Episode 29 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on November 27, 1996 and titled The Fall of the Saiyans in Funimation's dub, is the one where Goku loses. And it is a clean defeat: against Baby, who now lives inside Vegeta and commands Goku's whole family, Super Saiyan 3 collapses after a handful of blows, and a giant ball of energy wipes Goku's presence off the planet.
Summary
Baby finally learns why Mr. Satan escaped infection: he had been hiding inside Majin Buu all along. Baby decides to get rid of him, but Goku asks Buu to take Mr. Satan and Pan to safety. Buu turns them into chocolates, swallows them to keep them protected and flies off. Left alone, Goku tries to reason with the parasite: the Saiyans who wiped out the Tuffles have already paid for their crimes, and revenge serves no purpose now. Baby answers with his fists.
Inside Vegeta's Super Saiyan body, Baby is far stronger than before. Then Trunks and Bulla fly in. Goku worries about the girl's safety, then realizes that they are under Baby's control too. With Gohan and Goten, it is five against one. Baby considers turning Goku into a Tuffle too, then decides he has to die.
Goku goes Super Saiyan 3, the only form that gives him a fighting chance. A few exchanges expose the problem: his body, shrunk back to childhood by the Black Star Dragon Balls, cannot sustain the transformation, and he drops back to base form. Baby pelts him with energy attacks and drives him into the rocks, but Goku gets up and asks him once more to stop. The parasite replies that the Saiyans never showed his people any mercy.
Then Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Bulla form a circle around Baby and pour their energy into him. The result is a bulkier, more powerful form that floors Goku with a single punch. Then Baby draws in the negative energy of every infected human on Earth, transforms again and builds the Revenge Death Ball, a sort of Spirit Bomb fueled by spite. Goku can no longer move. When the blast fades, Buu reports that his friend's energy has vanished; Pan and Mr. Satan refuse to believe it.
Our take
This is the episode that gives meaning to GT's entire first stretch. For twenty-eight installments, kid Goku was a light-hearted gimmick that echoed the original Dragon Ball; here it becomes a real handicap. Super Saiyan 3, the ace up his sleeve against Majin Buu in Dragon Ball Z, crumbles because his body cannot carry it, and the defeat forces the story to find something new. That something arrives five episodes later.
Baby, meanwhile, confirms himself as the most personal villain in the series. He does not want to rule the universe: he wants the Saiyans to pay, and he turns them against each other. The scene where Goku's sons and grandchildren circle him and hand their power to the enemy is crueler than any punch, and it works precisely because Goku keeps talking instead of giving up. His appeal falls on deaf ears, but it captures him: even facing the one who stole his family, he tries persuasion first.
The ending deliberately leaves a gap: nobody sees what happens to Goku, and the Japanese title, with its slangy "Chō-Yabai!?", plays on alarm rather than certainty.
Trivia
- Written by Junki Takegami and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Masayuki Uchiyama as animation director.
- It is the first appearance of Super Saiyan 3 in GT, and the debut of Baby's two powered-up forms, known to fans as Super Baby 1 and Super Baby 2.
- The blast Baby fires at Goku early in the fight looks like a Final Flash, but the Japanese version calls it a Big Bang Attack; Funimation's dub leaves it unnamed.
- In Funimation's dub, the possessed half-Saiyans want Goku to join them as a Tuffle, while in the Japanese version Gohan and Goten say they must finish off their father with their own hands.