Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 85 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.
It's interesting writing the two Kai equivalent vital statistic entries. Japanese Kai on average is about 3 episodes for every 5 Z episodes, whereas international Kai is 4 episodes for every 5 of Z. This will even out next week, when we cross the final TFC episode that was cut from the Japanese version until episode 165.
Previous thread: Week 84 (DBZ 210-212, movie 10)
Next thread: Week 86 (DBZ 218-222)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 366 - Now What, Satan?! The Greatest Pinch in History (DBZ episode 213)
Dub title: Big Trouble, Little Trunks
Originally aired 19th of January 1994
International Kai equivalent: Episode 109 - A Troubling Premonition… The Appearance of a Mysterious Warrior!!
Japanese Kai equivalent: Episode 104 - A Troubling Premonition… The Appearance of a Mysterious Warrior!!
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
Having won the championship, Trunks ends up having a match with Mister Satan for entertainment purposes. But Satan is terrified, since he knows Trunks’ strength. Satan then has Trunks lightly hit him, and makes it look as if he lost on purpose. The audience is thrilled, but Satan returns to his waiting room and writhes in pain. Meanwhile, having passed through the preliminaries, Goku and the others meet a strange pair, Shin and Kibito. Goku senses that they are no ordinary people.
Anime-only/filler content: Trunks's interview and the exhibition match against Mr. Satan.
Episode 367 - The Match-Ups Are Decided!! Hurry and Hold the First Round (DBZ episode 214)
Dub title: Who Will Fight Who?
Originally aired 26th of January 1994
International Kai equivalent: Episode 109 - A Troubling Premonition… The Appearance of a Mysterious Warrior!! and Episode 110 - What’s the Matter, Piccolo?! An Unexpected Conclusion to the First Round
Japanese Kai equivalent: Episode 104 - A Troubling Premonition… The Appearance of a Mysterious Warrior!! and Episode 105 - What’s the Matter, Piccolo?! An Unexpected Conclusion to the First Round
Written by: Hiroshi Toda
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Keisuke Masunaga
Goten and Trunks aren’t satisfied with just participating in the Youth Division. Deciding to enter the adult division, they surprise-attack Mighty Mask, a masked contestant, and take his place. All the contestants who passed the preliminaries gather and undergo the tournament lottery. As the match opponents are decided, Goku’s opponent is Vegeta. The matches finally begin!!
No significant anime-only/filler content. (For the first time since Week 68)
Episode 368 - What’s the Matter, Piccolo?! An Unheard-of No-Fight Forfeit (DBZ episode 215)
Dub title: Forfeit of Piccolo
Originally aired 2nd of February 1994
International Kai equivalent: Episode 110 - What’s the Matter, Piccolo?! An Unexpected Conclusion to the First Round
Japanese Kai equivalent: Episode 105 - What’s the Matter, Piccolo?! An Unexpected Conclusion to the First Round
Written by: Sumio Uetake
Episode director: Osamu Kasai
Animation supervisor: Yūji Hakamada
First Kuririn appears in match #1. His opponent, Puntar, is a noisy man with a large body and impudent mouth. As expected, Kuririn easily defeats Puntar. Moving on, Piccolo confronts the man of mystery, Shin. Having sensed that Shin is no ordinary person, Piccolo is overwhelmed by mysterious power. Learning of Shin’s power, which is on another level, Piccolo withdraws from the match without fighting.
Anime-only/filler content: Mr. Satan's interview, Gohan wondering about Piccolo's obvious nerves, Bulma and Chichi arguing about Goku and Vegeta's coming fight, Goten having some juice.
Episode 369 - Undyingly Unpleasant?! The Mystery of Spopovitch (DBZ episode 216)
Dub title: A Dark and Secret Power
Originally aired 9th of February 1994
International Kai equivalent: Episode 111 - An Eerie Entity; Who Exactly is Spopovich?
Japanese Kai equivalent: Episode 105 - What’s the Matter, Piccolo?! An Unexpected Conclusion to the First Round
Written by: Katsuyuki Sumisawa
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Shingo Ishikawa
The next match is between Videl and Spopovitch. Meanwhile, Piccolo learns Shin’s true identity, and is astonished. It turns out that Shin is the Kaiōshin, the god above the Kaiō…!! Right from the start of the match, Videl continues to one-sidedly beat Spopovitch, but Spopovitch always gets back up no matter how many times he falls. After being cornered, Videl unthinkingly breaks Spopovitch’s neck. However, somehow Spopovitch nonchalantly gets back up.
Anime-only/filler content: Chichi telling Yamucha that Videl is Gohan's girlfriend, Chichi and Bulma commenting that Videl will make a good wife for Gohan, Mr. Satan not believing someone telling him Videl is having a hard time against Spopovich.
