Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107, movie 5

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Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107, movie 5

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Feb 24, 2021 1:28 pm

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Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 60 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.

The Freeza arc finally comes to a close... Phew!

The first Coola movie is sort of a chaser, I suppose. After the epic but slow Namek/Freeza arc, a standalone movie should be rather refreshing. Indeed, KBABZ noted to me that the film feels very lean. I'm sure he'll post his more in-depth thoughts below. Personally, it's been so long since I saw the movie, I don't think I could comment on it, but I remember it being quite boring. I may have to revisit it sometime.

Additionally, I think this week might be KBABZ's record for sheer amount of trivia.

Previous thread: Week 59 (DBZ 100-104)
Next thread: Week 61 (DBZ 108-112)

Anyway, without further ado...

Episode 258 - Freeza Defeated!! A Single Blast Packed With a Totality of Rage (DBZ episode 105)
Dub title: Mighty Blast of Rage
Originally aired 28th of August 1991

Kai equivalent: Episode 53 - Son Goku’s Final Blow… Planet Namek Scatters Throughout Space (First half)
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama


The Eldest’s lifespan has at run out. After selecting Muri, one of the elders, to be the next Eldest and entrusting the Dragon Balls to him, he dies. Gohan and the others are thrilled when they hear that the Namekian Dragon Balls can resurrect someone any number of times. This way even Kuririn can be restored to life! The battle on Planet Namek ends in Goku’s overwhelming victory. But Freeza fires his final attack from behind Goku’s back, and Goku blows him away with an angry ki blast. It’s Goku’s complete victory!!

Anime-only/filler content: Significant extensions in general, particularly on Namek between Goku and Freeza.

Episode 259 - Planet Namek’s Great Explosion!! Goku Disappears into Space (DBZ episode 106)
Dub title: Namek's Explosion... Goku's End?
Originally aired 4th of September 1991

Kai equivalent: Episode 53 - Son Goku’s Final Blow… Planet Namek Scatters Throughout Space (Last half) and Episode 54 - Goku Vanishes in Space… Super Warriors, Return to Life! (First half)
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Mitsuo Shindō


There’s not much time left before Planet Namek explodes. Goku tries to use Freeza’s spaceship to escape, but it malfunctions. Before long it is swallowed up by magma and becomes completely unable to fly. Planet Namek finally explodes and Goku was caught up in the explosion as well… Bulma learns of Goku’s death through a transmission from Planet Kaiō, but is cheerful, saying that it’s okay since he can be resurrected with the Namekian Dragon Balls. However, Goku would be resurrected at the place where Planet Namek used to be. Death waits for him the instant he returns to life…

Anime-only/filler content: Everything after Namek explodes at the midpoint of the episode, most of which is made up of Vegeta gloating about how he must now be the strongest in the universe since Goku and Freeza are dead, and then fighting Gohan.

Episode 260 - Son Goku Survived — The Z Warriors Are All Resurrected!! (DBZ episode 107)
Dub title:
Originally aired 11th of September 1991

Kai equivalent: Episode 54 - Goku Vanishes in Space… Super Warriors, Return to Life! (Last half)
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda


Having died on Planet Namek, Goku and Kuririn will come back to life there as well. Unable to survive in a vacuum, death waits for them the instant they return to life. But Vegeta advices them that it’d be fine if they just called their spirits to Earth and then brought them back to life. Vegeta and the Namekians end up temporarily staying at Bulma’s house. 130 days later, the Dragon Balls are revived. Kuririn and the others are safely brought back to life, and the Namekians move to a new planet.

Anime-only/filler content: The scene where the earth gang try to go into space again (which they decide against once Dr Brief tells them Bulma and Gohan are back), additional scenes of the Namek gang getting comfortable on earth, the people of West City reacting with shock to Porunga's summoning, Yamucha, Chaozu, and Tenshinhan being resurrected, the Namekians saying goodbye before leaving for New Namek, Vegeta leaving earth using the Capsule Corp. space ship.

DBZ Movie 5 - The Incredible Strongest vs Strongest
Dub title: Cooler's Revenge
Originally released 20th of July 1991

Written by: Takao Koyama
Director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda


Off in the depths of space Coola watches on as his brother, Freeza, destroys the Planet Vegeta, along with the entire Saiyan race. However, Coola’s henchmen notice a Saiyan space pod with a baby has escaped, but Coola doesn’t feel it’s necessary to pick up his brother’s messes. Years later, Coola learns of his brothers demise at the hands of a Saiyan from Earth and orders his henchmen to track him down...

