Episode 12 of Dragon Ball Z, Catnap on the Serpentine Road Goku Takes a Tumble, first aired in Japan on July 19, 1989, is an ensemble filler that checks in on every front of the year-long wait. Piccolo overdoes his training, Krillin and Bulma go to recruit Tien and Chiaotzu, and Goku, on Snake Way, takes a nap that will cost him dearly. The title gives the ending away.
Summary
In the middle of the desert, Piccolo trains by lifting huge pyramid-shaped blocks of stone with the power of his mind alone. But he misjudges his energy and sets off a tremor that shakes the ground for miles. Far away, Gohan finds himself at the edge of a crack that suddenly opens up, and he nearly falls in.
Krillin and Bulma, meanwhile, track down Tien and Chiaotzu. The pair live in seclusion near a waterfall, where they train without rest, and Launch is with them, having gone after Tien five years earlier. Launch cooks a lavish lunch and tries, without success, to talk Tien into robbing banks with her. Krillin tells them about Goku's death and the coming of the Saiyans. Tien does not hesitate: he too will train with Kami, and Chiaotzu will come along.
On Snake Way, Goku has been running for weeks and is exhausted. When a cleaning truck that patrols the road passes by, the driver offers him a lift, and Goku gladly accepts. Lulled by the ride in the back of the truck, he falls fast asleep. And in his sleep he rolls right off the edge of Snake Way, plunging toward the clouds that hide Hell.
Our take
This is a bridging episode invented entirely for the anime: in Akira Toriyama's manga, the year of training passes in a few panels, and the anime had to fill many weeks of airtime without catching up with the comic. The solution is to give everyone a little screen time, and here it works better than in other filler.
Tien and Chiaotzu's return is the best part. The two had not been seen since the end of the original series, and the episode reintroduces them in a way that fits who they had become: serious, somewhat ascetic warriors training far from everyone. Launch brings her usual lightness, and her idea of a "career" in bank robbery is a gag straight out of the 1980s. How quickly Tien agrees to fight says a lot about his respect for Goku.
Goku's fall from Snake Way, on the other hand, is a classic weekly cliffhanger, opening an afterlife adventure that fills the next episode. The whole Snake Way storyline is almost entirely anime material anyway: in the manga, Goku reaches King Kai far more quickly.
Trivia
- No footage from this episode was used in Dragon Ball Kai, which drops filler.
- In Japan the episode drew an 18.5% ratings share. It was written by Takao Koyama and directed by series director Daisuke Nishio.
- The 1996 English dub combined this episode and the next into Home For Infinite Losers: in the censored version, Hell was renamed HFIL.
- The 2005 uncut redub titled the episode Global Training.
Did you know? For fans at the time, the real surprise was seeing Tien again after years: since the end of Dragon Ball, he and Chiaotzu had had no role in the story at all.