The 140th episode of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on May 20, 1992 and titled Seized with Fear in Funimation's dub, opens the Cell saga with an investigation rather than a fight. With Goku still bedridden by the heart virus that struck him during the Androids Saga, Trunks, Gohan and Bulma track down the time machine from the mysterious photo and find two unsettling clues: a hatched egg and the shed skin of something newly born.
Summary
Aboard a Capsule Corporation aircraft, Krillin, Yamcha, Gohan, Chi-Chi and Trunks are flying an unconscious Goku to Kame House. Bulma calls with news: a man in the mountains has found a vehicle bearing her company's logo, and she faxes over a picture. Trunks recognizes it at once. It is his time machine, overgrown with moss and with a gaping hole in the canopy. Gohan volunteers to go with him, although Chi-Chi reminds him he has homework.
At the site the two split up, and Gohan is the one who spots the machine. Once Bulma arrives, Trunks pops his own machine out of its capsule and parks it beside the wreck. They are identical, right down to the word "Hope" painted on the hull. Gohan notices that the canopy was broken from the inside, and in the cockpit Trunks finds the two halves of an oddly shaped eggshell. Powering up the controls, he reads the arrival date: four years earlier, a full year before he killed Frieza.
The mystery turns darker when Gohan wanders off and finds the empty husk of a huge, insect-like creature. Trunks reaches into the split along its back and pulls out a hand coated in fresh fluid. Whatever shed that skin did so recently and cannot have gone far. A shaken Bulma takes the eggshell to study it.
On Kami's Lookout, meanwhile, Kami tells Piccolo and Mr. Popo that he has sensed an evil presence far more dangerous than the Androids. At Kame House, Krillin fills Master Roshi and Oolong in on recent events, and Androids 16, 17 and 18 keep driving in their van in search of Goku.
Our take
After the nonstop brawling of the previous arc, Toei opens this one almost like a horror movie: a silent forest, an abandoned machine, an empty shell. It is a slow start, but an effective one, because it shifts the tension from raw power to the unknown.
The Japanese title calls Trunks "terrified," and that is the key detail. The boy from the future, until now the one who always knew what was coming, faces an event his own history never included. His theory that the mysterious passenger is responsible for the changes he has noticed will turn out to be wrong, though: those changes stem from his own trip.
The anime's additions are minor: Krillin's recap at Kame House, Android 18 needling a listless Android 16 during the drive, and Chi-Chi's homework excuse, whereas in the manga she simply worries about her son's safety. The scene order shifts too, with Kami's warning moved after the discovery of the husk, when the unease is already at its peak. In Dragon Ball Kai, this whole stretch is heavily condensed starting with episode 68.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 358 and the first eight pages of chapter 359. Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa and directed by Yoshihiro Ueda, with animation supervision by Kazuya Hisada, it drew a 20.2% share.
- Funimation's dub premiered it on Cartoon Network on October 4, 2000, as the first episode of its "Imperfect Cell Saga," which runs through episode 152.
- Ranfan, the fighter from the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament, makes a brief cameo while Master Roshi boasts about his youthful success with women.
Did you know? When Bulma leaves to meet Trunks, her mother is shown with her eyes open, only the second time that happens in the series.
Characters
- Trunks, Gohan and Bulma
- Goku, unconscious, and Chi-Chi
- Krillin, Yamcha, Master Roshi and Oolong
- Kami, Piccolo and Mr. Popo
- Androids 16, 17 and 18
- Bulma's mother