Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 73 - DBZ 164-168

[Robo4900]

Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 73 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 said to myself "Now, I'm gonna post this one on time. I'm not going to post it late, I'm going to set aside time during study breaks, and not forget in the evenings when I'm knackered, and I'm going to post this thread, at the very latest, late on Wednesday evening."

Anyway, it's Friday evening now. Hopefully I'll post next week's on time. After all, it's Broly next. Quite a big'un!

Previous thread: Week 72 (DBZ 159-163)
Next thread: Week 74 (DBZ 169, movie 8)

Anyway, without further ado...

Episode 317 - A Future of Despair!! Trunks, the Man Who Lived Through Hell (DBZ episode 164)
Dub title: Ghosts from Tomorrow
Originally aired 11th of November 1992
Kai equivalent: Episode -
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda

Endlessly raising his ki, Trunks transforms into a form with even more enlarged muscles. His ki far surpasses Vegeta’s, and even Cell’s. Trunks came from a miserable future overrun by the artificial humans. In order to change this future, he must defeat Cell. After reaching his full power, Trunks fights while using power greater than Cell’s. But for some reason, Cell announces Trunks’ defeat.

Anime-only/filler content: The earthquake at Kame House, Trunks remembering all the people the androids have killed, Cell remembering his origin, significant extensions to Trunks and Cell fighting.

Episode 318 - Super Trunks Has a Weakness!! Cell, A Shocking Bombshell Declaration (DBZ episode 165)
Dub title: The Cell Games
Originally aired 18th of November 1992
Kai equivalent: Episode -
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Masahiro Hosoda
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama

Trunks has achieved power greater than Cell’s, but all of his attacks completely miss. At that same time in the Room of Spirit and Time, Goku performs the same transformation as Trunks. But Goku perceives that this form is slow, and can’t win against Cell. After having this weakness pointed out to him by Cell, Trunks admits his defeat and abandons the fight. But Cell is interested in Vegeta and Trunks’ rapid power up, and proposes that he open a tournament.

Anime-only/filler content: More extensions to Cell and Trunks fighting.

Episode 319 - A Final Battle Closes in on Goku!! The Mystery of the New Tenka’ichi Budōkai (DBZ episode 166)
Dub title: What is the Tournament?
Originally aired 25th of November 1992
Kai equivalent: Episode -
Written by: Katsuyuki Sumisawa
Episode director: Jun’ichi Fujise
Animation supervisor: Masahiro Shimanuki

Perfect form Cell informs the defeated Trunks that he will open a tournament in ten days, and then flies off. Vegeta and Kuririn find Trunks after rushing to the island, but the injured Artificial Human No. 16 appears, saying he wants to enter the tournament, and asks for his body to be repaired. Kuririn complies, and the three of them and No. 16 head to Capsule Corporation. Kame-Sen’nin, Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Chi-Chi and the rest all come there as well. Meanwhile, in a field, Cell creates an arena out of stone.

Anime-only/filler content: Trunks going Super Saiyan out of anger when Cell leaves, Goku and Gohan sparring as Super Saiyans, everything following Kuririn taking Android 16 up until Cell prepares his arena.

Episode 320 - Ratings 100%!! The Cell Games Call for Death With an Exclusive Live Broadcast (DBZ episode 167)
Dub title: The Doomsday Broadcast
Originally aired 2nd of December 1992
Kai equivalent: Episode -
Written by: Aya Matsui
Episode director: Shigeyasu Yamauchi
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa

Goku piles on his training in the Room of Spirit and Time, together with Gohan. Meanwhile, after Bulma returns to Capsule Corporation from the Heavenly Realm, the TV there transmits a disturbance in the studio. Having attacked the TV station, Cell begins a broadcast to the entire world announcing the opening of the Cell Games!! Kame-sennin and the rest all gasp as Cell declares that if all of the challengers lose to him, he will kill every human! Vegeta and Trunks resolve to enter the Room of Spirit and Time once again.

