Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 35 of the first Dragon Ball rewatch of the decade.
We're doing five episodes a week, and we'll be watching every single episode of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT. All 508 episodes. Plus the TV specials and the movies.
I encourage you all to watch in Japanese with subtitles, especially if you have never done so before, but watch along in whichever way brings you the most joy.
Some will probably be caught by surprise by the fact that DBZ movie 1 is next week. This is actually just about where it opened theatrically, and fits in a slight lull in the story, where we're just starting the training stuff. Raditz has been defeated, so we're over a lot of the more tense stuff happening at the start, but we haven't really got into the meat of this arc yet, where the tension starts to build again... FWIW, the next movie goes in the lull between Vegeta's defeat and the journey to Namek.
Previous thread: Week 34 (DB 151-153 & DBZ 1-2)
Next thread: Week 36 (DBZ movie 1)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 156 - Alright! This is the Strongest Combo on Earth! (DBZ episode 3)
Dub title: Unlikely Alliance (Funimation)
Originally aired 10th of May 1989
Kai equivalent: Episode 2 - The Enemy is Goku’s Older Brother?! The Secret of the Saiyan, Strongest of Warriors
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 2 - The World's Strongest Team
Episode director: Kazuhisa Takenouchi
Animation supervisor: Mitsuo Shindo
Raditz takes Gohan away with him, and as Goku and the others formulate a plan, Piccolo appears! Piccolo says that in order to defeat Raditz, who is interfering with his world domination, he will temporarily join forces with Goku, and Goku agrees. The two use the Dragon Radar to search for Gohan, who is wearing a hat with the Four-Star Ball on it, and they land in front of Raditz. But they are overwhelmed by Raditz’s power, and what’s more, they are rendered speechless when they hear that the other two Saiyan are even stronger than him!!
Anime-only/filler content: Chichi wondering when Goku and Gohan will come home, Gohan hiding under the farmer's truck (which Raditz destroys).
Episode 157 - Piccolo’s Trump Card! Gohan is a Crybaby (DBZ episode 4)
Dub title: Piccolo's Plan (Funimation)
Originally aired 17th of May 1989
Kai equivalent: Episode 3 - A Battle with Their Lives on the Line! Goku and Piccolo’s Fierce Suicidal Attack
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 3 - Gohan's Hidden Powers
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Tomekichi Takeuchi
Out in the wild, Goku and Piccolo challenge Raditz! But the gap between their powers is too great and they are no match. So while Goku holds Raditz back, Piccolo fires his new special attack, the Makankōsappō. But Raditz manages to dodge it by a hair’s breath! Goku seizes an opportunity to grasp hold of Raditz’s tail, a Saiyan’s weak spot, but the cruel Raditz tricks Goku and escapes, and proceeds to torture him. It’s at this point that Gohan, who had been locked up inside the spaceship, unleashes his dormant power with rage!!
Anime-only/filler content: At least one scene of Kuririn, Bulma, and Roshi chatting on the way to the site of Goku and Piccolo vs Raditz; another scene of Chichi at home, thinking about Gohan.
Episode 158 - Goku Dies! There’s Only One Chance Left (DBZ episode 5)
Dub title: Gohan's Rage (Funimation)
Originally aired 24th of May 1989
Kai equivalent: Episode 3 - A Battle with Their Lives on the Line! Goku and Piccolo’s Fierce Suicidal Attack
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 4 - Goku's Unusual Journey
Episode director: Kazuhisa Takenouchi
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
Gohan bursts from the spaceship and body slams Raditz! Astonished, Raditz tries to kill the now instantly powered-down Gohan, but Goku immobilizes him. As Goku says to shoot them both, Piccolo fires the Makankōsappō. The beam pierces through their two bodies!! In his death agony, Raditz’s last words are that the two remaining Saiyan out in space will attack Earth in one year. Bulma and the others arrive, having followed behind, and as they watch, Goku passes away as well.
Anime-only/filler content: Raditz reading the power level of Piccolo's Makankōsappō, Gyuumao visiting Chichi (cut in the edited dub).
Episode 159 - Even Enma-sama is Surprised — A Fight in the Afterlife (DBZ episode 6)
Dub title: No Time Like the Present (Funimation)
Originally aired 7th of June 1989
Kai equivalent: Episode 4 - Son Goku Runs in the Afterlife! The Million Kilometer Serpent Road
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 4 - Goku's Unusual Journey
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
God goes to take the dead Goku to Enma-daiō. God says that before Goku will be brought back to life with the Dragon Balls, he will train under Kaiō, who stands at the peak of all the gods in the universe! After receiving permission from Enma-daiō to meet Kaiō, Goku begins running along the Serpent Road, said to be as long as a million kilometers. Meanwhile, Piccolo steals the unconscious Gohan from Bulma and the others, and takes him to a deserted land. Upon testing out Gohan’s dormant power, Piccolo tells Gohan to strengthen himself so as to be able to draw that power out.
Anime-only/filler content: Chichi calling Kame House, then talking to Gyuumao about Gohan.
Episode 160 - Dinosaur Survival! Gohan’s Difficult Training (DBZ episode 7)
Dub title: Day 1 (Funimation)
Originally aired 14th of June 1989
Kai equivalent: None. (Half filler; episode contents partially incorporated into Kai episode 5)
Edited dub equivalent: First half of episode 5 - Gohan's Metamorphosis
Episode director: Minoru Okazaki
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda
Piccolo leaves Gohan in the wasteland after telling him that he will teach him how to fight if he manages to survive for six months! Meanwhile, as Goku runs along the Serpent Road, he has a close call as he almost falls into Hell, located below. Elsewhere, Kuririn visits Goku’s house, but is too uncomfortable to tell Chi-Chi and Gyūmaō about Goku and Gohan. Gohan becomes stuck up on a craggy rock after climbing up there while being chased by a gigantic dinosaur, and Piccolo secretly watches over Gohan.
Anime-only/filler content: Kuririn's visit to Chichi, Goku's guide in the afterlife talking to Uranai Baba at the restaurant.
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Interesting trivia:
- At this point in time in the manga, Piccolo and God die, Gohan uses a Masenko for the first time, Goku rescues Gohan and causes Vegeta to do a meme, Goku gradually aggravates Nappa, Nappa forces Goku to use the Kaio-Ken and break his back, Vegeta kills Nappa for being functionally useless, and Goku and Vegeta fly away and then begin their one-on-one fight.
- Recurring death tallies:
- Son Goku: 1
- Piccolo: 1
- Chiaotzu: 1
- Roshi: 1
- Kuririn: 1
- The moon: 1
- Number of times somebody blames a Scouter: 2
- In the manga, Piccolo hides behind the corner of Kame House, the same spot where Blue hid from the Dragon Ball Gang with the enchanted ropes eight years earlier. In the anime however he's revealed floating above the house.
- Because ViZ translated Chapters 195-519 first, there's a discrepancy with the way Piccolo talks: he initially talks with a very classical manner of speaking like from a costume drama, meant to reflect his upper-class manner of speaking in the original japanese (note: There appears to actually be no particular basis for this in Japanese). This was changed to be more modern by the time Piccolo steals Gohan away, and was adoped for his Daimao and Ma-Junior forms when ViZ got around to translating Chapters 1-194 later.
- Goku and Kuririn discussing being brought back by Shen Long is the first time his wish-granting is given a restriction. In this case, Goku says he found out that he never grants the same wish twice: this is used in the context that Kuririn and Roshi were previously brought back to life, at the end of the Daimao Arc.
- Bulma suggests that they could gather the Dragon Balls to wish Raditz away. Aside from the fact that four of the balls are unaccounted for and unlikely to be gathered within Raditz's one day deadline, the Four-Star Ball is currently with Gohan locked inside Raditz's pod.
- Bulma's radar in this arc is the final time the "puck"-shaped Dragon Radar makes an appearance in the anime. The next time we see it, it'll be a teardrop shape with a mushroom-top button that fits a more Namekian aesthetic, which it will retain for the rest of the series. The next time a puck-shaped radar is seen is in Chapter 519, in the artwork of Bulma showing Goku the Dragon Radar next to her overturned Porche, six years after its last appearance. It returns once again after this, in the 10th anniversary movie, about a year later.
- In the manga, Raditz's Scouter picking up Gohan's Battle Power of 710 while trapped inside the pod is the first time his hidden power is expressed (followed later by him breaking out of the pod). In the anime, it happens earlier at the waterfall.
- This is also the first time a character blames their Scouter for malfunctioning, which will become a recurring excuse from Freeza's men.
- While Raditz appears to be vague as to which of the two Battle Powers (322 and 334) is Goku's, when Raditz encountered Piccolo his Scouter picked up a second Battle Power that was stronger than Piccolo's, confirming that Goku's is 334.
- The English dubs of Z incorrectly give these numbers as 320 and 330. Piccolo's power with the weights removed also incorrectly gives a reading of 400 instead of 408. These differences are quite minor, and were likely just for easier timing and/or mouth flap fitting.
