Episode 184 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on May 5, 1993 and titled Cell Juniors Attack! in Funimation's dub, is one of the most important in the entire series. As the Cell Juniors tear his friends apart, Gohan stays frozen, until Android 16's last words and death finally break the dam. With tears in his eyes, Goku's son reaches the form now known as Super Saiyan 2.
Summary
The seven Cell Juniors each pick an opponent and toy with their prey, giggling. Even Vegeta struggles to keep up with one. Piccolo is the only one who seems to have the upper hand, and with Tien and Yamcha he rushes to protect Goku, still drained from his fight with Cell. But the little creatures keep getting back up. One of them slams Krillin to the ground right in front of Gohan and pounds him before his eyes. Gohan realizes that, apart from Trunks, none of his friends could be wished back with the Dragon Balls.
One by one they all fall: Yamcha's arm is broken, Trunks crashes into the ground, Goku collapses from exhaustion, and Vegeta's Final Flash is swatted away. The shockwave sends Android 16's head rolling next to Mr. Satan. The champion is thinking of checking into a hospital until his stomachache clears when the head speaks: it asks to be taken to Gohan. Satan refuses, until Android 16 calls him "champion" and appeals to his pride. To his students' astonishment, Mr. Satan finds his courage: what kind of champion runs away while a child fights?
He crosses the battlefield through the explosions, cradling the head, and once close enough throws it between Cell and Gohan. Android 16 speaks to the boy: there is no sin in fighting for what is right, and some battles cannot be talked away. He asks Gohan to let his anger out and to protect the nature and animals he loved too. Cell walks over and crushes the head under his foot.
That is the breaking point. Gohan thinks of the birds, of Android 16's words, of his fallen friends. Weeping, he lets his rage take over, and his scream shakes the earth as his hair stands even sharper and his aura crackles with electricity.
Our take
This is the episode the tournament had been building toward, and every piece falls into place. Goku's plan was wrong in method but right in substance: Gohan does not get angry over his own pain, only over the pain of others. Cell gets there by trial and error, first the senzu beans, then the Cell Juniors, and in the end the spark comes from the least expected source.
Android 16's death is among the most moving in the series precisely because it is final: there is no afterlife or resurrection for him. A machine built to kill Goku leaves his son a legacy of birds, trees and animals. It is a perfect reversal of Dr. Gero's logic.
Then there is Mr. Satan, who for a moment stops being pure comic relief. He trembles, he makes excuses, but in the end he crosses a battlefield for a boy he does not know. It is the first sign of what the character will become in the Majin Buu saga. Gohan's transformation, scored with a vocal song, is the payoff: Earth's strongest warrior is no longer Goku but his son, and the Super Saiyan transformations enter a new stage.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 407. Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Keisuke Masunaga as animation director, it drew a 21.3% share.
- The transformation is set to the insert song "Unmei no Hi
Tamashii tai Tamashii", which Funimation's remastered release removes, leaving the scene silent on its default track. - Counting movies and specials, this is Yamcha's 200th appearance: only Goku, Bulma and Krillin have more.
- Android 16 appears in 47 episodes in total, and his is one of the few deaths in the series that is never undone.
- On Toonami the episode was renamed Children of Cell Attack.