Long before Goku fought his Saiyen brother Raditz, he lived alone in the wilderness. Using his martial arts skill, he found his own food and chopped wood with his bare hands. On one particular day, as Goku was dragging a big fish back to his house, he had an encounter with a girl driving a car. This was the first time Goku had ever seen a girl, and the first time he had seen a human since his grandpa passed away. Goku invites the girl, whose name is Bulma, to his place for lunch. When they arrive at Goku’s house, Bulma sees an orange ball sitting on his shelf and exclaims, “Oh my goodness, it’s a dragon ball!”

Bulma pulls out two more that look just like it. She explains that there are seven of these balls in all, and if one manages to gather all seven of them, they can summon a dragon named Shenron (or Shen Long), and make a wish. Bulma wants to wish for a boyfriend. She asks Goku if she can borrow his ball, but he refuses, so Bulma asks if Goku wants to come along on the journey with her. Convinced it will make his Grandpa happy, Goku agrees to go with her.

Bulma uses a device called a dragon radar to pinpoint the location of the next ball. She pulls out a small capsule, presses the button on top, and it turns into a motorcycle. Goku and Bulma hop on and take off. After a brief encounter with a Pterodactyl, they resume their journey.

Will Bulma gather all seven dragon balls and make her wish? Let’s find out now!

Let’s Stop for the Night

After riding the motorcycle for a while, the sun begins to set, so Goku and Bulma decide to stop for the night.

“This looks like a good place to camp,” says Goku, but Bulma has other plans. She pulls out another one of her Hoi-Poi capsules and tosses it. This time, it turns into a small house. Goku enters, but is bamboozled by everything he sees: the lights, the TV, and the remote.

Bulma notices the horrible stench eminating from Goku’s body, so she sends him into the bath. Goku’s never heard the word before, so Bulma has to show him what it is. She leads Goku into the bathroom, where he undresses and hops in the tub. Bulma washes and shampoos Goku’s hair. Then, she tries to remove his tail so she can wash his back.

“That’s okay, I can wash my own back,” says Goku. He uses his tail to grab the sponge and scrubs his back. Bulma screams out loud. At first, she thought Goku’s tail was fake, but now she knows it’s real. After the bath, Bulma sits dazed on her bed while she asks Goku why he has a tail.

“Well, I don’t really know why. I just know that all boys have ’em,” explains Goku.

Bulma is certain that’s not right, but then again, she’s never seen a naked guy before.

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t say all boys, because my Grandpa didn’t have a tail,” analyzes Goku, “But my Grandpa was a very odd fellow, you know!”

(He’s one to talk. Also, in case you were wondering, this conversation is an innuendo.)

Bulma decides it’s her turn to take a bath. As she soaks in the suds, she turns to her side and is surprised to see Goku standing there watching her. (I guess privacy isn’t a thing out in the woods.) Goku says he came to help scrub her back, but Bulma says she can do it herself and kicks Goku out of the bathroom.

After the bath, Goku tells Bulma he’s hungry.

We now cut to Emperor Pilaf in his castle, who has summoned Shu to ask if he has brought him another Dragon Ball. Being a typical stooge, he hasn’t. Mai descends from the ceiling and reports some “valuable information” related to the Dragon Balls. She heard about a man who disappeared after he saw a bright light deep within the canyon. Emperor Pilaf suspects that light might be emanating from a dragon ball, so he orders Mai and Shu to retrieve it.

Goku’s Delectable Dinner

Back at the Hoi-Poi house, Bulma and Goku are having dinner, but Goku complains about how the bread doesn’t have any flavor, and the soup is too bitter. (The soup is actually coffee.) So, Goku decides to go out and fetch his own food.

After hopping through the tree tops, Goku finds a centipede that he thinks Bulma would like. (Definitely doesn’t understand people, does he? Let alone girls.) He looks up and sees a big bird flying through the sky, so he decides to claim it as his main course. What Goku doesn’t know is that the “big bird” is actually a small plane piloted by Mai and Shu. They land the plane and enter a canyon littered with the skeletons of dead animals. Goku finds them and claims the bird he saw as his, telling Mai and Shu to stay away.

Suddenly, a large pack of wolves comes out of the nearby cave. They begin to attack the three of them. Goku beats them all with his fists and his stick. Mai and Shu hop back in their plane and flee the scene. Goku sees the “bird” he claimed getting away, so he chases after it while running from the wolves. He extends his power pole to break free from the pack and launches himself into the air, kicking the plane, and sending it crashing into the forest below.

Goku returns to the capsule house and presents his findings. He holds up the centipede and turns around, showing a knocked-out wolf attached to his Power Pole. Needless to say, Bulma doesn’t find that very appealing.

