Episode 56 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on August 20, 1997 and titled The Three-Star Dragon in Funimation's dub, stages the saga's first truly chivalrous duel and then wrecks it with a gatecrasher. While Goku and Nuova Shenron, the Four-Star Dragon, fight on equal terms, his twin brother Eis Shenron arrives: master of ice, and not burdened by a single scruple.
Summary
The fight between Super Saiyan 4 Goku and Nuova Shenron resumes among the buildings of a city. A Kamehameha collides with a fireball, and the blast hurls cars into the walls. The dragon is faster, the Saiyan stronger. Goku tries to confuse him with afterimages while charging a 10x Kamehameha, but Nuova simply closes his eyes, senses his energy and hits him before he can fire.
The turning point comes inside an abandoned building, where Goku tricks his opponent and backs him into a corner. Nuova asks to be finished off. Goku refuses: earlier, the dragon had spared Pan at his request, so now they are even. They can start over, and this time for real.
As both charge another attack, an icy beam strikes Goku's right arm and freezes it. On a rooftop stands Eis Shenron, the Three-Star Dragon and Nuova's older brother. He is holding Pan's backpack: during the duel he attacked the girl and took the Dragon Balls. Goku rushes down to the street and finds his injured granddaughter, who apologizes for losing them and then passes out.
Eis has no intention of fighting fair. He freezes Goku one limb at a time while scolding his brother for being soft; Nuova replies that this is his code and that he can win on his own. Even with only his legs free, Goku keeps defending himself, until the ice locks him up completely. Eis then orders Nuova to deliver the final blow. Nuova charges his fire attack, but uses it to melt the ice instead. Free again, Goku promises to beat Eis in ten seconds. Then he slips on the ice and revises his estimate: five will do.
Our take
The episode runs on a simple, effective contrast: fire and ice, but above all honor and cowardice. Nuova is the first Shadow Dragon who respects the rules of combat, and the show builds him patiently: he spares Pan, asks to be killed when he loses, refuses to strike a helpless opponent. Eis is his perfect negative, and making them twins sharpens an idea the saga will carry to the end: the negative energy built up in the Dragon Balls does not wear just one face.
It is also a different Goku from the one who opened the series. Throughout this arc he fights almost entirely as a Super Saiyan 4, with Pan as his only companion, and here he can afford to be a sportsman. His "now we're even" to Nuova is pure Goku, a fighter who cannot imagine a victory that was not earned fairly. The ten-seconds gag at the end lightens the mood without deflating the tension, and it sets the stage for one of the darkest episodes in GT.
Trivia
- Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with Takeo Ide as animation director.
- According to the Dragon Ball GT Perfect Files, Eis was born from the wish that erased the memory of Majin Buu's rampage from the people of Earth, and Nuova from the wish that restored King Piccolo's youth. In the show itself, Eis never says which wish created him.
- In Japanese the twins are voiced by Kaneto Shiozawa (Eis) and Ken Yamaguchi (Nuova).
- GT took a week off after this episode: Episode 57 aired on September 3, 1997.
- The Japanese names are simply numbers read the Chinese way: San Shinron means "Three-Star Dragon" and Sū Shinron "Four-Star Dragon". Funimation replaced them with new names, most of which hint at each dragon's element: Eis is German for "ice".
Characters
- Super Saiyan 4 Goku
- Nuova Shenron and Eis Shenron
- Pan