1: Pilaf Arc | Tournament Arc | 3: Red Ribbon Army Arc | 4: Baba Arc | 5: Tien Shinhan Arc | 6: King Piccolo Arc | 7: Piccolo Jr. Arc
The Tournament Arc is the second arc of the Dragon Ball series
Short Summary
After the end of the Dragon Ball hunting adventure, Goku heads to Master Roshi to take him up on training under him. Another boy, Krillin, likewise arrives to seek training as well. Roshi agrees to do so and after some time decides to put their skills to the test in the World Martial Art Tournament. Yamcha is likewise participating which brings Goku's old friends together for a reunion. However Goku, Yamcha and Krillin find themselves facing formidable opponents as they try to make their way to the finalsMain Summary
Another boy shows up on the island, a young monk named Krillin (Kuririn in the Viz translation of the manga, and the Japanese dub). Krillin also wants to be trained by Roshi, and butters up the Invincible Old Master with dirty magazines. Still needing a hot girl as payment, the two boys manage to bring back a young lady called Launch (Lunch in the Japanese dub and Viz translation). Unfortunately, Launch changes personalities when she sneezes, and her other self is a violent, trigger-happy sociopath!
Roshi moves his house to a much larger island, and begins the training. Early morning exercise is delivering milk... on foot... to the entire island's people. In the late morning, the boys are instructed to plow fields barehanded. After some breakfast, Goku and Krillin work in a construction site, without the usage of machinery. After some lunch and formal schooling, the next part of the training is swimming in a shark-infested lake, and then dodging angry bees while tied to a tree. And the boys have to do all of this while wearing heavy turtle shells on their backs, which only get heavier as training progresses. But as an incentive, Roshi plans to enter them in the Tenkaichi Budokai (Strongest UnderThe Heavens Tournament, or "World's Martial Arts Tournament" in the English dub), an international contest between warriors.
The months fly by, and the day of the tournament comes. Before leaving, Roshi has his students take off their shells, and the boys discover that they now have superhuman abilities. They go South City, where the Tournament is being held. There, Goku meets up with friends- Yamcha is also planning to enter the tournament. Before the boys enter the main hall, their master gives Goku and Krillin one last gift; official Turtle School martial arts Gis, woven in a bright yellow-orange with blue accessories. Then the old master disappears...
Thanks to their training, Goku and Krillin easily make it through the qualifying preliminaries. Yamcha passes too, and the other finalists are...
- Bacterian, a oversized slob who's disgusting stench paralyzes weaker fighters.
- Jackie Chun, an Old Master with an eye for the ladies
- Namu, a Buddhist monk who seems too serious for a comic series.
- Ranfan, an attractive lady fighter.
- Giran, a winged lizard monster.
ROUND ONE
Krillin vs Bacterian: At first, Krillin is at a disadvantage; Bacterian's stink makes him nigh-impossible to approach. Krillin's speed helps, but he is soon cornered. Then Goku points out that Krillin shouldn't be able to smell Bacterian, as the monk has no nose. Realizing that, Krillin turns things around and beats Bacterian.
Yamcha vs Jackie Chun: Yamcha does his best, but the former bandit cannot touch the old man. Chun easily blows Yamcha out of the ring.
Seeing how serious Namu is, Jackie reads his mind to learn why the Buddhist is at the tournament; Namu's desert village is stricken by a drought, so Namu entered the Tournament to buy water with the prize money.
Namu vs Ranfan: Ranfan uses her feminine whiles to throw Namu off his game, at first. When Namu gets serious, Ranfan strips to distract him. While Jackie Chun clearly enjoys the spectacle, Namu is able to rein in his shock and defeat Ranfan.
Yamcha realizes that there's only one old geezer so powerful and perverted out there; Kame Sennin and Jackie Chun are one and the same!
Goku vs Giran: At first, Goku and his titanic foe start out equal. Then Giran spits out a sticky substance that wraps around Goku and ties him down. Giran tosses the immobilized Goku out of the ring, but the boy flies back on his Flying Nimbus. Giran cries foul, and the Tournament officials agree that while the cloud was already part of the surrounding area, Goku is forbidden from using it again. Giran goes to punch Goku out, but the boy's tail inexplicably grows back, allowing him to hang onto Giran's fist. Feeling stronger with his tail back, Goku breaks out of Giran's gum, then breaks a piece of the outer area as a test. Giran folds on the spot.
While Krillin is shocked to see his training partner's new appendage, the rest of Goku's friends worry; when is the next full moon?
