Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 44 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.
Believe it or not, the next movie is only four weeks away. Toei really churned them out in the period we're watching.
Previous thread: Week 43 (DBZ movie 2)
Next thread: Week 45 (DBZ 43-47)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 191 - Blast-off for Planet Namek! The Terror Awaiting Gohan and Company (DBZ episode 38)
Dub title: Nursing Wounds (Funimation)
Originally aired 28 of February 1990
Kai equivalent: Episode 18 - The Spaceship that Sleeps in Yunzabit! Blast Off For Planet Namek (Second half)
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 28 - Journey to Namek
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
The spaceship is carried to the laboratory at Bulma’s house, and its reconstruction begins! With this spaceship, the round trip to Planet Namek will take two months. But Mister Popo, who understands Namekian, is unable to abandon God’s palace. Ultimately, the ones to go to Planet Namek are Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan, who overcomes Chi-Chi’s opposition! On the launch day, Bulma, wearing a spacesuit, is dumbfounded to see Kuririn in ordinary clothes and Gohan looking like he’s off to Sunday school. They take off with her in a bad mood.
Anime-only/filler content: Gohan leaving the hospital to train, Goku testing Gohan's strength. (Written by Keiji Terui)
Episode 192 - Friends or Foes? Children of the Mysterious Giant Spaceship (DBZ episode 39)
Dub title: Friends or Foes? (Funimation)
Originally aired 7th of March 1990
Kai equivalent: Some footage incorporated into episode 19 - A Formidable New Enemy! Emperor of the Universe, Freeza
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 28 - Journey to Namek
Episode director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
It’s the seventh day since they departed from Earth. As they continue their peaceful journey, Gohan and Kuririn push themselves in their image training. At that moment, they were suddenly attacked by a spaceship! They shoot down the army of battle machines that come at them, but this time a spaceship identical to God’s appears! They’ve drawn near a gigantic spaceship lined with mirrors!! Gohan and the others are pulled inside the spaceship, and explore its interior. They overcome numerous traps, but Bulma is captured!
Anime-only/filler content: Everything after the initial scene in the Namekian ship, which itself was somewhat expanded/padded out. (Written by Takao Koyama)
Episode 193 - Really, for Real? There Lies Namek, Planet of Hope (DBZ episode 40)
Dub title: Held Captive (Funimation)
Originally aired 14th of March 1990
Kai equivalent: Some footage incorporated into episode 19 - A Formidable New Enemy! Emperor of the Universe, Freeza
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 29 - Friends or Foes?
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Tomekichi Takeuchi
Riding in the spaceship were children whose planet had been destroyed by Freeza! They are convinced that Gohan and the others are Freeza’s underlings. At that time, the spaceship is sucked into a meteor swarm!! The intense shock caves in the ceiling, but Gohan and Kuririn save everyone by a hair’s breath! Escaping from the meteor swarm, the children realize that Gohan and the others aren’t enemies. Leaving the children, Gohan and the others head for Planet Namek through a shortcut, but are drawn into a universal current.
Anime-only/filler content: Everything except for Vegeta's arrival on Freeza Planet 79. (Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa)
Episode 194 - Kind-hearted Aliens — There’s the Five-Star Ball Already (DBZ episode 41)
Dub title: Look Out Below (Funimation Blu-ray releases and Ultimate Uncut TV airings), Friends or Foes? (Funimation "Season" DVDs; likely a production error)
Originally aired 21st of March 1990
Kai equivalent: Some footage incorporated into episode 19 - A Formidable New Enemy! Emperor of the Universe, Freeza
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 29 - Friends or Foes? (Some footage incorporated into episode 30 - Hunt for a Dragon Ball)
Episode director: Minoru Okazaki
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda
As soon as they escape from the universal current, Planet Namek is right before their eyes?! Gohan and the others immediately land, but the cliff crumbles away and they lose consciousness. When they wake up, the Namekians Raichi and Zarkro are there. They set out right away in search of the Dragon Balls. They discover Dragon Balls one after the other: in the middle of a river, in some ruins, and at the bottom of a lake that melts living things! With Raichi’s help, it seems that they’ve somehow managed to find three Dragon Balls in a single day, but…
Anime-only/filler content: All filler. (Written by Keiji Terui)
Episode 195 - Planet Freeza No. 79 — Vegeta Recovers!! (DBZ episode 42)
Dub title: The Search Continues (Funimation)
Originally aired 4th of April 1990
Kai equivalent: Some footage incorporated into episode 19 - A Formidable New Enemy! Emperor of the Universe, Freeza
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 30 - Hunt for a Dragon Ball
Episode director: Jōhei Matsūra
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
Having so quickly found their third Dragon Ball, Gohan and the others are determined to gather the remaining ones. Finding the Three-Star Ball in an eternally ceaseless waterspout, and stealing the Seven-Star Ball, which had been made into a giant’s earring, they finally have got five Dragon Balls assembled. However, something is strange about all this… Meanwhile, Goku begins intense training, even though his injuries have not yet healed, and Vegeta receives medical treatment at one of Freeza’s bases, finally reviving!!
