Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 106 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.
Let's hope we steer clear of power level debates this week.
Previous thread: Week 105 (GT 16-20)
Next thread: Week 107 (GT 26-30)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 465 - What’s This?!! Goku Turned into a Metal Slab (GT episode 21)
Ocean dub title: What's Happening? Goku Has Become A Metal Slab!
Funimation dub title: A Secret Revealed
Originally aired 14th of August 1996
Written by: Aya Matsui
Episode director: Osamu Kasai
Animation supervisor: Toshiyuki Kan’no
Goku gets Han Solo'd.
Trivia:
Spoiler:
- Missed Trivia: When Gill covertly gives Pan one of the Dragon Balls, he loses his Medal of Honor, foreshadowing that he's double-crossing Rilld and Dr. Mu.
- In the recap of Episode 20, the editing error during the Rilld fight, where a single frame of a close-up of Goku's face appears, no longer occurs.
- While the episode title spoils that Goku gets turned into a metal slab, it cleverly doesn't spoil Gill double-crossing Dr. Mu later in the episode (spoiler alert).
- In the shot of Goku crashing through the theatre, you can see a poster on the outside of the building for a monster movie. The design of the monster is in fact accurate to the movie that plays in the theatre later in the fight!
- The poster appears again as Goku tries to hide from Rilld: here you can see it's called Star Zone, and has a cast that's broadly comparable to Dragon Quest, a franchise also associated with Toriyama. In particular, the main hero bears a great resemblance to Hero from Dragon Quest III, with a metallic headband, brown hair in upward spikes, a blue tunic with a neck scarf, and a sword. The mage also bears a resemblance to the Dragon Quest III character, both wearing long robes, a wide witch hat and a staff with an orb on top.
- It appears the former residents of M2 used projectors to watch movies just like Earthlings do.
- Rilld's footsteps inside the theatre use the same sound effect as Freeza and Cell's, and mark its first appearance in GT.
- Rilld appears unable to sense ki, given how he has to manually search the theatre for Goku.
- Yet again the story forgets about Goku's flight: if Goku was flying, the pipe wouldn't have broken under his weight, meaning Rilld wouldn't have found him as quickly.
- When displaying the GT Trio slabs for Dr. Mu, the red robot is holding Goku upside-down.
- When Dr. Mu picks up Pan's slab, none of the GT Trio are seen sticking out from the front of them.
- When Gill first fires his missles at Dr. Mu, the holes in his body are circular for the rocket to exit out of cleanly. However when Gill gets out the de-mettalization remote, the holes are square, since the de-metallization remote is.
- The sound effect used for the de-metallization remote appropriately uses the same sound effect as Dende's healing ability.
- It takes nearly 30 seconds for the de-metallization beam to restore Goku. It takes four seconds for Pan and Trunks.
- When Pan is restored, the Four-Star Ball appears in her hand, where before it was empty.
- In this episode, Pan is carrying a pink sack that she keeps the three Dragon Balls in. This is a combination of her grandfather's methods: a sack for the Four-Star Ball in the opening arc, and Bulma's pink backpack from the back half of the Red Ribbon Arc.
- Neither Trunks' metal slab nor Goku make any sounds while Pan berates Gill.
- In his slab state, Trunks' feet appear to be cut off.
- The reveal that the Trunks slab was a fake and Gill isn't a traitor leaves several questions, such as when did Trunks and Gill plan all this, when did Gill find the time to prepare the fake Trunks slab (and how, and with what), how did Gill know about Dr. Mu's secret project if it was, well, a secret, and why they didn't tell Goku and Pan so they could intentionally get taken to Dr. Mu without any fighting instead.
- KBABZ Note: the Trunks and Gill reveal in this episode is BY FAR the worst story beat in Dragon Ball that I've ever seen.
- Dr. Mu's secret lab has a striking resemblance to the core of the Death Star II from Return of the Jedi.
- The secret lab does however lack some of the visual elements that it gains in Episode 22, such as the starfield dome above and the green liquid pool below.
- In Funimation's dub, Baby is never referred to directly by name, with Dr. Mu using only variations of "my baby", meaning it's a colloquial name.
Episode 466 - Ambitions Exposed!! The Evil Lifeform, Baby (GT episode 22)
Ocean dub title: The Neo-Machine Mutant: An Awesome Fellow With a Baby Face!