Episode 370 - A Tragic Videl!! Are You Coming Out, Angry Super Gohan? (DBZ episode 217)
Dub title: Videl is Crushed
Originally aired 16th of February 1994
International Kai equivalent: Episode 111 - An Eerie Entity; Who Exactly is Spopovich? and Episode 112 - Videl, Worn Ragged — Gohan's Anger at its Limits
Japanese Kai equivalent: Episode 105 - What’s the Matter, Piccolo?! An Unexpected Conclusion to the First Round and Episode 106 - Videl, Worn Ragged — Gohan’s Anger at its Limits!!
Written by: Katsuyuki Sumisawa
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
Videl’s attacks are completely ineffective against the freakishly strong Spopovitch. Videl continues to face him, even while being beat to a pulp, but Spopovitch mercilessly attacks her. Seeing this extreme cruelty, Gohan’s anger finally explodes. But before Super Saiyan Gohan can rush in, Spopovitch’s ally Yamu steps in to stop Spopovitch, and Videl finally loses after being tossed out of bounds. Goku is beginning to have a bad premonition…
Anime-only/filler content: Mr. Satan posing in front of a mirror and being told for the second time that Videl is struggling against Spopovich, Spopovich pulling Videl back into the ring by the leg, and knocking out her teeth.
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Interesting trivia:
- At this point in time in the manga, 18 blackmails Mr. Satan for 20 million Zeni, Gohan fights Dabra, Vegeta lets Babidi cast his spell on him, he destroys the Tournament stands twice, and he begins his rematch with Goku.
- Missed Trivia: In the Full Colour Manga, Kibito's skin is coloured blue like Shin's, where it's a pink-red in the anime.
- Missed Trivia: as revealed in the final Full Color manga, Mr. Satan's wife was named "Miguel" or "archangel", an intentional contrast to the usual devil-themed names of their family.
- The Announcer asks if Trunks wants a break before the start of his exhibition match against Mr. Satan. This is exactly what Goku did himself at his first Tournament before his fight with Jackie Chun.
- Given how surprised and unimpressed Trunks is with Mr. Satan's strength, it seems that he he doesn't have much perspective regarding the strength of Earthlings compared to Goten, Gohan and his father.
- Trunks performs the same leg stretch pose that Goku has a tendency to do before his fights.
- Mr. Satan tries to get out of his fight with Trunks by pretending to come down with a ficticious injury he picked up from his ficticious fight with Cell. For those with a keen memory, Mr Satan previously tried to get out of fighting Cell at the Cell Games by coming down with a completely different injury (a tummy ache).
- Much like the rest of his family at the punching machine, Trunks has trouble making his punch light enough to pass as even vaguely human-like.
- When Trunks "lighty" punches Mr. Satan, the anime adds a slow motion shot of Trunks' fist connecting with the side of his face.
- Piccolo explains that he entered as Ma-Junior (or "Demon Junior") to prevent a panic were he to enter as Piccolo. This shouldn't actually work: during the 23rd Tournament, Piccolo fought under an identical alias and made it very clear to the public that he was Daimao reborn and wanted to enslave the world again.
- Goku makes a note that he can't spend any of the prize money in Other World. Given that he's allowed to go to the nice parts of Other World, he shouldn't have any material wants to spend money on in the first place. As well, it contradicts the end of the 22nd Tournament where he refuses Tenshinhan's offer of half his prize money because he wouldn't know what to do with it (perhaps this was before he discovered he could use money to pay for his own dinner).
- In the manga, Mighty Mask's hood and cape are coloured white, while in the anime they're dark grey. This is likely inherited from the Inked chapters where, in the Tankobon release, Mighty Mask's hood is greyscaled into a dark grey. The anime change is probably for the best as the manga design resembles a KKK uniform.
- As is tradition, the finalists for the Tenkaichi Budokai aren't revealed in full until the shortly before the number draw, with many of the ancilliary fighters not being revealed until that scene and were nowhere to be seen during the preliminaries. In the case of the 25th Tournament, this includes Shin, Yamu and Spopovich.
- Part of what makes Shin creepy and otherworldly is his tendency to float rather than stand on the ground normally. This is the same thing that made Tenshinhan and Chaozu creepy in the 22nd Tournmanet, and like them, Shin will eventually stop doing it.
- Kuririn yet again makes the rookie mistake of assuming a character is weak based entirely on their appearance.
- Kuririn prays to god to not match him up against any of his friends for the first round, with Piccolo pointing out that God is Dende. Mr. Satan similarly asked the Lord to wake him up from his nightmare match against Trunks. Dende was similarly unmoved.
- Spopovich's name ending in "vich" suggests that he comes from Russia or the Ukraine, or at least the Dragon World's equivalent.
