Episode 39 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on February 26, 1997 and titled Baby Put to Rest in Funimation's dub, settles the score with Baby. Goku, back at full strength as a Super Saiyan 4, defeats the Golden Great Ape without killing Vegeta and wipes out the Tuffle parasite for good. The celebration is short, though: using the Black Star Dragon Balls comes with a price the Earth has yet to pay.
Summary
On Planet Plant, the Earthlings under Baby's control beg their leader to protect them, while Goku warns that what they are seeing is only part of his power. Baby retorts that the strongest will win; Goku answers that darkness cannot beat light. The fight resumes on even terms. When Baby tries to end it with a Super Galick Gun, Goku dodges with Instant Transmission, and the barrage that follows shatters against his aura.
Cornered, Baby turns to his ultimate attack, the Revenge Death Ball Final, without caring whether it destroys Plant as well. Goku is engulfed and dragged into its core. Baby laughs, sure he has won, but Goku thinks of his friends and family, refuses to give in and absorbs the entire attack, turning it into a black cyclone that vanishes into his body. With that extra power he fires a 10x Kamehameha that knocks the Great Ape out cold.
Now Goku could finish him, but Gohan reminds everyone that killing Baby would also mean killing Vegeta, and Trunks says he is ready to accept it, because his father would rather die than stay possessed. Goku finds a third way: a carefully aimed blast that burns away only the tail. The Great Ape reverts to normal, Vegeta's body shrinks and can no longer hold the parasite, which bursts out of his back, blinds everyone with a flash and flees. Goku stays by Vegeta's side as the prince wakes up and gives him a smile.
Baby reaches his spaceship, shoves Bulma aside and takes off alone, swearing he will be back. Goku waits for the ship to line up with the sun and fires a second 10x Kamehameha, which hurls it into the star: this time Baby cannot regenerate. Instant Transmission brings everyone back to Earth, where Goku returns to his child form and the Sacred Water frees the population. Then comes the worst news: Baby used the Black Star Dragon Balls, which have scattered again; since they cannot return to Earth within a year of the first wish, the planet will explode in two weeks.
Our take
This is the victory the saga had been building toward, and the way it arrives says a lot about Goku. He does not win on strength alone: he wins by absorbing his enemy's hatred, quite literally, and then by refusing to kill him while Vegeta is still inside. Shooting off the tail is a simple, lovely idea, because it closes the circle opened by the regrown tail that gave birth to Super Saiyan 4.
The real ending, however, is bitter. The relief lasts as long as a song, and then GT reminds us that wishes have consequences: the Black Star Dragon Ball countdown, which the show had carried since its very first episode, is about to run out. The next enemy is not a warrior. It is time.
Trivia
- Written by Junki Takegami and directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with Masayuki Uchiyama as animation director.
- In the Japanese version, after Baby's demise, the first verse of Zard's Don't You See!, the ending theme at the time, plays as an insert song.
- As an adult, Goku can use Instant Transmission again, something his child body had not allowed him to do.
- Baby is not the first villain a Kamehameha has pushed into the sun: Cooler met the same fate in the 1991 movie Cooler's Revenge.
Characters
- Goku and Baby, first in Vegeta's body and then in his true form
- Vegeta, Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Pan and Mr. Satan
- Bulma, Krillin, Android 18, Marron and Videl
- Elder Kai, Kibito Kai, Dende and Mr. Popo