Maybe more than 5 minutes...

[peterx]

Ok here is the thing which bothered me for years on this forum:

Freeza said five minutes till Namek blows up! Why... I mean WHY do you all take it that SO seriously what he said, and say that the entire fight was too long for five minutes, and it was all meaningless, and Toriyama's error etc.???

How the hell Freeza could tell that Namek will blow up exactly in 5 minutes and not even a seconds more? He just GUESSed!!

It's like I say, I will kill you in five minutes but how could I tell that I'm not underestimating you and you kill me at the end in an 1-2 hour long fight?
This just like what happened in Namek's core. No one could tell this, and Freeza is not a super scientist if I remember correctly...... Maybe he just wanted to be sounds cool!

If you still belive in this five minutes thing, then I suggest you to think that the anime actually slowed down the fight for us to be able to see what the characters are doing. I don't have better explanation....

[Zestanor]

Kaio and Kami believed the 5 minute rule.

[Luke Groundwalker]

I've always thought of this:

1. Time possibly is different on Namek, or Freeza's "minutes" might be different from what Goku considers minutes.
2. The fight was so fast, that Toriyama slowed it down so human eyes can see it.
3. Toriyama forgot.

[Bussani]

You could get away with saying it was exactly five minutes easily if you went by the manga alone. People joke about how long those supposed five minutes were when it comes to the animated version, but I don't think many people take it too seriously.

and it was all meaningless, and Toriyama's error etc.???

I mean, who says this?

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Even if Freeza's guess of 5 minutes actually extended to 15 minutes or something because of how durable Namek seems to be, I don't see a problem with it if you go by the manga. The issue does arise with the animes though, but not as bad for Kai.

For Z, It was about nine episodes and at roughly 20 minutes an episode, you end up with about 180 minutes. Cut that in half for the scenes on Earth or Kaio-sama's that should be taking place at the same time as the events on Namek and you still have an 90 minutes. Cut it in half again by assuming they slowed the events down to half speed so we could actually see what was happening, and you still get 45 minutes... You can also argue it was "slowed down" more than that, but I think half speed would be appropriate enough to "match" what was shown in previous arcs.

For Kai, it looks like Freeza throws his death ball at the end of 48 and the planet blows at the end of 53, so about 5 episodes. using the same process as above, you get 100, 50 and finally 25 minutes. Much more reasonable, but still a bit stretched.

I see why people complain, but I don't really care since I follow the manga for the most part.

[Luke Groundwalker]

You shouldn't kid yourself. It was too long in the manga too.

Though you can read it all in five minutes so I guess maybe that's what Toriyama was going for.

[The Time Traveller]

I've always thought of this:

2. The fight was so fast, that Toriyama slowed it down so human eyes can see it.

Yeah, I like to think all of the fighting on Namek was in slow motion, they were already impossibly fast before but they're meant to be even faster in this part of the series.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

You shouldn't kid yourself. It was too long in the manga too.

Though you can read it all in five minutes so I guess maybe that's what Toriyama was going for.

It's not that long in the manga, especially considering the fact that from Kanzenban 19 (Ginyu arrival) to 23 (Namek Boom!) is all one day (actually only a couple of hours if I remember correctly lol). The only instance that made it feel like it might have dragged on more than the potential 5-10 minutes was the summoning of Shenlong and Porunga.

[Akutouji]

I think Freeza said 5 minutes just for dramatic effect. There are many movies that do that and I think Toriyama decided to do it also to make the mood more serious.

[The Tori-bot]

My fanwank explanation is that Freeza was trying to scare Goku and take his edge off him by lying about how long they had left. In Freeza's mind, if Goku thought he only had five minutes to beat him, he would probably use all of his energy for those five minutes, leaving him exhausted later on, giving Freeza a chance to take the upper hand. Him saying "it's taking a little longer than I expected" is him making an attempt to perpetuate the "five-minute" thing, an hour or so after the fact.

[Fox666]

The manga is very short in that part. I don't have any problem with the 5 minutes thing.

[Dabooyaka]

I agree, in the manga it could very will be 5 minutes. The anime just drags thing to much. But 5 minutes is fine with me.

[Fox666]

In the anime there are 11 episodes, that's why it's so unbelievable...

[Michsi]

It's probably the same as those "why didn't they stop him while he was transforming" - situations. It's supposed to be instantaneous, but seem to take way longer for the the dramatic effect.

[peterx]

In the anime there are 11 episodes, that's why it's so unbelievable...

Well that's why you don't HAVE to belive in what Freeza said just assume that he was bragging. Life is so much easier with this I guarantee!

[hleV]

I doubt anyone would have ever thought about this if DB anime didn't exist, only manga. So yeah, that was 5 minutes alright.

[jjgp1112]

Even taking the manga into consideration, I still find it preposterous how all of that took place in 5 minutes.

[Kingdom Heartless]

Well, taking into consideration what Kuririn and Roshi did in the span of a second way back at the 21 Tenkaichi, 5 minutes for all that doesn't seem too farfetched.

[caejones]

I'm still wondering why no one has made a video attempting to cut this fight to 5 minutes.
You'd basically:
- cut out everything that isn't happening at the scene of the battle. The only catch here is when Porunga comes back and there's that momentary lul.
- Cut out as much true filler as possible.
- If a prolonged section of fighting has no dialog, speed it up as much as necessary.

So I think the more pressing question is whether or not all the pauses for conversation can fit in five minutes. They're so bloody fast by this point that the speed of the fighting can be bent however we want.
If it wasn't so much torture to watch these particular episodes, I might try doing it in audio form.

[dbgtFO]

I'm still wondering why no one has made a video attempting to cut this fight to 5 minutes.
You'd basically:
- cut out everything that isn't happening at the scene of the battle. The only catch here is when Porunga comes back and there's that momentary lul.
- Cut out as much true filler as possible.
- If a prolonged section of fighting has no dialog, speed it up as much as necessary.

So I think the more pressing question is whether or not all the pauses for conversation can fit in five minutes. They're so bloody fast by this point that the speed of the fighting can be bent however we want.
If it wasn't so much torture to watch these particular episodes, I might try doing it in audio form.

I know of this at least:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dpq4WYv240
I've also seen one that took Freeza's 5 minutes as fact from the perspective of the viewer and so Namek blew up, when Goku said Freeza was reaching the peak of his power. I can't find it though.