Kinnikuman 288

After much worry, debating and resistance against them, Terry and Robin have finally joined Suguru in his battle for the Throne! But while with good intentions, will they even get a chance to fight...or is this really the end of Team Kinnikuman!?

Chapter 288: Scramble for the Kinniku Throne (15): The Secret Member List

107.
Announcer: Meat-kun, who has taken King the 100 Ton’s attack and was on the verge of crashing into the ceiling, has been caught by Robin Mask and Terryman---!!

108.
Suguru: ………
Audience: Aah.
Mariposa: How…can this be: those two shouldn’t have departed from England and America since they were rigidly surrounded by the Choujin Police Corp!!
Robin: Have you forgotten: the strength of the bonds of friendship of Justice Choujin! It’s a case of our friendship with a friend getting us through.
(TN: Robin uses “tsuranuku” here, which directly stands for “to get through”. But I sort of don’t quite get the context: is it that “their friendship with Suguru got through to them” or “their friendship with Suguru helped them get through the Choujin police”. I assume that it was the latter considering the context of Mariposa asking how they got there with the police after them, but my head sort of makes me feel it could be either)
Terry: Even though we had a severe difficulty standing in our way before our eyes, we broke through it!!
Suguru: Ro…Robin…
Suguru: Terry……

109.
Robin: Well, Meat-kun, you’re already relieved, so take it easy.
Terry: You splendidly accomplished a great task by defeating Mixer Taitei.
Meat: Pl…please s…save Prince.
Suguru: I…I had thought I was going to somehow defeat the five of the Mariposa Corp by myself, but…without my full power, I’m really embarrassed that I had to deal with this by borrowing that child Meat…
Nurse: Ki…Kinnikuman-san!!
Nurse: …………
Suguru: With both of you active in your new world as Choujin Chief of Staff and Choujin Staff Officer, I was thinking I wasn’t going to request your cooperation, even if I avoided saying that.

110.
Suguru: If I had requested your cooperation, you would have gotten hurt by going into the ring once again.
Terry: You can request our cooperation without reserve, Kinnikuman.
Robin: For whatever reason, we were thinking of coming to Kumamoto.
Suguru: So…so then…
Terry: Sorry for keeping you waiting, Kinnikuman!!
Robin: Leave the rest to us!!

111.
Caption: OSAKA CASTLE—
Announcer: The Three Crows of the Justice Choujin have been restored after a long time!! This is a grade-up for Team Kinnikuman---!!
(TN: Though the “three crows” has several references, including to the fairy tale of “The Three Ravens”, the “three crows” also has a Japanese meaning referring to a triumvirate of the three strongest players, originally coined for Go but also used in other sports like baseball)
Mayumi & Sayuri: They’re back---!!
Mayumi: Do you see: regardless of whatever gets in their way, the heated Friendship Soul of Justice Choujin won’t yield to this!!
Solider: Uuh.

112.
Announcer: So, will the fight with King the 100 Ton be Robin Mask in place of Meat? Or Terryman?
100 Ton: Uuh, I had thought that Team Kinnikuman would finally be annihilated by defeating Meat, but an unthinkable intrusion has entered.
Mariposa: No, 100 Ton. They haven’t been decided as intruders yet.
Mariposa: Terryman, Robin Mask, if we go by the rules of the Scramble for the Kinniku Throne Survival Match, you’re not qualified to participate in this match!!
Terry: What---!!
Mariposa: In this Survival Match, the team leader who are confronting each other for this team competition have exchanged a member list written with the order of players who are participating in the matches. Therefore, players who aren’t registered on this member list don’t have the right to participate in the matches!!
List:
TEAM KINNIKUMAN:
-SUGURU KINNIKU
-ALEXANDRIA MEAT

113.
100 Ton: Referee, let me borrow their member list! Don’t even make a peep on that!!
(TN: 100 Ton makes a comment of “Guu no ne”, which is “the sound of “guu”, which is usually the sound of a lull in Japanese)
Suguru: The ones who shouldn’t be making a peep are you…
100 Ton: Uh…
Mariposa: What’s wrong? 100 Ton…
100 Ton: Th…this is…
100 Ton: Terryman and Robin Mask’s names, which weren’t on there when we exchanged members before the match, are registered!!
List:
TEAM KINNIKUMAN
ADVANCE GUARD: KINNIKUMAN
SECOND GUARD: ALEXANDRIA MEAT
SECOND-IN-COMMAND: THE TERRYMAN
GENERAL: ROBIN MASK