Anime-only/filler content: Loads of extra scenes at Capsule Corp such as Dr Brief working on Android 16, and Kuririn and Yamucha sparring. There's also the scene of Gohan having a nightmare about Perfect Cell (who he's never seen, in any of his forms) killing everyone.

Episode 321 - Goku and Gohan… The Hero Father and Son’s Ultimate Level-Up (DBZ episode 168)
Dub title: Meet Me in the Ring
Originally aired 9th of December 1992
Kai equivalent: Episode -
Written by: Aya Matsui
Episode director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Tadayoshi Yamamuro

The world falls into panic as people clamor to take refuge from Cell! At Capsule Corporation’s laboratory, Bulma and her father repair No. 16. Goku emerges with Gohan from the Room of Spirit and Time, and after hearing of the Cell Games from Trunks and the others, he teleports to Cell, who is waiting at the tournament grounds. He then returns after confirming Cell’s power-up, and announces that he will train with Gohan in the lower realm for the next nine days. Vegeta and the others are astonished!

Anime-only/filler content: Scenes of people fleeing the cities, Goku and Gohan eating after emerging from the room of spirit and time, and various extensions and general padding of the usual sort.

-

Interesting trivia:

• At this point in time in the manga, Goku and Cell fight, Android 16 warns Mr. Satan to run away, Goku uses the warp Kamehameha, then gives up.
• Trunks's flashbacks to his history in Z episode 164 doesn't line up with how these events happen in the TV special.
• Z episode 165 (edited episode 150) marks the final appearance of Saffron Henderson as Gohan. She was busy getting married and starting a family. Jillian Michaels would take over the role after this. Henderson would eventually return to Dragon Ball, providing additional voices in the Boo arc (too late for her to reprise Gohan, sadly!). It remains unconfirmed, but it's generally thought she reprised the role of Gohan in Ocean's still-unreleased dub of Kai, based on some things she said about the role a few years ago.
• In the original Funimation dub of Z episode 166 (I haven't had the opportunity to check if this applies to the Westwood dub, but it most likely does, since they shared scripts), Funimation completely dropped the ball in their flashbacks yet again. Roshi refers to the gap between the 21st and 22nd Tenkaichis as being 5 years instead of 3, he says Goku and Tenshinhan's fight at the 22nd Tenkaichi ended in a draw, and he says Goku and Chichi were already married by the 23rd Tenkaichi.
• In Z episode 168, images of Goku on Namek are shown, despite Dr. Gero never collecting data from Namek. This was corrected in Kai.

Episode summaries, airdates, and titles courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide. Dragon Ball logo provided by KBABZ.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

In the original Funimation dub of Z episode 166 (I haven't had the opportunity to check if this applies to the Westwood dub, but it most likely does, since they shared scripts), Funimation completely dropped the ball in their flashbacks yet again. Roshi refers to the gap between the 21st and 22nd Tenkaichis as being 5 years instead of 3, he says Goku and Tenshinhan's fight at the 22nd Tenkaichi ended in a draw, and he says Goku and Chichi were already married by the 23rd Tenkaichi.

That's one of the big consequences and unfortunate byproducts of FUNi skipping the majority of the original Dragon Ball series up until 2001, because they made royal screw ups like these and even after going back and dubbing it start to finish they didn't correct the erroneous dialogue or other things like the flashback to the Red Ribbon arc in the one Androids episode. Seriously, stuff like this and Dr. Gero is the mastermind of the RRA in the aforementioned are massive plot holes/inconsistencies completely contradictory to the original which wouldn't have happened if FUNi hadn't skipped past OG DB after ep 13 straight to DBZ back in 1996.

Trunks's flashbacks to his history in Z episode 164 doesn't line up with how these events happen in the TV special.