- The English dubs also have Raditz incorrectly say that he's ten times stronger than Goku and Piccolo. This could be dismissed as him merely exaggerating, of course, but either way, it is an addition to the dub.
- While throwing off his weighted clothing, Piccolo says Raditz's name, meaning he was present at Kame House since at least Raditz giving his name. It's likely that he simply followed Raditz as soon as he left, with a suppressed ki.
- This is the final time weighted clothing will be a prominent factor in a Dragon Ball fight (although not the last time it'll be mentioned!). When Goku departs Kaio's world, he's given ordinary clothes, which happens again when he travels to Namek. In the future, characters will use higher gravity, introduced when Goku finds out that Kaio's world has 10x gravity.
- This is also the second and final time that Goku fights barefoot and without his armbands and undershirt, the first time being his last two matches at the 23rd TB. In the manga, Toriyama sometimes forgets that he's not supposed to be drawing Goku's wristbands.
- Goku states that if Raditz thinks power is everything, then he's no fighter. I'm fairly sure about half the American Dragon Ball fanbase completely missed this line.
- The Z dubs add some stuff to the filler scene where Chichi wonders when Goku and Gohan will come home; while looking at Gohan's grades, she says she thinks he could become an astronaut if he works hard enough. Of course, Gohan will end up going to space in the Namek arc.
- Edits in the original dub:
- At the beginning of edited episode 2, Gohan's tears were, somewhat bafflingly, digitally painted out.
- Some padding where Raditz tells Goku and Piccolo just how much he outclasses them was cut.
- Piccolo's blood is recoloured to green.
- Raditz crushing Goku's chest with his foot is cut down a little. (Though Goku does say "Piccolo, my ribs are broken!" in the next episode, so apparently his ribs breaking still happened)
- Raditz smacking Gohan in the face is cut.
- The Makankosappo breaking open and piercing through Goku's back is cut.
- The shots of Goku and Raditz falling are cut a little to remove the clear shots of their enormous, gaping chest wounds.
- Raditz coughing up blood, and that blood on the ground next to his face, was digitally painted out.
- Worth noting: A lot of people, when watching the edited dub, assume a shot right here where Piccolo kills Raditz by raising his hand up is a cut, and that you actually see him palm Raditz in the face or something in uncut, but this isn't the case.
- The scene with Chichi and Gyuumao was cut.
- A shot of Raditz's dead body, as well as Piccolo telling Goku that the guy's dead, was cut.
- The blood on the ground when Goku's body disappears was painted out.
- A short scene of the gang discussing what's happened to Goku while Piccolo puts his cape back on was cut.
- The shot of Kuririn taking the scouter of Raditz's dead body is cut. (Though it's still clearly implied that he took it off his corpse)
- The scene of Chichi calling Kame House and worrying about Gohan was cut.
- Gohan waking up after being thrown in the water, and subsequently crying and running around, was cut (though Piccolo throwing him in wasn't cut).
- Piccolo explaining to Gohan that his dad is dead, but will be wished back with the Dragon Balls in a year, and that Gohan needs to train with Piccolo is cut. Presumably this information is communicated to Gohan offscreen, in the edited dub.
- Redraws in Kai:
- There are three redraws in Kai episode 2; one is from the recap, showing footage from the 23rd Tenkaichi again, while the other two are from Roshi's flashback, and were created to censor kid Goku's genitals.
- There are 21 redraws in Kai episode 3. One corrected an animation error where the white backing to the Turtle symbol on Goku's gi was missing, one changed Piccolo's blood to purple, a few censor the blood and chest wounds from Piccolo killing Goku and Raditz (manga vs Z vs Kai), one fixed the colouring of Vegeta's hair and armour. Some of these are likely 16:9-exclusive redraws for framing reasons; I'm not sure how many.
- There are five redraws in Kai episode 4. One of these corrects an animation error where the Turtle symbol wasn't drawn on Goku's gi.
- On its original broadcast, the title of episode 5 was not shown in the preview at the end of episode 4; this was corrected for home video.
- After hearing that Raditz's Saiyan partners exceed his strength, Goku says he feels terrified. This is somewhat out of character for him considering that usually he would be excited at the news of opponents stronger than him.
- This is also the first and only time a point is made of somebody's ki being focused into a specific point of their body for a particular move, which seems to make the Scouter conclude their Battle Powers are higher than they really are. After this point, Battle Powers don't increase outside of unsuppressing them or when using a Kiai to charge it up.
