Episode 237 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on August 24, 1994 and titled Final Atonement in Funimation's dub, contains Vegeta's most famous death. Freed by his son, the Saiyan prince realizes that Majin Buu cannot be beaten by ordinary means and decides to sacrifice himself. Before he does, he hugs Trunks for the first time in his life.
Summary
Trunks throws himself into the fight and Goten follows; in the anime Piccolo tries to hold Goten back, but lets him go when the boy points out that he would never have stopped Gohan. Trunks sends Buu flying with a kick, and the two kids free Vegeta from the rubbery binding. Goten worries that Vegeta is about to die, but Trunks will not hear it: his father is the prince of all Saiyans, his mom told him so.
Meanwhile Babidi sneers at Vegeta, sure that he has little time left. Piccolo appears behind him: he can do nothing against Buu, but the wizard is another matter. Babidi warns him that with him dead, no one will ever be able to seal the monster away again; Piccolo replies that the world is doomed either way. In the anime the wizard raises a barrier and tries a spell, but the Namekian brushes both aside and cuts him in half with a single strike.
Back on his feet, Vegeta orders the boys to take cover and asks Trunks to look after his mother. They insist on fighting alongside him. So the prince tells his son that he has never held him since he was a baby, and pulls him into a hug while Trunks squirms with embarrassment and Goten stares. Then he knocks Trunks out with a chop to the neck and drops Goten with a punch to the stomach.
When Piccolo arrives, Vegeta hands him the boys and asks one question: after he dies, will he see Goku again? The answer is no. He has killed too many innocents: he will lose his body, and his soul will be cleansed and reborn as a new being with no memories. Vegeta takes it calmly. As Piccolo and Krillin fly off, the Namekian explains that for the first time Vegeta is fighting for someone other than himself. Alone, the Saiyan vows to blow Buu into pieces too small to regenerate, silently says goodbye to Bulma, Trunks and Kakarot, and unleashes all his energy in a blinding explosion.
Our take
Vegeta entered Dragon Ball Z as an invader ready to destroy the Earth, and here he leaves it by giving his life to protect it. Only a few episodes earlier he let Babidi control him so he could become his old self again, and he massacred spectators at the tournament. That is why the sacrifice erases nothing, and Piccolo says as much. Funimation's English title, Final Atonement, captures that nuance well.
The hug works precisely because it is awkward. Toriyama never gave Vegeta tender gestures, and the character performs this one as if it were a combat move: he announces it almost like an order, carries it out, then knocks his son unconscious. It is the same trick he used on Goku shortly before, with its meaning turned inside out. The comparison with Goku against Cell is telling too: back then Goku teleported away with the enemy, while Vegeta stays put and accepts vanishing forever, without even the consolation of a hero's afterlife.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 466 from page nine and chapter 467, whose Japanese title means "Farewell, Proud Warrior". Written by Takao Koyama and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Yukio Ebisawa as animation director.
- The share rose to 20.3%, more than four points above the previous episode.
- Piccolo holding Goten back, Babidi's barrier and spell, and Trunks's line about his father being the prince of all Saiyans are anime additions.
- In the Japanese version Piccolo spells out what will happen to Vegeta's soul; Funimation's dub boils it down to Vegeta not getting "the same reward".
- Funimation's 2009 season 8 release mislabels this episode as episode 236.
Did you know? Vegeta's final shot, smiling and covered in blood just before the explosion, is rendered with a filter that imitates pastel chalk, a rare touch in the show's animation.