Episode 109,"Don’t Underestimate a Super Saiyan! Vegeta and Goku’s Full Throttle Power!"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: Pui Pui can't land a blow on Vegeta due to his speed. Vegeta lands blow after blow on the hapless opponent. Babidi uses his magic so that the room is teleported to Pui Pui's high gravity home planet. Pui Pui is confident in a win, but Vegeta is not impressed, as he trains in high gravity environments constantly. The Saiyan prince easily puts Pui Pui away. The room returns to the ship and the passage to the lower level opens. On the next stage, Goku awaits his opponent, who is a large monster named Yakon. Despite his size, Yakon proves to be swift, and manages to cut Goku's gi. Kaioshin wants them all to team up against him, but Gohan says his father will be fine. To ensure victory, Babidi transports them to Yakon's home planet, which is shrouded in darkness. Goku transforms into a Super Saiyan to see, but Yakon feeds on the light of his aura. At first Yakon is confident this will win him the fight, as he will continue to drain energy from Goku. However, Goku simply turns him his power to such a level that Yakon explodes. The passage to the next level of the ship opens and the Super Saiyans descend, leaving Kaioshin shocked.
Comments:
(Sorry about the timestamped screenshots. I couldn't find a clean RAW.)
I do often bring up how foreign it must be for fans of just the English dubbed version of Dragon Ball Z to see Goku not only enjoy fighting opponents just for the hell of it, but actually completely obliterate them, as well. Vegeta, sure, he kills opponents often. Though most of the time, as in this episode, they're guys that are out to kill him anyway, and often pretty nasty guys themselves, but we know what kind of fighter Vegeta is and his low regard for rules or the sanctity of life. But Goku? Not the Goku who spared Vegeta's life, lectured Captain Ginyu about not hurting people (dub only, of course), and was prepared to let Freeza go, too!
But, yeah, that's an oversimplification. Anyone who's even aware of only the English dub knows Goku had no issue telling Gohan to kill Cell and I don't recall the English dub giving any particular reason to justify Goku just outright exploding Yakon in this episode. So even the audiences of the English dub must've at least been somewhat familiar with Goku murderating a few of his opponents just for shits and giggles. Dude doesn't feel bad in the slightest about this, either. You might make the argument that, hey, he did it to himself, but nah, Goku overloaded the guy, he knew what he was doing. He outright killed this fucker. Pretty brutally, too, even compared to Vegeta's kill.
Goku, you butcher. When Vegeta seems like the merciful one, you're pretty balls nasty, spud. Nah, he no spud. He no shiv, he slicer-dicer. Slice and dice!
Plus, Goku kills nearly every dumb twat in the movies. Dr. Wheelo, Tullece, Lord Slug, Coola (twice), Super 17, Broly at least once, and Hildegarn. Yeah, I guess they aren't canon, but shit, that's a mountain of bodies, man.
You have to love the self-awareness. Gohan comments at one point that the set up of the various stages and beating an opponent to proceed to the next one is "like a video game". Why, thank you, show, for telling me that. I hadn't quite zeroed in on that last week when the concept was introduced. But, uh, honestly, I don't think pointing out that you're desperately ripping off video game structure because Toriyama got lazy actually makes up for that laziness. Maybe one of the people in my audience (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) can tell me if this concept has actually been used in a DBZ video game. It would be interesting if it went full circle. I have a feeling that maybe it was used in one of those rare RPG DBZ games (I still want my Attack of the Saiyans sequel) and not one of the billions of near identical tournament fighters that get churned out every year.
I still say it's more like Game of Death, though, because it's a cooler reference. And I demand Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to appear. In full 'fro.
The music had some definite moments in this week's episode. I actually enjoy the "previously on" music used. I'm also a pretty big fan of the music used at the start of Vegeta's bout with Pui Pui, though it might've been a tad more dramatic than can be reflected by a curb stomp fight where Vegeta hardly has to try. I would save something like that for a more dramatic moment, Toei. I also like the music played when Goku ruptures Yakon with his power. Though I'm pretty sure I also heard that awful music that ruined Goku's first meeting with Goten at some point this week, too. Flush that shit. This isn't a dance party.
No, Battle of Gods, that was a dance party. Unz unz unz unz.
Oh, and, uh... yeah, Battle of Gods trailer, Meredith McCoy, Josh Martin, blah blah blah, I covered it already.
The more I hear about "International Kai", though, the more teeth-grindingly frustrating it gets. Just. Release. One. Uniform. Version. FFS, even Funimation can't fuck this up as bad as Toei's doing it now! Well, yeah, they probably could. But they probably won't. Maybe won't.
Overall Score:
3.5 out of 5