Deep Thoughts: The Trunks Saga

[ABED]

I knew about Trunks for years before his debut. My brother knew about him from our time living in Japan, and I knew what he looked like, but I didn't know the story. I recognized him from the main titles of the Ocean dub because whoever put those titles together decided to use the image of the Z Team from the Cell Saga. I thought for a while that I had missed something. It wasn't until I read Curtis Hofmann's manga summaries that I realized I hadn't missed a thing.

On any list of great/cool/badass character intros, this should be near the top. It's still one of the best intros of not only Dragon Ball, but I would argue that it's great period. Too bad Trunks doesn't attain this level of awesomeness again. I love the character and the design and Takeshi Kusao is a great actor. My appreciation for his talents was already high, but finding out he was the voice of young Trunks made me like him that much more. He's also a pretty damn good example of audiences needing far less exposition than one would assume. Why does he have a sword? Why does he need it? Where did he get it? We don't get the answers because it doesn't matter. He has a sword, and it looks cool. I'm not a big fan of bringing back Freeza for this purpose but slicing him in half was a cool ending. Mercifully, It's over. And now we can finally move past Freeza once and for... KUSO! I honestly think the same thing could've been accomplished with Freeza's father alone, but it works fine. Just like the subsequent devaluation of Super Saiyan doesn't make Goku turning Super Saiyan any less emotional for me, this cheapening of one of my favorite villains doesn't make the previous arc less meaningful.

When Goku arrives, we finally get answers to some questions and new ones are raised. The set up to the Android/Cell Saga is strong. I love the mystery surrounding it. After going with aliens for the last two arcs, having something terrestrial and dealing with a mystery of sorts was a solid direction. Logically, it doesn't make much sense that Goku has just defeated the biggest of big bads only for a lone evil scientist whose previous creations weren't all that strong to create something that makes the evil lord of the galaxy look like child's play. But we can dismiss that because "just cuz" works more than enough for most audiences.

After Trunks returns, the Z Team agree to train to fight the Cyborgs in three years. It took learning about wuxia to figure out what was never a secret. Goku and co. aren't superheroes out to save the world. They want a fight and will put the world in danger for the sake of a better fight. I think I begrudgingly accepted Goku's "he hasn't done anything yet" logic, but if that were true, there's plenty they could've done in THREE years. So for anyone's claim that Goku used to take threats "seriously" I submit this before the court. This part of his character isn't new to Super, not by any stretch. My favorite part of this scene where Goku and his friends make plans is when Kuririn gives that great speech about everyone in Goku's life starting out as enemies but having a common purpose and something to fight brought them together and made them into friends. Then Gohan has to ruin the mood by asking questions and Kuririn says that Vegeta won't make trouble if he's concentrated on training to fight someone else. In all honesty, even though the moment of earnestness is undercut, the emotion still lands. My big question why with the exception of Gohan and Piccolo does everyone go off to train on their own? You have enemies incoming that are stronger than Super Saiyans and you get better going up against people better than you. What does going at your own pace get you?

Filler:
The tutor was a real piece of work. Sometimes I forget that Chichi can be a badass like when she chucks the evil tutor out the window. I like what she says, "You've had your say, and now get out!" And this is an unpopular opinion but I'm not a fan of the driving episode. It has its moments, but the shtick wears thin after a few minutes. There's nothing particularly clever about it.

Dub:
The scripts are noticeably better in season 4 than 3, but we still get garbage like "Cat loves food, yeah, yeah, yeah." What's odd is when there are jokes when a line is played straight, or it's played straight when there's a joke in the original. For example, the scene where Bulma is barbecuing as Vegeta and Yamcha sense Freeza. Originally, Vegeta knocks Yamcha for his "stupid reasoning" and Bulma says that it's not stupid, it's some type of seasoning. I can't do it justice. In the dub, she simply asks him if he wants seasoning on his ribs. Then in the same scene Oolong originally says, "I have a feeling that even if Earth were gone, Bulma would survive" whereas in the dub, he says "We could leave if you wanna fight him here."
Eric Vale is a good choice for Trunks but his early performance sounds stilted. At this point, he hadn't given Trunks the rasp, which is a plus in my book. I'll have more to say on the subject when we get to Dragon Ball Z Kai.
My opinion on Brad Jackson's performance as King Cold has changed a little. I don't hate the foppishness, but he can't act through the silly voice. I used to hate it, but I've softened on it on this most recent rewatch.

