Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 94 - DBZ 254-258

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Robo4900
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Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 94 - DBZ 254-258

Post by Robo4900 » Mon Oct 18, 2021 8:48 pm

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Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 94 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.

While scrubbing DB Wikia for Funimation episode titles and checking their trivia listings for anything we might have missed (a road to insanity, I realise, but while their trivia is badly written and often totally inane, occasionally there's something interesting behind it, which is worth researching for our own use; about two trivia entries this week were inspired by DB Wiki entries), I noticed it had a list of characters who die in Z episode 256. This list includes the Cell Juniors. I assumed this was DB Wiki being insane, but apparently Dragon Ball Super Bonus Story 3 from the Super manga's Tankobons established that the Cell Juniors regrew (in much the same way as Cell did) and then 17 tamed them and used them as security for his island/park ranging.

This brief rabbit hole wasn't particularly relevant for trivia, but it's so bonkers and stupid I couldn't not share it. So there you are.

Previous thread: Week 93 (DBZ 251-253, movie 12)
Next thread: Week 95 (DBZ 259-263)

Anyway, without further ado...

Episode 407 - Run Away, Satan!! An Angry Majin Boo Emerges (DBZ episode 254)
Dub title: The Evil of Men
Originally aired 1st of February 1995

Written by: Takao Koyama
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama


Boo is stupefied as he sees his puppy shot before his eyes. The pair then go on to aim for Satan and Boo, but are taken care of by an enraged Satan. Boo heals the puppy, who is still alive, and finally calms down. Boo completely opens his heart to Satan, and they pass the time together. At that time, one of the pair appears and shoots Satan. Boo immediately heals Satan, but is suddenly pained, and exhales smoke. From amidst that smoke, a skinny Boo appears!

Anime-only/filler content: Boo repairing his house, having a bath with Mr. Satan, sharing a meal with him, one of the gunmen breaking in through the window before shooting Mr. Satan, Elder Kaioshin watching a womens' exercise video, Piccolo shouting at Goten and Trunks.

Episode 408 - Which One Will Win?! A Good and Evil Boo-Boo Confrontation (DBZ episode 255)
Dub title: Buu Against Buu
Originally aired 8th of February 1995

Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Tadayoshi Yamamuro


Majin Boo has split into two. The good Boo fights, trying to defeat the newly born evil Boo. But the good Boo is pushed back by the evil Boo’s overwhelming power, and is in a great pinch!! He then fires a beam, attempting to turn the evil Boo into chocolate. But the beam is repelled by the evil Boo, and the good Boo is instead turned into chocolate and eaten. After eating the chocolate, the evil Boo transforms into a brutally evil Boo, who then heads for God’s Palace.

Anime-only/filler content: Significant extensions to Boo's fight with Evil Boo, Chichi and Bulma yelling at Piccolo, Goten and Trunks eating, Kuririn and Piccolo having a chat about their chances.

Episode 409 - A Catastrophe With No Time to Lose!! Earth’s Humanity is Exterminated (DBZ episode 256)
Dub title: Empty Planet
Originally aired 15th of February 1995

Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Shigeyasu Yamauchi
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa


Boo comes to God’s Palace in order to fight Goten and Trunks. In order to buy time, Piccolo reminds Boo of his promise to wipe out all of the Earthlings, and has him fulfill it. Meanwhile in the Kaiōshin Realm, the Elder Kaiōshin continues Gohan’s power-up, while reading manga. Doubting the lackadaisical Elder Kaiōshin, Gohan unthinkingly goes into a rage. At that instant, he realizes that his own power has increased. The Elder Kaiōshin’s power-up is the real thing.

Anime-only/filler content: Chichi preparing to attack Boo with a broom, and Piccolo stopping her.

Episode 410 - The Special Training is a Success!! You’re Finished Now, Majin Boo (DBZ episode 257)
Dub title: Time Struggle
Originally aired 22nd of February 1995

Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Jun’ichi Fujise
Animation supervisor: Shingo Ishikawa


Mad at Boo for stealing Gohan away from her, Chi-Chi resolutely stands up to him, but is turned into an egg and squashed!! Piccolo has Boo promise to wait just an hour. During that time, Trunks and Goten train in the Room of Spirit and Time. But Boo screams out in impatience. Piccolo ends up taking Boo to the room where Goten and Trunks are… And thus the battle between Boo and the rug-rat warriors begins!!