Funimation dub title: The Baby Secret
Originally aired 21st of August 1996
Written by: Aya Matsui
Episode director: Takahiro Imamura
Animation supervisor: Kazuya Hisada
Goku gets M. Night Shyamalan'd.
Trivia:
Spoiler:
- It isn't explained where Trunks was able to learn how to be a hacker. Bulma would be a logical guess, but Trunks had never displayed a talent for computers before this point.
- In the flashback to Gill freeing Trunks, Gill isn't wearing his Medal of Honor, meaning this scene happened after he ejected Pan from the base with the Four-Star Ball, which is when he lost it.
- Also in that flashback, Gill, a robot, visibly sweats.
- Dr. Mu's single-minded ambitions are reflected in that he says Baby is the only thing he has left, showing how little he cares about Rilldo and the other Machine Mutants.
- In the opening shot from after the eyecatches, the GT Trio and Gill fade into the shot, when they should have been visible straight away.
- Like his future counterpart, Trunks tries to dissuade a pure-blooded Saiyan from fighting an artificial being who isn't complete yet.
- Goku is able to stick onto Baby's capsule and climb on it somehow.
- Baby doesn't awaken until Dr. Mu calls Goku a Saiyan. However it's unknown how he was able to tell he was a Saiyan in the first place.
- In the aerial shot of Dr. Mu backing away between Trunks and Pan, the seams of the floor segments are in different spots between the two background plates.
- After Baby awakens, Dr. Mu begins to cry, but it's unknown how he's able to cry through his visor eyes. Or being a robot.
- Baby's design and backstory borrows from the four major arc villains of Dragon Ball Z. Baby is Tsufruian in origin, which was mentioned by Kaio as victims of the Saiyans. He's very pale with black lips and a snivelling voice, like Frieza. He's attempting to become complete and is an artificial/organic being, like Cell. And he's pink with a head tentacle thing with a huge talent for regeneration, like Boo.
- However the greatest similarity is to the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans OVAs and video games, in which a Tsufruian scientist creates a powerful being to kill the surviving Saiyans as revenge for wiping them out. Both of them also enact schemes that have a global scale.
- The reveal that Dr. Mu is a robot, yet appears in Hell for the Super Android 17 Arc, suggests that at least as far as GT is concerned, robotic beings have souls, and thus go to heaven/hell like everyone else. Which further suggests that Android 16 was brought back to life by the Dragon Balls at the end of the Cell arc.
Episode 467 - A Hidden Danger?! The Derelict Ship and the Mysterious Boy (GT episode 23)
Ocean dub title: Rescuing a Child Lost in Outer Space!
Funimation dub title: Hidden Danger
Originally aired 28th of August 1996
Written by: Junki Takegami
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
Goku gets Alien'd.
Trivia:
Spoiler:
- Goku and Pan note that the Octopus Ship looks even cleaner than before, despite it having very obvious wear lines in its actual drawing.
- Goku tells Trunks and Pan to use their ki. He may as well have told them to use martial arts for the amount of help he just gave with that advice.
- Goku expresses genuine concern over the Black-Star Ball being destroyed in the sun. This time it's justified, as the Earth's Dragon Balls were destroyed when Pure Boo destroyed Earth.
- Robo Note: It's also possible, given it's often been implied the Dragon Balls are indestructible, that Pure Boo's destruction of Earth simply scattered the balls in the local area of space and Porunga restored them to the surface of the earth; similarly, while Goku's particular concern may be over nothing, if the Black-Star Ball did fall into a sun, good luck retrieving it!
- The space scooters used in this episode have the same "sphere thruster" design used by the orange ship the Dragon Team used to follow Goku to the Red Ribbon Army HQ.
- This episode is the final time the orange spacesuits would be used. Here however they have a new helmet design, rather than using the classic glass dome from previous depictions.
- On the name badges on the suits, Goku's name is spelt "Gokuh", an alternate romanisation somewhat commonly seen on Japanese merchandise. Another common one is "Gokuu", which has also been seen in various places in the anime.
- That the GT Trio recover the One-Star Ball specifically is meant to tip off the audience that this is a trap by Baby: it was the Dragon Ball that Dr. Mu dropped when Baby destroyed him at the end of the last episode. The boy wouldn't be revealed as under Baby's control until the next episode, 24.
- Gill tells Pan that there's five more minutes until escape will be impossible, but is later corrected to two minutes. Shockingly, five minutes is actually accurate: the GT Trio escape the ship four and a half minutes later in the episode's runtime!
