director.
- It drew a 14.6% share in Japan. In the United States it aired on March 26, 2005, back to back with episode 9.
- In Funimation's dub Bon Para's rapping is not performed by his regular voice actor, Brad Jackson, but by Chas Naylor, a production assistant at the studio.
- Also in the dub, one of Luud's followers reports "irregulars in Sector 7G", most likely a nod to Homer Simpson's workstation at the Springfield nuclear plant.
- The brothers' hypnotic dance became a Super Skill in the Xenoverse games, under the name Dancing Parapara.
Characters
- Goku, Trunks and Pan
- Giru
- The Para Para Brothers: Bon Para and his two brothers
- The Mouma