Episode 103 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on August 14, 1991 and titled Pathos of Frieza in Funimation's dub, is where the longest fight in the series is actually decided. Frieza starts to crack, Goku realizes he has won and makes a choice the tyrant cannot stand: he spares him. The Japanese title, roughly "Pitiful Frieza! Once he starts trembling, he can't stop!", says it all.
Summary
As Namek keeps crumbling, Goku and Frieza trade furious blows: each lands something, neither seems able to take over. On his planet, King Kai tells Yamcha, Tien and Chiaotzu that very little remains of the five minutes the planet was given.
On Earth, to keep her spirits up, Bulma tries to read Goku's fate with a leaf ritual: she draws a circle on the ground, places three leaves inside it and asks Dende to burn them. If they all burn, Goku will come home safe. The wind blows them away before the fire can finish. Gohan is unfazed: he is sure his father will make it.
On Namek, after a long series of attacks, Goku drives a decisive punch into Frieza's stomach. The tyrant refuses to give up and keeps trying, but he is pushed back every time. His 100% form is taking its toll: his body cannot handle the strain and his energy is visibly dropping. Goku notices and calls off the fight. There is no point, he explains, in fighting someone who is shaking with fear: he has already shattered Frieza's pride, and that is enough. He powers down, tells him never to harm anyone again and flies off.
For Frieza this is the ultimate humiliation: beaten and then pardoned by a Saiyan. He forms a spinning energy disc and launches it at his opponent's back. Goku notices at the last moment, the disc grazes his cheek and keeps chasing him. Furious, the Saiyan transforms again and starts dodging until, as a last resort, he charges straight at Frieza.
Our take
This is the moral turning point of the duel. Toriyama built Frieza as a being who has never known defeat, and here he shows him discovering fear. Goku does not kill him, and not out of naive kindness: for a fighter like him, victory is complete the moment the opponent understands he is outclassed. For Frieza, being spared is worse than dying. That gap between two ways of understanding combat drives the next two episodes.
The pacing, though, belongs to Namek's famous "five minutes." Frieza announced them in episode 97 and the planet will not explode until episode 106: this is the eighth episode of that countdown, and the duel, which began in episode 87, has now run for over four months of airtime. The anime adds King Kai's recap and Bulma's leaf ritual, neither of which exists in the manga. Above all, apart from the punch to the stomach, the choreography leading up to Goku's withdrawal is completely different from what Toriyama drew: the animators reinvent it to fill the minutes.
The leaf ritual at least earns its place. The failed omen foreshadows the fear that Goku will not return, a fear that becomes real for everyone on Earth three episodes later.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 325 from its second page onward. Written by Hiroshi Toda and directed by Yoshihiro Ueda, it drew a 17.4% share.
- The manga's original choreography was finally animated years later, in the flashback of the Future Trunks Special Edition of Resurrection 'F'.
- In the dub, a weakened Frieza calls out "...Peace? No peace!", echoing a line from the 1996 film Independence Day.
Did you know? The homing disc Frieza throws here is his own take on Krillin's Destructo Disc, with a cruel twist: it follows its target.
Characters
- Goku and Frieza
- Bulma, Gohan and Dende
- Vegeta, Piccolo and the Namekians on Earth
- King Kai, Yamcha, Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu