Episode 41 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on March 12, 1997 and titled Curtain Call in Funimation's dub, opens the Super 17 Saga with a breather: after Earth was destroyed and rebuilt, the series heads back to the World Martial Arts Tournament. Mr. Satan wants to choose an heir, but his plan to keep the title in the family falls apart, and in the end he is the one who stays world champion yet again.
Summary
At the tournament Goku competes in the junior division. He tells Krillin it was not his idea: Mr. Satan said he was too short for the adult bracket. The real reason is different. The aging champion wants his granddaughter Pan, entered as an adult, to succeed him, and he would rather Goku never crossed her path. Goku's first match is over in seconds: he simply lets himself get hit, and his opponent bursts into tears.
Pan breezes through her early rounds, then suddenly withdraws: winning would mean turning into her grandfather, and that is not the future she wants. Meanwhile Vegeta spends the whole day looking for a way to challenge Goku. During the junior final he storms the ring to issue his challenge; Goku's opponent, a scrawny and terrified boy, flees from Vegeta and crashes into the Saiyan, who ends up hanging from the edge by his fingertips. The kid tickles him and Goku drops out: the junior title is his. Vegeta, furious with himself, takes it out on a wall.
The adult final is dominated by a masked fighter called Papayaman. Goku sees right away that he is using only a sliver of his power: under the mask is Majuub, who carries Majin Buu inside him. As the winner he faces Mr. Satan for the title, and thinking of his mother he decides to go all out. The champion is on the ropes when Buu's voice asks Majuub to let his friend win, because the world needs its hero. Majuub hesitates, and one punch from Mr. Satan knocks him out of the ring.
The crowd floods the arena and begs the champion not to retire, and he agrees to carry on. That evening, on a bridge, Vegeta and Goku are finally about to fight, but Goku's stomach growls and the duel dissolves into laughter, with even Vegeta joining in.
Our take
An episode like this exists to let the series breathe, and it does so gracefully. After a whole saga of possessions, burning planets and a death, GT spends an afternoon in the lighter mood of the early days, with a tournament, slapstick and Mr. Satan in his best role: a man who lives on appearances but who, in his own way, genuinely cares about people.
Majuub's scene is the strongest. The boy Goku chose as his student at the end of Dragon Ball Z ends up losing on purpose to the frailest champion of all, and Buu's request gives the gesture meaning: the crowd's hope matters more than a belt. The closing scene, with Vegeta laughing alongside everyone else, is a small gift to anyone who has followed his journey.
The series knows full well this is the calm before the storm: from the next episode on, Hell breaks open.
Trivia
- Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Takahiro Imamura, with Masayuki Uchiyama as animation director.
- It is the last episode to close with Zard's "Don't You See!"; episode 42 switches to Shizuka Kudō's "Blue Velvet."
- Two weeks later, on March 26, 1997, Fuji TV aired the TV special A Hero's Legacy, set a century after the series. GT only returned with episode 42 on April 16.
- Funimation also released this episode on a limited DVD packaged with Prima's official strategy guide for Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu.