Episode 180 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on April 7, 1993 and titled The Fight is Over in Funimation's dub, ends on one of the most disarming lines in the series. After regrowing half his body and weathering his rival's last assault, Cell is still standing and breathing easy. Goku, on the other hand, is at his limit: he smiles, drops his guard and announces that he gives up.
Summary
When the dust from the Kamehameha settles, all that remains of Cell is his legs and part of his torso. Yamcha and Tien celebrate, and the ZTV reporter tells the world that Cell has been beaten before Mr. Satan could get back in the ring. Goku, however, can still sense his enemy's energy. Moments later the mangled body stands, trembles and rebuilds everything it lost: Cell explains that he inherited Piccolo's ability to regenerate.
The duel resumes on even terms, with savage blows and afterimages that leave neither fighter sure where the other is. At Kame House, Bulma arrives with baby Trunks to watch alongside Master Roshi. On the battlefield, Cell baits Goku with a taunt, buries a fist in his stomach and slams him into the rocks. As he closes in to finish him, the Saiyan buries him under a nonstop barrage of energy blasts that pins him in place.
For a moment, it looks like it is over. Goku's friends allow themselves some optimism, while Gohan, Piccolo and Vegeta stay silent. Inside the smoke, Cell wraps himself in an energy barrier that swells until it nearly sweeps away the spectators. He emerges smiling. In front of his TV, Master Roshi says aloud what nobody wants to hear: Goku cannot win, and he knows it.
Cell mockingly suggests that Goku eat a senzu bean. Trunks proposes giving him one and attacking together, but Vegeta shuts him down: Goku is no longer fighting for the Earth but for himself, and he is going to lose. Through gritted teeth, the Saiyan prince also admits that Goku has surpassed him. Just then Goku relaxes, drops back to the ground and declares that he surrenders.
Our take
Goku's surrender is one of the most debated moments of the saga, and rightly so: it is the least Goku-like thing anyone could have imagined. For the entire series we have watched him get back up against stronger opponents; here, in the middle of a duel he is losing by a small margin, he chooses to stop. The key is the smile. This is not the surrender of a beaten man but of someone who already has a plan, and the question mark at the end of the Japanese title hints as much.
Vegeta's scene works too. His admission that Goku has surpassed him carries more weight than it seems, because it comes from the character who built his whole identity on refusing that idea. And his reading of the fight, that Goku is now fighting only for himself, is the sharpest line in the episode: it sums up the protagonist's greatest strength and greatest flaw better than any speech.
The anime additions are many, from Chi-Chi's neighbors assuming her husband has dyed his hair to the complaint calls at ZTV, but for once they do not deflate the tension: they show a whole world hanging on a single screen.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 401 from page seven and the first twelve pages of chapter 402. Written by Hiroshi Toda and directed by Atsutoshi Umezawa, with Masahiro Shimanuki as animation director.
- Its 17.4% share is the lowest of any Cell Games episode.
- Android 16 is present at the battlefield but never appears on screen in this episode.
- Bulma's arrival at Kame House, Chi-Chi's sneeze and the reactions to Goku's surrender from characters far away are all anime additions.
- Later in the series Piccolo says he can only regenerate if his head is intact, while here Cell rebuilds himself from the legs up. Dragon Ball Kai smooths it over: every cell in his body has a life of its own.