Anime-only/filler content: Goten and Trunks briefly being Gotenks before defusing, while training in the Rooom of Spirit and Time.

Episode 411 - I’m Going Like I Mean It!! A Wide-Open Super Gotenks (DBZ episode 258)
Dub title: Super Moves of Gotenks
Originally aired 1st of March 1995

Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Takahiro Imamura
Animation supervisor: Yūji Hakamada


Goten and Trunks perform Fusion perfectly and merge into Gotenks, and charge Boo head-on. But the punches and kicks that Gotenks unleashes don’t have any affect. Gotenks then transforms into a Super Saiyan and inflicts the Galactic Donuts on Boo. But Boo easily breaks through this technique! In order to turn the situation around, Gotenks challenges Boo with his specially reserved technique, the Super Ghost Kamikaze Attack…?!

Anime-only/filler content: Significant extensions to Gotenks vs Super Boo, especially to him fighting Boo in base form; Gotenks taking Piccolo aside to have a brief strategy chat, a brief conversation among the gang outside the Room, and the gag where Gotenks and Piccolo get thrown into the bath.

-

Interesting trivia:
  • At this point in time in the manga, Vegetto is formed and founds DaizenshuuEX battles Boo before letting himself be absorbed, they defuse and free their friends and Good Boo, Pure Boo is born and destroys the Earth, and he follows Goku and Vegeta to the World of the Kaioshins for Goku to start fighting him.
  • Missed Trivia: Episode 252, where Mr. Satan first befriends Boo, is the first episode to air in 1995, the final year of the manga's run.
  • Missed Trivia: on the cover of Tankobon #1, Goku's Nyoi'bo has a ring on it, which while a common flourish to the Monkey King's obedient staff, is not a design detail on Goku's equivalent.
  • Mr. Satan defeating the two thugs is the only time he's shown fighting successfully. It's the main piece of evidence that Mr. Satan is one of the strongest humans, and that he's a good guy... when he remembers he can be.
  • Boo's final act before splitting is to heal Mr. Satan.
  • Much like with the Nameless Namekian, Boo exhumes his inner evil as a way to purify himself, with the evil form being unquestionably more powerful. Also like them, the evil form merges with the good form and assumes dominance, although in Piccolo's case it was a mutual decision.
  • The relationship between the kind Boo and the wrathful Boo is only explained with two text boxes in the manga, and thus has left many fans confused (particularly in regards to Pure Boo at the end). KBABZ's take is that at first, Good Boo is dominant, but Babidi's influence has sparked evil in them. After Evil Boo absorbs Good Boo, the relationship is inverted, with Evil Boo being dominant.
  • The Author's Comment for Tankobon #41 has Toriyama mention that, at time of writing, he only had three more Chapters of Dragon Ball left to write. That would pin the comment at about the 25th of April when he wrote Chapter 516, which is just after Goku defeats Boo but before the 10 year timeskip. Tankobon #41 itself would release on June 2nd, two weeks after the manga ended, so this only spoiled what was left of the anime (which, on June 2nd, was up to Goku returning to Earth to face Super Boo).
    • The above also confirms that Toriyama knew that the timeskip would be the conclusion of the story (before now, KBABZ felt it was plausible that Toriyama did end it right then and there on the final Chapter).
    • Fan Theory Time: It's possible Toriyama knew he'd be ending the manga as far back as Gohan's return to Earth: this is the twelth chapter of Tankobon #41 (the twelth Chapter is usually the last one in a Tankobon), and both Tankobon #41 and #42 have exactly sixteen chapters. KBABZ's theory is that Toriyama let Shueisha know so that they could more economically manage the Tankobon publication of the chapters (as well as capitalize on them being The Last Ones) by publishing the end of the story sooner.
    • If the above theory is true, and assuming Toei found out at the same time, then Toei would have had just over a year from then until February 1996 to do Z movies 12-13, and start up Dragon Ball GT.
    • Annoyingly, the ViZ translation changes Toriyama's statement to refer to "Dragon Ball Z", their name for the Chapters that were adapted into the Dragon Ball Z anime, rather than "Dragon Ball" as he actually said.
  • Tankobon #41 is the last Tankobon to not have its number included somewhere on the cover as an easter egg. It joins Tankobons #1-4, #6, #9-13, #16, #23 and #35. Both #20 and #24 would get their numbers in by putting a pin on Piccolo/Goku
  • Tankobon #41 is also the first Tankobon to be thicker than normal, having sixteen chapters rather than twelve. This is to more cleanly accomodate the end of the story: if they were adapted normally, Tankobon #41 would have had Chapters #486-497, #41 would have had Chapters 498-509, and then a Tankobon #43 would have had only ten Chapters, being two Chapters short.
