Episode 60 of Dragon Ball GT, first broadcast in Japan on October 22, 1997 after a five-week break and titled Super Saiyan 4 Fusion in Funimation's dub, is the payoff the whole saga had been building toward. Goku and Vegeta, both at Super Saiyan 4, perform the Fusion Dance and create Gogeta, the strongest fighter the series ever shows. Against Omega Shenron it is no contest. The real enemy is the clock.
Summary
The dragon senses that the two Saiyans are up to something and charges, but Trunks, Gohan and Goten get in his way to buy their fathers some time. Vegeta urges Goku to hurry, yet Goku pauses to watch, with obvious pride, as the two rivals' sons fight side by side. The boys are swatted aside within seconds, but that is enough: the dance works.
Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta is born, with crimson hair and a Metamoran vest. Baffled by a technique he has never seen, Omega can no longer land a blow: Gogeta is too fast even for his eyes and boasts that he could win with a single finger. On the sidelines Uub, nursing an injured arm, asks one of the boys to fuse with him; Gohan smiles and tells him to focus on healing.
Gogeta toys with his opponent. He splits into five copies, charges a menacing Kamehameha, and a burst of party streamers pops out of his hands. Enraged, Omega gathers all the negative energy of the Dragon Balls into one enormous sphere and hurls it at him. That is exactly what Gogeta wanted: he kicks it away while pouring his own energy into it, turning it positive, and the blast in the sky clears the evil haze that had been choking the Earth.
Then comes the serious attack, a Big Bang Kamehameha whose name marries Vegeta's and Goku's signature moves. The dragon is shattered, coughs up six Dragon Balls and reverts to Syn Shenron, alive by a thread. Gogeta charges the finishing blow, and at that very moment the fusion comes undone. Goku is stunned: not even ten minutes have passed instead of the usual half hour, perhaps because the power of two Super Saiyan 4s burned through the time limit.
The dragon calls the Dragon Balls back, but Goku snatches the Four-Star Ball out of the air, the keepsake of his Grandpa Gohan.
Our take
Anyone who remembered Gogeta from Fusion Reborn, the 1995 movie that introduced him, met a different character here. On the big screen he wrapped up Janemba in moments, cold and relentless; here he is a cocky prankster, and plenty of fans see that as a flaw. Yet the jokes have a purpose: to make the dragon lose his temper and throw his strongest attack, the one thing Gogeta can turn around to cleanse the planet. That victory matters more than beating the dragon himself.
Then there is the time limit. The thirty-minute rule is the one from our guide on how to do the Fusion Dance, and back in Z the strongest forms already cut it short. Here it becomes the device that takes an overpowered trump card off the table, with a deliberately cruel ending: the mightiest warrior in the series vanishing an instant before the decisive blow. The best moment, though, is a small one: Goku watching his son and his rival's son fight together.
Trivia
- Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with Yūji Hakamada as animation director.
- Episode 59 had aired on September 17, 1997.
- The GT Gogeta was designed by Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, the movie version by Tadayoshi Yamamuro.
- The Dragon Ball GT Perfect Files call Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta dozens of times stronger than a regular Super Saiyan 4.
- In Japanese, Gogeta speaks with two overlapping voices, those of Masako Nozawa and Ryō Horikawa, who voice Goku and Vegeta.
- Funimation's dub first aired in the United States on January 1, 2005.