Episode 181 "Other World Tournament"

This episode begins with Goku walking alongside King Kai towards the enormous building where lies the Warriors of the North Quadrant. Goku begins bragging to King Kai about how Pikkon defeated Cell with one blow. Kai shocks Goku when he explains that Pikkon's strength is not uncommon in the other world.

As they continue walking, the Warriors begin flooding out of the building to greet Goku and King Kai. Kai introduces Goku to many of the different warriors, even a Hercules wanna be named Ulibu. When Goku lays eyes on all the Warriors you see his face jump a notch. Once a Saiyan…always a Saiyan, right?

King Kai explains that they are all working on their 10,000 years of hard training so that they can receive a private lesson with the Grand Kai. Goku nearly faints when he hears that you have to train for 10,000 years in order to receive a lesson from the Grand Kai. The South Kai, West Kai, and East Kai then come strolling in to make of North Kai(King Kai) because he's really dead. It's fun to watch King Kai totally flip out when they make fun of him for being dead. Ulibu then explains to Goku the whole afterlife system.

"Think of it as a ladder. On the bottom run is all of space. Higher up is the home for infinite losers and then Snake Way. On the next level are the planets of the 4 Kai's. (Well 3 planets now, eheheh) Who oversee their parts of the universe. And higher still above the 4 Kai's, is the Grand Kai's planet." They are currently on the Grand Kai's planet.

As King Kai and East Kai are arguing, the West Kai interrupts. He says that a reunion is no time for arguing,(This is the first time the Kai's have been together in 300 years) but rather they should have a marshal arts tournament to see who is best. They go to the Grand Kai and seek permission to hold an 'other'(Basically meaning in the afterlife) world tournament and he loves the idea. He also promises to throw in a free private lesson for the winner, just to make things exciting. Grand Kai then shows them the arena in which the Tournament will take place. Its in a location very much like the hyperbolic time chamber. Think of the time chamber but instead of being surrounded by pure emptiness, imagine being in outer space with planets all about. There you have the arena.

Goku is then shut down when he says how excited he is to fight in the tournament. East Kai complains that this is serious, and there's no way a rookie would stand a chance. King Kai comes to Goku's defense but nonetheless he has to pass a test in order to qualify for the tournament. He must beat East Kai in a race. It's a tough race all the way to the finish, but out of nowhere, the Grand Kai suddenly passes the finish line and claims himself as the winner. Since Goku didn't lose the race, he is allowed to participate in the tournament. It then switches to the tournament celebrations and all the Kai's giving their marshal artists little pep talks before the big competition.

The Grand Kai gives a short speech and the announcer explains the rules of the tournament.

"If you fall from the ring, start to cry, or give up, then you lose the match. Poking in the eye and hitting below the bel, are plain mean, and are not allowed. Needless to say you can't kill anyone in this tournament, because they are already dead."

First round begins. Fighting for the North Quadrant is Ulibu. The Hercules wanna be. And fighting for the East Quadrant is Chapashay? (That name might be off a bit) an extremely short man, with a very long beard. He comes up to about Ulibu's knees.
As the match gets going, Ulibu has a hard time hitting Chapashay because he moves so fast. Chapashay then splits into 7 people, or it appears so because he is moving so fast. Ulibu dodges all 7 of the Chapashay figures coming towards him, causing them all do collide. Victory Ulibu.

Pikkon is then shown jump kicking his opponent in the stomach immediately. Victory Pikkon.

A few more pointless battles go on, until finally it's Goku's turn. Goku faces a guy with a caterpillar appearance from the South Quadrant, called 'Catippy'. Catippy manages to grab hold of Goku, and with all 8 of his hands, he begins doing the utter most torment to Goku…he gives him the tickle torture. It's not long until Goku gets serious and blasts Catippy off of him. Catippy then begins his ultimate metamorphosis. However turns out he's going to have to stay in his cocoon for around 1200 years until he achieves it. Goku is then considered the winner by default. Which ends the first round of the Other World Tournament.

REVIEW:

Allow me to begin by saying Funimation is getting much better at these filler episodes. I have seen all of the Japanese episodes as well as all of the released English dubbed. And I can Finally finally FINALLY say, Funimation has put in the effort to make these filler episodes watchable. I even chuckled a few times during this episode.

THE GOOD: Episode #81 does a good job of building up the Grand kais status as a marshal artist. Which makes you curious as to how strong he really is. That's important because a key statute in any television show is to keep the watcher curious about something. No matter how meaningless or pointless it is.

The second thing the episode did a fairly decent job with, is humor. A filler episode can be absolute horror unless the humour is executed properly. Something the Japanese version has managed to do time and time again. In previous dubbed fillers, the humour has been atrocious. However the voices finally seem to have that edge we've all been waiting for. The VA's are actually getting into their character, something we haven't seen in the American version.

Thirdly I must comment on the secondary VA's. Ulibu, Pikkon, ect… these secondary character voices are finally standable. We no longer need cringe when a character who doesn't have a major role speaks. It may not appear as an important quality in anime, or any cartoon for that matter, but it truly is. Those small things can really turn you off.

Fourthly we heard some original music today folks! Yes that's right! When The Grand Kai takes everyone to the area where the Tournament will be held, a mystique tune plays in background. It was actually quite good. Any of you reading this review who own this episode, should really go back to the scene where Grand Kai first shows the area where the tournament will be held and listen to this song. I don't know why, but it really does it for me.

THE BAD: There were some really bad one liners today folks.

"The most Righteous Marshal Artists in real life." -King Kai when speaking about the North Quadrant Warriors.

"Aloha" - Warriors saying hi to Goku. What is up with that…seriously!

Need I go on?

THE UGLY: I couldn't find any ugly today folks. Overall nothing really pissed me off.

Phoenix's Inside line: Overall today was a pretty good episode. Good considering that nothing went too wrong in an English dubbed filler. Wow, I didn't think this day would ever come. Looks like all those emails to Funimation may finally be paying off, eh? They still have a ways to go if they want to catch up the Japanese version, but hey…If we can clone sheep, then dammit Funimation can do this too!

This episode keeps you pretty interested throughout, whether being curious
about the Grand Kai/wondering if Goku will be able to participate in the
tourny (Yeah right)/cheering for Goku in the tourny. Phoenix gives it

4.5 out of 7

Gotta work on those one liners FUNi.

-Phoenix, the new kid on the block.