Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 98 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.
Sorry about the late posting, was busy yesterday.
Previous thread: Week 97 (DBZ 269-273)
Next thread: Week 99 (DBZ 279-283)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 427 - Nightmares or Illusions?! Goku and Gohan’s Father-Son Confrontation (DBZ episode 274)
Dub title: Mind Trap
Originally aired 9th of August 1995
Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Keisuke Masunaga
When Goku and Vegeta learn that Boo is on the toilet, they escape from his intestines and set out for his head. There, they find Gohan and the others, who attack them for some reason. The two are in big trouble, until Boo begins thinking about food. His head fills up with images of candy, and Gohan and the others become candy as well. It turns out that they were nothing more than Boo’s memories of Gohan and co. With that danger behind them, Goku and Vegeta finally discover the real Gohan, Goten, Piccolo, and Trunks.
Anime-only/filler content: Everything until the final scene.
Episode 428 - The Majin’s Secret!! Two More Boo’s Inside of Boo (DBZ episode 275)
Dub title: Deadly Vision
Originally aired 16th of August 1995
Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Shigeyasu Yamauchi
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
Gohan and the others are still alive. As Goku and Vegeta tear out the “fleshy cocoons” to rescue Gohan and co., Boo reverts to his previous form. Then Vegeta discovers another cocoon. It turns out to be the fat Majin Boo which Bobbidi revived, the one who was then absorbed by his own evil side. The current Boo then appears behind Goku and Vegeta. The two of them become Super Saiyans and fight, but Boo is invincible so long as he’s inside his own body. Vegeta is knocked down and about to be absorbed!!
Anime-only/filler content: Boo wreaking havoc in a deserted city while Mr. Satan and Dende watch, Super Boo fighting Goku and Vegeta before they trigger his transformation into Pure Boo (Kid Boo, to dub fans).
Episode 429 - Where is the Exit?! Escape From a Collapsing Boo (DBZ episode 276)
Dub title: Evil Kid Buu!
Originally aired 23rd of August 1995
Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Shingo Ishikawa
Though Goku rescues Vegeta via teleportation, he’s on the brink of getting knocked out by Boo’s fierce assault. Even his full-power energy blast doesn’t hit Boo. However, Boo shields the good Boo from a stray blast, and Vegeta realizes that this must be his weakness. Ignoring Boo, he pulls the cocoon out. Boo is instantly wracked with pain. Goku and Vegeta grab Gohan and the others and escape. Boo first becomes muscular, and then finally changes into a childlike form. Kaiōshin gasps: “He’s changing back…!!”
Anime-only/filler content: More of Goku and Vegeta fighting Super Boo.
Episode 430 - Earth Disappears!! Boo’s Reverse-Transformation of Evil (DBZ episode 277)
Dub title: End of Earth
Originally aired 6th of September 1995
Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Yūji Hakamada
Kaiōshin tells the story: during the last battle with Majin Boo, the West and North Kaiōshins were killed, while the South Kaiōshin (the most muscular one of all) was absorbed. The muscular Boo was the form he reached by absorbing South Kaiōshin. And now Boo has reverted to the true Majin Boo which Bibbidi created, evil itself. The now heartless Boo immediately destroys Earth. Though Goku and Vegeta escape to the Kaiōshin Realm via teleportation, they are unable to save Gohan and the others, and the Earth is reduced to space dust.
Anime-only/filler content: Significant extensions to Kibitokai's flashback/explanation, various reactions to earth being destroyed.
Episode 431 - Boo’s Assault!! A Conclusion in the Kaiōshin Realm (DBZ episode 278)
Dub title: True Saiyans Fight Alone
Originally aired 13th of September 1995
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Osamu Kasai
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
Vegeta criticizes Goku for saving Satan and Dende before Gohan and the others. Meanwhile, Boo teleports around destroying planets. Boo is about to destroy the Grand Kaiōshin’s planet, where Kuririn and co. are, but Goku raises his ki and draws Boo to the Kaiōshin Realm in the nick of time. Earth can be restored with the Dragon Balls on Planet Namek… if they manage to defeat Boo. At last, Boo reaches the Kaiōshin Realm. He glares at Goku with an evil glint in his eye. The mightiest of battles begins!!
Anime-only/filler content: Pure Boo going on a rampage before going to the Kaioshin world.
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Interesting trivia:
- When Vegeta spots Piccolo, he says "I found them!!". However he only found a single person: immediately afterwards, Goku spots Goten, Trunks and Gohan.
- As Goku points out, only the Potara Fusion is impossible inside Boo, since Gotenks remained fused while inside him until their time ran out.