-

Interesting trivia:
  • At this point in time in the manga, the Dragon Team enter the city to search for 19 and 20, where Yamucha gets ambushed by the pair and has his ki drained, which draws in the others. 19 cheekily starts destroying the city when Goku asks that they fight in a place without any people, as Kuririn takes Yamucha back to heal him.
  • Here's some trivia we recently came up with that really should have gone in previous weeks, ideally...
    • The ending of the Bardock Special may be an allusion to The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, written in the 9th or 10th century. In it, an old man finds an infant girl in a bamboo trunk in a field of bamboo, gives her their name and raises her as his own child. It's eventually revealed that the girl, Kaguya, came from the moon. As you may have noticed, this has strong parallels with the Bardock Special and Goku's origins as written in Toriyama's manga, including Goku being found in a field of bamboo by and old man who names and raises him as a son, with a strong connection to the moon. Thus the Bardock Special pivots quite strongly from being a grim science-fiction story to referencing one of the oldest written tales in Japan.
    • For some bizarre reason, Kai's official episode listing considers the start of the Freeza Arc to be when the Ginyu Force arrives. This is rather odd because both Z and the manga consider Kuririn, Gohan and Dende summoning Porunga to be the start of the Freeza Arc. If Kai had actually done that, the Namek Arc would have been 19 episodes long and the Freeza Arc 18, a near-even split.
    • Chapter 136, where Goku throws the Genki-Dama at Freeza, is the first Chapter where the title page is also the first page of the story panels, with the title at the top and the first few panels below. This would occur semi-occasionally, but by the Boo Arc it would be a near-constant feature, presumably to squeeze out an extra page to tell the story.
  • The episode of Freeza's defeat first aired in Japan one day short of exactly a year after the Bulma and the Crabs episode (where Freeza has just summoned the Ginyu Force).
  • The manga's depiction of vivisected Freeza is actually gorier than the anime, depicting blood and entrails hanging from his abdomen. Since the anime usually adds gore, it's possible these changes were made simply so that Freeza was a little bit easier to animate, which is understandable given the tight production schedule around this time.
  • The anime meanwhile alters Goku's reaction after he's forced to kill Freeza. In the manga Goku's expression is one of disappointment and remorse that he had to do that, while in the anime he has a more angry and superior-feeling expression. The anime's take is somewhat similar to Chapter 326's title page.
  • The battle against Freeza takes the cake for the longest single fight in Dragon Ball history at 30 episodes, albeit with two small breaks. Some stats:
    • The Freeza fight in Z lasts two episodes longer than Dragon Ball's first two arcs combined, and is five episodes shorter than the entire Saiyan Arc. If you compare it to Kai, the Freeza fight in Z is the same length as the Saiyan and Namek Arcs combined.
    • If you were to run the battle against Freeza in Z alongside the start of Dragon Ball, the fight would end with Pilaf and the Mystery Force filler from the very beginning of the Red Ribbon Army arc. If you run it alongside Z's beginning, it ends when Goku and Vegeta begin their first fight. Alongside Kai, it would end when Vegeta fights Reacoom, and alongside GT it ends when Goku is first defeated by Baby. Alongside Super, it ends on the episode where Goku and Vegeta gather team-mates to fight against Universe 6.
  • After learning of Freeza's defeat, Tenshinhan declares that Goku is the strongest being in the universe. As far as pure manga canon is concerned, this is entirely correct: Cell and the Androids have not been completed yet, and Boo is currently sleeping on Earth with a ki so low that nobody can detect him. King Cold also has a battle power only slightly lower than Freeza's.
  • The title page of Chapter 328 is a photo of Goku and Kuririn on a black background, to hammer the idea that Goku has legitimately died. Toriyama used similar imagery for Chapter 135 (Kuririn's death), 218 (Chiaotzu and Tenshinhan's death), 413 (Goku's death to Cell), and 467 (Vegeta's death).
  • In Episode 106, Namek's destruction is in the final stage, where the water is replaced with lava. No really, all of Namek's water is just straight-up replaced with lava in the animation, which never happens in the manga!
  • In the panel of Goku approaching Freeza's ship, the pods of the Ginyu Force can be seen where they landed nearby. This is of course how Goku escapes Namek's destruction, and is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that Toriyama never intended to kill Goku off for real at this stage.
  • One of the shots of Namek just before exploding may be a reference to the first ever shot in Dragon Ball. With Namek on the left side of the screen and licks of fire arcing around the edge, it looks very similar to the opening shot of the original Dragon Ball intro.
  • Kanzenshuu's summary for Chapter 328 has Goku scream "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!" while Namek is exploding. ViZ has him say "I CAN'T STOP IT!", Funi's Z dub has him say "NOOOOOOOOOO!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!", and the Simmons subtitles for Z have him say "God damn it to hell!" The actual line in the original Japanese manga is "Chikushou", which sort of reads like "FUUUUUUUCK!!" but isn't considered an R-rated curse in Japanese, so in this case, Simmons' translation is bang-on, ViZ's is as nonsensical and made-up as your average Funi Z dub line, Funi's version does just fine, and Kanzenshuu's, while essentially accurate, comes off a little Anime Labs-y here in our opinion.
  • For the final time, I present to you Funimation's TV censorship, as laid out by Chris Psaros in his guide on DBZUncensored:
    • Z episodes 105 and 106 have no cuts or censorship, though Psaros notes that the narrator at one point in episode 106 says "Oh yeah, I almost forgot... Krillin's in da house!" and wrote about three paragraphs about how much he hates that line.
    • Z episode 107 had Dr Brief's cigarette painted out (though Psaros points out there are, for the first time, several shots where he doesn't have one in the Japanese version), as well as a large banner above a building with the Camel Cigarettes logo; similarly, logos saying "Beers" and "Weiser" were painted out.
    • Psaros's site has a listing for the Garlic Jr. episodes, but no comparisons are listed there, and if you press the "Next" button in 107's page, you get a message saying "That's all, folks! I never made it past the Freeza saga. I would have liked to, but that's life I guess. Go buy the DVD's." He's probably not reading this, but Robo would like to take this moment to salute the work Psaros did in documenting the censorship in Z. It's understandable that he didn't finish it, and to be honest the majority of the interesting stuff was in the Saban era anyway, but the fact he covered the first 107 episodes, an entire third of the Z series, is very cool, and has given us trivia entries about this for many weeks.
  • The anime adds an extra shot to Namek's destruction that introduces an enormous plot hole. Right before Namek explodes, Goku screams in vain as he's engulfed in bright light, his voice heard as Namek is obliterated. While very dramatic, this completely ruins the idea that Goku escaped Namek at the last second in Captain Ginyu's pod, since he had zero time to do so. Since the manga had shown Goku returning to Earth several weeks earlier, the anime stuff knew about this error while making the shot!
  • While explaining the reason why he can't help with Goku's death, Kaio says that it's "outside his cosmic jurisdiction". It's unclear if he means this in regards to his ability as a Kaio, or if it's a geographical issue. If it's the latter, that means that Namek is in a different galaxy from Earth!
  • Kaio's given reason why wishing Goku back to life is a fruitless endeavour is that he died on Namek, and so he'd be restored there. The anime makes this more confusing however when it depicts the return of Yamucha, Tenshinhan and Chaozu: they appear under Porunga, despite their bodies having been recovered on Namek. The manga never depicts their restoration, only Kuririn.
    • KBABZ and Robo debated the logistics of this, particularly in regards to how Kuririn was revived and how this gels with Goku staying on Kaio's when he got revived in the Saiyan arc, for several minutes, and came to no reasonable conclusion about how any of this works.
  • In the second half of Z episode 106, Vegeta and Gohan get into an extended fight since Vegeta realizes he's now the strongest in the universe, and goes back to his Saiyan Arc plans. He then gets into an extended fight with Gohan and beats the crap out of him before being convinced to stop by Piccolo and then flying away. This is very obviously filler, since in Episode 107, Vegeta is back, suggests the solution to the problem of wishing Goku back to life, and nobody acts as if he had just tried to beat Gohan into the ground a few minutes ago.
  • Z episode 107 is the first of only two Dragon Ball episodes where series director Daisuke Nishio (DB 1-153, Z 1-291) acted as the episode director alongside chief animator Minoru Maeda (DB 1-153, Z 1-195) acting as animation supervisor; the other instance is Z episode 117.
    • This had previously occurred with Dragon Ball 1-153 series director Minoru Okazaki working as episode director alongside Maeda as animation supervisor in Episodes 1, 4, 9, 15, 22, 29, 36, 50, 57, 64, 71, 76, 82, 89, 97, 104, 112, 119, 125, 132, 139, 146, and 153. In fact, the only episodes of DB that Maeda was the animation supervisor for, which Okazaki wasn't the director for, were episodes 42, 84, and 122, and the only episode Okazaki directed that Maeda didn't supervise the animation for was episode 8. The two would continue to work together very frequently throughout the earlier parts of Z, Okazaki directing and Maeda supervising the animation for Z episodes 7, 14, 21, 28, 34, 41, 48, and 77. This leaves only Z episodes 54, 64, and 69 directed by Okazaki but not supervised by Maeda, and Z episodes 70, 90, 95, 107, 112, 117, 124, 142, 154, and 164 supervised by Maeda but not directed by Okazaki.
    • I would also list the episodes that were directed by Daisuke Nishio and supervised by Maeda's successor, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru (though Nakatsuru's primary duty he succeeded Maeda in was character design, on Z episodes 200-291 and all 64 episodes of GT), but Nakatsuru only ever acted as animation supervisor on Z episodes 44 and 120, neither of which Nishio worked on as director (according to Kanzenshuu's production staff guide entry on him, his most prolific role was key animation throughout Z, and on many of the movies, including most recently Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', and Super episode 1).
  • Bulma offers to let Vegeta (who killed her ex-boyfriend about a month ago) to stay at Capsule Corp. She also warns him not to try anything naughty, which is ironic considering it's her who approaches him later and gets pregnant.
  • In a sign of the times, Bulma tells everyone to stay put while she goes to a nearby house and phone her dad at Capsule Corp. This manga chapter released in 1991, a full 10 years before mobile phones would become the ubiquitous devices we know them as today.
    • It worth nothing however that Videl would have a mobile phone in the Boo Arc (1993 in our time) and is considered quite unique for having one. Amusingly (or irritatingly), Super gives everyone smartphones since it was made in 2015, but in-universe it's only been six months since that scene in the Boo arc
  • When reviving Kuririn, Porunga restores his body and even the Freeza armour as an added bonus, another sign that he's easier to work with. Shen Long offers no such service, as shown in Resurrection 'F' where he restores Freeza's body in the state just before Trunks vaporized him (albeit with heavy warnings about how bad of an idea that is).
  • Gohan says he wants to go to Bulma's place as he forgot to do his studies while on Namek. This means, since he hasn't studied since Piccolo kidnapped him in the Saiyan arc, he's gone roughly a whole year without studying!
  • Once again the ViZ translation called Porunga "Shenlong", oddly before calling him the dragon god, which is what Shen Long means.
  • Kaio learns 130 days after Namek's destruction that Goku is in fact alive, despite his ability to see vast distances. This is somewhat understandable, as he has to abjectly concentrate on a specific point; earlier in the story, he didn't know if the tyrant on Namek was Freeza until he checked (let alone Mecha Freeza and King Cold approaching Earth).
  • Oddly, Goku is able to refuse being wished back to Earth, something not demonstrated at any other time. Consent has never seemed to be a factor in Shen Long's wishes, such as reviving Bora or the people of Namek.
  • The wide shot of Porunga in the skies of West City is re-used wholesale for the final panel of the wish sequence.
  • The anime adds additional scenes of Gohan saying goodbye to his friend Dende. This would benefit the anime in the long run since Dende will come back as Earth's guardian, although that won't happen in the manga until a year after this scene occurs in the anime.
  • In Funimation's dub of Z episode 107, the narrator refers to Chaozu as "The young Emperor Chiaotzu" and to Tenshinhan as his bodyguard, most likely because Funimation's writers were familiar with DB movie 3, but not with DB episodes 82-153. A similar mishap occurs in Z episodes 128 and 174, where Tao Pai-Pai (known as Mercenary Tao in Funi's DB dub) is referred to with the title he had in their dub of DB movie 3, General Tao.
  • Z episode 107 is also the last to use Rock The Dragon as its OP/ED during the original American and British TV airings.
  • Z episode 107 is also the first Dragon Ball episode to not feature Goku at all.
  • The conclusion of the Freeza Arc marks the final English release of the Full Colour Manga to date (there hasn't been a new one since January 3rd 2017). This is a shame because ViZ's Full Colour release is the only release of the manga to be printed in Dragon Ball's original Shonen Jump size; every other release has been smaller, even the Kanzenban.
    • Robo also notes that Full Colour is the closest thing to an uncensored release since the very earliest Viz releases in about 1998-1999. Additionally, Shueisha published the first 23 chapters of Dragon Ball in fully-uncensored English Full Colour format in about 2009 for a brief time. It frustrates him to no end that you can't buy this stuff and that Viz and/or Shueisha have dragged their feet on continuing Full Colour for so long that it's pretty certainly dead by this point.
  • As is rather infamous by this point, many fans claim that Toriyama intended to end the story by killing Goku on Namek after avenging his race and becoming the most powerful being in the universe, only for Toriyama to continue the story under pressure from either his editors or fans. As detailed here, this is simply not the case, as Toriyama said in an interview during the Freeza Arc that he didn't want to end it yet (contradicting Z's very name, amusingly). In particular, Goku's rather convincing death is often cited as strong evidence, however Toriyama usually had drawn the manga one or two Chapters ahead of what was currently published in Jump... and Goku is revealed to be alive in the Chapter immediately after the one where he dies, which debunks the idea that fans or his editor forced him to change it. In truth, this is Toriyama subverting expectations again, just like how he killed Goku right at the start of the Saiyan Arc.
  • Coola's Revenge originally premiered in the July 20th Toei Anime Fair in 1991, alongside features from Magical Taluluto and Dragon Quest (another work associated with Toriyama). At this time, the manga was up to Trunks and Goku going Super Saiyan together, while Z was on its 100th episode where Gohan returns to fight Freeza.
  • The shots taken from the Bardock Special have an awkward widescreen crop of its 4:3 animation in the (generally far more common) widescreen presentations of the film, resulting in a very claustrophobic composition. This is because the Bardock Special was only intended to be screened on home televisions, which were all 4:3 at the time. This makes these shots quite similar to Funimation's releases of Z (including this special), as well as Kai: The Final Chapters.
  • In the Big Green dub, the voices and dialogue in the reused Bardock footage were all different from how they were in the Big Green dub of the special itself.
  • In the prologue, Neiz mentions that Earth is quite far away, the first mention of the distance between Earth and planet Vegeta. In Dragon Ball Minus and Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Earth is possibly much closer, given that swinging by and picking Goku up is an option Bardock is willing to use in case his fears are unfounded.
  • This is the first movie where Toriyama provided full designs for all of the main characters, including colouring and height comparison charts. Maeda said in Daizenshuu 6 that he found this very relieving.
  • Coola's appearance suggests that he is in his final, "unrestricted" form similar to Freeza when he fought Goku. The idea that there's a transformation beyond this is used again for Resurrection 'F' in Golden Freeza.
  • Once again the team who appear in the movies use battle armour that is unconventional from what is normally seen. In this case they have only one shoulder pauldron, while the other shoulder has the singlet-like design that Vegeta wore against Freeza, tpped with "abs" on the back of the armor. They also have a logo on it like the Ginyu Force; the Armoured Squad's emblem is in fact Coola's head in his final transformation.
  • While Coola's name is a simple riff on Freeza's name at first glance, particularly for dub fans who know him as "Cooler", Daizenshuu 6 revealed that producer Morishita felt that "Cooler" would be too direct, and so he chose "Coola", based on how one would say "meshi demo kura" (similar to "let's chow down") before eating in his hometown of Shizuoka. It's possible this is meant to reflect Coola's utter superiority.
  • As for Coola's squad, Sauzer is based on Thousand Island Dressing, Dore is based on dressing, and Neiz is based on mayonnaise, all condiments. This is similar to the Spice Boys who are also named after things you add to food. It's notable that two of these are commonly applied over vegetable salads, perhaps reflecting how Freeza and Coola's men kept the Saiyans under their heel.