Krillin vs Jackie Chun: The battle quickly starts out in Chun's favor, though Krillin can just barely keep up. He almost gets the win when he distracts Jackie with some panties and kicks him out of the ring, but Jackie saves himself by using none other than the Kamehameha to rocket back into the arena. Not long afterwards, Jackie defeats Krillin.
After the match, Yamcha voices his suspicion that Jackie is Roshi. Jackie denies it, of course, and his denial is strengthened by the fact that his hair is still attached to his head and Roshi is bald. But Yamcha is unconvinced...
Goku vs Namu: At first, the warriors appear to be equal, though Namu is thrown off by Goku's unpredictability. At the first chance he gets, Namu used his Heavenly Cross, an arms-first body slam, on Goku. When Goku manages to recover, Namu tries his move again, only for Goku to use the linear nature of the technique to kick him out of the ring.
Defeated, Namu prepares to return to his village in shame, but then Jackie gives the Buddhist a container capsule and directs him to a public well; water is free in the non-desert regions. Chun admits that he is Master Roshi, and that he has read Namu's mind. When asked why he entered the tournament in disguise, Roshi admits that he was afraid that if one of his students won, they might get a big head and stop training. But with A Lesson in Defeat, they could become the greatest fighters in history. To thank the Invincible Old Master, Namu poses as Master Roshi to fake out Yamcha.
Goku vs Jackie Chun: The two finalists use everything they've got, with Jackie Chun's strength and experience against Goku's energy and creativity. Techniques, ranging from ancient and absurd are thrown out, and Kamehamehas are compared. Realizing Goku is too strong to defeat by normal means, Jackie Chun unleashes his trump card; the Bankoku Bikkuri Shi, where he traps the target in a cage of lightning. Jackie tells Goku to surrender before electricity kills him. But before Goku can admit defeat, the worst happens— Goku has seen the full moon! Turning into his giant monkey form once again, Goku breaks out of Jackie's technique and begins to rampage. As the crowd panics, Yamcha yells for Puar to turn into scissors like before. But Jackie is already in action. Reaching full power, the old master fires off his strongest Kamehameha into the air. When the dust settles, Goku is nowhere in sight. Had Jackie killed the young warrior? Actually, it was the moon Jackie destroyed— Goku shrank down to his normal self without its light.After giving Goku new clothes to replace the ones that were destroyed by his transformation (someone get the kid some Magic Pants), the fight resumes. At this point, both fighters are too tired to use any special moves. Getting an idea, Jackie goads Goku into exchanging flying kicks with him, both hitting at the same time. The two of them fall, and, after much struggle against fatigue, the first one to rise is Jackie Chun; being the taller one, his kick dug in deeper than Goku's.
With the Tournament over, Jackie accepts the prize money and sneaks away. After removing his disguise in secret, Roshi returns to the gang and claims to have been lost in the crowd. He congratulates his students on their efforts in the tournament, and to use their defeats as a reminder that there's Always Someone Better. As a reward for their progress, however, Roshi decides to take the entire gang out to dinner. This proves to be a costly mistake, as Goku's appetite makes the final bill so large it costs almost all of the prize money!
What will be Goku's next adventure? Find out next time... on Dragon Ball!
The Tournament Arc has the following tropes:
- A Lesson in Defeat: This is the primary reason for Master Roshi's assuming his "Jackie Chun" Secret Identity. He wanted to prevent Goku and Krillin from getting big heads by progressing too far too quickly.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Roshi feared that Goku and Krillin would become this if either of them won the tournament, thus his reasoning to enter the tournament in disguise.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Goku once more turns into an Oozaru during his fight against Jackie Chun. He's stopped when Chun blows up the moon.
- Batman Gambit: The first day of the milk run is so difficult that even Goku's determination starts to buckle. Roshi gives him proper motivation by telling him that Grandpa Gohan and Ox-King did these same exercises without complaint. An inspired Goku smiles and continues onward, at which Roshi remarks he knew that would do the trick.
- Blow You Away: Jackie Chun sends Yamcha out of the ring with this sort of move.
- Charlie Brown from Outta Town: Wow, there's this amazing contender called Jackie Chun, who just so happens to be an old lecher, knows how to counter the Jan-Ken-Punch, and uses the Kamehameha! Reminds me of someone I know...
- Cheaters Never Prosper:
- Goku and Krillin are given a task to find a rock that Roshi wrote on, and return it to him before sunset. The loser would not get dinner. Eventually, Goku and Krillin are forced to fight over the rock, and Goku outmatches Krillin. Krillin plays up being a Sore Loser and throws the rock away...only that he has the real rock hidden on his person. He wins, and receives dinner, while Goku does not. Unfortunately, for Krillin (along with Launch and Roshi), Launch decided to cook puffer fish, and didn't extract the poison from it - leaving all except Goku, with food poisoning.
- Krillin has since occasionally tried to cheat during training. One example is when delivering milk, Master Roshi ordered Goku and he to zig-zag through trees along a path. Krillin attempted to take the path when he realized he was being left behind only to be caught by Master Roshi and was forced to start over.
- Combat Breakdown: After hypnosis, massive monster transformations, Shock and Awe, and moon-shattering ki blasts, the fight for the title of "Strongest Under the Heavens", is decided by a flying kick. Jackie Chun wins purely because Goku's reach was too short.
- Crazy-Prepared: For some reason, Krillin thought it was necessary to smuggle a pair of panties into the tournament. But, it gave him an edge while fighting Jackie Chun!
- David vs. Goliath: As they are kids in a tournament full of adults, everyone one of Goku and Krillin's matches is this trope. This becomes the deciding factor in Goku and Jackie Chun's duel; when they jump to kick each other, Jackie's kick digs deeper because of his longer legs.
- Detonation Moon: Jackie Chun blows up the moon to end Goku's Oozaru transformation.
- Disney Death: A cliffhanger when Goku transforms into an Oozaru is Jackie Chun seemingly blowing Goku up with a giant Kamehameha in order to stop his rampage. Once the dust settles though, the reason Goku seemed to disappear is because he changed back to normal because what Jackie Chun actually did was blow up the moon.
- Double Knockout: The tournament concludes with Jackie Chun and Goku both knocking each other down for a 10 count, invoking the tie breaker rules of the tournament.
- Down to the Last Play: Not only does the final match go into Double Knockout, but the declare yourself the victor tie breaker goes down to the last syllable.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Krillin was a bit of a pervert, as he wanted to be a fighter to attract girls, had a Porn Stash, and happened to have a pair of Bulma's panties to distract Jackie Chun. This aspect of his character was mostly dropped by the Red Ribbon Army Saga, though a couple instances (the infamous “diamond sniff” from the latter arc) would pop up on occasion.
- Everyone Has Standards: When beginning the real training, Roshi explicitly forbids the boys to use what they learn to start fights or try to impress girls, saying this is about defending themselves or others from evil.
- Expository Hair Style Change: Yamcha had long, unruly hair in the previous arc. When he reappears at the tournament, his hair has been cut short, on Bulma's insistence.
- Fanservice: One of the series' most famous examples is when Ranfan is stripping to her underwear in the fight with Namu.
- Finger Poke of Doom: During the preliminary rounds, Goku taps the back of a contestant's leg with his finger, causing him to fall out of the ring.
- Generation Xerox: Goku and Krillin go through the same training Grandpa Gohan and Ox-King did when they were young.
- Guile Hero: Krillin comes more and more into this role - using tricks, and clever tactics to get the upper hand against his opponents. He almost eliminated Jackie Chun from the tournament with not much more than girl's underwear.
- Heel: Giran and Bacterian.
- Imposed Handicap Training: Once Goku and Krillin get into the groove of their Training from Hell routine, Roshi adds extremely heavy turtle shells that the two must wear on their backs to the mix.
- It's Personal: Whereas others are fighting for fun or to claim the championship title, Namu wants the prize money in order to get water for his people back home. He thus takes his defeat very hard and feels he failed everyone he holds dear, so Roshi (who had his own personal reasons for entering) helps him out.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Giran waves the white flag after seeing Goku break free of his Merry-Go-Round Gum and demolish a wall after he regrows his tail.
- Laser-Guided Karma: See Cheaters Never Prosper.
- Layman's Terms: At the beginning of their training, Master Roshi gives Goku and Krillin a long, eloquent speech on how they should not use their martial arts for selfish reasons. When this flies over Goku's head, Roshi gives a more condensed, simplistic version.
- Logical Weakness: Upon learning that Goku transforms into a giant monster when he sees the full moon, and having no idea about the tail weakness, Master Roshi quickly moves into action to stop Goku by blowing up the moon so he can't ever transform again.
- Moving the Goalposts: Master Roshi declares that Goku and Krillin have completed their physical training and are ready to train real martial arts, once they're able to push a boulder forward with nothing but their raw strength. When Goku demonstrates he can push the boulder even further than Roshi, Roshi declares that he was mistaken and points at a much larger boulder for them to strive for. He doesn't even have any real martial arts to teach them, only preparing them physically. It's all they ever need and more.