Interesting, and considering that the Trunks special aired just three months after this set of episodes plus the "Trunks: The Story" bonus chapter in which it was adapted from had been out a while beforehand and the former was possibly in the works at this point. Maybe it was just an oversight as they already had one set of events depicted in the above episode as compared to the special and thus inconsistencies arise.

[MyVisionity]

Roshi refers to the gap between the 21st and 22nd Tenkaichis as being 5 years instead of 3.

This mistake is in the original Japanese script as well.

[Robo4900]

Roshi refers to the gap between the 21st and 22nd Tenkaichis as being 5 years instead of 3.

This mistake is in the original Japanese script as well.

Fixed.

Interesting, and considering that the Trunks special aired just three months after this set of episodes plus the "Trunks: The Story" bonus chapter in which it was adapted from had been out a while beforehand and the former was possibly in the works at this point. Maybe it was just an oversight as they already had one set of events depicted in the above episode as compared to the special and thus inconsistencies arise.

Yeah, it's a very weird oversight.

[MasenkoHA]

Another way Funimation dropped the ball here? For the Blue Ray release “Ghost of Tomorrow” is completely missing so episode 164 just has a blank title card. Whoops.

Some of the peculiarities of Roshi’s recollection of the cast history with the tournament in the Funi dub are carries over from the Japanese version: Referring to Jackie Chun as if he were a separate person from him, stating the 22nd came 5 years after the 21st, saying the ring being destroyed at the 23rd is why there had been no more tournaments (even though the 22nd tournament also had the ring destroyed and as it turned out another tournament did happen around this time). On the other hand, Roshi specifies Goku lost to Tenshinhan by a narrow margin so there’s no reason to make the mistake and say it was a draw other than Funimation saw the footage and probably thought they were correcting a mistake. They also omit the fact that Kami possessed a human at the 23rd tournament leaving dub only viewers watching this pre-2003 to assume Yamcha is just getting his ass kicked by some random dweebish dude. I can kind of understand where Funimation would make the error that Chi Chi and Goku got married before the 23rd tournament as Roshi simply said “Goku and Chi Chi got married” without specifying they got engaged at the tournament and left to get married after the tournament. So I can see where Funimation could make the mistake of assuming “got married” meant they were married by the time the tournament started. Still, mistake could have been avoided if they had done their job properly and dubbed all of Dragon Ball before moving on to Z!


Yadjirobe is shown in Trunk’s flashback as being murdered along with everyone else creating another inconsistency for viewers watching Super after Z!



Lastly Jillian Michaels as Gohan. Obviously, I prefer Saffron Henderson and I do find odd that Michaels makes Gohan sound even younger but I’ll take Michaels over Nadolny any day of the week! Interestingly enough I think Michaels got the honor of being the only voice actor in the English dub to voice all 3 male members of the Son family as children. Voicing Goten in the Boo saba and voicing Goku in a flashback or two. Not sure if Michals would have voiced Goku as a child for Dragon Ball and GT if Ocean hadn’t outsourced dubbing to their Calgary studio but since I think Henderson was available again at that point (and at least voiced some bit parts in Viz/Ocean’s Inuyasha dub around that time ) probably not.

[Robo4900]

Lastly Jillian Michaels as Gohan. Obviously, I prefer Saffron Henderson and I do find odd that Michaels makes Gohan sound even younger but I’ll take Michaels over Nadolny any day of the week! Interestingly enough I think Michaels got the honor of being the only voice actor in the English dub to voice all 3 male members of the Son family as children. Voicing Goten in the Boo saba and voicing Goku in a flashback or two. Not sure if Michals would have voiced Goku as a child for Dragon Ball and GT if Ocean hadn’t outsourced dubbing to their Calgary studio but since I think Henderson was available again at that point (and at least voiced some bit parts in Viz/Ocean’s Inuyasha dub around that time ) probably not.

Saffron Henderson also provided some additional voices in the Boo arc of Ocean's DBZ, so I would assume they would have asked her to return as Goku for GT. It's possible they even did that, before production moved to Calgary.