Episode 43 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on April 23, 1997 and titled The Resurrection of Cell and Frieza in Funimation's dub, splits the action between two worlds. In Hell, Goku meets his most famous enemies and outclasses them with ease, but he cannot kill them and falls for a trick. On Earth the heroes battle the returning dead, while Android 17 visits his sister with anything but brotherly intentions.
Summary
Frieza mocks Goku for his child-sized body, the ogre guards run for cover, and the Saiyan answers by powering up until King Yemma's palace shakes. The fight is one-sided. Cell and Frieza pull out techniques borrowed from the Z Fighters, but Goku hops onto Frieza's Death Saucer and rides it like a hoverboard, grabs a rock spike to use as a staff and sends every attack back where it came from. He seems to have finished them both, until Cell regenerates and reminds him of the local rule: those who are already dead cannot die again.
On Earth, meanwhile, Majuub, Goten and Trunks mow down a horde of Saibamen, while Gohan takes on General Rilldo, whose beam turns one of his arms into metal. Vegeta flattens Nappa with a single blow, but right after that Dr. Gero and Dr. Myuu arrive with Hell Fighter 17, and the Saiyan prince realizes this opponent is on another level.
In Hell, Cell blinds Goku with a Solar Flare and absorbs him through his tail, but the Saiyan climbs back out as if nothing happened. Frieza then locks him in an energy cage and the two push him down to the punishment area. There a harmless-looking old woman welcomes him with the offer of a relaxing bath, which turns out to be a boiling cauldron: it is the start of a torture tour that moves on to tickling, a scalding sauna and finally a block of ice that squeezes him tight and leaves him unable to move. Cell and Frieza gloat that he will stay there for twenty years.
On Earth, Hell Fighter 17 contacts his twin and asks why he has not merged with him yet. Android 17 starts wrecking the city, and when Android 18 confronts him for answers, he invites her to join his side and tries to hypnotize her.
Our take
The title promises the return of two giants, but the episode treats them almost as comic sidekicks, and that is a deliberate choice. Goku left Cell and Frieza behind so long ago that a serious fight would make no sense, so the episode turns it into a parade of callbacks. Frieza's Death Saucer used like the Flying Nimbus and the rock spike wielded like the Power Pole are nods to the original Dragon Ball, and they land.
The torture tour is the oddest part: a kids'-cartoon interlude in a saga that bills itself as dark. The real narrative weight sits on Earth. The confrontation between Android 17 and Android 18 reopens the twins' story in an unsettling way, because she has a family now and he seems to have forgotten everything they once were to each other.
Trivia
- Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Noboru Koizumi as animation director.
- Despite the title, Cell and Frieza are never actually brought back to life: they stay in Hell for the whole episode.
- Several scenes echo the past: Cell loses half his body to a Kamehameha, Frieza is sliced by his own Death Saucer, and Nappa levels a city just as he did when he first reached Earth.
- In the Japanese version Nappa is voiced by Kiyoyuki Yanada, General Rilldo's voice actor, instead of his usual performer Shōzō Iizuka.
- Funimation also released the episode on a limited DVD packaged with Prima's official strategy guide for Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2.