Episode 35 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on January 29, 1997 and titled Goku's Ascension in Funimation's dub, is the one everybody remembers: Goku appears in full as a Super Saiyan 4, grown up again and back in control. With this body the duel with Baby turns around, but the Tuffle parasite still has a card to play, and Bulma is the one who deals it.
Summary
The rampaging Golden Great Ape has given way to an adult man with long black hair, red fur across his torso and a tail. Pan approaches him nervously and asks whether he is himself again; Goku looks at her and smiles, and that is all the answer she needs. On the Sacred World of the Kai, Elder Kai celebrates, while Kibito Kai and Sugoro stare at the crystal ball in disbelief.
Pan fills her grandfather in on the damage he did as a Great Ape and asks whether he can shrink back to his child size. Goku replies that he needs every bit of this power to finish things with Baby. Mr. Satan cheers his friend's return and watches him take off toward the enemy's tower.
Inside the tower, Baby, still wearing Vegeta's body, cannot work out why Goku was able to transform and he was not. Bulma, still under his control, reminds him that Vegeta lost his tail long ago; Baby gives her a deadline to find another way. Then Goku crashes in, and the rematch begins.
The Super Saiyan 4 toys with his opponent: he laughs off every blow and lets the Revenge Death Ball burst against him without a scratch. When he finally goes on the offensive, Baby cannot keep up. The Kais, though, grow uneasy, because Goku is playing instead of ending it. They are right to worry. Bulma has built a Blutz Wave Generator, and just as Goku lines up the finishing blow, she aims it at Baby. Bathed in its light, Vegeta's body swells into a Golden Great Ape. Goku realizes his mistake, but he does not panic.
Our take
Super Saiyan 4 is GT's answer to the question that had hung over the show since its first episode: how do you give Goku his adult body back without undoing Pilaf's wish? The solution runs through the tail and the Great Ape, the roots of the character, and that is why it works. The new level adds more than power: it reconnects Goku with the wild boy of the original Dragon Ball, and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru's design (Toriyama did not draw it) expresses that with red fur and black hair instead of yet another golden mane.
Goku's confidence slides into arrogance, though, and the show punishes it at once, just as it did when Vegeta let Cell reach his perfect form or when Gohan played with him instead of finishing him. Whoever toys with an enemy always pays. And the fact that Baby gets his upgrade from Bulma, the scientist who has always solved her friends' problems, makes the blow sting even more.
Trivia
- Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Akira Inagami as animation director.
- This is the first full appearance of Super Saiyan 4, glimpsed only briefly at the end of episode 34, and the debut of the Blutz Wave Generator, which Bulma will later use on Vegeta.
- From episode 27, the Japanese opening had been re-edited so that its final group shot already showed Goku as a Super Saiyan 4: Japanese viewers saw the form eight episodes before its debut.
- In Funimation's dub, Sean Schemmel voices Goku for the first time since the first episode, taking the adult Super Saiyan 4, while Stephanie Nadolny keeps the child form.
Did you know? Nakatsuru sent his rough design to Toriyama, who touched it up slightly without changing the idea; Toriyama later drew Goku in this form for the booklet of the Japanese DVD box set.
Characters
- Goku, Pan and Mr. Satan
- Baby in Vegeta's body
- Bulma, under Baby's control
- Elder Kai, Kibito Kai and Sugoro