First broadcast in Japan on April 15, 1992 and titled Deadly Beauty in Funimation's dub, episode 135 of Dragon Ball Z is where Vegeta's pride runs straight into a wall. Freshly transformed into a Super Saiyan, the prince picks Android 18 as his opponent, sure he can dispatch her quickly, and for a while he looks like he might. Then she stops holding back.
Summary
On the mountain road where the two sides met, Vegeta asks which of the three Androids wants to go first. Android 16 has no interest in fighting, so Android 18 steps forward. The opening exchanges are even, and if anything Vegeta lands the cleaner blows, so much so that Android 17 admits the Saiyan is far stronger than their data suggested. He still expects his sister to win.
The fight spills off the road. Android 18 leads Vegeta over a busy highway, where they trade blows while hopping from car to car, and a truck gets torn open by a stray shot. Meanwhile Trunks, Piccolo, Krillin and Tien race toward the battle. Trunks, who has seen what the Androids did to his future, begs his father to fall back, but Vegeta won't hear of it and turns down any help. Android 17 lays out the terms: as long as nobody interferes, he'll stay on the sidelines.
Vegeta hurls 18 into a mountainside and engulfs her in a blast. She climbs out with her hair mussed and her clothes torn, sheds her ruined jacket and asks, almost amused, whether Goku is stronger than him. From there the duel flips. Android 18 blocks everything without breaking a sweat, and Piccolo is the first to see why: every attack drains Vegeta, while the Android runs on an unlimited supply of energy. After a string of misses, 18 slips past one more punch and snaps his arm with a single kick. As the prince goes down screaming, Trunks powers up and charges in to save him.
Far from the fight, Gohan flies home carrying Bulma, baby Trunks and a constantly complaining Yajirobe; Chi-Chi and Yamcha keep watch over the sick Goku; and at Kame House, Maron goes windsurfing while Master Roshi looks on.
Our take
This episode is built around one idea and commits to it: being a Super Saiyan is no longer enough. After the Frieza arc the transformation was the ultimate goal, and here, for the first time, a Super Saiyan loses a straight fight with no excuses. The Androids' infinite stamina, spelled out by Piccolo, is the tactical heart of the whole arc. The problem isn't raw strength anymore, it's endurance.
The anime stretches its two chapters freely. In the manga, Vegeta and 18 never leave the mountain road; here the brawl sprawls across fields and highways, wrecking cars and terrifying drivers. Also anime-only are the in-flight scenes with Gohan, where baby Trunks pees on Yajirobe's head, Maron's windsurfing and Chi-Chi and Yamcha's vigil. The gags lighten the mood, but they cut into the tension just as the duel is about to turn.
The ending is the payoff. Watching Vegeta's face slide from swagger to fear is worth the episode on its own, and it plants the obsession that will drive him to look for a level beyond Super Saiyan.
Trivia
- It adapts chapters 352 and 353 of the manga. Written by Aya Matsui and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with animation direction by Yukio Ebisawa, it drew a 19.4% share.
- In Italy it aired on Italia 1 on September 7, 2000.
- The Japanese title plays on the gap between 18's looks and her power: roughly, "A cute face and super strength?! No. 18 has no blind spot."
Did you know? When Android 18 takes off her jacket, a Red Ribbon Army logo is visible on her black top, yet it vanishes in some later shots: one of several small animation slips in this episode.