    • Ironically, that EXACT scenario occurred with ViZ's publication: they moved the first two Chapters of the Saiyan Arc out of Tankobon #16 and into #17, so they could sell every Chapter adapted into the Dragon Ball Z anime under that name and get more sales. ViZ is the only version of the manga, English or otherwise, to go out of their way for this: every other version sells the entire run complete as "Dragon Ball".
  • In the filler scenes of Dende and Piccolo talking in Z episodes 254-255, Dende is drawn in his Namek Arc design, as shown by his rounder head, shorter height and shorter arms. This is likely due to the animation process: 254 was done by Last House and 255 by Shindo Production: Dende doesn't feature very often, so in producing the filler scenes, it's possible they didn't have up-to-date model sheets and were thus unaware of his slight redesign.
  • The scene where Boo walks around the edge of the Lookout implies that the Lookout itself gives those on it a view of the Earth below, and is indiscriminate about it.
  • The panel of the Lookout after Boo exterminates all the humans is the first time the Earth has been depicted below the Lookout itself.
  • It's very easy to miss, but after Boo exterminates all the humans, Popo can be seen consoling Dende, who has collapsed to his knees. It's very likely that he took the deaths of every single person he was sworn to protect very hard.
  • The panel of Tenshinhan and Chaozu is the first time Ten has been seen since the end of the Cell Arc. In the anime it's the first time Chaozu has been seen since Ten stalled Semi-Perfect Cell with the Kikoho barrage, while in the manga it's his first appearance since Mecha Freeza appeared.
  • It's unclear if Boo's human extermination attack targeted ONLY humans, or if it also struck animal characters like King Furry.
    • As well, later lore establishes that Tenshinhan is an alien, explaining his third eye. Despite this, he has to dodge Boo's extermination attack anyway, although it's unlikely Boo knew or cared to make a distinction about it.
  • As the anime elaborates, Mr. Satan is seen with his shirt off because he's starting the long journey back to civilization on foot. He doesn't seem to know that the two thugs arrived in a vehicle.
  • As Kanzenshuu elaborates, Piccolo is roughly accurate in his claim that one minute in the real world is six hours in the Room of Spirit and Time: the accurate number would be 6 hours, 5 minutes and 15 seconds (if you consider Leap Years, it'd be 6 hours and 6 minutes).
  • As you may guess, the scene where Roshi attempts to sexually assault Android 18 in the middle of an extremely tense scene is a Toei addition.
  • The Room of Spirit and Time has been explained as being an entirely different dimension. Despite this, Piccolo is able to talk to Goten and Trunks telepathically.
  • Piccolo talking with Goten and Trunks should not work as it does: with the time dilation, Piccolo's speech should sound like it's in extreme slow-motion, with huge pauses between his lines. It would also mean that Trunks and Goten's replies would be nanoseconds long!
  • Piccolo is able to lead Boo into the Room of Spirit and Time to fight Goten and Trunks, a total of four people (three when they fuse into Gotenks). This contradicts Goku's explanation of it to Vegeta back in the Cell Arc, where he explains that it's only "set up" for two people in the ViZ translation. This wording is broad enough however to not refer to the Room itself, but rather its facilities, which only have food and beds for two. THAT SAID, it's not like Piccolo isn't able to magically conjure these things, able to magically create clothing, a sword and a giant hourglass.
    • In Super however, it's explained that Dende has since upgraded the Room of Spirit and Time to remove the "two use" restriction, meaning the "two people only" restriction could also have been lifted by the Boo Arc.
  • Trunks and Goten fusing in the Room of Spirit and Time ALSO re-uses the panels from when they were first practicing it.
  • Until the point about two minutes into Z episode 258, Super Boo's eyes were coloured white as in the manga. Inexplicably, his eyes change to red from this point onwards. Kai: The Final Chapters added a transition of eye colour to the scene to smooth this out. The Full Colour manga opted to consistently colour Boo's eyes red.
  • In the panel where Gotenks gets up after Boo first punches him, the middle portion of his hair is mistakenly not fully inked-in. This mistake is possibly because Gotenks goes Super Saiyan immediately afterwards.
  • The headbutt should not have affected Boo very much given his viscous physiology.
  • The "Gong" text in the manga is the only time sound effect text drawn in 3D.
Trivia primarily written by KBABZ. Episode summaries, airdates, and titles courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide.
Last edited by Robo4900 on Mon Oct 25, 2021 4:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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MasenkoHA
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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 94 - DBZ 254-258 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by MasenkoHA » Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:20 pm

