Episode 46 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on May 28, 1997 and titled Raising the Stakes in Funimation's dub, delivers exactly what its Japanese title promises: Super Saiyan 4 versus Super 17. Goku is back from Hell and takes on Dr. Myuu's android, sure that he has an ace up his sleeve. But the harder he hits, the stronger his enemy becomes.
Summary
Mr. Satan, blaming himself for the state his granddaughter Pan is in, warns Goku that if he does not deal with the android, he will have the world champion to answer to. The Saiyan opens with a punch to the gut that sends Super 17 flying. But Gero and Myuu loaded every one of Goku's techniques into the android's memory. He answers with a flurry of punches and kicks and a rain of light beams, and finally hurls Goku to the bottom of the sea. Myuu celebrates, but the Saiyan promises him a surprise.
The surprise rises out of the waves: Goku has become a Super Saiyan 4, a form the two scientists had never seen and so could not have planned for. Now the fight is even. Goku pounds the android with hundreds of energy blasts, yet none of them seems to do any damage. Super 17 pretends to hide in a forest, Goku chases him and walks right into the trap.
Meanwhile, at Goku's house, Bulma is wondering whether they should buy him a cell phone when Chi-Chi storms out armed with a broom, ready for battle. With her is Videl, back in her old Great Saiyaman costume. Bulma and little Bulla decide to follow them and see how it all ends.
On the battlefield Goku goes for the big one: a Kamehameha multiplied by ten. Super 17 does not even try to dodge. When the smoke clears he is bigger and stronger than before, and Goku finally figures out the trick. The android absorbs the energy of attacks the way Android 19 used to, but without needing the devices in his palms. Every energy blast is a gift to the enemy.
With his energy waves off the table, Goku tries Instant Transmission to catch him from behind. Super 17, though, does not sense ki: he reads vibrations in the air, feels the distortion a split second before his opponent reappears and greets him with a blast to the face. As the Earth begins to warp under the impacts, Myuu savors his triumph. Super 17 charges a huge energy sphere to finish the job.
Our take
This fight is built like a puzzle, and that is its strength. Super 17 is the perfect opponent for Goku because he turns the very weapons the Saiyan built his career on, energy waves and Instant Transmission, into advantages of his own. For the whole episode Goku loses because he fights like Goku, powering up and firing harder and harder. The answer will not be raw strength, and the show sets that up patiently.
Super Saiyan 4's arrival on Earth is a crowd-pleasing moment, even if the transformation settles nothing this time. Writer Atsushi Maekawa has explained that the adult form was meant to give the strongest warrior ever the visual impact he deserved: a child simply would not have been convincing. He also offered a half-joking answer as to why Goku no longer passes through the Great Ape stage: after the first time, the process supposedly happens only in his mind.
The Chi-Chi and Videl interlude is light, but it has a purpose: after the Baby Saga, in which they were possessed like nearly everyone on Earth, the women of the Son family refuse to sit this one out.
Trivia
- Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Takahiro Imamura, with Yūji Hakamada as animation director.
- Toei's official synopsis explicitly names the 10x Kamehameha, the same technique Goku used to defeat Baby.
- In Japan the episode closed with Blue Velvet by Shizuka Kudō, the ending theme used from episode 42 to episode 50.
Did you know? Character designer Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru gave Super 17 long hair because he found it unsettling, especially when worn loose. Years later he admitted with a laugh that he probably should have stopped drawing suspenders.