- It is worth noting however that Raditz is completely dumbfounded as to how they do this. This implies that most grunts of the Freeza Force are totally unaware as to the finer points of using ki and actually charging an attack... Which is kinda weird, given Vegeta's use of the Galick Gun later in this arc.
- In the manga, the final panel of Chapter 201 is re-used as the fourth panel of Chapter 202. This is then done again: The final panel of Chapter 202 is the first panel of 203.
- The Makankosappo is the first move to have been renamed by Funimation. While the original name is very clunky when translated (roughly, "Demonic piercing light death cannon"), Funimation decided on the delightfully unspecific "Special Beam Cannon". Kai would have Piccolo use the correct, romanised name... But only for this arc.
- For what it's worth, the ViZ translation uses Light of Death, leaving out the demonic piercing part.
- Allegedly, at one point during the Cell Games, the Westwood Media dub had Cell use the attack, but called it "Special Beam of Terror". This was around the same time as both the Westwood and Funimation versions had him also say "Kienzan Disc" when using Freeza's version of the Kienzan, so likely this was a scripting mistake; it's known that Ocean and Funi used the same basic scripts at this stage, but it's also clear to those who've compared them side-by-side that there are significant differences in wording; likely Ocean were sent the sort of "first draft" dub scripts, which they then made their own changes to, and then Funi made their own changes to those base scripts. The effect this had here is that the "Kienzan disc" mistake slipped through both of them, but the "Special Beam of Terror" mistake only slipped through Ocean's script guys, not Funi's.
However, I have been unable to find the actual clip of Cell saying this. I did find several people here on Kanzenshuu claim and corroborate it, though, so I'm going to assume it's real.
- A small detail in the manga is that thanks to Raditz side-stepping the Makankosappo and taking it on the shoulder, there's a hole out of a mountain in the distance.
- When Gohan attacks Raditz, his Battle Power is 1,307, 30 short of Piccolo's when he fired his Makankosappo. This should give some perspective on just how hard that headbutt hit him!
- The title card for Episode 5 uses a drawing of Goku taken from the title page of Chapter 204, one of the chapters that corresponds to that episode.
- The hole that is blasted through Raditz and Goku is notably gorier in the anime with additional streams of blood; the manga has a black, nondescript hole. In Kai this is re-animated to be a black burn spot.
- As it turns out, Piccolo DID get to use the Makankosappo to kill Goku!
- It isn't ever explained just how Raditz knows how long an Earth year is. Maybe his Scouter told him.
- Bulma, Kuririn and Roshi arrive at the battlefield in a Capsule plane, which is different from the "bug jumper" Bulma used to arrive at Kame House. This makes sense as the latter only seats one, but it also means that Bulma has another aerial means of transport on her.
- While Raditz, Nappa and Vegeta have green, blue and pink Scouter lenses in the anime, in the Full Colour manga Scouters only have green lenses.
- This of course is the first rather obvious instance of Vegeta and Nappa's mis-colouring in the anime. While Nappa's brown armour is excusable, Vegeta has green and orange armour with red hair; this is because Toriyama hadn't drawn them in colour yet by this point, so Toei just guessed what the colours might be. These would change to their correct colours when they land on Earth. In Kai, the manga scene on the alien planet was re-animed to correct Vegeta's colours, however Nappa's weren't. The Full Colour manga uses brown for Nappa in all his scenes.
- The planet Vegeta and Nappa are on is the first time we've seen a location that isn't Earth or its Moon.
- Vegeta and Nappa will never actually return to that alien planet to finish it off. Nappa gets killed and Vegeta has to be healed up after battling Goku and co., then he heads for Namek once he's learnt Freeza is there.
- Vegeta suggests that Gohan's power is because he's a Saiyan/Human hybrid. Thirteen years later he learns this again when his son Trunks transforms into a Super Saiyan in the Capsule Corp. gravity room.
- Toriyama didn't forget about the farmer's truck! It appears behind Gohan when he's out cold in Chapter 203, and again in some wide shots on Chapter 205's first two pages. The farmer himself, however, has completely disappeared.
- Chapter 205 is one of only two Chapters in the manga to have been coloured entirely with full-colour inks in the original Shonen Jump publication. the other is Chapter 81, which is the one that pretends to be just another entry of Dr. Slump before Goku and General Blue arrive overhead and crash.
- Despite occurring on the same day as Chapter 196, the previous Chapter to have full colour ink pages depicted Roshi, Bulma and Piccolo's outfits with different colours. Roshi goes from green to black, Bulma from blue/white to green/red, and Piccolo to black, no doubt because Toriyama wasn't too particular with what colours he used (which is why Bulma's hair colour changed after chapter 2). In the modern Full Colour manga, this error was corrected, with the 196 colours being chosen for 205 and the other chapters taking place on that same day.
