Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 80 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.
This week, the Cell arc finally ends, and we get the first legitimately good Dragon Ball movie since Garlic Jr. Next week, the Afterlife Tournament!
Previous thread: Week 79 (DBZ 188-192)
Next thread: Week 81 (DBZ 195-199)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 346 - A New Day Will Come… Father! I’ll Hang in There (DBZ episode 193)
Dub title:
Originally aired 14th of July 1993
Kai equivalent: Episode -
Written by: Takao Koyama
Episode director: Masahiro Hosoda
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
With the second wish, Kuririn has the bomb inside No. 18’s body removed. Learning of his kind heart, No. 18 says “see you later”, and flies off. Kuririn and the others part with Piccolo and leave the Heavenly Realm behind. Chi-Chi collapses in tears when she hears about Goku from Gohan. Everyone sees Trunks off as he returns to the future, and a month later Gohan is out enjoying a walk with Gyūmaō. On television, Satan boasts about his power even more.
Anime-only/filler content: Gyuumao and Baba being at Chichi's house, everything after Trunks leaves: Gohan and Gyuumao on a walk, Gohan fishing, baby Trunks walking for the first time, Mr. Satan's TV appearance, and the scene with Goku and Kaio.
Episode 347 - End it All Again!! I Will Protect the Future (DBZ episode 194)
Dub title: One More Wish
Originally aired 21st of July 1993
Kai equivalent: Episode -
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Hiroki Shibata
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
After returning to the Earth of the future, Trunks reunites with Bulma, and talks about what happened in the past. They then learn from the radio that No. 17 and 18 have appeared and are destroying a city, and Trunks flies off to where they are. Not knowing of Trunks’ power-up, No. 18 and 17 are pulverized! Time passes, and Trunks lures Cell out as Cell has his eyes on the time machine. Surprised, Cell tries to defeat Trunks, even without being in his perfect form, but is instead overwhelmed and wiped out.
Anime-only/filler content: Trunks saving the old man Android 17 is threatening (in the manga, he dies). Trunks's entire fight with 18 (instead of him instantly destroying her), Bulma briefly ribbing Trunks about him hiding a girlfriend when he tells her to go away since he senses Cell, the brief scene after Trunks kills Cell, where he hugs his mother.
DBZ movie 9 - The Galaxy at the Brink!! The Super Incredible Guy
Dub title: Free the Future
Originally released 10th of July 1993
Written by: Takao Koyama
Director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Tadayoshi Yamamuro
The Money Family is hosting a Tenka’ichi Budōkai, but everything goes terribly wrong when Bojack and his minions show up in the final stages. The Z Warriors are handily defeated, leaving Gohan to face off against Bojack all alone. Can Gohan’s newly obtained Super Saiyan 2 transformation save the day?
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Interesting trivia about Z episodes 193-194:
- At this point in time in the manga, the Dragon Team arrive for the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai, Goku arrives from Other World, and they all get their ranks via the punching machine.
- MISSED TRIVIA: Bulma arrives at the Lookout via a plane shortly before Vegeta and Trunks exit the Time Chamber.. It's commonly cited that Bulma shouldn't have been able to because vehicles wouldn't be able to make it. However, when the Lookout was originally introduced by Karin, he only says that they'd be repelled. Assuming this is something done by God, this explains why Bulma was able to do it: at that time God was absorbed into Piccolo, and Piccolo (and later, Dende) would certainly allow Goku's friends and family to visit.
- Toriyama's artwork of Shen Long on the first page of Chapter 418 has been used innumerable times as key art on Dragon Ball products and merchandise.
- Z episode 193 is the last time Jillian Michaels voiced Gohan outside of a couple of brief flashbacks. The next time an Ocean dub would record new young Gohan lines would be in Kai, and we are fairly certain that Saffron Henderson returned to voice the young Gohan throughout Ocean's (still-unreleased) dub of Kai. We could say similar about Funimation's Gohan voice at the time, Stephanie Nadolny, if it wasn't for the redub of Z episodes 1-67, and the partial redub of the next chunk after that. Though even then, that would only apply to the TV anime, since video games and some of the movies were also recorded at various times after Z episode 193.
- We stand corrected! After Kuririn attempts to turn 17 and 18 back to humans, Ten makes a point of asking why he included 17 as if 17 is still alive, and Piccolo reminds him that he was almost certainly restored, being one of Cell's victims (this scene is kept in Kai). No one brings up whether or not 16 was revived.
