The 133rd episode of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on March 25, 1992 and titled Nightmare Comes True in Funimation's dub, delivers on its Japanese title: the terror becomes reality. After a chase through the northern mountains, Dr. Gero reaches his laboratory and switches on the two androids who ravaged Trunks's future. His pursuers reach the door a few moments too late.
Summary
At home, Goku tosses in his sleep. He dreams he is fighting Androids 19 and 20 again, until the older android morphs into a stretchy pink monster that chokes him. A tearful Chi-Chi tries to soothe him while Yamcha looks on anxiously: the medicine hasn't kicked in yet.
Meanwhile Vegeta and Trunks scour the mountains. The young man tries to convey how terrifying Androids 17 and 18 are, with the opposite effect: the prince can't wait to fight them. Gohan, flying Bulma and Yajirobe home, hears his father mentioned and suddenly speeds up, worried about his health.
Krillin, Piccolo and Tien reach the area Bulma described and split up to cover more ground. Racing toward his lab, Dr. Gero gets shot at by a hunter who mistakes him for an animal. His reaction draws Krillin's attention, but the android ambushes him from behind and knocks him out of the fight. Spotting Piccolo nearby, Gero decides not to draw attention and runs on. Battered, Krillin follows him to the lab entrance but can't stop him from locking himself in, so he flares his energy to summon the others.
Inside, the scientist opens the capsules of Androids 17 and 18 and reveals that he turned himself into a cyborg as well. The pair, however, seem in no mood to obey: Android 17 snatches the remote that could shut them down from his creator's hand and destroys it. Outside, Piccolo and Tien arrive, followed by Vegeta and Trunks, who begs him not to go in. Vegeta blasts the door open.
Our take
Half of this episode is anime-original material, and it shows. Goku's nightmare, Gohan's flight and above all the hunter with the rifle, followed by Krillin's scuffle with Gero, give the manga room to breathe at a point where it was moving fast. Some of it works: the nightmare makes the hero's weakness tangible, and the hunter adds a grotesque touch to an otherwise straightforward chase. Other bits, like Gohan's detour, are just padding.
The ending repays the wait. After two mechanical-looking androids, Android 17 and Android 18 look like ordinary teenagers, and that ordinariness is precisely what makes them unsettling. Android 17 crushing the remote says it all: Gero has just unleashed something he can't control. This is where Trunks's story stops being a distant memory and becomes the present.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 349 and the first three pages of chapter 350. Written by Takao Koyama and directed by Yoshihiro Ueda, with animation supervision by Tadayoshi Yamamuro, it drew a 21.3% share.
- The hunter who shoots at Gero closely resembles the farmer who aimed his shotgun at Raditz in the very first episode of Dragon Ball Z.
- When Android 17 grabs the remote, Gero's right hand appears intact, even though Piccolo had torn it off two episodes earlier.
Did you know? The rubbery pink monster in Goku's nightmare, stretching its arm to strangle him, looks like a preview of Majin Buu, who wouldn't show up until years later.