- Yamu and Spopovich's appearances are very stressed and strained. As revealed by Killa's memory of Spopovich earlier in his life, he has also lost all of his hair, a common sign of stress. In-universe it's likely their bodies are stressed by Babidi's magic drawing out such huge amounts of power for them to compete against the Dragon Team.
- 18 draws out 9 as her number, exactly half of her name.
- Goku notes that he's never heard of Shin's name before. This isn't too surprising given that he was never too concerned about researching his previous Tournament opponents, but given his time in Other World, it means that Shin is not one of the dead heroes in heaven.
- In addition to looking similar to Majin Buu, Punta's design is also reminiscent of Bulma's arabic outfit that she wore after visiting the Boss Rabbit town back in the opening arc.
- When Punta says he's going to put Kuririn out on a stretcher during their match, Kuririn says those lines scream "one shot character", breaking the fourth wall and acknowledging the format of the Tournament arcs.
- Ironically, Trunks and Goten are too eager when Spopovich's name is called, and aren't aware that their disguise's name has been called for a while.
- It seems that you are NOT disqualified if you are unable (or too lazy) to attend the ball draw, as Mr. Satan is at the 25th. That rule seems to only apply to the matches themselves, and the sign-ups of course.
- 18 also has no idea who Mr. Satan is, despite him being present at the Cell Games and certainly being present in the media in the days following it.
- Since there are now 16 fighters instead of 8, there's now a 30 minute time limit on the matches; to date, the only match that has shown a progression of time is the finals of the 21st Tournament between Goku and Jackie Chun.
- The need for a time limit here in the 25th could have easily been solved back at the punching machine by only qualifying the top 7 scores. If that were the case, then the competitors would have been Vegeta, Piccolo, 18, Krillin, Goku, Gohan and Mr. Satan with the automatic qualification. Considering Spopovich's strength, it's very likely that his score would have trounced Videl's and knocked her out (if Mr. Satan didn't have an automatic qualification, she still would have been shut out by Yamu's score).
- Amusingly, despite the huge grandstands, the tournament bracket is still shown on the small whiteboard, which was already far too small for the audience of the original tournament grounds to see (the Announcer says he'll read it out for those too far away to see it, which is literally everybody in the arena). One could argue the TV cameras would cover that, except there are no Jumbotron-like screens anywhere in the arena for that to be displayed on.
- Punta makes one of the earliest rookie mistakes that we saw, way back in the 21st Tournament: he expends too much energy in his moves. In fact, he's visibly puffing just SHOWING OFF.
- Punta is knocked out in the 25th Tournament the exact same way he was at the 24th: out of bounds.
- The humans have no trouble remembering that Piccolo was at the Cell Games, but despite the Announcer recalling his previous fight at the 23rd Tournament (where, it must be said, he DESTROYED EVERYTHING ON THE ISLAND AFTER SAYING HE WAS DAIMAO REBORN) they don't freak out.
- Piccolo feels incredibly overwhelmed at Shin's mere presence, which is exactly what King Chappa felt in his rematch with Goku back in the 23rd Tournament.
- Piccolo is the first Tenkaichi Budokai fighter we witness verbally forefeit his match. The only other forefeit we see is Jackie Chun against Tenshinhan, done by intentionally jumping out of the ring.
- The Announcer's recounting of Spopovich's last Tenkaichi Budokai journey gives us our first actual information about the 24th Tournament: it was held seven years ago, the same year as the Cell Games, and it had a Junior Division which Videl won. However the actual number of that and the current Tournament has gone completely un-mentioned so far in the manga.
- The page where Videl and Spopovich enter the ring is the first time we've seen Shapna and Eresa since Gohan left his class to help fight crime right after Videl left.
- The same page is also where the manga gives us a one-panel shot of what Spopovich used to look like. When Videl is in the hospital wing, the anime adds a flashback to when Mr. Satan fought Spopovich at the previous tournament in the final match (which contradicts the manga, where this fight was the first round of the finals). This arena has lower stands than the current one, and large floodlights not seen in any other Tenkaichi Budokai arena.
- If KBABZ were to postulate, they figure that the Tenkaichi Budokais after the 23rd were held in other arenas. The seven year wait after the Cell Games would have been to wait for the new grounds to be constructed.
- Piccolo makes reference to the Grand Kaio after he first learns who Shin is, which the anime uses to show Grand Kaio when establishing the structure of the Kaio heirarchy.
- In a shot of the crowd after Spopovich flies up into the air, one of the audience members has a strong resemblance to Arale, having glasses, a cap, long hair and overalls.
- Gohan makes an accidental pun, thanking God (the person Karin lives under) after Kuririn says that Goku's gone to get some Senzu Beans.
- Mr. Satan doesn't have the decency to even watch his daughter's first match.
- We get a brief glimpse of Yajirobe when Goku visits Karin's Tower, who now has a moustache. It still isn't explained why he hangs around with him.