Mariposa: What—

114.
Mariposa: You hadn’t conferred this, Kinnikuman.
Terry: Kinnikuman, what’s going on?
Suguru: Those two were, what I call, invisible ink members: when I prepared my member list, I wrote the names of Terryman and Robin Mask with a special invisible ink that reacts only to strong heat for when I would have trouble.
(TN: When Suguru says “invisible ink members”, the term he makes is “aburidashi”, which is a style of invisible writing that appears only when heat is applied; this was actually a special style of ink that goes back to onmyouji fortune tellers in the Edo era, so it’s not like it’s something that was just made up here and now by Suguru)
Suguru: When 100 Ton opened up the scroll, the characters rose up, reacting to the strong heat from the lights on the ceiling.

115.
Terry: I get it. So then, with that cleared, we have a reason to go in the ring as members of Team Kinnikuman.
Announcer: Well, with this, the matches have become increasingly confusing with two remaining on Team Mariposa and Team Kinnikuman with two left with the addition of Robin Mask and Terryman.
Audience: Robin—Terry—
Mariposa: If it’s come to that, then neither Terryman or Robin Mask are nothing. Let’s show them the terror of your Evil Power that killed that brat!!
100 Ton: As you request, Mariposa-sama.

116.
Terry: Ooh!!
Caption: TEAM MARIPOSA SECOND-IN-COMMAND: KING THE 100 TON VS. TEAM KINNIKUMAN SECOND-IN-COMMAND: THE TERRYMAN
Audience: Terry—Terry—Terry—Terry—
Announcer: Well, now the gong has sounded—
Announcer: The showdown of the duo second-in-commands has begun in the ring--!!

117.
Suguru: It’s already already, Meat.
Meat: Pr…Prince, is it true? Are those two on Team Kinnikuman…has Robin and Terry really saved us?
Suguru: Yes, it seems so.
Announcer: Terryman starts with a Drop Kick--!!
Terry: Sorya!!
Announcer: But 100 Ton has repelled it extremely easily—
Terry: As I expected, by just being called King the 100 Ton, there’s too much of a weight difference for my mere 95 kilos.
Terry: Al—right, in that case!!

118.
Terry: I’ll destroy him with a punch!!
Terry: Guwa…what a hard body……!!
Terry: That’s not iron, copper or even lead; it’s a metal that I haven’t encountered before now.
100 Ton: Alright, now I’ll give treatment to your hand.
Terry: Ow!!
Robin: Terryman!!
Announcer: This is cruel: King the 100 Ton has trampled on the back of Terryman’s injured hand with his entire body weight.

119.
Terry: Uoaaa--!!
Robin: Terryman, his leg, grab his leg!!
100 Ton: Guohohoho, how’s that? I’m quite pleased with it.
Terry: Gu
Announcer: Terryman’s kick has hit the back of 100 Ton’s head--!!
100 Ton: Guwa!!
Terry: Though I’m undaunted even though I’ve taken that much of your attacks, your faltering just by taking that kick to the head shows that you’re too reliant on your hard armor; your piling it on is like you haven’t been trained!!
100 Ton: Guohoho, that’s enough of your impudent talk.
Terry: Ge!! You’ve taken off all your armor.
100 Ton: Though I’m dealing with you alone, 20 Tons will be enough.

120.
Terry: Get out---!!
Announcer: Terryman this time is in a Jumping Knee Pat, aiming for 100 Ton’s face!!
Terry: He…vanished!!
Terry: He…was over there before I knew it!?
Suguru: I get it: by just reducing his weight to 20 Tons, 100 Ton’s movements have become quicker……
100 Ton: Terryman, be patient there. Let me show you something amusing.
Terry: ………!?

121.
Terry: W…what? The ring is suddenly starting to shake!!
Suguru: Ooh!!
Announcer: Um…we—ll, suddenly…a crack is arising in the canvas, raising something up---!!
Robin: Th…that’s!!

