Episode 120 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on December 11, 1991 and titled Another Super Saiyan? in Funimation's dub, brings Frieza's story to an abrupt and unforgettable end. The mysterious youth proves he is a Super Saiyan like Goku and dispatches the tyrant with a single stroke. The Japanese title, "Frieza Halved by a Single Stroke!!", makes no effort to hide the ending.
Summary
Frieza and King Cold laugh at the stranger, sure he will be no trouble. Their soldiers attack and are cut down one after another; the lone survivor backs away in terror, and Frieza kills him by running him through with his hand. The youth declares that he knows the two came to Earth to die, reveals that he knows Goku, and adds that he is a Super Saiyan too. Frieza bursts out laughing, but the laugh dies when the young man's energy explodes and his hair turns gold.
Hidden among the rocks, Goku's friends wonder whether that energy is his. Vegeta immediately realizes it cannot be, and the idea of another Super Saiyan infuriates him. In between, he calls Bulma stupid, and Yamcha only makes things worse by trying to defend her.
Frieza attacks several times to no effect, then raises a gigantic energy sphere, ten times stronger than the one that destroyed Namek, meaning to wipe out the youth along with the planet. The young man stops it with one hand. Frieza detonates it and, convinced he has won, gets teased by his father for taking so long. But the youth is alive: he fires a Burning Attack, Frieza dodges upward and finds him waiting, sword drawn. One vertical stroke, and the emperor of evil is cut in two before King Cold's disbelieving eyes.
Our take
In Toriyama's manga Frieza's end is lightning-fast, and that is exactly why it shocks: chapter 331 disposes of him in a few pages. The anime, adapting that chapter from page 3 onward, stretches the fight with a series of futile attacks and adds the soldier executed by his own commander. The impact gets a little diluted, but the point survives: the villain who held the series hostage for dozens of episodes is swept away by an unknown teenager in a matter of minutes. In the manga, Gohan also notes that Frieza wasn't using his full power, a detail the anime drops.
The real news, though, is the transformation. Until now Super Saiyan had been mostly a legend and the product of Goku's rage on Namek. Trunks, as we will learn, reaches it on command, as naturally as breathing. For Vegeta it is a slap in the face, and his frustration will drive the whole arc.
Frieza leaves the stage here, seemingly for good. He will only return many years later, in the movie Resurrection 'F', when Toriyama decides to bring him back.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 331 from page 3 to the end. Written by Takao Koyama and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with animation direction by Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, it drew a 22.6% share.
- It is the last episode of Dragon Ball Z to feature a scouter.
- In Japanese, Frieza kills his soldier simply because he is in the way; in Funimation's dub he executes him for cowardice.
- Bruce Faulconer wrote a cue called "Frieza's Death" for this episode, then dropped it as too heroic, since viewers weren't yet supposed to know whose side the youth was on.
Did you know? The energy sphere Frieza aims at Earth closely resembles the one he used years earlier to destroy Planet Vegeta.