  • The colour charts also reveal the slight tone shifts that occur when going Super Saiyan; all the colours become lighter shades, and the lighting changes to reflect the aura casting light around the combatant. Interestingly, Toriyama gave Super Saiyan Goku red eyes rather than the usual teal.
  • Goku blasting Kamehamehas that part the ocean and expose the sea floor is exactly what Roshi did in Curse of the Blood Rubies to destroy the submarine attacking his island.
  • The bug on the tree in the wide shot of Chichi's home is a Horned Dynastid. Japan has a fascination with large beetles, which is why they take up a good chunk of the Critterpedia in Animal Crossing.
  • Gohan's bedroom (which has a different design from the last movie, lacking bookshelves) has yet another poster of Arale, this time atop a rabbit based on this art piece Toriyama made 11 years prior in 1980. It even has Toriyama's signature on it (replacing the snail-duck), suggesting that Tori-Bot has created Dr. Slump in the Dragon World! The signature disappears in a close-up of Gohan, however.
  • Somehow, Gohan has regrown his tail for this movie, despite Vegeta cutting it in the Saiyan Arc and it not appearing in the previous movie. Presumably it was included so that he could be easily incapacitated at the beginning, which is the first time anyone uses this trick on Gohan.
  • Gohan throwing the log up into the air, striking it, and then landing for the wood to land in a perfect pile before he dusts off his hands, is a direct callback to Goku in Chapter 1. It even uses the same sound effect at the end! This is further compounded by Goku grabbing the exact same fish he got in Chapter 1 as well.
  • This is the second time the river fish has made an appearance, after Goku first caught one in the first Chapter. Keep your eye on this space...
  • Apparently the Armoured Squad are able to suppress their ki, given that they could sneak up on Gohan and Kuririn.
  • DBZ movie 5 is the first Dragon Ball movie to re-use many shots and panels used for a very similar fight from the main storyline, in this case copying shots from Goku's fight with Freeza. Goku's fight with the Armoured Squad also has strong parallels to his fight with the Ginyu Force.
  • Conveniently, Goku's hit in the back in the exact spot where his Kaio symbol is, which just so happens to mean the animators don't have to draw it. Surely a coincidence.
  • In the aerial shot of Coola seeing the water reform around his attack at the waterfall, he is mistakenly coloured entirely white.
  • The deer that appear in this film were shown drinking from a river way back in Episode 1 of the anime.
  • In yet another reference/reuse of Chapter 1, the Pterodactyl that kidnapped Bulma at the end of Chapter 1 appears in a scene that's exactly like Vegeta on Namek when he thinks his Scouter reading came from a fish.
  • By this point the heroes have truly forgotten about the Kinto'Un, it would have flown faster than Hire Dragon and without running out of puff.
  • This is presumably Gohan's first visit to the Land of Karin, however he acts familiar with it and what the procedure is, implying that Goku may have told him about it. Interestingly, the music that plays as Gohan arrives uses a stringed instrument used for Upa and Bora when they were in the anime.
  • Not content to stop with the early Dragon Ball references, Gohan climbs up and enters Karin's Tower the exact same way Goku did. The shot of him arriving at the top of the stairs is also lifted directly from the first time we visited it!
  • Piccolo using his cape to render his opponent's blow a waste is the same thing he did in his match against Kuririn in the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai.
  • Sauzer's hand blade uses the same sound effect as Kuririn holding the Kienzan, and is visually similar to Goku Black's energy scythe.
  • Piccolo is pierced through the shoulder in the exact same spot as Freeza did on Namek.
  • Given Goku, Kuririn and Gohan's reaction to Sauza burning all the Senzu Beans, they are ineffective when roasted or burnt to a crisp.
  • Several shots of Goku underwater fail to colour his undershirt blue in the hole in its back.
  • Coola's mention of Goku being the first to see his final form of course parallels Freeza talking about his third form, and also suggests that Coola developed it in private.
  • The use of a bird in Goku's Super Saiyan transformation would be used again by Toei for Gohan's spirit breaking before ascending to Super Saiyan 2.
  • When Coola laughs after first being beat up by Super Saiyan Goku, on certain frames there's a seam between his shoulders and arms where you can see his back and the blue sky.
  • The appearance and sound effect used for Coola's planet-destroying orb is exactly the same as the one Freeza used in the Bardock special, as opposed to the second and third designs from Namek. This is possibly intentional to help parallel with the Bardock Special footage that opens the movie, particularly in that Goku is able to prevent it from destroying Earth, which is what Bardock was trying to do in his moment with the attack.
  • Coola being shot off and vaporized into the sun is how Baby will be defeated in Dragon Ball GT.
  • The shot of Coola's orb impacting the sun depicts the sun very similarly to the opening shot of the original Dragon Ball intro.
  • Piccolo being isolationist is somewhat contradictary to the main storyline, considering he acted as Goku's comrade on Namek and trained with him and Gohan in the anime to prepare for the Androids.
  • DBZ movie 5 is the first Dragon Ball movie that can comfortably occur within the main storyline with relatively no issues, being in the three year leadup to the Android arrival. There are three niggles however: Piccolo is still isolationist, Gohan has his tail back, and it takes a lot of effort for Goku to go Super Saiyan again, whereas when he met Trunks before the timeskip he says he can do it pretty much whenever he wants to.
Episode summaries, airdates, and titles courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide. Filler breakdowns and Dragon Ball logo provided, and trivia primarily written, by KBABZ. Additional trivia courtesy of Chris Psaros's DBZ Uncensored guide.
Last edited by Robo4900 on Wed Mar 03, 2021 11:30 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:32 pm