122.
Terry: A…see-saw, a giant see-saw---!!
Announcer: Somehow a giant see-saw has suddenly appeared in the center of the ring----!!
Terry: Uuh!!
100 Ton: Terryman, the end of my fight with you has been turned into a See-Saw Deathmatch—
100 Ton: First we’ll go 40t with 40 tons!!
(TN: 100 Ton states “40 ton kara 40t; the “40t” is in reference to a “metric ton”, which is in particular a weight term as opposed to a mass term. Basically, a regular “ton” is a term for a ton of “mass”, whereas “metric ton” is a “weight” term which stands for 1,000kg or a the “weight of a cubic meter of water”; therefore why the difference and why it had to be pointed out between “ton” and “t”)

123.
Announcer: Aah, Terryman has sprung up from the reaction of the see-saw he’s on!!
Terry: Uwa!!
Audience: Aah!!
Terry: Guwa!!
Announcer: Ooh…how clever: he immediately grasped onto the rope, holding off his crash into the ceiling!!

124.
100 Ton: Though a typical Choujin has been said to go to hell at 40 tons, of course you are Terryman.
100 Ton: So then, how about 80 tons this time?
Terry: What…!!
100 Ton: Sorya!!
100 Ton: Jet Roller See-Saw 80t!!

125.
Terry: Uwa---!!
Announcer: Terryman is holding it off by grabbing the rope again—
Terry: Ge!!
Suguru: Te…Terry---!!

126.
(SCRAMBLE FOR THE KINNIKU THRONE ARC)
SPECIAL VTR XII
ROBIN MASK AND THE TERRYMAN JOIN THE WAR!!

TN: This chapter has two thing that probably people are going to be complaining about...but to tell the truth, you should be complaining about one...but not the other! A bit of explanation:

-The one you probably should be complaining about is the "magical addition" of Terry and Robin to Suguru's fighter list and the means how they were able to do so. First of all, when the heck did Suguru even have the time to write out a "list of fighters" for the Throne Succession tournament in the first place? The entire tournament was essentially set up due to the coronation ceremony disaster, which took a couple hours to go from "Suguru is the new king" to "we're holding a tournament to determine who the new king will be"...and part of which involved Suguru moping through town about losing everything he had! Now OK, I know that the other Princes had already set their team-mates up before crashing the party and we can give a shadow of the doubt that Suguru would "attempt" to call on Robin and Terry, but also don't forget that they were screwed over with their new jobs assuming Suguru was the new king and there was no concept that they would rebel and suddenly be by his side, while there was at least a little bit of time between the conceptualization of the plan to screw Suguru to the Coronation Disaster. The only time Suguru would have even had to make this scroll would probably had been on the plane to Kumamoto, and even then he would have been watched by Mariposa and his teammates to make sure he didn't do anything funny! (they were on the same plane) And of course we have the kicker: Suguru used invisible ink to hide them until such an occasion occurred where it would be questioned. Without any guarantees that Terry and Robin would show up, how could he have gotten away with it!? Suguru and Meat could have lost, no one would have shown up and that would have been that: game over, Suguru isn't a king candidate anymore! Yeah...I know that couldn't happen to the main hero of a shonen manga (unless it's Shaman King), but the convoluted way this mess was handle was atrocious and really should be spoken of again.

-The other factor that really shouldn't be questioned...is 100 Ton setting up a see-saw in Kumamoto like so! Why am I not ballistic about this? Well it's actually simple: the perfect match set-up will always, and I mean always, exist for the Choujin who needs them. Whether it's Springman on a field of sand to turn into slick glass or Planetman fighting in the dead-of-night to simulate the universe or even the Hell Missionaries ironically being in a wire-mesh surrounded ring just when their Magnet Power is revealed, the locations and conditions of the fight will always be perfect and appropriate for the enemy. Therefore, while it may seem ridiculous that Mariposa would know exactly that they would be fighting in this Castle-Taking battle exactly in Kumamoto the moment after this set-up was made, the see-saw was there for King the 100 Ton and that's all there is to know. (the only other excuse I have is that Mariposa set up see-saws in all their fields...just in case)

There were some faults in this chapter, but overall it was still as fun as heck. I'll be getting more into Terry/100 Ton in the next couple scripts, but I think I should at least address "what exactly 100 Ton's weights are". In a way you could sort of see them a bit like his "armor" and not that needed...but I think in a way it is more like a fusion of Venom and Iron Man in their usage: Iron Man in that they are his main weapon of metal and he can't fight without it, Venom because it's a symbiotic weapon and that it's part of him whether or not pieces aren't on his body. As for what happens when he isn't wearing any...well, basically he doesn't need them but he can't fight without them. Sure 0t = being super-speedy, but the mass and weight of his weights are what gives him his power and he can't attack without them.