Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 50 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.
If any of you are following along watching Kai, I suggest you watch episode 29 and the Z Bardock special this week.
Previous thread: Week 49 (DBZ 58-62)
Next thread: Week 51 (DBZ 65-69)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 216 - Is This Some Super-Magic or Just a Trick?! Mr. Gurd is Angry! (DBZ episode 63)
Dub title: Guldo's Mind Binds
Originally aired 26th of September 1990
Kai equivalent: Episode 29 - The Special-Squad’s Frontline Man! Break Gurd’s Spell (Second half)
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 50 - Time Tricks and Body Binds
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Tomekichi Takeuchi
The battle between Gohan, Kuririn, and Gurd begins. Though Gurd’s battle power isn’t much, he has the psychic power to stop time! However, Gohan and Kuririn’s speed far surpass his imagination. Cornered, Gurd uses a paralyzing technique to seal up the pair’s movement. Gurd tries to skewer them, but at that moment, Vegeta severs Gurd’s head with a single blow!
Anime-only/filler content: Butta, Jheese, and Reacoom making a bet on the outcome of Ghurd's fight with Gohan and Kuririn, Bulma calling Roshi, Ghurd throwing rocks at Gohan and Kuririn and punching them, Piccolo and Kaio sensing Gohan and Kuririn's peril, the remaining Ginyus attempting to do a pose and failing.
TV Special 1 - A Final, Solitary Battle: The Father of Z-Warrior Kakarrot, Who Challenged Freeza
Dub title: Bardock - The Father of Goku
Originally aired 17th of October 1990
Written by: Takao Koyama & Katsuyuki Sumisawa
Director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru
On Planet Vegeta, a Saiyan named Kakarrot is born. Meanwhile, Kakarrot’s father Bardock is busy conquering Planet Kanassa together with his team of fellow Saiyans. Though they succeed in wiping out almost all of the planet’s inhabitants, Bardock is attacked by a single survivor, Tohro. To avenge his race, Tohro curses Bardock with the ability to see the future, so that he may be plagued by visions of the Saiyans’ own forthcoming annihilation. While Bardock stays on Planet Vegeta to recover from this attack, his team goes on to Planet Meat, their next target. Bardock finally makes a full recovery, and goes to see his newborn son. Disgusted by his son’s low battle power, Bardock judges him to be nothing more than scum. And with that, he heads off to Planet Meat to join his comrades…
Episode 217 - The Savage Recoom! The Bad, Strong, and Outrageous Guy (DBZ episode 64)
Dub title: Recoome Unleashed
Originally aired 24th of October 1990
Kai equivalent: Episode 30 - The Hellish Reacoom! Keep Me Entertained, Vegeta-chan (First half)
Edited dub equivalent: Episode 51 - The Relentless Recoome (original broadcast) / No Refuge From Recoome (reairings and home video)
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Minoru Okazaki
Animation supervisor: Masaki Satō
Going all out at full power, Vegeta preemptively attacks Recoom! Recoom takes hardly any damage from even an attack of 20,000… Instead, Vegeta is worn ragged by Recoom’s attacks. As Recoom tries to finish Vegeta off with his special attack, the Eraser Gun, Gohan and Kuririn attack him and save Vegeta. But Recoom’s single blow KO’s Kuririn. Gohan faces Recoom on his own, but…
Anime-only/filler content: Ginyu juggling the Dragon Balls and nearly dropping one into the ocean, a scene of Freeza on his ship talking about destroying Namek.
-
Interesting trivia:
- At this point in time in the manga, Piccolo is revived and goes to Namek, the Grand Elder (and Porunga) dies, Piccolo absorbs Nail, and Freeza goes to form 2 and stabs Kuririn.
- Famously, the finale of the Burdock Special was used for the opening of Kai Episode 1, showing Bardock's brief confrontation with Freeza and his final vision of Goku as he dies, and the sequence ends with Gohan holding Goku up from the end of the special. While this is a fun inclusion for long-time fans, for first-time viewers coming from the original Dragon Ball (or even those who skipped that, for some incomprehensible reason), it spoils that Goku is an alien and that Freeza was the one who destroyed planet Vegeta, the latter of which wouldn't be revealed to the audience until Episode 22 and makes Raditz look incredibly gullible.
- When Dragon Ball Minus was adapted as part of the opening to the Super Broly movie, a single shot shows Bardock being engulfed in Freeza's attack. This is a nod to the ending of the Bardock special, and lends credence to the idea that Kai specifically is canon to Super; as explained above, Bardock's demise is the only part of the special depicted in Kai.
- Episode of Bardock would provide a sequel of sorts to the Bardock special. I refuse to discuss this OVA any further than this acknowledgement that it exists.
- Funimation's dub of the Bardock special is somewhat infamous for its inaccuracy. To sum it up in brief, the changes run the gamut from most scenes being completely rewritten to hold no real resemblance to what was said in Japanese, to the overall plot being rather significantly changed (whereas in the Japanese version, the Kanassans can see the future and Freeza's motivations for conquering the planet are left unsaid, in the Funimation dub, Freeza conquered the planet because he wanted to learn the secret behind the Kanassans' power: The ability to read minds. And somehow Bardock is able to use this mind-reading power to see the future...).
- Despite Roshi explaining that Goku was a chaotic little bugger when he first came to earth, the end of the Bardock special depicts him as being a joyful child when Grandpa Gohan finds him.
- The official subtitles have been somewhat inconsistent on how to render Bardock's name; the earliest DVD releases consistently use Burdock, but later releases of the special change this to Bardock, however other movies continue to retain the Burdock spelling despite the special changing it.
- The Bardock special is the first time music from DBZ movie 3 would be heard in the TV anime.
- Akira Toriyama said in an interview in Daizenshuu 6 from the 5th of October 1995 that, of all the movies and TV specials, the Bardock special was his favourite; "It’s quite dramatic, and the kind of story 'I absolutely wouldn’t draw' if it were me. It was like watching a different kind of Dragon Ball in a good way, so I thought it was nice."
- Edits in the original dub:
- Uncut episode 63/edited episode 50 features some kind of added video effect when Gohan and Kuririn are frozen, and Ghurd's head being chopped off was censored so it looks like Vegeta basically kicked him into The Next Dimension. Ghurd's body is also painted out in some shots from uncut episode 63 that were used in edited episode 51.
- In uncut episode 64/edited episode 51, Funimation painted over Reacoom's butt in all relevant shots.
- On its original broadcast, edited episode 51 was entitled "The Relentless Recoome", but for unknown reasons, all subsequent versions of this episode inculding all reairings and home video, changed the title to No Refuge From Recoome. No one is sure why, and it's confused people writing episode guides since the change happened back in the '90s.
- Edited episode 51 once again brings the edited dub out of alignment with the uncut series episodes, for the very last time. (Sort of)
- There are 26 redraws in Kai episode 29.
- Additional trivia for TV special 1 available here.