Anime-only/filler content: All filler except for the scene of Vegeta on Freeza Planet 79. (Written by Aya Matsui and Takao Koyama)
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Interesting trivia:
- At this point in time in the manga, Zarbon recovers Vegeta's body, Kuririn and Dende arrive at the Grand Elder's place, Kuririn gets a power-up, Gohan retrieves the Four-Star Ball and has a run-in with Vegeta, Vegeta awakens and steals the other five Dragon Balls, Kuririn accidentally leads Vegeta and Zarbon to him and Bulma, and Vegeta kills Zarbon and makes off with the One-Star Ball.
- After the hospital scene where Gohan says he wants to go, in the wide shot of Capsule Corp. there's an actual Hoi-Poi Capsule alongside the name of the company.
- As the Namekian ship is being worked on, we see a crew of people working on it alongside Bulma and her father. This moment is from the manga, and is one of the few times a Capsule Crop. crew is ever depicted.
- In the pre-launch scene, Kuririn is wearing a hat with "Kulilin" on the front.
- Chichi and Gyuumao arrive at Kame House on the same aircar they used at the start of the Saiyan Arc after Gohan and Goku didn't come home the previous night, on account of Raditz and all that.
- For those wondering in the back, in the spaceship scene Gohan says to Kuririn that he respects Piccolo almost as much as his father.
- It may not be immediately obvious to some, but Bulma is frustrated with Kuririn and Gohan for dressing in normal clothes and not taking space seriously, while she went through the trouble of dressing in a proper spacesuit.
- The episode where Bulma, Kuririn and Gohan leave Earth is the last episode that's only manga material before the start of the stellar filler (stellar as in it takes place in space, not that it's any good).
- Of the filler episodes in this section, the only canon scenes are Vegeta arriving at Planet Freeza No. 79 to be healed and his encounter with Cui. In the manga and Kai, this takes place over a single chapter/episode, but in Z it's spread out over the course of three episodes during the Fake Namek shenanagins.
- There are four redraws in Kai episode 18, and thirteen in Kai episode 19. Episode 18 has a mistake in one particular redraw, where "Kamesen" was misspelled on his hat as "Kamesan".
- Funimation's English dub of Kai has Bulma mistakenly say that Piccolo spoke Namekian when he fought Goku, when in reality he did so when fighting God (disguised as Shen). This may not be Funimation's fault, as the subtitles read "I mean, back when Son-kun fought against Piccolo," so the original intention may have been to refer to the tournament as a whole, rather than to a specific fight, but there is a lack of clarity here.
- Funimation's Kai dub does make a deliberate change in that episode, though; when Mr Popo takes her to the Yunzabit Highlands, in Japanese, she timidly says "You didn't bring me all the way out here to do something pervy with me, right?... Hey, wait!", whereas Funi's Kai dub changes this to her confidently telling him "Hey, just so you know, if you brought me out here to do something improper, you should know I've been taking judo since I was 8 years old, so you do not want to make me angry!... Hey, don't go, it was just a joke!" Whether this is a good change or not is up to your judgement.
- The lowest-rated episode of Dragon Ball Kai was episode 18, at 6.4%. The entire series averaged a ratings share of 9.4%. (Courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide)
- Bulma's outfit in the Namekian ship while in transit, a white singlet and thin underwear, is an homage to Alien, where Ripley wears a similar outfit in her hypersleep chamber. This isn't the first reference to Alien of course: outside of the Xenomorph references in the Pirate Robot, Frieza's third form and a monster in both Dragon Boy and Tongpoo, the MUTHR text from Ripley's conversation was used in Major Mettalitron's HUD.
- The Fake Namekians are named Zarkuro, after the Japanese word for pomegranate (roughly zakuro), and Lychee. Toei would reuse the name Lychee for the evil Tsufurian scientist villain in 1993's Plan To Eradicate The Saiyans NES game, and its accompanying "visual guide" OVA VHS, the 1994 Playdia FMV game, and the 2010 remake of the original OVA. They would also reuse the villain concept itself in Dragon Ball GT in 1997.
- Naturally, Funimation butchered both of these names into Zaacro and Raiti.
- Uncut episode 40 establishes Goku's fear of needles, which will be brought back in GT.
- Vegeta refers to Goku as "Goku" a few times in edited episode 29.
- Bulma sings the BLT dub opening of Dragon Ball on fake Namek in edited episode 30.
- Edits in the original dub:
- About half of Japanese episode 38 was cut. In particular, the Gohan training scene was cut, as was Kuririn bursting in and telling everyone that the ship worked.
- The scene of Kuririn's bandages being removed, Goku wanting to train despite not being able to move, and testing Gohan's strength a little was cut.
- Bulma showing off her new getup and the actual end of the episode was cut.
- In general, much like episode 38, half of episode 39 was cut.
- Loads and loads of shots of Bulma in her underwear were cut, and those that were kept had paint edits to extend her panties into boxer shorts. (I believe they cut the scene where Bulma realises she's in her underwear. Either that, or they changed the dialogue)
- The scene of Goku doing push-ups in the hospital (and Roshi groping the nurse) was cut.
- Most of the scenes of the gang encountering traps in the mirror ship were cut, including the scene where Kuririn loses his hat, meaning his hat disappears for seemingly no reason.
- Goku's fear of needles was cut.
- The scene of Gohan, Kuririn, and Bulma getting caught in a magnetic storm was cut.
- One of the fake Namekians smoking was cut.
- Underwear was painted onto Vegeta when he gets out of the healing tank.
