Episode 64, first broadcast in Japan on November 19, 1997 and titled Until We Meet Again in Funimation's dub, is the last episode of Dragon Ball GT: for almost eighteen years no Dragon Ball TV series would tell a new story. Shenron takes Goku away and, a century later, an elderly Pan thinks she sees him in the crowd at a World Martial Arts Tournament.
Summary
Shenron heals Goku and explains: the Shadow Dragons and the merging of this world and the next are the price of abusing the Dragon Balls, which will now vanish with him. Goku asks one last favor: revive everyone who died through no fault of their own. Giru is among those revived.
Shenron tells Goku to climb on. Goku says he will be right back and hushes Vegeta, who has sensed something. Chi-Chi shouts at him to be home for dinner; Bulma remembers meeting him on Mount Paozu, where it all began.
First stop, Kame House: Goku finds Master Roshi and Krillin, just revived, and the two have one last play fight, won by Krillin with a suspiciously easy feint. When he turns around Goku is gone, and Roshi silently thanks Shenron for the Dragon Balls. Second stop, Hell: Goku shakes hands with Piccolo, who now keeps watch over the damned, and promises never to forget what he owes him.
Pan inexplicably finds her grandfather's tattered gi, and Vegeta simply tells her to take care of it. Goku lies down on the dragon's back; the Dragon Balls enter his body one by one, and he vanishes with the last, the Four-Star Ball.
A hundred years later, in the junior division final of the World Martial Arts Tournament, Goku's descendant Goku Jr., wearing that gi, faces Vegeta Jr., whose mother, a dead ringer for Bulma, sits next to Pan. Both boys turn Super Saiyan, and in the stands Pan spots Goku, an adult again. She chases him, in vain. He walks through the crowd as memories of a lifetime roll by, then catches his Power Pole and flies off on the Flying Nimbus.
Our take
The Z finale was brave because it closed nothing; this one is brave for the opposite reason. The Dragon Balls, which set the story in motion back in 1986, leave the stage with Goku, and the idea that every wish has a price becomes the moral of the series. Goku spends his last wish on repairs, then gives up the tool that had undone every tragedy for twenty years.
The goodbyes are written with rare delicacy. Goku says farewell to no one: he lets Chi-Chi believe he will be back, silences Vegeta, gives Krillin a feint and Piccolo a handshake. The others understand, one at a time. And the gi left on the ground is the strongest clue: whoever climbs onto the dragon is no longer quite the old Goku. What he has become, the episode never says. The Dragon Balls entering his body, with Grandpa Gohan's four-star ball last, suggest a union with the dragon; some fans read it as a death, others as an ascension. The special A Hero's Legacy, set before the tournament, has him appear to Goku Jr. as a mysterious presence.
The hundred-year leap mirrors the beginning: a little Goku, a little Vegeta, a cheering grandmother. The final montage, from Grandpa Gohan finding the baby to Baby's defeat, brings back the opening theme, "Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku". In Japanese, Pan is sure Goku really came; Funimation turns it into an old woman doubting her own eyes.
Our Dragon Ball GT guide covers the series; our watch order explains how it fits with Dragon Ball Super.
Trivia
- Directed by Hidehiko Kadota from storyboards by Yoshihiro Ueda, written by Atsushi Maekawa, with Naoki Miyahara as animation director.
- The tournament's number is never said: the "64th" found on wikis is a convention.
- Vegeta Jr.'s mother is voiced by Hiromi Tsuru, Bulma's longtime Japanese voice.
- Funimation's dub replaces "Dan Dan" with Mark Menza's score; it was Stephanie Nadolny's last outing as Goku until Dragon Ball Daima.
Did you know? In Japanese, Goku is silent in the final scene and the narrator closes the story; his "'Til we meet again, guys!" was added in English, with Sean Schemmel back as adult Goku.