After Goku cooks up the wolf and munches it down, the two of them prepare for bed. Goku is excited to share the bed with Bulma, but that’s the last thing on her mind. She makes Goku sleep on the floor, which confuses him.

As Bulma brushes her teeth, she asks Goku why he lived with his grandpa and what happened to his parents.

“I’m not sure what happened,” says Goku, “My Grandpa found me on a mountainside on a little bed of moss when I was just a baby, so he picked me up and took me home.”

They keep talking about Goku’s tail, but Goku falls asleep in the middle of their conversation.

“I don’t know what planet this kid’s from, but it’s not Earth!” says Bulma.

(You know, she’s onto something.)

Goku wakes up the next morning and sees Bulma sprawled out on her bed.

“See, I told her there was enough room for both of us!” says Goku as he hops between her legs and rests his head on her…”lap”. After laying his head down on her “lap,” he realizes it feels like there’s “nothing there”. He takes off her pantsu and screams out loud! He screams so loud that he wakes Bulma up.

“It’s your balls, Bulma, they’re gone!” cries Goku.

Bulma frantically checks her pouch, but to her relief, all three dragon balls are there and accounted for.

“You must have been dreaming,” she says.

(In case you were wondering, this is also an innuendo.)

Bulma begins getting ready for the day, but Goku complains about how slow she is moving. Feeling bored, he goes outside to get some exercise. He moves, lifts, and breaks a boulder with his bare hands. To his surprise, the second boulder he picks up is alive! Turns out, it’s a sea turtle. Goku brings him to the Hoi-Poi house where Bulma gives him some salt water. The turtle explains he’s lost and has been trying to find the sea for over a year now. Goku offers to help, but Bulma says that will take time away from finding the dragon balls.

Goku decides to help the turtle anyway. Bulma stays behind, but after she sees some dinosaurs in the distance, she changes her mind. Will they succeed in helping the turtle reach the shore? Find out in the next review of Dragon Ball!

Sub vs Dub

The title of Episode 2 in the dub is “The Emperor’s Quest,” while the title of the subbed version is “What the…?! No Balls!” The sub is, of course, referring to Goku’s devious act near the end of the episode. I find it strange that the dub named the episode after a character who only had about 4 minutes of screen time.

The main differences between the sub and dub have to do with the dialogue and the information presented in certain lines.

At the beginning of dubbed episode, Goku sees a snake that he says will hold them over until dinner. Bulma tells Goku how gross that is and says if he wants to get bigger, he’ll have to stop eating things like frogs and snakes. In the sub, they have a conversation about how finding the Dragon Balls will not be as easy as Goku thinks. Usually, dubs tell jokes that make the episode cornier, but this one actually makes it better.

When Bulma is taking a bath, Goku comments about her having a “butt” on her chest. Bulma explains it’s not “butt,” it’s a “bust,” but he’s too young to know about things like that. Goku refutes being too young and says he’s actually 14, and that’s what gets him kicked out of the bathroom. In the dub, they keep running with this joke about Bulma not having a tail, and Goku’s age is never revealed.

While Bulma is getting ready for the day, she complains about Goku’s manner of address. So far, he has been calling her omae, but she wants him to start calling her Bulma-san. In the dub, she complains about Goku being an early bird, most likely because kids in American don’t address each other with formalities.

After the sea turtle drinks the bucket of salt water, the dub makes a funny joke about him identifying the year it was bottled…or in this case bucketed. He says it’s a fresh ’86, which happens to be the same year this anime was released. In the sub, he says his name is Kame, but since “Kame” means “turtle” in Japanese, Bulma thinks he is stating the obvious.

There are a lot of minor differences in the dialogue throughout the episode, but they don’t affect the story as a whole.

Manga vs Anime

Chapter 2 of the manga is titled, “No Balls!”

This episode covers all of Chapter 2 and the first seven pages of Chapter 3, making this the first episode to cover more than one chapter. The second chapter ends with Bulma checking to make sure her balls are still there, and the part where they find the sea turtle is in Chapter 3.

Much like Episode 1, Emperor Pilaf and his two stooges do not appear in this chapter. They were most likely added to create some extra conflict and help fill the runtime.