Random Thoughts:
Freeza has survived so much that it's comical. He's like Nordberg from Naked Gun.
I like the little touches. Nothing sells the tedium of waiting quite like playing around with anything you have available, such as an empty can. Vegeta's annoyance was a nice character bit as well.
How does Trunks get back to his timeline? I'm being cheeky. Time travel stories inherently don't make sense, but I just thought I'd ask the question.
Why doesn't Trunks stay and train with Goku?

Home Video:
FUNi made a big deal about Trunks, so someone was at least aware of Trunks' popularity.
When the Trunks volumes were released, they skipped over episodes 124 and 125. Those two were released initially as a promotional video at Burger King. Even at the time, I dug that DBZ was getting more mainstream recognition. That said, it pissed me off that those episodes were a video you had to go to BK to get. I don't know if they always planned to release them in stores later, but thankfully they did.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Always find it crazy to think Goku fought Freeza for a full 19 episodes and Trunks literally wiped him out in seconds. It's some way to introduce a new powerful saiyan warrior from the future while also making him look badass to the kids.

I tend to think of these episodes as more of a transitional arc than a full arc. Trunks importance from this point until the end of the Cell arc cannot be overstated, he was the messenger without whom the Earth would have been doomed, he died at the right moment to show Cell had reached full power, his death was also a turning point in Vegeta's arc as we saw him care for someone and ultimately Trunks defeating Cell in the future brought everything to a nice conclusion.

When it comes to the English dubs, the episode Goku's Mysterious Technique was the turning point for territories outside the US, briefly Canada, Australia and New Zealand as it marked the beginning of Westwood Media and Ocean's new dub that they produced independently of Funimation. This was the dub I grew up with, as did all other fans who watched the series on TV between 2001 and 2006 in the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and Canada when they eventually got the dub (first Westwood episode aired for Canadians was Android Explosion).

The Westwood dub got off to a rough start as Ocean were in a hurry to catch up with Funimation in order to be able to sell their dub to interested TV networks, but luckily as the run carried on it got better. I'd recommend anyone who hasn't seen this dub watch it beyond a few clips. I prefer Westwood to Funimation's English dub as it has slightly better voice acting (even if rushed) and a less unfitting replacement score.

I need to get the 5-episode Prelude to Terror DVD sometime, I bought a box of the singles a while ago but only received the 3-episode version. I think this was the case for most fans in my position as the 5-episode reprint is a bit rarer.

[MasenkoHA]

My memories of this saga are twofold

1. The really cool Toonami promos focusing on Frieza being rebuilt as a cyborg and how that was briefly the talk of 3rd grade recess

2. A buddy of mine having the entire uncut Trunks saga on vhs and us marathoning through it one night. I remember thinking it didn't seem that much different than what aired on Cartoon Network. In retrospect, it was a combination of Cartoon Network's fairly lax standards on violence, and Fukanaga shying away from harsh or sexual dialog. Really Funimation should have thrown some swearing or used the original Japanese score anything to make it feel like a different experience than watched the Y7 version on Toonami. Releasing the episodes, usually, ahead of their tv schedule was about the only smart thing they did in the home video front.


As for the actual arc itself, Future Trunks makes a hell of an entrance. It's not surprising he's probably the second most popular character in the American fandom and arguably briefly eclipsed daddy in popularity circa 2000.

Trunks making short work of Freeza and Cold doesn't bother me because it gets the point across. This guy who had no problem taking care of the previous uber powerful big bad and his papa is dead scared of these Artificial Humans. It's more efficient than him simply coming from the future and warning the heroes and the audience to trust him, these machines are really powerful.



I liked that Goku was able to reason to Bulma like an adult that Gero hasn't done anything wrong yet, even if his motivations were purely selfish. It shows his growth as a person that he's become more wordly and perceptive of others even if he's still a fighting obsessed hillbilly.


