Episode 20 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on July 31, 1996 and titled The Source of Rilldo's Power in Funimation's dub, reveals what makes General Rilldo so dangerous. The mutant does not just fight on M-2: he is bound to the planet's metal and can bend it to his will. While Goku looks for a weak spot, Pan keeps trying to get into the tower where Giru is hiding.
Summary
Round two between a Super Saiyan Goku and Hyper Meta-Rilldo opens with a surprise. Everything around the general turns to metal, then Rilldo sinks into the ground and disappears. When he resurfaces he is silver from head to toe, and the landscape around Goku answers to him: metal trees seize the Saiyan and force him to abandon the Kamehameha he was charging.
Over at the tower, Pan refuses to quit. Every time she gets inside, a removal system liquefies the floor and walls and spits her back out. She keeps going back in, blasts the robots in her way and runs into a timid scholar robot who offers her a deal: he will shut the system down if she protects him. Dr. Myuu, meanwhile, is watching the duel on his lab monitors and could not be happier. Standing over Trunks' slab, he savors the idea of studying a living Saiyan and promises the boy he will have company soon.
With the system offline, Pan goes after Giru. Realizing he is outnumbered, the robot slips through a wall and returns with reinforcements; while the guards keep Pan busy, he triggers the backup system. Pan is thrown out of the building once again, but this time she is not alone: the Black Star Dragon Balls and Giru's medal come tumbling out after her, and she has no idea how.
Back on the battlefield Goku is holding his own, but the general calmly explains why it does not matter: as long as a single piece of metal remains on the surface of M-2, he cannot be destroyed.
Our take
A villain who is effectively the planet itself is one of the more interesting ideas in this stretch of GT. Rilldo does not need to chase Goku; he just turns the ground into a trap. The Japanese title talks about a tsunami of metal, and that is exactly the feeling the episode leaves, of Goku fighting his surroundings more than an opponent. The drawback is that the rule is stated more than shown, and the fight spins its wheels a bit while waiting for someone to find a counter.
The liveliest part of the episode belongs to Pan. The ejection loop, with Pan stubbornly marching back in every time, and her alliance with a cowardly robot bring back the adventure tone of the first sixteen episodes for a few minutes, and lighten a duel that would otherwise be stuck in a stalemate. There is also a detail sharp-eyed viewers will only appreciate later: the Dragon Balls that follow Pan out of the tower do not get there by accident.
And there is the irony of the Myuu scene, the scientist gloating over a motionless slab, sure he has his prize in hand. Next week shows just how misplaced that confidence was.
Trivia
- Written by Daisuke Yajima, storyboarded by Shigeyasu Yamauchi and directed by Hidehiko Kadota, with Yūji Hakamada as animation director.
- It aired after a week off: on July 24, 1996 Fuji TV ran Atlanta Olympics highlights instead. Because of the Olympic schedule, this episode also went out fifteen minutes early, at 6:45 p.m.
- It drew a 9.9% share in Japan.
- Its original American airdate was December 5, 2003.
- In Funimation's dub, Goku's scream as he powers up after Rilldo explains that all of M-2's metal is his weapon is recycled from the original Dragon Ball episode in which Goku punches through King Piccolo.
Characters
- Goku and Pan
- Trunks (as a metal slab)
- Giru and the scholar robot
- General Rilldo (Hyper Meta-Rilldo)
- Dr. Myuu and M-2's robot guards