Episode 45, "It's a 20-Fold Kaio-ken! A Kamehameha With Everything on the Line"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: Gohan throws the Bulma frog in front of Piccolo before Ginyu can switch bodies with him, returning Bulma to her body. Freeza continues having the advantage in the fight, while Goku is losing strength. Seeing Freeza's power, Goku realizes he can't win on his own. He decides that he'll try a 20x Kaioken. Freeza continues to beat on Goku. Goku ends up in the water, but when he tries to emerge, Freeza holds him under. Drowning, Goku has a horrible vision that causes him to break free from Freeza. He uses a 20x Kaioken and fires a Kamehameha at Freeza, but Freeza ends up barely damaged by it. Goku has another vision, this time of Vegeta telling him to defeat Freeza. However, Freeza is angered by this and rushes forward to continue.
Comments:
We get the resolution to the Bulma/Ginyu filler right away in this episode, so it's not that dragged out, but I would have preferred them leaving it out altogether in a show that touts its adherence to the manga and lack of filler. Especially since the filler didn't do anything at all and was truly filler. In the end, Bulma is back as who she is and Ginyu is back as a frog, and they're blown away from the battle. What a waste of time. My question is, was this filler for Bulma to have more to do or for Gohan and the others to?
Back to the fight, if you can call it that, Freeza definitely had Goku at his mercy throughout the episode. He was slapping him around and throwing him like a ragdoll. Then he almost drowned him. One might ask why Freeza didn't just do this outright, but we're talking DBZ here, so let that question die, please. Then again, Freeza seems legitimately angry in this episode, whereas before he was amused. I guess he didn't expect killing Goku would take this long and is, as he says, taking out his frustration. This is only using half his power, too. It was getting so bad, Goku's use of 20x Kaioken wasn't even evening things out between them.
We get two strange hallucinations from Goku in this episode. The first makes some sense because he's drowning and the lack of oxygen to his already punch-addled brain is causing him to have a nightmare as he's nearly dying. I notice that they cut Lunch out of the parade of characters Goku sees in his vision. I guess she's really cut out of Kai, though she appears in the end credits. The second vision has a naked Vegeta (wtf), as well as King Vegeta and Bardock, pleading with Goku to defeat Freeza. But he was perfectly conscious during this and it seemed utterly ridiculous that he should just have a vision like this. They probably should have cut this out entirely, but it was kinda cool we got to see Bardock. Weird that Goku should have a vision of two people he never met before, though.
My favorite part in the episode is Goku's 20x Kaioken-powered Kamehameha, the one that sort of scuffs up Freeza's hands. That's a pretty big blow to Goku that his signature attack at as highest as he could get it barely damaged the target. Freeza, however, is pretty pissed off, even if it didn't hurt him that much. Goku looks pretty fucked at this point.
Overall Score:
3 out of 5
