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Chapter Information

Chapter Synopsis

Bulma, Oolong, and Goku continue down a road towards Mount Frypan in their car. Bulma wonders about the heat, since they’re heading north. Oolong then explains about Mount Frypan. “Mount Frypan was originally a “Mountain of Refreshing Scenery” and easy to overcome. But about ten years ago, a fire spirit from heaven came down and turned it into a flaming mountain, and it seems that completely changed the climate.”

They reach the mountain, which is covered in flames, to explain the heat. Oolong wants to leave, because Gyūmaō’s also here. Bulma wants to know more about this Gyūmaō, so he tells her how incredibly scary he is, and how he’s even called the “emperor of devils”. At the top of the mountain is Gyūmaō’s castle. The castle is full of lots of stolen treasures, and so since many people are after it, Gyūmaō watches over everything. The sixth Dragon Ball is most certainly in there, but according to Oolong, Gyūmaō himself isn’t in the castle. Gyūmaō guards the castle from the foot of the mountain, because the mountain was set ablaze while Gyūmaō was out on a picnic with his child. The fire is so great that even Gyūmaō can’t return home. Bulma compliments Oolong on his knowledge, but Oolong says it was all in school books. Oolong then tries to drive off in their car, saying not even Goku is a match for Gyūmaō. But Bulma just calls out “Pee-Pee Pee-Pee”, and Oolong pulls over and jumps into the bushes.

Pu’er looks on their radar, and notices they’ve started moving again, and Yamcha says they’re going to Mount Frypan. He thinks Gyūmaō probably has the sixth Dragon Ball. Pu’er thinks they can’t do anything against both the fire and Gyūmaō. Yamcha thinks about how the kid is Son Gohan’s grandson, and Son Gohan and Gyūmaō were both students of Muten Rōshi. Just then, the two of them hear a little girl screaming. She’s running from a huge tyrannosaurus. The girl has a round blade sticking from the top of her helmet, and she takes it off and throws it at the dinosaur, cutting off its head. The blade comes back to her (it’s like a boomerang), and the dinosaur’s remains freak her out, so she fires a beam from her helmet and blows the body and severed head up.

Yamcha and Pu’er’s jaws drop. Then the girl runs some more, and sees the two of them. Yamcha weakly greets her. She screams and fires off her helmet beam again, nearly shooting Yamcha in the crotch. Yamcha then whacks her on the back of the neck, knocking her out. They hop back into their car and continue along towards Mount Frypan. Pu’er notes that Yamcha-sama was so cool around that little girl, and Yamcha says it’s because he’s not a pedophile.

Goku, Bulma, and Oolong have arrived in an abandoned, run-down village at the foot of the flaming mountain, with lots of skeletons scattered around. Bulma complains about the heat, and Oolong says for her to be quiet, so Gyūmaō doesn’t hear. Goku pokes at a cowboy skeleton with a stick. Bulma checks the Dragon Radar, and the Dragon Ball is definitely in the castle atop the flames. She asks Goku if he can’t get up there with Kinto-Un, and so he puts down the skull he’s playing with and calls for Kinto-Un. Oolong gets pissed at Goku for yelling so loud.

Goku flies over the flames and heads towards the castle in the middle, but it’s too hot. Oolong says they should just give up, but Bulma complains that Goku has no guts. As they’re watching, a large, axe-wielding shadow comes out of the rubble. The axe flies, and gets caught in the wall right in front of Bulma. She and Oolong slowly turn around, and then scream. It’s Gyūmaō, in an odd outfit. He takes his axe out of the wall, and supposes they’ve come to steal his castle’s treasure. Bulma assures him they haven’t. Then Goku comes back, saying it was too hot to get inside the castle, and then notices Gyūmaō. Goku wonders who the big guy is, and Bulma yells at him that it’s Gyūmaō-sama. Gyūmaō recognizes Kinto-Un, and wants to know who he got it from. Goku says he got it from Kame-Sen’nin. Gyūmaō says that Kame-Sen’nin is Muten Rōshi-sama, and excitedly asks if he knows where Muten Rōshi-sama lives.

Chapter Notes

Characters

• This chapter marks the first appearance of Chi-Chi, although she is not named until the next chapter.
• This is also the first appearance of Gyūmaō. His name comes directly from the Bull Demon King (牛魔王 níumówáng), a character from Journey to the West.

Antecedents

• The story of Mount Frypan and its connection to Gyūmaō are taken directly from Journey to the West, albeit under somewhat different circumstances. In Journey to the West proper, the Bull Demon King is a sworn brother of Sun Wukong, dating back to the Monkey King’s time as Heaven’s stable-boy. He appears once more as Wukong, Tripitaka & co. are attempting to quell the fires of the Flaming Mountains (火焰山, Chinese: huǒyànshān; Japanese: kaen-zan) so that they may pass through, although he himself is not inconvenienced by this, being connected to that subplot mainly due to family ties (we’ll get to that in the next chapter). In fact, the cause of the Flaming Mountains’ fire is Wukong himself, as a result of his escape from the Furnace of Eight Trigrams he had been imprisoned in some centuries earlier.

  In real life, the “Flaming Mountains” are a group of red sandstone hills in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China, which would make them a potential landmark when crossing from China to India, as the heroes of Journey to the West are charged with doing.

• The armor worn by Chi-Chi in her first appearance is similar to the clothes worn by female protagonists in several of Akira Toriyama’s other works, most closely resembling the outfit worn by the character Pola in Pola & Roid, first published in Weekly Shōnen Jump 1981 #17. Midori Yamabuki also wears a similar costume on the title page of Dr. Slump Chapter 89: “Mammoth Midori, Part 2”, released later that same year in Weekly Shōnen Jump 1981 #43. Toriyama must have liked the look.
• Both the blade boomerang and the energy beam emitted from Chi-Chi’s helmet appear to be drawn from techniques used by the main character of the 1967 tokusatsu series Ultra Seven, the second entry in the Ultraman franchise (after Ultra Q / Ultraman). Ultra Seven, the Ultraman of the series, could perform the Eye Slugger technique, in which the blade on his head could be removed and used as a boomerang weapon, as well as the Emerium Beam, a focused energy weapon emitted from the “beam lamp” in his forehead. Chi-Chi even uses Seven’s most common firing pose, with the first two fingers of both hands near her forehead.

Author’s Comment

• Each issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump featured short comments from the various series’ authors, giving fans a brief insight into their current thoughts, ranging from series-related announcements to trivial happenings in their personal lives. Akira Toriyama’s comments from this issue were:
  最近おもしろいテレビ番組が少なくなって…おかげで仕事がはかどります！<明>

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  There aren’t that many good TV shows anymore… But thanks to that, I’m getting lots of work done! <Akira>

Page Breakdown

The majority of the Dragon Ball series was drawn in black and white, but chapters were occasionally published with color pages. This breakdown notes how many full-color, limited-color, and black-and-white pages appeared in this chapter. As the tankōbon volumes were not released with these colors intact, any color pages shown are taken from the kanzenban release.