Whew finally finished the second longest arc of Dragon Ball. (Depending on if you consider the Cyborg/Cell stuff as one single arc or two separate arcs I guess the Namek arc could be considered the longest but I always considered that one single arc of 77 episodes)

It’s interesting that the anime at least makes sure everyone knows that this isn’t the series finale with the narrator ending the episode with an ominous “however.....”. I think the dub was a bit more final, I seem to remember thinking this was the last episode when I was 7.

I know a lot of fans (if Youtube is any indication) didn’t like Gohan’s whistling theme from Z movie 4 being used when the Z warriors are revived but I loved it. It’s just joyous.

DBZ movie 5 is the first Dragon Ball movie that can comfortably occur within the main storyline with relatively no issues, being in the three year leadup to the Android arrival. There are three niggles however: Piccolo is still isolationist, Gohan has his tail back, and it takes a lot of effort for Goku to go Super Saiyan again, whereas when he met Trunks before the timeskip he says he can do it pretty much whenever he wants to
Goku grew his tail back twice as a kid. Once at the 21st Budokai. Then again during training for the 22nd. And it seemed it being removed for good was only because of Kami-Sama. So it wouldn’t be that odd for Gohan to have grown his tail back m

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by Planetnamek » Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:39 pm

You forgot the dub title for the last episode, which is "Goku's Alive?!"(or as I know it, the one with the infamous "Krillin's in the house!" NEP :lol: )
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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:43 pm

Planetnamek wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:39 pm(or as I know it, the one with the infamous "Krillin's in the house!" NEP :lol: )

Speaking of was there a reason why the NEP were left out of the season sets? Did they not feel like having Hebert redub all of Dale Kelly’s dialog?

Even stranger the NEP are available on the Dragon Boxes but only in Japanese regardless if you’re watching the dub or sub.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by WittyUsername » Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:54 pm

Even though Movie 5 can be placed within the three year time skip, if one wishes, that clearly wasn’t the intention on the part of the writers. The movie was written and released shortly before the time skip actually takes place in the manga. The fact that Gohan still sports his bowl cut in the movie is an obvious indicator that it was made to represent the Freeza arc, as is the choice in villains. Then there’s the fact that Goku only becomes a Super Saiyan in the movie after becoming angry, even though he was already able to transform on command when he came back to Earth.

Anyway, Movie 5 used to be one of my favorites, but looking back, it’s not really all that special. It’s not one of the worst movies, but it’s pretty barebones. It does have some interesting ideas, though. Tying Cooler in with Goku’s backstory and establishing that he is essentially responsible for his own downfall is a solid idea. Also, I like how the characters spend a portion of the movie hiding from the villains, rather than fighting them head on.

Also, if I recall, FUNimation’s replacement score for the movie consists entirely of licensed band music. Movies 4, 8, and (to a much lesser extent) 10 also have that kind of music, but they also have Bruce Faulconer, Mark Menza, and Nathan Johnson respectively doing the scores. That’s somewhat interesting. In any case, the placement of this music is even worse in the remastered dub, and they also got rid of that near “under water” effect during the part of the fight that takes place underwater.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Wed Feb 24, 2021 6:30 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:43 pm
Planetnamek wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:39 pm(or as I know it, the one with the infamous "Krillin's in the house!" NEP :lol: )

Speaking of was there a reason why the NEP were left out of the season sets? Did they not feel like having Hebert redub all of Dale Kelly’s dialog?

Even stranger the NEP are available on the Dragon Boxes but only in Japanese regardless if you’re watching the dub or sub.
Plus of course with GT they actually had it's NEP's on the singles but then the Green Bricks subsequently stripped them out, and of course OG DB hasn't had them on any of it's releases here. Don't know why they didn't bother with dubbing Z's for the domestic Dragon Boxes on the dub track, as i mean surely they could've easily replicated the way the Japanese version did it with the characters speaking and all.
DB collection related goals as of now:

1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)

2.) Collect rest of manga

3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by KBABZ » Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:36 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:32 pm Goku grew his tail back twice as a kid. Once at the 21st Budokai. Then again during training for the 22nd. And it seemed it being removed for good was only because of Kami-Sama. So it wouldn’t be that odd for Gohan to have grown his tail back m
I included it primarily because I've been told up and down how this movie is one of the few that fits just perfectly in the main storyline, and yet this huge honking issue just shows up for no reason. As well, in the main storyline Gohan had grown his tail cut twice as well: once by Piccolo in the Saiyan Training, and then again by Vegeta. So it showing up here for the Cooler movie is pretty bizarre!

---

I thought the Cooler movie was a game of two halves. It starts off really strong, sticking to its own story and cutting a lot of the fat outside of Oolong and some random scene at Roshi's. The camping idea is a bit played-out by this point, but the area they go to is pretty unique as far as Dragon Ball environments go and I love the initial sunset too. The fighting is pretty nice early on as it felt a bit low-key, and I liked how Goku escaped down the waterfall. Gohan visiting Korin's Tower was also really cool, certainly more natural than in Mystical Adventure. And for as annoying as Hire Dragon is, here he provides a useful function in the story and acts as Gohan's Nimbus.

The second half is where it started to fall apart. By this point the action needs to ramp up, but unfortunately the animation and pacing is substandard. Most damning however are the sound effects: they totally lack that punch and impact you expect from Dragon Ball, and every big action gets a very soft and underplayed sound to go with it. It totally kills the mood and it means the movie fails to keep you drawn in through its second half.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:02 pm

KBABZ wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:36 pm I included it primarily because I've been told up and down how this movie is one of the few that fits just perfectly in the main storyline, and yet this huge honking issue just shows up for no reason. As well, in the main storyline Gohan had grown his tail cut twice as well: once by Piccolo in the Saiyan Training, and then again by Vegeta. So it showing up here for the Cooler movie is pretty bizarre!
But the issue isn’t with the movie the issue is with Toriyama just forgetting about Gohan’s tail after the Saiyan arc.

Kami-sama had to remove Goku’s tail permanently so he could restore the moon. It required an act of God for Goku’s tail to not come back.

Even if we ignore that and pretend there’s a magic rule for how many times a Saiyan child’s tail can grow back Goku’s tail grew back twice. Gohan’s tail only grew back once during the fight with Vegeta (filler and movie material aside).


It’s really not contradicting anything for Gohan’s tail to have grown back between Trunks announcing the coming of the cyborgs and them arriving 3 years later and then “something” happened and Gohan lost his tail permanently.


Same thing with the bowl cut. It’s not unrealistic for Chi Chi to have given him the same stupid haircut again.


Goku needing to be really angry to go Super Saiyan is really the only problem the movie has and even then that can be chalked up to dramatic flair.
Last edited by MasenkoHA on Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by KBABZ » Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:08 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:02 pm It’s really not contradicting anything for Gohan’s tail to have grown back between Trunks announcing the coming of the cyborgs and them arriving 3 years later and then “something” happened and Gohan lost his tail permanently.
I realize this but it does come off as a little contrived. The anime staff I can understand given where Dragon Ball was at this point in time (is Toriyama gonna keep him a young boy?), but the fandom I was shocked that this was never mentioned. It's almost like they just watch the show for hype and action and don't pay any attention to the story! :roll:
MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:02 pm Goku needing to be really angry to go Super Saiyan is really the only problem the movie has and even then that got be chalked up to dramatic flair.
I dunno, seems like it would have been useful earlier in the movie for him to use it.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:21 pm

KBABZ wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:08 pm
I realize this but it does come off as a little contrived. The anime staff I can understand given where Dragon Ball was at this point in time (is Toriyama gonna keep him a young boy?), but the fandom I was shocked that this was never mentioned. It's almost like they just watch the show for hype and action and don't pay any attention to the story! :roll:
But there was never any indication that Gohan’s tail wouldn’t or couldn’t grow back and it not growing back more than the one time is in direct contradiction to what happened to Goku. It’s not worth mentioning as a continuity error because it never contradicted what had been established (that a Saiyan child’s tail can grow back more than once)

Heck look at it from Toei’s perspective

Gohan had his tail until he was 4 when Piccolo removed it

It comes back a year later during the fight with Vegeta

With the Coola conflict being at least another year after that why wouldn’t it grow back?


I dunno, seems like it would have been useful earlier in the movie for him to use it.
I mean, it makes no logical sense for Goku to not use it right away but for dramatic build up when Super Saiyan was still the new shiny thing (Goku had only gone Super Saiyan in the anime 5 weeks before this movie was released) it made sense for him to not pull it out until the most dramatically convenient time.


I don’t think anything implied he couldn’t turned Super Saiyan at will but it was definitely contrived.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by KBABZ » Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:21 am

While Cooler's Revenge doesn't pop off the way it should in Act 3, as Robo says in the original post I did really enjoy how simple the plot it. It isn't pretending to be anything other than pitting two characters together. There's nothing overcomplicating it like Lord Slug or Tree of Might, which means that the events that ARE in (the first two acts of) the movie have room to breathe and feel more atmospheric than usual. Gohan flying off on Hire Dragon for example was actually nice as he went to Korin's Tower, whereas in Mystical Adventure it felt like something shoved in out of obligation and had to be moved on from due to the runtime.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by MyVisionity » Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:29 am

I didn't really mind the overall pacing and length of this arc. The Goku/Freeza battle was dragged out, but I don't think it was too excessive.

I like how Freeza flashbacked to the entire Goku fight before his death.

So why did the Grand Elder phase out when he died this time? Something to do with his position or connection to Porunga? I guess leaving his huge body just sitting there in the forest would have been a bit awkward.

I would have liked to see Dende's brother Cargot return sometime. Maybe as a villain or something.

I always thought Super Saiyan Goku inside of Freeza's spaceship was an interesting sequence visually.

Vegeta versus Gohan is always cool to watch. I enjoy whenever they go at it in the series.

The final episode of the saga is a nice one. I like everyone hanging out in West City. Is that the same cop that took Goku to Capsule Corp in Red Ribbon? I agree that Gohan's whistling track was a good choice.

I like Movie 5 and the camping setting. Once again you have the heroes protecting nature and the animals. I thought Funimation's soundtrack for this one was well done.

I wonder how Linda Young would have sounded as Coola had Funi gone that route.

He then gets into an extended fight with Gohan and beats the crap out of him before being convinced to stop by Piccolo and then flying away. This is very obviously filler, since in Episode 107, Vegeta is back, suggests the solution to the problem of wishing Goku back to life, and nobody acts as if he had just tried to beat Gohan into the ground a few minutes ago.
It's filler yes but I don't think that it necessarily contradicts the previous episode. I just assumed some time had passed since Vegeta flew off and that everyone had gotten over it by then.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by Cure Dragon 255 » Thu Feb 25, 2021 1:19 pm

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!! I was looking forward to the comment about Goku's survival mentioning the Tom Servo joke from the Kanzenshuu article on it! Totally missed opportunity.
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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by Planetnamek » Mon Mar 01, 2021 6:16 pm

DBZ Uncensored 2 has a pretty good page on Cooler's Revenge:https://web.archive.org/web/20071023173 ... mov05.html

It's probably my favorite DBZ movie so far, with Cooler being the most interesting of the movie villains thus far and his henchmen being reminiscent of the Ginyu Force. Some the dub dialogue definitely gets a bit silly("Bean daddy") but the rock soundtrack is pretty kickass and the placement for the songs is a bit better then the last film. Goku's fight against Cooler is my favorite movie fight so far and this was a better use of Super Saiyan then the previous movie.

They really got rid of the underwater effect in the remastered dub? Glad I stuck with the original DVD release then, as I thought that effect was pretty cool.

I'll comment on episodes 105-107 when my other DVD singles arrive.
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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 60 - DBZ 105-107, movie 5

Post by Planetnamek » Sun Aug 01, 2021 3:07 am

Fine ending to the Freeza saga overall, though a few things irk me, I didn't like how much flashback footage was in episode 90 to the point where it was almost a clip-show episode. Also it does not really make sense how Goku can refuse to be wished back.

I did like that Goku was willing to let Freeza live but Freeza just couldn't let go of his pride and brought upon his own demise.
"Why run away from something you're not afraid of?" - Goku

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