Spotlight

In PA 23¹, the story of DRAGON BALL Z was followed up to the point where Songoku is about to fight Seru, the consuming terror from the future. Seru has constructed a fighting arena and called forth all challengers. Military defenses have already fallen, as have the three “greatest” wrestlers, including the wrestling champion, Mr. Satan.

Songoku enters the ring and the fight lasts episodes before Songoku finally blows Seru in half, obliterating him from the waist up. Victory? No such luck. Seru can rejuvenate himself like some kind of bionic salamander if any part of him is left over. He pops back, and the two fight again until Songoku decides he has had enough and turns the ring over ton Songohan. Songohan attempts a peaceful resolution, not wanting to fight as he is afraid of what his power may do when unleashed. Seru begins beating the snot out of him, but is prevented from doing serious damage by a cyborg character who gets promptly destroyed for his trouble.

Seru releases seven mini-Serus which proceed to almost kill Piccoro, Songoku, Bejita, Trunks, Tenshinhan and Yamucha, who have been watching from the sidelines. Meanwhile, the head of the destroyed cyborg, the last remaining piece, tells Mr. Satan to throw him over to Songohan. Once there, he tells Songohan not to worry about releasing his power. Seru destroys the head in retaliation, causing Songohan to snap. He supersaiyas, with electricity blasting all around him. Everyone is amazed at the transformation. Seru and Songohan renew their fight in full force until Seru gets a kick in the head which puts him into convulsions, at which point he barfs-up the girl cyborg he had absorbed for power before the tournament began. The loss causes him to revert to his scorpion-tail form.

Songoku rejoins the fight now and Seru eventually puffs himself up into a huge bomb. Songoku teleports between Seru and Songohan, tells Songohan goodbye, grabs hold of Seru and teleports them both to Kamisama’s place.² Seru explodes, killing Songoku.

Victory? (After all, this fight has gone on for way too many episodes at this point.) Nope. Seru rejuvenates himself from a surviving scrap of brain cells. He has absorbed Songoku’s power and ability to teleport. Returning to the fighting ring he kills Trunks with a power blast through the chest. Bejita attacks Seru in anger and gets knocked unconscious. Seru tries to kill him with another power blast, but Songohan leaps in the way, taking the blast and ending up with a paralyzed left arm. Seru readies a mega-blast to end the fight permanently (about time!). Songohan feels defeated and almost gives up, but Songoku encourages him telepathically, from heaven, to use all his power and kill Seru. After all, if anyone dies from this awesome release of power, they can be brought back to life by the dragon-balls. Songohan completely obliterates Seru. This would have all happened in one episode of a Western animation, but here fight fight takes about ten half-hour episodes!

With the war over, Trunks is brought back to life and returns to the future one day before the day he came back to the present with medicine for Songoku. Now knowing that Seru intends to hide his egg in the time machine, Trunks confronts and kills him. Kuririn takes a special interest in the female cyborg and helps her back to health. In heaven, Songoku enters a tournament which, if he wins, will allow him to return to life. He wins a series of fights, but during one he accidentally touches the ceiling of the dome of heaven, invalidate his win and forcing him to fight several more times.

Now things get weird. The time stream jumps ahead 7 years. Songoku is still in heaven. Songohan is now a teenage high-school student. In this time-line, Trunks, a young boy, is being trained by Bejita. Songohan has a younger brother, the new character Goten,³ whom Songoku has never met. Kuririn has married the female cyborg and they have a daughter.

Songohan normally gets around on his cloud Kinto, but that’s not a discreet way to go to school in nearby Satan City. Satan City? Well, it seems that Mr. Satan claimed to be the one who defeated Seru and saved the planet. They gave him his own city as a reward. He keeps the peace with help from his daughter Beetaru. Not able to use his cloud, Songohan has Buruma make a costume to conceal his identity while traveling to the city and fighting bad-guys in between classes. Through a series of minor adventures Beetaru figures out that Songohan is behind the mask. She confronts him, interrupting one of his training sessions with Gotan she convinces Songohan to teach her to fly. This is possible because, as Mr. Satan’s daughter, she is an enhanced human.

The next Budokai fighting tournament is coming and all are training for it. Songoku is given a special dispensation to leave haven to participate in it. He’s been wearing a halo everywhere he goes since he died. Everyone gets together with surprises all around and the fight commences. Beetaru fights Superpopo⁴ and is defeated. Songohan enters the ring for his fight and the opponent goads him into supersaiyaing. “Superpopo” and another being of his species leap in, stick a probe into Songohan and drain off his power. They take off with everyone in hot pursuit. Beetaru drops out, not used to flying (it hurts her eyes), and the rest follow the two villains to a valley out in the wastelands. They arrive in time to see a humanoid “ALIEN”-style warrior and a demon-type warrior emerge from underground, led by a villainous gnome creature (Sorry, but the author has yet to catch these names accurately.). “Gnome” and “ALIEN” kill the two “popo brothers” and retire underground, leaving “Demon” to deal with the Saiyajins. He promptly kills a character who followed the Saiyajins from the arena, then turns both Piccoro and Kuririn to stone.

Songoku, Songohan, Bejita and a purple elf follow “Demon” into “Gnome’s” underground tunnel. It turns out to be a subterranean fortress of many levels. At each new level is a new foe who must be defeated before they can proceed further. “Gnome” is at the bottom level feeding the captured saiya energy into some kind of metabolic egg. He needs more power. At Level One, “ALIEN” gets his ass completely wiped by Bejita, who doesn’t even break a sweat, let alone break into supersaiya. A monster with a body-type somewhat like the creature from PUMPKINHEAD, but with long retractable blades, takes on Songoku, who has to supersaiya. The creature eats his power. Songoku overloads the creature with power and blows it up. By this point, “Gnome’s” mouth is on the ground and he realizes he has bit off more than he can chew. His last line of defense is “Demon,” who, at the end of the episodes seen thus far, is dispatched to Level Three.

During all of this, Trunks and Gotan are trying to get into the Budokai by having Trunks stand on Gotan’s shoulders, inside a costume, to make them look like an adult. He’ll end up fighting the female cyborg in the next episode, while Songohan takes a crack at “Demon.” Where it goes from here, who knows but it will take forever, as usual, to get there.