The biggest difference between the manga in the anime happens when Goku goes out to find his own food. In the manga, the scene of Goku catching the wolf is not included. This was likely added to the anime to, again, fill the runtime. Personally, I think adding the story of how Goku gets the wolf ruins the joke. In the manga, after Goku goes out to find his own food, the next panel we see is the silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon, only hinting to the reader what Goku will bring back. In the panel after that, Goku stands at the door and says, “I caught a wolf, and a centipede for flavor.” Catching a wolf for dinner is pretty funny and unexpected, but adding a centipede for flavor makes it even more outrageous. The anime kind of ruins this joke because not only does it show Goku catching a wolf before he reveals it to Bulma, but it even shows him holding the centipede before he finds the wolf — and when he shows his findings to Bulma, he shows her the centipede first and the wolf second. It’s like the anime explains the joke, reveals the punchline, and then tells the anecdote. Anyway, this joke is executed much better in the manga.

Much like the sub-vs-dub section, there are a few differences in the dialogue between Goku and Bulma. When Bulma is giving Goku a bath in the anime, he uses his tail to scrub his own back, but in the manga, he scrubs his butt. (A very important difference.) After Goku tells Bulma how his Grandpa found him in the mountains, Bulma explains that she is looking for the Dragon Balls while on her summer vacation and only has 30 days before school starts to find them, but Goku falls asleep in the middle of her story. In the anime, this story is cut, and Goku falls asleep while Bulma emphasizes that she doesn’t have a butt on her chest (or doesn’t have a tail in the dub). I’m not sure why Bulma’s story was cut from the anime when they had plenty of time for that wolf scene. When Bulma is getting ready for the day, she requests that Goku call her ‘Miss’ (at least that’s what is said in the English translation; this is most likely meant to be a translation of the Japanese honorific “-san“). After which, Goku unintentionally makes a joke that further reveals his cluelessness by saying, “What do you ‘miss’?”. In the anime, Goku says that calling her Bulma-san is too hard to remember. After Goku says he wants to help the sea turtle, Bulma reminds him she only has 30 days left to find the Dragon Balls and can’t waste any time taking talking sea turtles to the ocean.

The last main difference happens when the sea turtle introduces himself. In the manga, he says, “I’m a turtle,” after which Bulma says, “And what am I, blind?” I had to do a quick Google search for this character’s official name. Dragon Ball Fandom says his name is “Turtle” or “Umigami,” which is Japanese for “Sea Turtle.” Whatever the translation, the joke seems to be that the turtle says his name is “Turtle,” but Bulma thinks he’s saying he is a turtle. I like the name Kame best, so I will refer to him by that name.

Thoughts: Civilizing Men

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson often refers to a study conducted by a group of engineers at Google, in which they analyzed pornographic search queries, particularly from women. By referencing this study, Dr. Peterson isn’t advocating for indulging in such content, but is analyzing what this tells us about the female psyche. It should come as no surprise that male pornography revolves around images, but this study reveals that females are more drawn to literary forms of eroticism. The typical plot of these erotic stories goes something like this: “an innocent, well-meaning, and attractive young woman encounters a male who’s a bit of a monster.” (Think Beauty and the Beast, or Harlequin romances.) The top five types of monsters in these stories are: Vampire (Twilight), Werewolf (also Twilight), Billionaire (50 Shades of Grey), Pirate (Pirates of the Caribbean???), and Surgeon (House?). Dr. Peterson’s main conclusion with this study is that there is some sort of desire ingrained within the female psyche to “tame and civilize” men.

In this episode, Bulma is displaying this very sort of primal desire by showing Goku how to behave like a proper boy. In the last episode, Bulma found Goku living alone in the wilderness. (Wild Monkey Boy, does that count as a monster?) So, Bulma cleans him, feeds him, and teaches him proper manners. Of course, Bulma and Goku don’t have a romantic relationship, so this feels more like Bulma is acting as Goku’s mother figure.

Maybe a better connection to make is with another one of Jordan B. Peterson’s videos about how women force men to grow up. In this video, he uses the movie The Lion King to explain this principle. In the movie, Simba runs away from his kingdom after his uncle Scar tells him to, “run away and never come back.” He eventually finds Timon and Pumba, who teach him the principle of “Hakuna Matata“. It means no worries for the rest of your days, but you probably already knew that. In other words, “forget about your problems and live a care-free life.” Dr. Peterson says this is like when a guy still hangs out with his high school buddies instead of getting married and raising a family. After living with Timon and Pumba for a while, he reunites with his childhood friend, Nala (a girl), who promptly shames him for running away and not fulfilling his role as the True King of the Pride Lands.

Maybe this is a better comparison to make with Bulma and Goku, since she is teaching Goku how to grow up and behave properly. I mean, it’s not like Bulma is actually going to fall in love with some sort of murderous, monstrous maniac…right? (It looks like we may be coming back to that later.) Anyway, Bulma doesn’t know it yet, but she is in fact raising the boy who will one day fulfill his true purpose in this world – to save the Earth from destruction, many, many times. Be sure to keep following my blog for more Dragon Ball anime reviews!