- Mundane Luxury: Namu is shocked at the idea of free water due to coming from a desert where it is costly.
- No Antagonist: This arc is unique for not having an Arc Villain. It's just a good old-fashioned tournament.
- Obvious Rule Patch: When Giran almost throws Goku out of the arena, Goku manages to save himself from "loss by Ring Out" because he gets Flying Nimbus to save him at the last moment. Giran, of course, claims this was an unfair move, and the referee is having trouble deciding whether or not this should be allowed. The referee consults with the tournament chairman off-screen, and the referee returns and finally says...since clouds are a natural part of the environment, it wasn't illegal for Goku to use one to stop his own ring-out. However, Goku is forbidden to use the cloud again (and the implication is that this is now a new rule; no future fighters can use clouds to stop being thrown out of the ring). Giran is disappointed at not being immediately given the victory, but upon learning Goku can't use the cloud a second time, he smirks and says, "That sounds good. I can live with that."
- Oh, Crap!: Bulma, Oolong, Yamcha, and Puar's reaction when Goku's tail grew back, knowing it means he can turn into an Oozaru again.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Roshi manages to win the tournament under his Jackie Chun disguise but has to use his winnings to pay the bill for the victory dinner afterward, as he forgot that Goku is a Big Eater. Also by the time of the next tournament, he realizes his students have surpassed him.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Goku is red, Krillin is blue.
- Retool: The first of many. The entire cast other than Goku is Put on a Bus, Master Roshi is brought back as a major character, Krillin is added as Goku's rival and the premise of the story changes completely.
- The Rival: Krillin is this to Goku when they first meet, trying all his might to beat Goku; over time, they became the best of friends.
- Secret Identity: Roshi disguises himself as a contestant called Jackie Chun in order to personally test his pupils powers. He ultimately manages to win the tournament too but not without some effort against Goku.
- Secret Chaser: Yamcha suspected Jackie Chun is really Roshi, until he was proven wrong.
- Secret-Keeper: Namu found out the truth. He even disguised himself as Roshi in the crowd to convince everyone Roshi and Jackie are separate individuals.
- Shock and Awe: Jackie Chun uses a technique against Goku called the "Thunder Shock Surprise" - using 50,000 volts to shock Goku into submission, thereby winning the match. It's too bad Goku looked at the full moon and transformed into Oozaru, cancelling it out.
- Shout-Out: The name of Master Roshi's alter-ego, Jackie Chun, is clearly based on Jackie Chan's persona.
- The Smurfette Principle: Ranfan is the only female participant in the tournament to reach the quarter finals.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Reading Namu's mind, Roshi gives him a capsule and tells him about how water is free in this region.
- Tiebreaker Round: After Goku and Jackie Chun both take each other down with a Double Knockout, the tie breaker rules come into play; whoever is the first to stand up and declares themselves to be the winner, wins.
- Tournament Arc: As if the name wasn't obvious enough.
- Training from Hell: Roshi puts the boys through the ringer in assorted ways, including milk deliveries all over the island, plowing a field with bare hands, working at a construction site (albeit getting to use tools this time), evading a hungry shark in a lake, and using a hornet's nest to teach dodging. Then they have to do it while wearing 100-pound turtle shells for endurance. However, the old man knows exactly what he's doing and never would've put the boys through this if he didn't think they were up to it. He also ensures they are well-fed (no easy feat with Goku around), get plenty of rest, and receive a basic education. Goku and Krillin come out of this both significantly more powerful and well-rounded.
- Wanting Is Better Than Having: Master Roshi believes that Victory Is Boring, so he goes as "Jackie Chun" to teach his students that there would always be someone out there stronger than them, so they should continue to train diligently.
- Wax On, Wax Off: Roshi's training mostly consists of sowing fields... while wearing 98kg turtle shells - barehanded, delivering milk across towns wearing the same, and dodging bees while tied next to a tree. He never does actually teach any real martial arts, as he correctly assesses the two as already being decent martial artists, so strength and endurance training is really all they need.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The referee's reaction to Jackie Chun's Detonation Moon maneuver is to call him out for what a drastic thing such a move is, which gives Goku ample time to regain consciousness before the referee remembers he should have started a 10 count.
- The Worf Effect: Yamcha is easily defeated by Jackie Chun in the quarter-finals.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Ranfan uses this in order to gain an advantage over her opponents.
