Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 37 - DBZ episode 8-12

[Robo4900]

Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 37 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.

I'm way behind right now. Looking forward to catching up, though -- I know a lot of this material is filler, but personally, I LOVE this whole training period.
Fond memories of watching the original dub of this stuff when I was a kid, too.
Sucks for anyone watching Kai, though; only one episode this week. If it's any consolation, it picks up again quite soon.

Previous thread: Week 36 (DBZ movie 1)
Next thread: Week 38 (DBZ 13-17)

Anyway, without further ado...

Episode 161 - The Great Transformation on a Moonlit Night! The Secret of Gohan’s Power (DBZ episode 8.)
Dub title: Gohan Goes Bananas! (Funimation)
Originally aired 21st of June 1989
Kai equivalent: Episode 5 - Wilderness Survival! The Moon Awakens Gohan
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 5 - Gohan's Metamorphosis
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama

Unable to tell Chichi and Gyūmaō about Goku and Gohan, Kuririn returns to Kame House, where Bulma and Kame-Sen’nin are waiting. Yajirobe stops by, and delivers a message from Karin that they should come to Karin Tower, as God will train them. When Chichi stops by immediately afterwards with Gyūmaō, she faints when Kame-Sen’nin tells her of Goku’s death. That night on the craggy rock, Gohan transforms into a gigantic monkey! Piccolo destroys the moon once he realizes it is the cause of this, and then removes Gohan’s tail after he returns to normal.

Anime-only/filler content: Kuririn going to Mt. Paozu, failing to tell Chichi and Gyuumao about Goku and Gohan, and staying over the night, Bulma measuring Turtle's battle power. Both the edited dub and Kai kept basically all of this. (Written by Takao Koyama)

Episode 162 - Sorry Robot-san — The Tears that Vanished in the Desert (DBZ episode 9)
Dub title: The Strangest Robot (Funimation)
Originally aired 28th of June 1989
Kai equivalent: None.
Edited dub equivalent: None. (Some footage incorporated into edited episode 6)
Episode director: Osamu Kusai
Animation supervisor: Katsumi Aoshima

Falling into a hole out in the desert, Gohan discovers an old robot in some underground ruins. After activating the dormant robot, it tells him he is interrupting his sleep, but then grudgingly begins to look out for Gohan. When the robot says that he was buried in sand by an earthquake during an excavation 80 years ago, Gohan tries to pull him out. But the ruins begin to collapse, and the robot sacrifices himself to carry Gohan to the surface! Overcoming his sadness, Gohan walks on.

Anime-only/filler content: All filler. Mostly cut in the edited dub and entirely cut in Kai. (Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa)

Episode 163 - Don’t Cry Gohan! His First Fight (DBZ episode 10)
Dub title: A New Friend (Funimation)
Originally aired 5th of July 1989
Kai equivalent: None.
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 6 - Gohan Makes a Friend
Episode director: Kazuhisa Takenouchi
Animation supervisor: Mitsuo Shindō

While doing a part time job as a professional baseball player, Yamcha is called upon by Kuririn as he’s in the middle of a game, and learns of Goku’s death and the Saiyan attack. He then rides with Kuririn in Bulma’s air car so that they can receive training from God. Meanwhile, Gohan becomes indebted to an injured dinosaur, but the carnivorous dinosaur that had previously come after Gohan attacks it! Gohan fights, attempting to save it!! But he fails, and the dinosaur is eaten.

Anime-only/filler content: All filler. Mostly included in the edited dub, entirely skipped by Kai. (Written by Keiji Terui)

Episode 164 - The Saiyan, Strongest Warriors in the Universe, Awaken! (DBZ episode 11)
Dub title: Terror On Arlia (Funimation)
Originally aired 12th of July 1989
Kai equivalent: None. (Some footage incorporated into Kai episode 6)
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 7 - Trouble on Arlia
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Tomekichi Takeuchi

As he endures his life of survival, Gohan has become so strong that he turns the tables on the carnivorous dinosaur and uses it as food. Meanwhile, in their spaceships on their way to Earth, the Saiyans Vegeta and Nappa stop by Planet Arlia in order to take it as their own. On this planet inhabited by bug people, the two allow themselves to be captured and taken to the castle of the dictator King Moai, but Nappa easily beats all the soldiers! They even defeat the monster that is the king’s trump card!! After killing the king, Vegeta judges the planet as worthless, and wipes it out.

Anime-only/filler content: The entire episode except for Gohan eating berries and facing off with the dinosaurs. Mostly kept in the edited dub, almost entirely cut from Kai. (Written by Toshiki Inoue)

Episode 165 - Catnap on the Serpent Road — Goku Takes a Tumble (DBZ episode 12)
Dub title: Global Training (Funimation)
Originally aired 19th of July 1989
Kai equivalent: None.
Edited dub equivalent: None. (Some footage incorporated into edited episodes 7 and 8.)
Episode director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama

While training, Piccolo levitates pyramids in the air! But he makes a mistake in his power regulation, and causes the ground to fluctuate. Training somewhere else, Gohan nearly falls into a fissure. As this is happening, Bulma and Kuririn arrive at the waterfall where Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu are training while being shadowed by Lunch. After hearing their story, Tenshinhan resolves to also receive God’s training!! On the Serpent Road, Goku receives a lift from the road’s garbage truck, but he is tired and falls asleep…

Anime-only/filler content: All filler. A few scenes were kept or repurposed elsewhere in the edited dub, but Kai cut it entirely. (Written by Takao Koyama)

-

Interesting trivia:

• At this point in time in the manga, Goku uses a Kaio-Ken against Vegeta, eventually using a x4 Kamehameha to counter Vegeta's Galick Gun, then Vegeta uses a Power Ball to turn himself into an Oozaru.
• In the manga, Gohan does in fact turn into an Oozaru by looking at the moon (thus re-introducing the form properly to the audience after Raditz mentioned it again).
  • The anime's embellishment is to include a second moon being projected by Goku's pod. This implies that Piccolo had Gohan train in a place not too far from home, but while this helps with Episode 16 where Gohan returns home, the early manga established with Turtle that Mount Paozu is nowhere near the coast.
• Destroying the moon implies that a Saiyan needs sustained exposure to the moon in order to maintain the Oozaru form, which would make transformation without a moon present troublesome.
• When Piccolo gives Gohan his turtle school gi, it has the boots and undershirt Goku gained after training with Kami (presumably neither are weighted).
• Edited episode 5 marks the debut of the phrase "The next dimension" as a euphamism for the afterlife, and death in general, likely to address (or pre-empt) complaints from either the networks, Saban, or parents. Later on, "Other World" would become preferred. After episode 5 aired, all airings of episodes 1 and 2 (as well as all home video until 2013's "Rock The Dragon" box set) would be edited to censor all references to death, partially with retakes, partially by reusing dialogue from other scenes in the first few episodes.
• The instances of dialogue in the first two edited episodes' censored couterparts that were simply cut off ("This isn't good; I smell death in the air", "Hey you! Quit your jabbering! Goku isn't capable of killing anyone!") or reused lines from other episodes ("I'm going to worry myself to death" vs "All this worrying is going to give me wrinkles") were reverted to their original forms in Funimation's "Ultimate Uncut" dub in 2005, meanwhile any dialogue that was re-recorded ("You could get killed, for one thing." vs "I suppose you could get me angry."), the censored dialogue was retained.
• Edits in the original dub:
  • Edited episode 5 cuts a 5-minute segment at its beginning including a conversation between Popo and God about the situation they're in, including the explanation that if Piccolo dies, so will God, as well as a scene of Gohan alone for the first time.
  • Gohan peeing on a rock is cut.
  • Kuririn having dinner with Chichi and Gyuumao was cut.
  • The bar scene in the afterlife with Baba was cut.
  • The scene where Piccolo gives Gohan the apples is slightly trimmed, likely just for time. Gohan remarking that the apples are sour is cut. A later flashback to this scene would reinstate this line. It's possible they recorded it for this episode, cut it at the last minute for time, but decided to include it, but it's also equally possible that they simply recorded the line new for the episode that flashes back to this.
  • When Chichi and Gyuumao are driving to Kame House, the cigarette that appears briefly in his mouth is painted out.
  • Bulma shooting Roshi and Kuririn was cut; it cuts straight from Bulma saying the scouter's working to Roshi and Kuririn sitting on the sofa. Actually a pretty seamless edit.
  • A scene was cut in which a squirrel attempts to steal Gohan's apple, then runs away.
  • Gohan peeing again, just before he sees the moon, was cut.
  • A plant was digitally added to the scene of Gohan transforming back, to cover his crotch.
  • Gohan peeing after waking up from going ape was also cut.
  • When the pterodactyl fights the falcon in edited episode 6, some blood was painted out.
  • The first few minutes of uncut episode 9 are edited into the first few minutes of edited episode 6; the episode cuts to commercial after the falcon drops Gohan, and we return at the beginning of uncut episode 10, meaning pretty much the entirety of uncut episode 9 was cut.
  • The dinosaur in edited episode 6 actually shows a lot of uncensored blood, though not all of it; Chris Psaros of DBZ Uncensored theorised that only violence to humans was considered obscene to the censors Funimation were working with, whereas violence against non-human creatures such as the dinosaurs (or the Arlians) was considered A-OK. He points out in his guide that, in the edited dub of OG DB, Chichi cuts off a dinosaur's head, and blood squirts all over the place. Scenes from uncut episode 11 that were used in the edited dub also show Gohan cutting parts off a dinosaur's tail to eat, and Vegeta and Nappa massacring the Arlians is largely presented uncensored, with the only mention of "The next dimension" being when Vegeta blows up the entire Arlian planet.
  • Gohan briefly fantasising about riding the dinosaur was cut, presumably for time.
  • All of Lunch's scenes were cut.