- Goku notes that Pan's habit of doing something despite being told not to is similar to Chichi. It is however a trait that Goku is known for as well, given the amount of times he's defied Chichi's wishes.
- Pan gets attacked by the robot through the wall, however the robot is never actually depicted going through the wall afterwards: it just sort of appears on the other side between shots.
- One of the shots of the GT Trio escaping has them jump across a platform shortly before it collapses. The side view makes it look like not just a side-scrolling video game, but also a shot from the Head Cha-La OP of Gohan jumping across some hills as Shen Long bursts out of the background clouds.
- In the escape sequence, the spaceship boy has been given a helmet, although when the GT Trio found the time to get one isn't-oh you know how this goes.
- The specific effect that the GT Trio are fighting against is the event horizon, which is the point at which you're so close to a black hole (or in this case, a sun) that it becomes impossible to escape its gravity.
- Apparently Pan's flight skills are so poor that she's being outrun by GILL!
- Goku specifically notes that he's using the recoil of his Kamehameha to propel them. While this has been done before (in GT, even), Goku is rarely shown having to compensate for the recoil whenever he uses the technique in combat.
- The legs of the Octopus Ship suddenly gain fins on their ends for this episode. They're then shown in later shots at the end of the episode, before they disappear.
- The planet at the end of this episode is named Pital, which is the hindi word for brass. However it's almost certainly intended to be a pun on hospital.
- The planet Pital has a green cross visible from space. It has similarities to the logo of the Red Cross, who are rather strict with its use: video games used to use it a lot until the organization took action, which is why today they're more often green or modified in some other way for video games (another example is later in the episode: the hospital has a window in a + shape, making it blue that time).
- The scene of the GT Trio waiting anxiously through the hours worrying about the condition of the boy is similar to Pokémon Episode 2, where Ash and Misty do the same thing waiting for Pikachu to recover.
- Goku expresses a fear of needles, something which was last seen in anime filler while he was staying at the hospital in the aftermath of the Saiyan arc. That episode debuted six years before this one!
Episode 468 - Baby Strikes Back!! Target the Saiyans!! (GT episode 24)
Ocean dub title: The Sought After Saiyan Power!
Funimation dub title: Discovering the Truth
Originally aired 4th of September 1996
Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Takeo Ide
Trunks gets Venom'd.
Trivia:
Spoiler:
- Curiously, Episode 24's recap of Ep23 doesn't spoil the surprise of the boy being evil (or at least controlled by baby), something which 23's NEP in Ep 22 didn't do!
- Please DO NOT comment on the baby deer trying to suckle from Pan. PLEASE.
- No seriously, MyVisionity, hands off the keyboard. Stop it.
- It takes 24 episodes for the GT Trio think about anyone back on Earth.
- This episode nicely explains why the GT Trio didn't pick up the signal of Dr. Mu's Dragon Ball: he'd converted it into data.
- It's not exaplained why Baby specifically needed to have Trunks get wounded in order to infiltrate his body, considering one can't close their nostrils (unless Saiyans can do that. Can Saiyans close their nostrils? I don't think the Daizenshuu answer that question).
- Robo Note: My interpretation is that Baby takes over people by invading their bloodstream, which is riskier to do by going in through the nostrils if he's doing it to a fairly strong person like Trunks, whereas for someone like the doctor, he can just cling to the face and get in that way.
- Trunks appears to go Super Saiyan 2 when driving out Baby, considering the sparks of lightning and his rather lifted hair.
- The take-off pads for the aircraft have the same shape as the "God's Lookout" pads from DBZ Movie 12.
- One of the plane passengers has a jacket on with the image of a red smiling fish bursting out of the water. Maybe it's just KBABZ, but it looks like the poster for Jaws: The Revenge.
- Pan wonders "who in the world" Baby will turn into next time. As it turns out, EVERYONE.
- Pan also jokingly accuses Gill of being who Baby took control of. This is actually possible, considering Gill has taken over both Dr. Mu and Rilld!
- In dialogue, the characters often refer to Baby wanting their "Saiya power". We've mentioned this before, but "Saiya-jin" means "Saiya-people" or "people of Saiya", which naturally gives the English term "Saiyan".
- It takes until the end of this episode for Baby to be shown popping out of his host without clothing obscuring the seam between the two.
