DRAGONBALL Z: THE WORLD'S STRONGEST (1990)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, metaphysical*

Now WORLD'S STRONGEST is much more in keeping with the thrills and minor chuckles I expect from a DRAGONBALL installment, far superior to the wimpy DEAD ZONE. 

As in ZONE, the only purpose of the Dragonball schtick is to allow the villains to set up their nefarious plans, and the villains here are original to the cartoon, having no continuity with the cartoon show. Rogue scientist Kochin obtains the seven Dragonballs and wishes for the immortal dragon to uncover Kochin's avalanche-buried master Doctor Wheelo, also a renegade scientist. It will later be revealed that Wheelo's original human body was destroyed and that he was a "brain in a robot body" at the time of his burial. I guess Kochin, having only one wish, couldn't very well restore Wheelo's humanity, because then he still would have buried, and so...

Anyway, Wheelo's got the perfect solution for getting a new body. In a future world full of superb martial artists, how hard could it be to abduct "the world's strongest" fighter and do the old brain-transfer thing?

Two good guys happen to be on the scene for Wheelo's resurrection: Gohan, son of main hero Goku, and one of the show's comedy relief characters, talking pig-humanoid Oolong. In fact, Oolong, while not present in all iterations, adds a lot of comic diversion from what is essentially a simple plot: stop the mad scientist from stealing the hero's body. Gohan and Oolong try to alert Goku, but for some reason Wheelo and Kochin make their first choice in Master Roshi, who's not exactly in the prime of life. The evil madmen use their inventive "bio-men" to capture Roshi and Goku's other friend Bulma, and Goku travels to the villain's arctic redoubt to effect a rescue.

Though the animation remains at the level of the ongoing TV show, the fights are better arranged than in DEAD ZONE, and Goku even unleashes his "spirit bomb" technique from the teleseries. It's even better than the script allows Goku a handful of "Jackie Chan scenes," in which he's made to look silly before he turns things around and kicks cosmic butt. Wheelo's a good one-shot villain but I'm glad he never got a revival anywhere else. Piccolo's in the film too but he's still a hardass at this point, though at some point he becomes a martial mentor to young Gohan.