There's nothing wrong with his characterization in Super either because Super itself is treated more of a farce than Tenshinhan-Cell era Dragon Ball

[ABED]

I forgot to mention, why did FUNi change the pronunciation of Dr. Gero? It's supposed to be a hard G, and now it's I don't know what to call it. Is it a soft G? When I think soft G, I think of words that start with G but have a J sound, like Gerald.

Is the word play an onomatopoeia? As far as I know, Gero is the Japanese word for "Ribbit". So would an English equivalent to the joke be calling him Dr. Ribbit?

[90sDBZ]

I have distinct memories of watching these episodes, largely because Cartoon Network UK would always go back to Raditz after Trunks gave Goku the medicine. This went on for some time, so I ended up watching the Saiyan-Trunks sagas several times, and was excited when promos for the Android saga finally surfaced.

I was blown away by the return of Frieza, the appearance of Trunks, the return of Goku, and all the revelations that came with it. A lot happened in only 4 episodes.

I also remember thinking Eric Vale's Trunks voice sounded really cool. He's a better actor now, but his actual voice sounded much more youthful back then, so it's a trade off.

The Westwood dub started from the episode were they begin training for the Androids, although that's technically still part of the Trunks saga. By this point I'd grown to like the texas cast and Faulconer score in particular, so suddenly having the dub change again wasn't something I was thrilled about. I'd loved the Ocean cast along with the Wasserman score in the earlier episodes, but I felt their comeback wasn't on the same level. This new dub used recycled music from the old Megaman cartoon, and while there were some decent tracks I found it extremely repetitive. The performances also felt rushed, and lacked the emotion and nuance of their earlier work. The dub did get better over time, especially in the late Buu saga were lots of new music was introduced, but it took a long time to get to that point.

[MasenkoHA]

. The dub did get better over time, especially in the late Buu saga were lots of new music was introduced, but it took a long time to get to that point.

I kind of feel the same way about the Funi dub. Like there was mild improvement in season 4 with most of the new additions like 17, 18, Gero, and Cell and the scripting got better but it was all still pretty wretched especially Nadolny's Gohan and Sabat's Piccolo. The Texas dub got better around the Buu saga with even some of the American score getting better like Super Buu's theme and Super Saiyan 3

[ABED]

Forgot to include that the Trunks theme that plays on the Trunks Saga trailer is solid, although I wouldn't suggest watching said trailer if you have photosensitive epilepsy.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Forgot to include that the Trunks theme that plays on the Trunks Saga trailer is solid, although I wouldn't suggest watching said trailer if you have photosensitive epilepsy.

Interesting fact about the UK broadcasts is they included motion blur filters to minimise epilepsy risks. I imagine a lot of kids stations were still conscious of the Porygon incident and trying to prevent something similar happening outside Japan. The YTV airings in Canada didn't include these filters though.

[8000 Saiyan]

It's a shame that Battle Point Unlimited is a piece of music that was plagiarized, but I do still have a soft spot for it.

Everything about the episodes dealing with Trunks killing Frieza and King Cold are perfect. King Cold acting all high and mighty, believing that the sword is the reason why Trunks killed his son, only to realize that Trunks really IS that strong and then begging for mercy like a coward.

[Super Sonic]

I forgot to mention, why did FUNi change the pronunciation of Dr. Gero? It's supposed to be a hard G, and now it's I don't know what to call it. Is it a soft G? When I think soft G, I think of words that start with G but have a J sound, like Gerald.

They were probably thinking like that when seeing it. Few folks tended to do that back then. Around the same time would see EVA tapes in stores and myself and others who hadn't watched the series yet were reading Evangelion as "Eh-van-jell-ee-on". Will say during the flashback of Frieza being rescued and healed when watching with my dad the part about rebuilding him and having technology to enhance he went, "They got that from 6,000,000 Dollar Man".

[Jackalope89]

I'll just say; while I like pretty much all Dragon Ball characters in their own right, Future Trunks is probably my favorite fictional character, period. His character, story, etc just hit the right note for me when I first saw his appearance on Toonami, and been a fan ever since.