  • Uncut episode 12 was very heavily cut up; many scenes from it were removed and repurposed into episodes 7 and 8, while pretty much the entire rest of it (mostly centring on Lunch) was cut entirely.
  • In total, approximately 66% of uncut episode 8 was kept, 12% of uncut episode 9 was kept, 88% of uncut episode 10 was kept, and 28% of uncut episode 12 was kept. In-depth information on episode 11 is unavailable, as Chris Psaros taped over his recording of edited episode 7 at some point prior to writing up his guide.
• The Ultimate Uncut dub has a scripting error in the scene where Bulma shoots Kuririn and Roshi. In the original edited dub, Bulma says "Hey guys, hop to! I got this thing working!", cut to Roshi and Kuririn standing up, where Roshi says "Hop who?"
  In the uncut dub, they changed Bulma's line to "Let's go, guys!", and had her repeat that phrase after she's shot them. Roshi replies "Hop where?", which makes no sense.
  The 2007 Orange Brick redub fixes this, and has Roshi use an alternate line, "Go where?", however this is only the case in the 5.1 Kikuchi-scored mix. The stereo Nathan Johnson mix uses "Hop where?"
• Redraws in Kai episode 5:
  • Raditz being killed in the recap.
  • Gohan waking up with the sun in his eyes.
  • Surprised Roshi.
  • A shot of the moon.
  • The moon exploding.
  • Gohan transforming back from Oozaru form; this was done to censor his genitals.
• The aircar Yajirobe uses to stop off at Kame House is the same one he used to take Goku to Karin's Tower after he was nearly killed by Piccolo, and later to deliver the Senzu Beans to the Dragon Team shortly before 19 and 20 blow it up (it's okay though, Ten could see his parachute).
• Bulma wakes up Kuririn and Roshi by shooting at them with a machine gun. The last time she did this was in Chapter 4/Episode 3, where she shot at Goku for taking off her panties the previous night and accidentally making Bulma flash her privates instead of her panties.
  • The edited dub of Kai censored this to her instead punching them, complete with a very impressive visual edit.
• Bulma describes her modifications to the Scouter as switching it over to "our numeric system". Presumably this means the glyphs used to display the numbers on the visor, otherwise all of the readings on Bulma's Scouter could not be comparable to those by un-modified Scouters like Raditz, Vegeta and so on.
• Turtle's Battle Power of 0.001 is the lowest Scouter reading in Dragon Ball history.
• At this point, Tenshinhan is still the most powerful of the surviving Dragon Ball Gang, followed by Kuririn and Yamucha (and Roshi in dead last).
• It's also worth noting that the Scouter did not pick up Yajirobe at all despite him being right outside Kame House. This implies that Goku's Battle Power in the Daimao Arc was below 179 (Yamucha's Battle Power when the Scouter was used to track global Battle Powers), otherwise the Scouter would have picked him up before it did Yamucha. That, or Yajirobe's been slacking off, which is also a strong possibility.
• This is the first time Kuririn and Yajirobe have spoken with each other. While Goku said that Yajirobe's voice sounds similar to Kuririn's, here Kuririn compares it to a falling log.
• Here, Yajirobe says that Goku is training in hell before leaving Kame House (a slightly inaccurate name for Other World). In the Daimao Arc, Goku said he was training in heaven before leaving Kame House (or more specifically, with God).
• This is also the first time Gyuumao and Roshi have met since Roshi accidentally blew up Mount Frypan in the opening arc.
• In the manga, Chichi showing up at Kame House asking where Goku and Gohan are is the first time she appears in the Saiyan arc.
• The anime also re-arranges events slightly, swapping the Scouter, Yajirobe and Chichi scene with Gohan turning into an Oozaru so that Gohan goes second (which is retained in Kai). This slightly befuddles the plotting, because Gohan turns into an Oozaru on his first night of wilderness training, while Chichi arrives specifically because Goku and Gohan didn't return after nightfall.
• Episode 9 of Z is the THIRD time an orange sabertoothed cat shows up, after Z Episode 1 and DB Episode 1.
• Nathan Johnson's regular recap theme debuts in uncut episode 9. It would be used in pretty much every episode from now on, in the Ultimate Uncut dub.
  • In the Japanese version, Dragon Ball Z is the first Dragon Ball anime to have a theme specifically for its recap, as the original Dragon Ball never had one, and didn't even use recaps for a long stretch of its run.
• Z episode 9 was Masako Nozawa's favourite episode to play Gohan in.
• Yamucha's turn as a baseball player is referenced much later in Dragon Ball Super where he returns to the sport. This is somewhat confusing as Super treats Kai as its preceding series over the original Z, but Yamcha playing baseball was cut from Kai.
• It might have been included however because Yamucha becoming a baseball player was Toriyama's idea, with Toriyama even elaborating on Yamucha's feelings about it. Toriyama outlined many of the things the Dragon Ball Gang were up to in the year before Vegeta and Nappa's arrival, including Piccolo fighting a clone of himself, Lunch chasing Tenshinhan and running into an adult Upa (whom Toriyama drafted a design for), the giant castle snake being an obstacle for Goku, and Goku eating the Snake Way clouds. The Hell Fruit episode is also "full" of Toriyama's ideas.
• After the six month timeskip, the manga shows Yamucha is training in his turtle school gi, but with his desert bandit boots he wore in the first three arcs rather than the smaller shoes Kuririn wears.
• Gohan seems to harbour no ill-will to the giant green dinosaur for killing his beloved dinosaur friend in Episode 10.
• It's well worth noting that after six months, Gohan has learnt how to fire his ki all on his own, albiet only for the purposes of lighting a fire.
• In a previous Trivia entry I noted that Goku had to have travelled 228mph to cross one million kilometers in six months. However, in the anime Goku crosses this distance slightly faster, since he was sent back to King Yenma's desk drawer at the end of Episode 13 and had to start over.

Episode summaries, airdates, and titles courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide. Filler breakdowns and Dragon Ball logo provided, and trivia co-written, by KBABZ. Additional trivia courtesy of Chris Psaros's DBZ Uncensored guide.

[MasenkoHA]

While I hesitate to call any episode of Dragon Ball my favorite, especially when it’s such a serialized show, Don’ Cry Mr.Robot ranks pretty high up there, it’s a shame to see Funimation skip it in their original edited dub but it’s not surprising; two episodes back to back with a near identical premise, of course the one with the dinosaur got kept. The fact Gohan’s dino friend is allowed to be killed by the bigger dinosaur does make it one of the more emotionally resonate episodes in the Saban era.

The Saiyan filler is all around solid (I do think its more the fight itself that drags) and it’s a shame Toei couldn’t keep this level of quality for anime only material after.

The dub (both the 96 dub and 05 dub) give Yamcha a made up date called “Becky Hathford” and it sticks out like sore thumb when other characters are called Goku and Krillin and Bulma.

Good time as any to point out the elephant in the room that for whatever reason Funimation seemed dead set on not reusing any of the episode titles from the edited dub for the uncut dub, to the point of seriously renaming “Trouble on Arlia” to “Terror on Arlia” this lead to a lot of lame titles like “Gohan Goes Bananas” “Defying Gravity” “No Time like the Present”‘when the the old dub titles where much better. They also rebranded this era as “The Vegeta saga” for the UUE dvds (before going back to the Saiyan saga for the Orange bricks I think?) so maybe Funimation was tryning to treat these episodes as a separate thing rather than an outright replacement. Maybe?

[ArmenianPepsi]

Very nice touch of you to include any significant re-draws in Kai. Though when thinking about them, it's hard to think of a decent rationale to go through the effort to redraw some of these. It's easy to understand why they would go censoring Gohan's genitals, but redrawing the moon's explosion or that shot of Roshi, no clue. Maybe it had something to do with the re-framing of the episodes for the 16:9 dvd's?

[Matches Malone]

Very nice touch of you to include any significant re-draws in Kai. Though when thinking about them, it's hard to think of a decent rationale to go through the effort to redraw some of these. It's easy to understand why they would go censoring Gohan's genitals, but redrawing the moon's explosion or that shot of Roshi, no clue. Maybe it had something to do with the re-framing of the episodes for the 16:9 dvd's?

Based on what I understand, they redrew those scenes because the originals were damaged. It's also worth mentioning that they weren't redrawn exactly, but rather the originals were traced over. I think there might be a few exceptions like the Goku and Vegeta beam clash where it was done to enhance the visuals.

[MasenkoHA]

I thought the beam clash was altered to comply with modern Japanese television standards in a post-Pokemon Shock incident world?

[Matches Malone]

I thought the beam clash was altered to comply with modern Japanese television standards in a post-Pokemon Shock incident world?

I know there was one scene in the Buu arc that was changed to avoid another incident like that (the one where Super Buu deflects Vegeta's ki blasts before they fused), but I'm not sure about he and Goku's beam clash. You could be right, as there were a lot of flashes in Z.

[ArmenianPepsi]

I thought the beam clash was altered to comply with modern Japanese television standards in a post-Pokemon Shock incident world?

Come to think of it, that sounds pretty logical too.

Anyhow, on the topic of the actual episodes on hand. Watching these Gohan training episode for the second time, with my better understanding of the material and it's context, I can really appreciate them for what they are. The first time around I was bored and skimmed through, but now I really get sucked into the story and the struggles that Gohan has to go through. Especially episode 10, where the "FIght" in it's title isnt about flying fists, but more emotional conflict.

It's some of the only filler from Z I wish could've made it into Kai somehow. I wouldn't want the full uncut episodes, but they could've easily chopped out the best bits and condensed it into an episode or two, or perhaps a extended training montage. It would still be less jarring than sticking with the manga's transition where it's just like "Oh by the way 6 months have passed now, and Gohan has gone from wimpy child to battle ready fighter, just roll with it."

[MasenkoHA]

It's some of the only filler from Z I wish could've made it into Kai somehow. I wouldn't want the full uncut episodes, but they could've easily chopped out the best bits and condensed it into an episode or two, or perhaps a extended training montage. It would still be less jarring than sticking with the manga's transition where it's just like "Oh by the way 6 months have passed now, and Gohan has gone from wimpy child to battle ready fighter, just roll with it."

This is why I’m fairly fond of the edited dub of the Saiyan saga in spite of the ridiculous censorship (which to be fair doesn’t get out of hand until Vegeta and Nappa land on earth) it meets in the middle by cutting the episode count down from 35 to 26 episodes.

[Robo4900]

While I hesitate to call any episode of Dragon Ball my favorite, especially when it’s such a serialized show, Don’ Cry Mr.Robot ranks pretty high up there, it’s a shame to see Funimation skip it in their original edited dub but it’s not surprising; two episodes back to back with a near identical premise, of course the one with the dinosaur got kept. The fact Gohan’s dino friend is allowed to be killed by the bigger dinosaur does make it one of the more emotionally resonate episodes in the Saban era.

The Saiyan filler is all around solid (I do think its more the fight itself that drags) and it’s a shame Toei couldn’t keep this level of quality for anime only material after.

I agree 100%.

Good time as any to point out the elephant in the room that for whatever reason Funimation seemed dead set on not reusing any of the episode titles from the edited dub for the uncut dub, to the point of seriously renaming “Trouble on Arlia” to “Terror on Arlia” this lead to a lot of lame titles like “Gohan Goes Bananas” “Defying Gravity” “No Time like the Present”‘when the the old dub titles where much better. They also rebranded this era as “The Vegeta saga” for the UUE dvds (before going back to the Saiyan saga for the Orange bricks I think?) so maybe Funimation was tryning to treat these episodes as a separate thing rather than an outright replacement. Maybe?

I think part of it was just them trying to make it appear more distinct from the edited dub... Even though the scripts were still borrowed from the edited dub, and many members of the cast (Schemmel's Goku and Kaio, Bergmeier's Tenshinhan, and Sabat's Yamucha, for instance) were still heavily basing their takes off their Ocean predecessors.

Very nice touch of you to include any significant re-draws in Kai. Though when thinking about them, it's hard to think of a decent rationale to go through the effort to redraw some of these. It's easy to understand why they would go censoring Gohan's genitals, but redrawing the moon's explosion or that shot of Roshi, no clue. Maybe it had something to do with the re-framing of the episodes for the 16:9 dvd's?

The 16:9 version is also what airs (and aired) on Japanese TV, and is the version that both France and Germany acquired for their home video (and I think their TV airings too). It was kind of the "primary" version, really.

I think some of the redraws were actually exclusive to the 16:9 version, but I can't find any notes on which ones these are, and to my recollection, most of the redraws are in both, for no discernible reason.

Based on what I understand, they redrew those scenes because the originals were damaged.

This is almost certainly bullshit. Every shot needed some cleanup to remove the tape marks, so clearly they were cleaning things up without redrawing everything, and we know from the Dragon Boxes and the Levels that the show can be cleaned up to look great, so I don't believe this in the slightest.

I think this was either a piece of PR nonsense, or a mistranslation, which fans took at face value and ran with.

I thought the beam clash was altered to comply with modern Japanese television standards in a post-Pokemon Shock incident world?

This is likely true for a lot of the redrawn attacks, explosions, etc.

It's some of the only filler from Z I wish could've made it into Kai somehow. I wouldn't want the full uncut episodes, but they could've easily chopped out the best bits and condensed it into an episode or two, or perhaps a extended training montage. It would still be less jarring than sticking with the manga's transition where it's just like "Oh by the way 6 months have passed now, and Gohan has gone from wimpy child to battle ready fighter, just roll with it."

This is why I’m fairly fond of the edited dub of the Saiyan saga in spite of the ridiculous censorship (which to be fair doesn’t get out of hand until Vegeta and Nappa land on earth) it meets in the middle by cutting the episode count down from 35 to 26 episodes.

Same here.

My main gripe with the edited dub is just the generally unfaithful dialogue, but the voice acting is great, and the cutting is generally very well done. Unfortunately, they did cut the Lunch stuff and the robot episode, which is quite sad.

That said, this first portion of Z, whether original, edited, or Kai, is a really bad place to start watching Dragon Ball. It's not an introduction, because at this point Dragon Ball had been running for three years already, and the slow pace of this whole period really emphasises that. Watching it with the context of DB before you, there's a lot of cool character stuff going on that keeps you into it, and it's nice to take a while to just let all that breathe, which is a lot of why I love the Saiyan arc. Kai somewhat dulls this with its removal of a lot of the good filler, sadly.

[MasenkoHA]

Yes, I don’t care how you consume the show but for goodness sake watch Dragon Ball first.

Even the syndicated Z dub which was produced with thw pretense that most viewers saw maybe the first 13 episodes of Dragon Ball at best, should be watched adte Dragon Ball to get a lot of the pathos.

[Planetnamek]

Lunch being edited out in the Saban run made sense since hardly anyone saw their dub of DB and since Lunch actually does not appear that often in DBZ, so trimming her appearances barely affected the show at all.

Anyways i'm with Psaros in that the Baseball scene was dramatically improved for the dub.

Seeing Gohan get forced to move past his grief and go straight into training from hell really made me feel for the kid.

[MasenkoHA]

Lunch being edited out in the Saban run made sense since hardly anyone saw their dub of DB and since Lunch actually does not appear that often in DBZ, so trimming her appearances barely affected the show at all.

She wasn’t even in the episodes of Dragon Ball they had dubbed. So even if 1996 US dub viewers has watched all 13 episodes of Dragon Ball the prior fall they wouldn’t know who she is

Bandai did make toys of her though, oddly enough.

https://youtu.be/XrZ3NAoLuBk
(Whose idea was it to give Roshi(?) a racist af stereotypical Japanese sensei accent)


I do wonder if a big part of why she was removed was most of her scenes in Z would be a bit problematic for Saban’s censorship board. She robs a bank and gets away with it, fires her machine gun, steals from a teepee and drinks at a bar. Even without the whole “she’s a superfluous character in Z and confusing to explain to viewers who haven’t seen her in Dragon Ball) to factor in she was probably too much for Saban.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

As much as I love Kai, I do agree with the sentiment that the removal of the filler in these episodes was to it's detriment.

The robot episode, Yamcha playing baseball and Arlia were all good stuff for showing these characters' respective journeys throughout the arc that I always look forward to revisiting.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

This is one of the stretch of episodes with filler included in Z that i really like, particularly in terms of expanding what was only briefly glimpsed at in the manga with Gohan's wilderness training. The dinosaur and robot episodes and other little scenes here and there are such great pieces that show his growth from a scared, mostly defenseless cry baby (albeit with hidden Saiyan inherited powers) to someone who can fend for himself.

As mentioned above, their removal from Kai was kind of disappointing because unlike some of the other filler material which came later (Garlic Jr.etc) this actually felt like it added to the canon material and filled in gaps that were actually engaging and interesting to see.

[Planetnamek]

This is one of the stretch of episodes with filler included in Z that i really like, particularly in terms of expanding what was only briefly glimpsed at in the manga with Gohan's wilderness training. The dinosaur and robot episodes and other little scenes here and there are such great pieces that show his growth from a scared, mostly defenseless cry baby (albeit with hidden Saiyan inherited powers) to someone who can fend for himself.

As mentioned above, their removal from Kai was kind of disappointing because unlike some of the other filler material which came later (Garlic Jr.etc) this actually felt like it added to the canon material and filled in gaps that were actually engaging and interesting to see.

Yeah losing that filler made Gohan less interesting as a character as a whole.

[Zestanor]

When Piccolo gives Gohan his turtle school gi, it has the boots and undershirt Goku gained after training with Kami (presumably neither are weighted).

The uniform says 魔 instead of 亀 on it. So it’s similar to the turtle school gi but Piccolo made it say demon, rather twisted of him.

[MasenkoHA]

When Piccolo gives Gohan his turtle school gi, it has the boots and undershirt Goku gained after training with Kami (presumably neither are weighted).

The uniform says 魔 instead of 亀 on it. So it’s similar to the turtle school gi but Piccolo made it say demon, rather twisted of him.

Well he did say he was gonna make Gohan into a Mazoku

All 3 dubs (96, 05, Kai) even have him spell out it directly using the exact same dialog.

“The clothes are like your dads, but the symbol shows you’re from my camp”

Granted, since the average American doesn’t read Japanese it was probably necessary for Piccolo to bluntly say he gave Gohan the demon symbol on his gi instead of just saying the character is different.

[Robo4900]

When Piccolo gives Gohan his turtle school gi, it has the boots and undershirt Goku gained after training with Kami (presumably neither are weighted).

The uniform says 魔 instead of 亀 on it. So it’s similar to the turtle school gi but Piccolo made it say demon, rather twisted of him.

Heh. I don't think it's twisted/evil, really. It's his symbol, to reflect the fact that he's training/trained Gohan. Makes a lot of sense, really.

Well he did say he was gonna make Gohan into a Mazoku

Dunno about turning him into a Demon Clan guy, but certainly it makes sense that Piccolo would put a symbol that's basically his own on Gohan's gi.

Remember, at this point, Piccolo killing people doesn't trap their souls, and God particularly notes that Piccolo is changing his ways.

[MyVisionity]

I don't think Piccolo necessarily intended to corrupt Gohan's soul or anything like that. God stated that if Piccolo were also sensing that his death was coming, then he would want to leave something of himself behind. By training Gohan, Piccolo would be ensuring that the Mazoku survived in some form after his death. I suppose it's not unlike what the original Daimao did when he birthed Ma Junior just before he died.

Piccolo obviously passed his fighting style down to Gohan, including special attacks such as the Masenkō ("Demon Flash"). He even gave Gohan his clothes.

[KBABZ]

I don't think Piccolo necessarily intended to corrupt Gohan's soul or anything like that.

It's worth noting that in (ViZ's translation of) the manga, Piccolo does explicitly state that he intends to forge Gohan in his own image, so he probably had hopes to turn Gohan to his side.

As for the Kai redraws, many of them were for a 16:9 layout, and some were to fix egregious errors like the symbol on the front of Goku's gi not being filled white. Some may also be for timing if it was felt the shot didn't last long enough.