- Bulma investigating Raditz's Scouter is possibly the only we see the inside ear of a Scouter: Bulma has taken off the plate to expose the inner workings.
- Enma is not a character or concept unique to Dragon Ball: he and his role originate from Buddhism where he judges the dead as a wrathful god (explaining his short temper). His red skin and beard also originate from here, however Toriyama in classic fashion twists this role into a literal desk job.
- The Check-In Station is of course the source of the famous "Wellcome" spelling error in the manga. This is "corrected" to "Wel come" in the anime, while in the Full Colour, it's corrected to "Welcome" with the text centered on the sign (meaning the edges of the W and E are slightly too steep).
- Amusingly, Enma's name card has "Closed" on the opposite side, suggesting he doesn't constantly judge the dead.
- God suggests that Kaio is stronger than Emna, which is odd considering that soon after, Kaio states that Vegeta and Nappa are stronger than him. This raises some questions regarding how Enma deals with stronger beings such as Cui, Dodoria, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force, Freeza, and so on.
- Also, Kaio is only introduced as his name on its own at this point (which nicely renders as "The Lord of Worlds", which Viz uses as a title for him, while still using "Kaio" as a name), suggesting he oversees practically the entire universe. This isn't revised to the North Galaxy until the Namek Arc, where he points out that Namek is outside his jurisdiction. Enma's guide also says he stands above all the gods of the universe, which will also be revised later with the Grand Kaio, the Kaioshin and Grand Kaioshin, not to mention Beers, Whis, and the Omni-King in Super... Though this explanation could still hold some weight if the guide simply means the Gods who are on the same tier as the God of earth (the guy often called Kami by fans).
- When Enma shouts at God for thinking too loudly in his office, a being with a cape can be standing between them. This suggests that while being are represented as "soul clouds" while waiting in line, they're granted their bodies when being judged by Enma.
- The guide who takes Goku to Snake Way is driving a Messerschmitt KR200 from West Germany. The KR201 would be depicted in the 1993 Shonen Jump calendar driven by Gohan and Videl, where it would then be adapted for Z's second set of eyecatches where Goten lifts the car with one hand.
- The guide says that Enma managed to cross Snake Way once before. Either that was before there were any dead, or he had someone cover for him.
- In the original edited dub, Goku tells the guide that his kung fu is "The Kame-Sen'nin style of martial arts." The 2005 redub lazily retains this, making these two episodes the only times to date that any official English dub has actually said "Kame-Sen'nin." Usually, they translate it as "Turtle Hermit", instead. For the '96 dub, they simply hadn't established that precedent yet, but by 2005, they had dubbed all of DB, Z, and GT once before, so they really had no excuse.
- In the manga, Snake Way is stated to be 1 million kilometers, 2.6 times the distance from Earth to the Moon (which Goku made in seconds using Nyoi-bo to drop off the Rabbit King). In the Funimation dubs, however, Kai included, Snake Way is 1 million MILES, which is 372,822 miles longer than it's supposed to be (and thus increasing his average speed to get to the end).
- Goku will take six months to travel the 1 million kilometers of Snake Way, meaning his average speed is 228km/h, which is supercar speeds (in the Heavenly Training filler, Krillin and co. were depicted outrunning a slower sports car). At a normal running speed of 10kph, it would take 268 years and six months to cross Snake Way.
- On his journey BACK Goku will take just 48 hours to cover Snake Way, meaning his average speed on the way back is 20,833km/h, or 91x faster than the first trip. This is 17x faster than the current land speed record, although it's half the the fastest a human has ever travelled, which is when Appolo 10 hit 39,897km/h travelling back to Earth.
- When Piccolo bad-mouth's Goku, the manga cuts back to him sneezing involuntarily. This is a classic Japanese joke to explain a random sneeze, and the anime had in fact used it before in the Red Ribbon Arc when Bulma (justifiably) speaks ill of Master Roshi.
- As pointed out by God, Raditz's soul making it to Other World rather than wandering the earth aimlessly is a sign that Piccolo is changing and is no longer the Daimao of old. Of course, Funimation's dubs avoid this and instead uses Piccolo taking Gohan under his wing rather than killing him as the example.
- Dragon Ball Super has Whis remind Beers that he killed off the dinosaurs. This ignores dinosaurs having previously appeared in Dragon Ball before, most notably here and in the very first Chapter/Episode.
