The Emperor's Quest

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"Isn't the world an awfully big place? How can one person rule the whole thing?"
— Shu to Emperor Pilaf

"The Emperor's Quest" (あらららー！タマがない！, Arararaa! Tama ga Nai!, lit. "What the...?! No Balls!") is the second episode of Dragon Ball and the second episode of the Emperor Pilaf Saga. This episode first aired in Japan on March 5, 1986. Its original American airdate was September 16, 1995.

Summary[]

BulmaCapsuleDB — Bulma's Capsule House appear

After continuing their journey, Goku and Bulma end up camping near Skull Valley. While Goku thinks they will be sleeping in a tent, Bulma pulls out a capsule and spawns a house, which Goku is convinced to be a giant monster. He is also confused about the many things inside such as lights and the TV.

Bulma notices that Goku smells really bad, so she forces him to take a bath. While bathing him, she finds out that Goku's tail is real and part of his body and that he is in control of it due to the fact that he can scrub his back with it. After his bath, Bulma is stunned about his tail wondering if all guys really have tails and hide them, but Goku mentions that his Grandpa Gohan did not have one.

Bulma then decides to relax in a bubble bath but is ruined when Goku barges in and makes comments about helping her since she does not have a tail. Bulma is angered and throws shampoo bottles and other things at him as he runs out.

ShuMaiDB01 — Shu and Mai surrounded by Wolves

Meanwhile, Emperor Pilaf is enjoying his giant dinner and torturing Shu, making him pay for his own passing of gas. He receives a message from Mai about a glow in Skull Valley which may be another Dragon Ball. Emperor Pilaf sends Shu and Mai to go and investigate the situation. Not liking the food Bulma has, Goku decides to go look for some food to eat. He stumbles into exactly the same valley Shu and Mai are patrolling, and knocks out their plane, mistaking it for a bird. Once on the ground, the two soon realize that the 'glow' was really the eyes of all the wolves that live in this valley.

Incidentally, Goku saves them, by trying to catch some dinner for himself. He brings a skinned wolf and a centipede back to Bulma, who screams at him yet again for bringing something so disgusting back, so Goku eats it outside. Afterward, while Bulma is brushing her teeth, she asks Goku about his mother and father, Goku responds that he does not know about them, saying that his grandpa found him as a baby all by himself and decided to take him home with him. Goku then falls asleep while Bulma is still talking to him which makes her angry.

BulmaTurtleGokuDragonBall — Goku and Bulma meet Turtle

In the morning, Goku wakes up first and decides to rest on Bulma's lap. When he realizes that he feels no bulge, he takes her panties off and exclaims that she has "no balls". Bulma wakes up, not realizing what he had meant, and thinks that someone stole the Dragon Balls. While Goku gets tired of watching her brush her hair, he goes outside to train when he meets a strange visitor, a Turtle. The turtle says he is lost from his master, who lives down by the beach. Bulma gives him some saltwater to hold him off and Goku offers to take him home, but Bulma tells him that the beach is 100 miles out of their way. Goku does not seem to mind and begins jogging down the road with the turtle on his back. Afraid to continue by herself, Bulma follows Goku on a motorcycle.

Major Events[]

Goku and Bulma meet Turtle.

Battles[]

Goku vs. Wolves

Appearances[]

Differences from the Manga[]

The location where Bulma spawns her capsule house looks different.
In the anime, Bulma turns on the lights from a switch, but in the manga, she turns them on from a clap.
In the manga, Goku was standing up close to the bathtub Bulma was bathing in. In the anime, he was at a distance.
Bulma's reaction to Goku watching her take a bath is different as well. In the manga, she is surprised when she hears Goku's voice and slips deeper in the tub but in the anime, she sees that Goku is watching her, and she covers her breasts while dunking her head under the water. Also in the anime, after Goku ran out from Bulma throwing stuff at him, a shampoo bottle hits him in the forehead.
The angle is different when Goku removes Bulma's panties while she is sleeping. Her naked crotch, which was visible in the manga, is not shown; however, it is seen in a flashback in "The Last of Mercenary Tao".

Filler[]

ShuEmperorPilafDB — Pilaf in his dining room torturing Shu

The scene of Bulma watching a romance show on TV and Goku switching it to a giant monster movie that freaks her out.
When Bulma is telling Goku that the towel is supposed to go on his front, he puts it in front of his head.
Emperor Pilaf eating dinner at his table, torturing Shu, and Mai coming in telling that there may be a Dragon Ball in Skull Valley.
Goku searching in Skull Valley for food and fighting off wolves while Mai and Shu cower and have their plane taken out by Goku who thinks it is a bird.

Edits[]

Visual edits[]

Stoolcensor — A stool covers Goku from being fully naked in the Ocean Group Dub

When Goku is naked standing in front of Bulma at the beginning of Goku's bath scene there is a stool digitally added to cover his private in the Ocean Group Dub. Also, the bathtub is made a bit taller to cover up his private when he was in it. These edits were also left in the FUNimation Dub's TV release while they released the episode unedited on DVD.

Scenes removed[]

GokuAndBulmaPanties — Goku touching Bulma's private area which was removed from the Ocean Dub and TV Broadcasts

The scene of Pilaf's bodily gases being shown was cut from the Toonami broadcast.
In the Ocean Group Dub and Toonami Broadcast, the scene where Goku takes off Bulma's panties and discovers that girls do not have "balls" was completely removed.

Dialogue changes[]

During the part where Goku is watching the guy play guitar on the TV, Goku says "What is that awful noise" in the Ocean Group Dub.
In all versions of the English dub, the scene where Bulma is taking a bath and Goku is talking to her about her breasts was dubbed over by him saying that he wants to scrub her back.
In the Japanese version of this episode, Goku says he is 14 (this is proven false in "Krillin's Frantic Attack!" from Goku not knowing how to count), and Bulma says that he is only two years younger than her revealing she is 16.
After Bulma's bath scene when she is in her nightgown brushing her hair she says in the Japanese version that she will call the cops if he ever pulls something like that again. In the English version, she says, "It's about time I got some privacy around here".
In the English dub, Mai tells Pilaf that one of his field agents spotted a glow in Skull Valley before disappearing. In Japanese, Mai never mentions this field agent.
Bulma's line in the Funimation dub "I don't know what planet this kid's from, but its not Earth!" does not exist in Japanese (Toriyama wouldn't come up with that concept until well into the King Piccolo Saga). In the latter, she only expressed annoyance that Goku fell asleep while she was chewing him out for thinking her parents abandoned her for having a "chest-butt" (breasts).

Inconsistencies[]

GokuAndTurtleDB — The Turtle is significantly larger than Goku in his first appearance on screen

This episode takes place on the same day the first episode took place. Bulma is wearing a completely different outfit, which is most likely because she peed in her previous clothes. However, she had no opportunity to change her clothes during the time span without spawning the house but Goku did not know about the house until it was spawned in this episode.
The pants Bulma is wearing at the beginning of this episode are gray. There is a color error in one shot where her pants are blue, which is the same color as the jacket she is wearing.
Bulma's Capsule case is shown full when two capsules should be missing (the car Goku broke in the previous episode and the Kawasaki Bike she currently had out).
A Japanese flag can be seen sticking out of one of Pilaf's dishes on his table while Japan does not even exist in the Dragon World. Also, when you look back the flag has a star on it instead of a circle.
The Turtle is shown to be significantly bigger than Goku in his first appearance onscreen. He is scaled smaller for the rest of the series probably because Goku had to carry him on his back.

Trivia[]

Aralebulmahouse — Arale on a poster in Bulma's Capsule House

The plot to the chapter that this episode adapts was based on the second chapter to one of Akira Toriyama's earlier works titled "Adventures of Tongpoo".
The owl at the beginning of the episode wears the same hat Oolong wears in his debut.
This is the first episode where Goku and Pilaf's minions meet. This is also the only time they come face to face before they get to Pilaf's castle.
It is revealed that Shu and Mai are not Emperor Pilaf's only minions in this episode because Mai says that another one of his spies left a spy tracker in Skull Valley and never seen again afterward. It can be assumed this minion was killed by the Wolves.
In the Funimation dub after Shu jumps out of the plane, Mai calls him "Shao"; his name in the original BLT dub from 1995 and the dub of Dragon Ball Super.
On the wall of the Capsule House, a picture of Arale Norimaki, the heroine of Akira Toriyama's previous series Dr. Slump, can be seen.
Bulma yells when Goku is sleeping "I don't know what planet you came from but it sure isn't Earth". Ironically, she would later be proven right, as Goku comes from Planet Vegeta, which would later be revealed in "Reunions". This line only exists in the Funimation dub.
The setting of this episode is where the ending credits to the show take place.
Scenes from this episode were inserted into the Ocean Group dubs of Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies.
Emperor Pilaf's torture of Shu with a chainsaw is a reference to a scene in the 1983 movie Scarface, where Angel is killed via chainsaw torture in a hotel bathroom.

Gallery[]

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