Episode 210 "Eighteen Unmasks "

The Summary

With Dabura in meditation, and Android 18 involved in a brutal fight, we should have a spectacular episode..........right?

The Z fighters are still waiting impatiently for the fighter from level three. Goku seems to be enjoying himself, though...he is not as impatient as Vegeta (Or Gohan for that matter). Babidi evilly laughs at what he thinks will soon happen while Dabura is still increasing his power level in the meditation room....

Back at the World Tournament, Number 18 and Mighty Mask (Trunks and Goten) continue to throw a slew of fast punches and kicks at each other. In fact, it's hard to tell who's hitting whom.

Hercule remains on the ring, helpless against what's going on in the sky. The crowd is stunned at how fast the action is in the sky. Hercule just looks up at the two fighters, or three, depending on how you look at it). Trunks then asks Goten to try to kick Number 18, with the promise that he would give him an extra brand new toy upon success. They begin to beat down Number 18, and she almost crashes in the arena. The fighting remains in the sky until Mighty Mask is knocked to the ring by Number 18, leaving a giant crater with the boys in costume at its center. Here we can tell that people don't really care about Hercule. Instead, they're worried for the safety of Mighty Mask knocked down.

I really hate that guy, anyways...

Trunks and Goten switch places inside Mighty Mask's body to see how well Goten can fight and to give him a better view. They come out of the crater and try to confuse Number 18 by flying around her in quick circles. She soon realizes that his technique is different from before, and tries to find out why. It doesn't matter though because Trunks and Goten brutally beat Number 18. She recovers from her falls and finally uses a ki blast against them.

Back in the spaceship...

We quickly see a glimpse of Babidi reflecting on how he took over Dabura. He also mentions how his grasp over the evil hearted increase as their energy level rises...

Back at the tournament, Number 18 increases her rhythm when rooted on by Marron and knocks Mighty Mask back to the ring. This, again, creates a huge crater with Trunks and Goten lying down, face first on the ground. Trunks and Goten switch places again and fly up from down below.

Only this time, both Trunks and Goten decide to turn Super Saiyan. Number 18 (FINALLY) realizes that she's fighting Trunks and Goten! They fire an enormous ki blast at Number 18, but she dodges. We see the blast hit a remote area, and Hercule crouch down in terror. (What a wuss.)

More importantly, though, Number 18 immediately retaliates with a ki blast of her own. This blast, however, is different than most. It has the ability to cut things in pieces or halves (very similar to Krillin's Destructo Disk). Sure enough, through coincidence, it splits Mighty Mask in half.

"Oh No! Mighty Mask has been sliced in half!"- Announcer

Their cover is blown! They don't care though, and just take the remnants off and begin to punch her at the same time. Everyone watching below is in awe, including Chi-Chi and Bulma. That confusion doesn't last very long due to the fact that what they have done violates the rules.

The announcer disqualifies Trunks and Goten for fighting one person at the same time, and the dishearten boys fly away...

Number 18 slowly hovers down to the ring to fight Hercule, and he gets up from the floor from when he was scared as a baby.

As the episode draws to a close and we hear that all so familiar ending theme, Dabura finally comes out from the meditation room and is ready to fight Gohan.

Wow! We've been waiting for this third fight forever. Stay tuned for tomorrow's show.

The Review

Animation

Well...we saw a mish-mash of things today. First, the beginning portion of the fight between Number 18 and Mighty Mask was not well drawn at all. Not only were the two fighters hard to make out through the blurry mess, but the way the fight was captured also didn't suit my taste.

The only real shots were from afar, and it made it hard to see what was happening.

ex. the fight is shown through the crowd's eyes

Whenever the camera zoomed back in on the action, if you call that action, we had the same old blurry-fest happening. Oh Well.

The part that I did appreciate was the fast glimpse of Dabura's mediation. He was shown doing the exact same thing on the last episode, but there is a clear distinction from today's representation. Today, there were not only yellow bolts of electricity surrounding him, but tiny flashes of bluish-whitish energy emitted from his body. Furthermore, his face and chest muscles were detailed with precision.

Music

Hmmm? I don't know what you speak of. I wasn't aware of enjoyable, creative music in the background that the viewers like?

Dialogue

I perceived only some small talk and chitter-chatter from the blandness of today. I realize that the fighting and the intermissions took the majority of the time up, but there still could have been some intelligent conversation. The constant monologue of Babidi was unique and evil at the same time, and his laugh was just menacing.

Besides that, though, I don't have much else to say except to wait for tomorrow's big fight because that will yield some of the best dialogue we've seen in a long while.

Plot

This goes hand-in-hand with the dialogue. If an episode has a plot, then it must have great dialogue and vice-versa. Because of this, it is easy to see what I thought of today.

Another useless fight, mind-degrading scenes of Hercule, and an impatient group of Z-fighters.

Whoa!

Are you sure you can handle all that? If not, just take a deep breath, grab a Coke, and sit down to recollect your thoughts. Yes. It was that dull.

Moving on....

The Existence's Bottom Line: Yawn... oh we're still here.

The Existence gives today's episode:


2.5 Dragonballs out of 7...

-The Existence