- When Kuririn apologizes for taking Yamucha's wish away for a necklace to give to his girlfriend, Yamucha laughs it off by saying he'd never wish for something that stupid. Of course, Yamucha's original wish was for him to not be nervous around girls so that he could get married!
- This scene is where it's revealed that 17 and 18 are twins, which would explain their behaviour around each other. Toriyama decided to not reveal their original names until many, many years later, in an interview. Why they prefer to use their Android names despite their anger at being turned into Androids is unknown.
- Tenshinhan presciently notes that he probably won't be seeing the other characters again before departing. This is backpedaled by the "revival" era of Dragon Ball, where he's present in the Jump Special, both of the newer Z movies, and Super.
- In the panel where Gohan says goodbye to Dende, Trunks still has his long hair, but it reaches his shoulders, meaning his neck must be VERY tall!
- As Gohan flies past Karin's Tower, the original vase of Divine Water can be seen behind him and Yajirobe.
- In the scene where Trunks departs for the original future, everyone is wearing either a black shirt or a black armband, likely out of respect for Goku's death. The exception, unsurprisingly, is Vegeta.
- Recurring death tallies: (now bolding changes to make it clearer)
- River fish: 7
- Son Goku: 2
- Piccolo: 2
- Chaozu: 2
- The moon: 2
- Yamucha: 1
- Tenshinhan: 1
- Roshi: 1
- Kuririn: 1
- DBZ Episode 194 is the final anime appearance of a teenaged Trunks until End of Z, where Kid Trunks now matches the approximate age of Future Trunks. In the English dubs, this is marked by both being voiced by Eric Vale (Funimation) or Alistair Abell (Ocean), however in the Japanese versions both the young and adult versions of Trunks are voiced by Takeshi Kusao. Future Trunks himself would not appear again in future Dragon Ball material until Dragon Ball Super.
- The wide shot of Capsule Corp. in the original future is the same drawing Toriyama used for it in Trunks: The Story. The same applies to the panel of the hovercar outside the broken window, only it's been cropped so that you don't see Trunks taking the box of food out of the car.
- Future Bulma has taken up smoking, something with Familiar Bulma also does as she approaches that age (as seen in the Buu Arc).
- The last spot the original Androids attack is Parsley City, again keeping up with the theme of Dragon World Earth's towns being named after spices.
- With his jacket removed, Trunks looks rather similar to how his father would appear in the Boo Arc, particularly in the manga where both are depicted in black clothing.
- In the manga, 17 shoots the old man in the head, killing him off-screen. In the anime this is softened: while 17 points his gun right at the old man's head, Trunks is able to save him. The Viz manga also toned this scene down, removing 17's gun and the ammo casing, and using a sound effect for a punch rather than a gunshot.
- It's possible that Trunks: The Story and Peace for the Future are meant as commentaries on juvenile delinquents, given that 17 and 18 are teenage drifters who destroy and abuse their strength for extremely petty reasons and have no real goals in life.
- In the manga, the time skip after Trunks defeats the Androids is three years. In the anime it isn't specified.
- It's unknown why exactly Trunks waited for Cell to ambush him rather than going to Dr. Gero's lab and killing him as he did in the Familiar Timeline.
- In Cell's flashback in the Cell Games, his ambush of Trunks in his future was depicted at night in a grassy area. In the episode 194 version it's at day in West City, but this isn't too much of a contradiction: since Trunks knew he'd be ambushed before using the time machine, he probably did that intentionally so that his fight with Cell would be favourable, particularly by being during the day.
- The final Chapter of the Future Trunks ending is called Peace to the Future. All versions and adaptations of this Chapter, in Japanese and English, are called that or Peace for the Future, making it one of the few parts of the story that can be called directly by its title rather than "Episode 194" or "The one where...".
- When Trunks faces Cell in his timeline, he's wearing Saiyan Armor. This was likely created by Future Bulma, considering the one Trunks took from the Familiar Timeline had a hole blasted through it by Cell.
- The Cell Arc happens to end bang on Tankobon #35!
- DBZ movie 9 released at the 1993 Toei Anime Fair alongside Dr. Slump and Arale-chan: N-cha! From Penguin Village with Love and YuYu Hakusho: The Movie.
- Name pun trivia courtesy of Herms' name pun roundup:
- Bojack and Bujin come from the adjective boujakubujin meaning "arrogant" or "audacious".
- Gokua comes from "goku-aku", and means heinous or otherwise very evil.
- Bido comes from hidou, meaning unjust or inhumane.
- Zangya comes from zangyaku, meaning cruel.
- Gyousan means "a lot", Okkane comes from okane which means money, and Doll is an abbreviation of dollar.