When people wonder why the Dragon Team keeps Goten and Trunks out of everything in Super. This, this is why.


Robo4900 wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 8:48 pm
[*]Much like with the Nameless Namekian, Boo exhumes his inner evil as a way to purify himself, with the evil form being unquestionably more powerful. Also like them, the evil form merges with the good form and assumes dominance, although in Piccolo's case it was a mutual decision.
Although it was never stated outright it could be inferred that Kami was actually much stronger than Daimao. When Goku (who recently defeated Daimao) goes to the Lookout he’s outclassed by Mr.Popo who states that Kami is stronger than him which would mean Popo and Kami were both a lot more powerful than Piccolo Daimao.
[

[*]It's unclear if Boo's human extermination attack targeted ONLY humans, or if it also struck animal characters like King Furry.
I feel like it’s a given the anthropomorphic animal characters were killed too. It wouldn’t be as big a deal if a sizable portion of the earth’s population was still alive.
  • As well, later lore establishes that Tenshinhan is an alien, explaining his third eye. Despite this, he has to dodge Boo's extermination attack anyway, although it's unlikely Boo knew or cared to make a distinction about it.
He’s descended from an alien tribe but he himself is not an alien. He was still born on earth.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 94 - DBZ 254-258 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by MyVisionity » Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:36 pm

The Boo and Satan plot tells me that even though Toriyama could no longer handle the big serious battle manga arcs, he still had enough creative energy to do the small and simple gag stories. Those two characters worked very well together.

After Super Boo is born is where the show just becomes unwatchable for me. This stretch of episodes may be the lowest point of the entire series. With the exception of a few particular moments, things don't pick up again until the final fifteen episodes.

Chichi's death was stupid.

When Piccolo doesn't remove his cape and turban the entire saga, you know something's wrong.


As you may guess, the scene where Roshi attempts to sexually assault Android 18 in the middle of an extremely tense scene is a Toei addition.
I must have missed this one(?). Are the Bulma tits and ass assaults in 257 Toei as well?

The panel of Tenshinhan and Chaozu is the first time Ten has been seen since the end of the Cell Arc. In the anime it's the first time Chaozu has been seen since Ten stalled Semi-Perfect Cell with the Kikoho barrage, while in the manga it's his first appearance since Mecha Freeza appeared.
Tenshinhan and Chiao Tzu were both in the SSJ3 transformation scene in the anime. Also in the anime, Chaozu was seen after Perfect Cell fought Trunks, when Roshi explains the history of the tournaments at Capsule Corp.

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Re: Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 94 - DBZ 254-258 (CURRENT WEEK)

Post by Koitsukai » Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:12 am

I assumed Buu was able to view Earth from the Lookout because he learns how to do stuff on the spot, and not because it's an open-window for anybody. Granted, I don't think he saw anybody taking a peak before, but doing stuff he's not suppose to is kinda his thing.

Although, I can't remember, in the Cell arc, if Tenshinhan also was able to view Earth when Piccolo was following the Cell-Vegeta-Trunks-Krilin-remote thingy.

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