Episodes 5, 6 and 7 of the '96 dub are on a DVD called "The Saiyans" which is odd because the main focus is Gohans wilderness training. The episodes on this disc surprisingly retain their title card art. It seems the earlier episodes did this while the later episodes... not so much...
You can see what episodes the DBZ '96 episodes are made out of here, I took this from DragonBall Z Uncensored and edited it a bit. I'm gonna do this with the all of these reviews from now on. The episode where Gohan finds a robot never aired but they did borrow some scenes from that episode in "Gohan Makes A Friend"...
"Gohan's Metamorphosis"
Shortly into "Gohan's Metamorphosis" there is a scene about 4 minutes long that was cut. It explainers why Piccolo and Kami are one and why, if one dies the other will die as well. This should have been in the dub because without it, during the fight with Nappa, people watching this for the first time probley had no idea what the frig was going on. This scene explained it pretty well to. It's a shame...
A few moments later we hear the first "next dimension\another dimension" death cover up for the first time. I know in the last episode Goku faded out after he died, but they never said anything about it. This was the first time anyone said anything about another dimension. I think it's funny that the first time it's uttered was when Krillin was thinking up how to lighten the blow of Goku dying, it's like exactly what the censors are doing. Art imitating life?
Then we come to a scene were Gohan was originally peeing on a rock. In this version though the scene starts just as Gohan is turning around. You can still see the piss on the rock and Gohan fixing his belt.
Later on in the episode we come to a point where Bulma fixes the scouter she stole from Raditz's dead body. She wakes up Krillin and Roshi by shooting them with a machine gun. I guess they figured kids might do the same to their parents or friends. Of course this was cut...
This scene has some very strange re-dubs, let me explain. The original '96 dub line had Bulma telling everyone to "hop to" to which Roshi replies "hop who"? Now, years later when FUNimation re-dubbed these episodes for the Ultimate Uncut Editions they retained a huge chunk of the original '96 lines. So, for shits and giggles I checked it out to see if it was still there and what I found was a little odd. In the UUC version Bulma says "Let's try this again, let's go guys!" to which Roshi replies "Hop where"? WHAT? It's like they kept the original line but then just messed it up! How is that possible... well I know how it's possible... but wow, it just comes off as funny and a little confusing. So then I go and check and see if it was on the DragonBox dub and guess what? The line was changed again! Bulma still says "Let's go guys" but now Roshi replies with "go where"? Craziness indeed. I made a video so everyone can hear the audio, I had to re-make a Youtube account just for this one video, but here ya go, check this out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJzJJFuLo8
Moving on Chi-Chi eventually takes matters into her own hands and heads over to Kame House with her Dad. A cigarette that Ox King is smoking was edited out...
When she gets there Roshi explains what happened to Goku. In this version though, Roshi, in typical cartoon fashion says "Here's what happened" the scene is then edited with a circle transition for a time laps effect, and we have Roshi saying "...and that's what happened".
Later on Gohan is stuck up on a little mountain. Piccolo secretly throws him some apples, Gohan has no idea where they came from and thinks there is no apple tree's around here. For some crazy ass reason, Gohan thinking of an apple tree was edited out.
Now, I know everyone and their Mother thinks they digitally edited out the thought bubble but, that's not what happened. Originally Gohan looks around confused, thinks of an apple tree and looks around some more this time without the apple tree thought bubble. In the English version I think they were trying to speed it up so, they just edited out those few seconds of him thinking of an apple tree. They didn't actually go in and erase it, the few seconds it was on screen was cut.
Next Gohan transforms, when he de-transforms Gohan's shame is covered by the smallest tree ever and a mysterious rock. Why is the rock there you ask?...
...see they had a plan for the rock the whole time....
At the end of the episode, Piccolo gives Gohan some new clothes. In the '96 version, the beam is much brighter hiding Gohan's ass. His clothes are partially already faded onto him from the beginning of the scene...
"Gohan Makes A Friend"
One of the first scenes in this episode is of Gohan peeing. This kid loves peeing.
Soon after Gohan finds himself in a world of trouble. He gets chased by an alligator, then a saber tooth tiger then a hawk picks him up and the hawk in turn gets into a fight with a pterodactyl. Two Power Ranger animals in one scene! During the Hawk and Pterodactyl fight there is a tiny bit of blood that was edited out...
The hawk ends up dropping Gohan. This is where his fate is different depending on which version you watch. In the Japanese version he falls right into a sand trap where he befriends a robot. In the '96 version a scene is added that shows a hole in the Earth with a zoom in\zoom out effect making it look like Gohan is falling into it.
The '96 version now shows Gohan waking up that was originally in the beginning of this episode but now is moved to look like he is passed out...
He wakes up, cuts to commercial and Japanese episode 7 begins when we come back from the commercial break. For Yamcha's first appearance in DBZ we see he now plays professional baseball. A few minutes into this scene a fight breaks out and Yamcha joins in with glee! A few shots where cut out...
I think the original spirit of the robot episode is actually transferred pretty well in this version. I mean basically instead of befriending a robot, Gohan befriends a dinosaur. Also when Gohan first meets the robot it is damaged, same with the Dinosaur, it has a stick stuck in it's side. Oddly enough most of the blood is intact in the English version, sure the pool of blood is gone but hey, there's blood there. On DragonBall Z Uncensored, Chris mentions this might be because the censors don't really have a problem showing animals\non humans getting hurt or having blood on them. That just might be the case.
During some food gathering outing for Gohans dinosaur, he thinks of how cool it would be to have a dinosaur. This scene is cut, it's a shame too its so cute...
Sometime after Gohan comes back to find his dinosaur friend in trouble, Gohan tries to help his new friend but gets knocked out. When Gohan wakes up he finds his friend is gone, he had lost the fight and is now a bunch of bones. They then inserted Gohan walking away sadly from the whole robot situation and played it off as he was walking away from his dead dinosaur. It's done pretty well.
"Trouble On Arlia"
This episode pretty much stayed in tact from the original Japanese episode with just some censoring going on. I mentioned before how the censors might not have a problem with non human violence and that trend continues here. Again, there is blood but most of it is cut out.
Other then that, there was a scene where Lunch was being chased by cops. This was cut along with every other Lunch scene during the DBZ '96 run.
And finally, I had a hard time with this. It came really close to being a tie. It was a toss up between this line and Krillin’s line “I know you, you're hokey pokey”. But the delivery on this one makes me laugh everytime...
Listen to it for yourself! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJhdSR1J ... r_embedded
The next review will probley be in May. I'll probley do just one a month after this one.
