Episode 6 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on March 13, 1996 and titled Like Pulling Teeth in Funimation's dub, is the first real stop on the hunt for the Black Star Dragon Balls. Following the radar the little robot swallowed, Goku, Trunks and Pan land on Monmaasu, a planet where everything from the insects to the trees is absurdly oversized. The four-star ball is right there for the taking, until it ends up in the worst possible place: a giant's mouth.
Summary
With Imecka behind them, the group touches down on a world that looks a lot like Earth, only scaled up: giant butterflies, beetles big enough to ride, meadows of outsized flowers. Everyone wanders off in a different direction. Pan finds a bee costume and goes flying with the butterflies, Goku discovers an apple tree loaded with enormous fruit and starts eating, and Trunks follows the radar with the robot.
It is under that very tree that Goku and Trunks spot the four-star ball lying in the grass. They never get to pick it up. An apple drops from a branch, lands on the ball and carries it off lodged in its flesh, and a gigantic hawk snatches the fruit and flies away with it, straight to its owner, a giant who lives in the woods. Before they can follow, a scream rings out. It's Pan.
In her costume, the local bees have mistaken her for their queen, and the swarm has hauled her off to the hive. When she tries to leave, they chase her. Goku and Trunks clear up the misunderstanding the practical way: they find the real queen caught in a spider's web, take down the spider and set her free.
Goku's nose, drawn by the smell of grilled fish, leads everyone to the giant's camp. The apple is still there, but before the trio can grab it the giant bites into it. Moments later he is howling and thrashing: the ball has wedged itself into a decayed tooth. Goku flies into his mouth and knocks the rotten tooth out with a Kamehameha, ball and all. With their first Black Star Dragon Ball on board, the group heads back into space, and before leaving the robot officially gets his name: Giru.
Our take
No episode states GT's intentions more openly than this one. The model is the original Dragon Ball, the one built on travel and discovery: no villain, no fight, just a planet with one strange rule and a problem to be solved with a bit of ingenuity. The payoff works because it flips expectations. The Kamehameha, the franchise's signature move, becomes a dentist's pliers, and the giant is not a monster to defeat but a big guy with a toothache.
The cost is structure. The bee subplot pads the running time and keeps the cast apart for much of the episode, so the pacing lurches along. Still, it left behind an image with real staying power: bee-costume Pan has become one of the character's most recognizable looks, enough to earn her a spot in several video games.
The small beat with Giru's name is worth noting too. The robot has been buzzing around the heroes since episode 3, but this is where he stops being a gadget and becomes the fourth member of the crew, with an identity of his own.
Trivia
- Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed (storyboard) by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Naoki Miyahara as animation director and Tomoko Yoshida as art director.
- It drew a 16.0% share in Japan. American audiences first saw it on March 12, 2005, as one of the "Lost Episodes" Funimation had skipped the first time around.
- Bee-costume Pan is a playable version of the character in Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle, Dragon Ball Legends and Dragon Ball Heroes.
- Funimation's original broadcast deepened the giant's voice; the remastered release plays it at its original pitch.
- The first Black Star Dragon Ball the group recovers has four stars, just like the ball Grandpa Gohan left Goku at the very start of the saga. The original Dragon Balls and the GT set share the same one-to-seven numbering.
Characters
- Goku, Trunks and Pan
- Giru
- The giant and his hawk
- The queen bee and her swarm
- The spider