- After absorbing Vegetto, Boo declares himself omnipotent in the ViZ translation. This may seem confusing, but omnipotent actually does mean all-powerful. In most other pop culture however it's usually used in conjunction with "all-seeing", which is omniscient.
- It's worth noting that Boo does not change to Piccolo's clothing until Goten and Trunks are detatched, which reflects that the two kids are both more powerful than him.
- Unlike Z movie 12, Vegeta says that there's no way he'd perform the Fusion Dance, finding it preposterous. Amusingly, in both Z movie 12 and the manga material, it never occurs to Goku why Vegeta wouldn't want to do the dance with him.
- Vegeta confirms that he was able to see the fight between Good and Evil Boo, which is interesting because that event happened soon after he was killed. As we noted before, how exactly he was able to see this remains unexplained. It's not like Goku was aware of what was happening on Earth while he was dead!
- Dende tells Mr. Satan that he can tell he's getting close to Boo because of his "chi", which Mr. Satan mis-hears as "cheese". This lends credence to "chi" being the correct localisation over "ki".
- If we were watching the original English dub, we would be finishing Z this week with Z episode 276; the condensing of the first 67 episodes down to 53 and the merging of two episodes later in the Freeza arc resulted in DBZ only running 276 episodes in most English territories, before the uncut redub.
- Interestingly, as Boo transforms back into Pure Boo (or "Kid Boo"), Goku notes that his ki is getting larger rather than smaller. As explained below, this is likely because of South Kaioshin's influence, and considering that form goes away, it's possible that Pure Boo's ki settled to a lower battle power, which is backed up by Vegeta soon after telling Goku that they can take him. Or Pure Boo IS still stronger, it's honestly confusing.
- Kibitokai's exposition on Pure Boo is the first time that the "Cardinal" Kaioshin are formally introduced, as well as the Grand Kaioshin. South Kaioshin represents the brief, burly form that Super Boo turns into, and the reason he's suppressed is likely because he's weaker than Pure Boo. As for the Grand Kaioshin, it's possible that he still exists within Good Boo, a possibility that was explored in the Galactic Patrol Prisoner arc of the Super manga.
- Due to the frantic circumstances of his escape, it never occurs to Goku to tell Kibitokai to teleport his sons to the Land of the Kais, since he was already prepped to use Instant Transmission to get there.
- The destruction of the Earth is one of only two times in the franchise's history that the Dragon Balls have been destroyed or otherwise damaged in some way; the other was when they cracked in GT.
- It takes Pure Boo one Chapter after his introduction to successfully destroy the Earth. Take THAT, Freeza!
- Recurring death tallies:
- River fish: 8 + the entire species
- Chaozu: 3
- Piccolo: 3
- Kuririn: 3
- Vegeta: 2
- Son Goku: 2
- Tenshinhan: 2
- Roshi: 2
- Yamucha: 2
- The moon: 2
- Dende displays his Godly knowledge well by telling Mr. Satan the Kaio heirarchy entirely from memory, something even long-time Dragon Ball fans completely struggle with (certainly not KBABZ, no of course not).
- Between the original airings of Z episodes 277 and 278 in Japan, the first episode of Dragon Ball aired on American TV in syndication, on the 9th of September 1995. This original dub was produced by Funimation and Josanne B. Lovick productions (later known as BLT), and was recorded at the Dick & Rogers studio in Vancouver, utilising a Canadian cast. Ian Corlett (the first English voice of adult Goku) worked on the scripts. Ocean was not involved in any capacity at this stage.
- That Elder Kaioshin recognises Dragon Balls hints at how utterly ancient the original Namekian Dragon Balls are, since even in the manga the lifepan of a Kaio is hinted to be hundreds of thousands of years (and Elder Kaioshin was sealed in the Z-Sword for thousands of years on top of that).
- Further, that Kibitokai doesn't know what Dragon Balls are in the first place reflects his rather uninformed and uninvolved approach to watching over the universe. This behaviour would be examined in Super's Goku Black Arc, being one of several reasons behind Zamasu's twisted actions.
- Given that the Dragon Balls can (and are about to) resurrect possibly billions of people out of Other World, Elder Kaioshin is quite justified in stating that they ruin the cosmic order. However it's undeniable that they help restore the effects of cosmic threats like Cell and Boo, which certainly aids their role in protecting the universe. This would be explored further in the Evil Dragons arc of GT.
- That Goku is able to not just butter up Old Kai's eroticism, but justify why he'd prefer Bulma over Chichi, shows that by this point Goku knows enough to exploit this behaviour in others, despite being chaste himself.
- This is the second time the major Arc Villain blows up a planet(oid) and takes half a chapter to regenerate in the void before instantly teleporting to where the heroes are. The first time was Cell, of course.