- The planet that the space-plane passes at the end of this episode has the same appearance as the one from Episode 15.
Episode 469 - This is Terrible!! Baby Appears on Earth (GT episode 25)
Ocean dub title: Baby Arrives on Earth!
Funimation dub title: Baby's Arrival
Originally aired 16th of October 1996
Written by: Atsushi Maekawa
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Tadayoshi Yamamuro
Vegeta gets shave'd.
Trivia:
Spoiler:
- The gap between GT episodes 24 and 25 is the longest hiatus in any ongoing run of Dragon Ball, with viewers having to wait six weeks to see 25.
- During the gap between GT episodes 24 and 25, the first five episodes of Funimation and Saban's edited dub of DBZ would air in syndication in the US.
- At this point in the USA, Roshi told Chichi Goku's dead, Bulma repaired the scouter, Gohan turned into a giant monkey, and Piccolo blew up the moon.
- Episode 25 is the first episode to take place on Earth since the GT Trio departed it at the end of Episode 2.
- Gloriously the episode starts with Vegeta preparing to shave off his infamous mustache. He must be inexperienced with it, however, as he also shaves his jaw, which has no hair on it whatsover.
- That said, his father King Vegeta had a beard, so it's possible he still has to maintain it for his regular look.
- Goten says he'd go to the ends of the universe for his girlfriend Palace, which is exactly what his niece Pan is doing!
- In this episode, Bulma is wearing a piece of jewlery that bears a resemblance to the one Broly wore in his first two movies.
- This episode reveals that the past 22 episodes took place over the span of nine months. If one to average it out, there'd be about two months and one week each between the Imegga, Giant World, Lood, Desert World and Dr. Mu storylines.
- It'd also mean that at their current rate, it would have taken the GT Trio one year and four months to complete their quest, meaning the Earth would have exploded in the meantime, Alderaan style. Fortunately, the next few episodes would show them gathering the last three Dragon Balls in very short order.
- The above entry also throws into sharp relief just how big a deal it was for Trunks to consider going back to Earth to swap out Pan with Goten at the start of Episode 15, as it would have taken them several months just to go back!
- That Bulma complains the GT Trio haven't contacted them implies that the Octopus Ship has some form of communication with Earth.
- The scene where the tiger-head-thing runs off the cliff, takes a while to realize he isn't standing on the ground, falls to the bottom of the cliff, and then makes a self-shaped hole in the ground and has birds flying around his head (which he shoos away), is a massive shout-out to the Wile E. Coyote shorts. Even the shot of the tiger-head-thing falling is an exact recreation of the show's most famously used visuals.
- In one of the montage shots of Earth, a boy is pointing at a cash register in the window. It's unknown why a boy his age would want a cash register. Maybe his family has money problems?
- Apparently West City has a crime problem, given that in its three episodes in GT had two bank robberies and the theft of a child.
- The cyan car that whooshes across the street in front of Goten says "PPC 25106 TAXI" on it. Only the essential facts here, folks!
- Strangely, Mr. Satan says that he's in Satan City, when it was established earlier in the episode that they're in West City.
- It's possible that it's an Air Force One situation where whatever city he happens to be in is Satan City.
- After Mr. Satan breaks his foot jumping down from the building, even the baby being held in her mother's arms is unimpressed with his BS in the crowd reaction shot.
- Mr. Satan asks the buff businessman what he's going to do with the crowd as angry as they are, when in fact they're happy and cheering on Mr. Satan specifically.
- While Mr. Satan hasn't heard of a Saiyan, he correctly describes them as "the guys whose hair is dyed like delinquent punks". This is the same thing Chichi said to Gohan when she first saw him as a Super Saiyan back in the Cell Arc.
- Goten suggests Palace try a hamburger next. In the older Pokémon series, a hamburger was one of the western foods that 4Kids would swap into the script instead of Japanese foods, in order to make the show feel a bit more American.
- Palace says that she suggested "Baby" go to a vegetable grocer if he wants "Saiya Power". This is a reference to the word yasai, or "vegetable", which is the pun in Saiya-jin.
- This entry also made KBABZ realize he NEVER made an entry on what the pun in Saiyan is!
- Over the wide shot of the crater Baby caused surrounded by fallen buildings, Goten complains about how his date is ruined.
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Trivia written by KBABZ and Robo. Episode summaries, airdates, and titles courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide.