Dragon Ball: The Path to Power

Dragon Ball: The Path to Power

Main promotional illustration
Japanese ドラゴンボール 最強への道
Hepburn Doragon Bōru Saikyō he no Michi
Directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi
Produced by Tan Takaiwa
Yoshio Anzai
Tsutomu Tomari
Written by Aya Matsui
Based on Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama
Starring See Cast
Music by Akihito Tokunaga
Cinematography Masaru Sakanishi
Edited by Shinichi Fukumitsu
Production
company
Distributed by Toei Company
Release dates
  • March 2, 1996 (1996-03-02) (Japan)
Running time
 80 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Dragon Ball: The Path to Power (Japanese: ドラゴンボール 最強への道 Hepburn: Doragon Bōru Saikyō he no Michi), is the seventeenth Japanese animated feature film based on Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga, following the first three Dragon Ball films and thirteen Dragon Ball Z films. It is a re-telling of the original Dragon Ball anime series. It was originally released in Japan on March 2, 1996 at the Toei Anime Fair, along with the movie version of Neighborhood Story. The film was produced to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the original Dragon Ball anime. It was also the final Dragon Ball movie produced up until the release of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, which was not until 2013.

Summary

Goku is a monkey-tailed boy with superhuman strength and skilled in martial arts, living all alone on Mount Paozu. One day, after he catches a fish to eat, a girl in a car named Bulma almost hits him. He mistakes the car for a monster and throws it onto its side, but gets shot by Bulma in return. He thinks she's some kind of demon, but she ends up convincing him she's human, even though she doesn't have a tail. He invites her into his house since his dead grandpa always told him to be nice to girls, and there she goes straight for his only keepsake. When they go in the house, Goku shows Bulma an orange glowing ball (with four red stars) that he thinks is his grandpa Gohan. All of a sudden, Bulma gets delighted and asks if she can have the ball. When Goku protests, she brings out two more "grandpas", and explains to him the legend of the Dragon Balls and the Eternal Dragon. Bulma revealed that when all seven Dragon Balls (each one with a different number of stars) are united, the Eternal Dragon will rise and grant whoever summon him any one wish. She offers to let him feel her up to get him to come along, but when that doesn't work, she tells him it'll help him get stronger. He agrees, and off they go. At the military headquarters of the Red Ribbon Army, a short man called Commander Red is also on the hunt for the Dragon Balls for his sinister purpose to rule the world.

Later, in the desert forest, Goku and Bulma are stopped by a giant bull on the road, who demands the girl. Goku ends up fighting the creature, which turns into a robot, and then a bat. Unfortunately, by then, his five minutes are up, and he turns back into Oolong, the pig. There's no time for apologies though, because Yamcha attacks. He demands all the capsules and money they have, but not before Puar recognizes Oolong and yells at him for his perverted antics at Shapeshifting School. Yamcha fights Goku, and appears to have the upper hand, until Bulma wakes up. This puts him into a state of shock and he is forced to retreat with the help of Puar.

Bulma, Oolong, and Goku are driving northward towards the next Dragon Ball, only to discover a huge metal tower in the distance. Yamcha and Puar, who have been following them, stay in a cave nearby to keep warm. Soldiers come out and "welcome" them to Muscle Tower, and Goku takes them all head on. He manages to enter the tower, only to face Major Metallitron. He finishes him off quickly though, and discovers to his shock that Metallitron was a robot. The Red Ribbon Army's commander, General White, orders the remaining forces toward Goku, but he plows through them all, up into White's room. White then activates the tower's deadliest creation—Android 8. The android nearly strangles Goku, but refuses to kill him when ordered. As a result, White threatens to detonate the android, but Goku intervenes and saves him. The two make quick friends, with Android 8 explaining that he doesn't believe in fighting or killing. Goku complains that his name is weird, so he nicknames him "Eighter" for short. This ends in a snowball fight between the two while the tied-up forces (including White) look on.

Some time later, while driving in Oolong's house-wagon, they almost run over Turtle and then almost fall off a cliff. Turtle explains that he is quite lost, and needs help getting back to the sea. After they bring him there, he says he has a reward which he will bring back with him the next day. So Oolong, Goku, and Bulma spend the night on the beach. Goku wakes up early in the morning and tries to sleep in Bulma's lap, but freaks out when he removes her panties and discovers her lack of the male genitalia. That morning, Turtle comes back bearing his "reward"—Master Roshi, the Turtle Hermit. He first tries to summon the Immortal Phoenix for them, but when that fails, he calls forth the Nimbus Cloud. Goku is the only one of the bunch who can ride it, so it becomes his.

While Goku's off on the Nimbus, Bulma discovers that the old man has a Dragon Ball. He offers to let go of it only if she shows him her underwear. She agrees, not knowing she doesn't have any on, and both Roshi and Oolong are pleasantly surprised. She is horrified after she goes in to change and finds her underwear still inside. There is no time for an explanation though, because the fleet of battleships headed by another commander of the Red Ribbon Army, General Blue, launched an attack. When the situation seems just about hopeless, Roshi decides to use his legendary Kamehameha wave. He decimates the entire fleet with it, but Blue then orders his army of submarines to attack. Goku however, manages to learn the Kamehameha himself and destroys a good deal of the subs with it. But just as their situation is looking up, Goku is knocked out by a missile, and Bulma, Yamcha, Oolong, Puar, and Roshi are all captured by Blue's soldiers. The five are carted off to prison near Red Ribbon Headquarters. The next morning, Goku awakens to the beeping of the Dragon Radar. Finding himself alone, he sets out in search of the other six Dragon Balls. At the Red Ribbon Headquarters, Blue brought Red and his second in command Officer Black the six Dragon Balls and assure the last one will go next. But even though he thanked him for completing his assignment, Red blamed Blue for his failure to steal the last Dragon Ball (from Goku) and sentenced him to death. Despite his pleas for another chance, the terrified Blue is then taken away by soldiers and is executed. Goku fights through legions upon legions of Red Ribbon soldiers, while in the meantime, Bulma and the others try to make their escape from the prison.

Eventually, they make it out, to discover Goku carrying a pile of tanks there to greet them. Red and Black retreat with their six Dragon Balls to their last refuge, and Goku goes in pursuit. But when Black hears about Red's true wish—to become taller (rather than becoming ruler of the world), he shoots him as betrayal, causing him to fall down (along with the six Dragon Balls) to his death. Now freed from Red's presence, Black swears to become ruler of the world by changing the name from the Red Ribbon Army to the Black Ribbon Army. He brings out the Army's greatest weapon, a giant robot. The robot's beam weapon destroys a huge swath of territory in its path, and nearly kills Goku, until he manages to knock it on its stomach and detonate the cannon. During their fight, Black convinces Goku to join him in the Black Ribbon Army. When Goku refuses, Black knocked him to the ground and blasted him with rockets. Goku manages to withstood the rockets, only to fall unconscious. Just as Black's robot prepares to finish Goku with another energy beam, Android 8 shows up and stops it in a nick of time. He puts everything he has into keeping the robot from killing the boy, but it's pretty clear that he's no match. Parts start to fly off of him, and he is crushed just as Goku comes to. He lands in a crumpled heap, next to Goku.

Android 8 tells Goku that he is so glad, and he then dies. Goku is saddened and enraged by Android 8's sacrifice, a new world of power suddenly awakens within Goku, as the ground shakes with his tortured screams. Black makes the mistake of egging Goku on by taunting him over Android 8's death, and after recalling the death of his beloved grandpa (who is accidentally killed by him as a Great Ape), Goku finishes him off with a gigantic Kamehameha. After the dust settles, the other six Dragon Balls were recovered and is reunited with Goku's Four-Star Ball. The Eternal Dragon Shenron is summoned forth, but Bulma and Yamcha realize they don't need their wishes anymore. Goku then offers his own wish instead: to revive Android 8 and remove the bomb inside of him.

Cast

Character Name (English dub name) Japanese voice actor English voice actor
Son Goku Masako Nozawa Stephanie Nadolny
Bulma Hiromi Tsuru Tiffany Vollmer
Oolong Naoki Tatsuta Bradford Jackson
Yamcha Tōru Furuya Christopher Sabat
Pu-erh (Pu'ar) Naoko Watanabe Monika Antonelli
Kame-sen'nin (Master Roshi) Kin'ya Aikawa Mike McFarland
Shenron Kenji Utsumi Christopher Sabat
Umigame (Turtle) Daisuke Gōri Christopher Sabat
Commander Red Kenji Utsumi Josh Martin
Staff Officer Black Masaharu Satō Christopher Sabat
General Blue Bin Shimada Sonny Strait
General White Hirohiko Kakegawa Kyle Hebert
Colonel Violet Kazuko Sugiyama Kasey Buckley
Sergeant Metallic (Major Metallitron) Hisao Egawa Chris Rager
Android 8 Shōzō Iizuka Mike McFarland
Narrator Jōji Yanami Brice Armstrong

Music

Releases

The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc on September 13, 1998. It was released on DVD on February 18, 2009.

The English dubbed version was released on April 29, 2003 in two different VHS and DVD editions (edited and uncut) and later as part of FUNimation's Dragon Ball Movie Box, along with Mystical Adventure and Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle. FUNimation's dub of The Path to Power has received great reception from fans, who have praised their writing and for leaving in the original score. The film was later re-released to DVD in North America on February 8, 2011 in a 4-Disc remastered box set with the other three Dragon Ball films.

Reception

Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network considered the movie to be composed of stories already done and done better in the television series.[1]

References

  1. ↑ "Dragon Ball Movies DVD Box Set (Movies 2-4)". 2008-03-26. Retrieved 2015-03-21.

External links

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