- Udo, the figher Gohan handily defeats, is probably named after a plant, and specifically the Japanese phrase "udo no taiboku", or "Good-for-nothing", a phrase coming from the fact that the udo plant is not very sturdy.
- Dosukoi is a chant sumo wrestlers say.
- The TV-and-dish setup that Kaio watches the Grand Tournament from is exactly what Piccolo and Dende used to watch Cell's announcement of the Cell Games.
- In the movie, Goku and Kaio are hanging around on the "asteroid" where Kaio attempted to build a house. In the anime they moved on soon afterwards, but the movie implies they stuck around for a while without attempting to rebuild the house.
- The first fighter in the orange gi uses the same design model as Man-Wolf from the 22nd Tournament. Much like Man-Wolf, he's eliminated by a ring-out, although in this case it's entirely self-inflicted.
- Kuririn wonders who he should take with him to the hot springs around the world. This is in fact the prize for SECOND place; maybe Kuririn's being more realistic than usual?
- Tenshinhan is competing in the Grand Tournament despite him saying he didn't expect to see the others ever again before leaving.
- Chichi says that if Gohan doesn't keep his strength up, it'll all be for nothing. Cut to ten seven years later where Vegeta scolds him for not keeping up his training.
- This is only the second third time Gohan has been depicted in the Turtle School gi, the first time being during the Saiyan Training filler arc, and the second being in the Trunks special.
- As reported by Bulma, Trunks is able to appear because he's come back to report that he killed 17 and 18 in the original future. This allows his iconic vest to have its sleeves ripped off without contradicting Peace for the Future.
- Bulma and Chi-Chi's rivalry appears here before it does in the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai in the Buu Arc.
- The referee who declares that Yamucha is disqualified was previously seen at the 21st Tournament Preliminaries.
- Piccolo enters this Tournament (and the 25th) without using an alias like he did in the 23rd Tournament.
- Gohan honors his human opponent with a physical gesture before beating them handily, something Goku had a habit of doing back in his Tournament days.
- Tenshinhan uses the Kikoho, which depletes his lifefoce, despite there being no need. The Dodon-pa would have been a much less draining move to use.
- This is of course the second time Kuririn and Piccolo have fought each other, the first time being their finals match at the 23rd Tournament. Much like that match, Kuririn gets caught up in Piccolo's cape during the fight.
- During the Piccolo match, Kuririn has to flap his way back up into the arena, which is ironic considering his ability to fly was revealed during their previous match-up!
- In the playing cards, Pilaf is depicted on the Kings, Shu on the Jacks and Mai on the Queens. This is their first appearance in the anime since being ejected from their own airship by Daimao five years prior in 1988. Their next apperance will be three years later, in the 1996 premiere of GT.
- The pyramid in the middle of the Battle Island II arena is modelled after the Incan pyramids.
- The sword used by Trunks' opponent uses the same sound effects as his own.
- Gohan cleverly disintegrates the two clock hands with a powerful kiai, the first time it's been shown as an offensive move rather than a defensive one.
- As explained by Kaio, Bojack attempted to destroy the "cardinal" galaxies of the Dragon World, something that Broly happened to do in the previous movie.
- The backstory for Bojack would much later be contradicted by Dragon Ball Super, where it's explained that Kaio's world used to be much bigger before Beerus got upset and destroyed most of it.
- Bojack's backstory is also not made apparent in the Cell Games, as Kaio made no indication that Bojack, a being of a comparable strength to Cell, has been released thanks to Goku.
- Yet another rendition of Piccolo's theme!
- This is the sixth movie in a row where Piccolo shows up to save Gohan from off-screen.
- Similarly to Coola's Revenge with Goku, Bojack has Gohan take on his latest form by duplicating the circumstances from the first time he attained it. In this case, Bojack crushes him with his arms, complete with the same sound effects, before Goku provides emotional support from Other World.
- Bojack appears to be aware of Goku, his dead status and that he's Gohan's father.
- The movie copies the finale of the Cell Games so closely that Gohan has a bloody spot on his forehead where Cell headbutted him, despite sustaining no such injury in this movie. The movie also copies him defeating the henchmen with melee attacks that bifurcate his opponents before they explode into dust.
- The music cue for the aftermath of Gohan's victory would be used in Dragon Ball Kai's Kikuchi mix for that same moment in the Cell Arc.
- The credits photo of Gohan in the schoolboy outfit just before he leaves for Namek is taken from a manga panel, with the addition of Chichi standing behind him.
- The final shot at the end of the credits is the first time Chaozu has been depicted in a suit.