Episode 238 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on August 31, 1994 and titled Evil Lives On in Funimation's dub, crushes within minutes the hope born from Vegeta's sacrifice. The Saiyan prince is truly dead, but Majin Buu is not: the monster's scattered pieces find each other and fuse back together, and Babidi, cut in half but still alive, is patched up. Piccolo is left with just one card to play: Goten and Trunks.
Summary
Far from the battlefield, Bulma is flying in a Capsule Corporation plane with Chi-Chi, Yamcha, Videl, Android 18, little Marron, Master Roshi, the Ox-King and Puar. The group is gathering the Dragon Balls to bring back the spectators Vegeta killed at the tournament, and Bulma cannot understand why her husband did it. Suddenly the shockwave from a distant explosion rocks the plane. In the anime the aircraft breaks down and starts to fall: Android 18 flies out and guides it safely to the ground, and Yamcha then sets about repairing it. Bulma, meanwhile, has a feeling that something has happened to Vegeta.
At the site of the battle, all that is left of the prince is an ash silhouette that crumbles and scatters. His energy is gone. In the anime Piccolo had tried to turn back and stop him before Krillin held him back; now he leaves the two unconscious boys with Krillin and descends into the crater. He understands Vegeta's plan, to keep Buu from regenerating, and silently pays his respects. Then he finds Babidi's upper half, saved by a barrier, and prepares to finish him off.
He never gets the chance. All around him, tiny pink scraps begin to wriggle, turn into miniature Buus and fly toward each other until the monster is whole again. Piccolo flees. Buu giggles, back in one piece, until Babidi calls him over and orders him to heal him. The monster hesitates; the wizard threatens to seal him away again, and Buu obeys. Restored, Babidi decides that before destroying the Earth he wants to make the ones who humiliated him suffer: the green Namekian and the two brats. His plan is simple: kill people until the three of them show themselves.
Piccolo reaches Krillin with the news: Buu is alive, and Vegeta died for nothing. With Goku missing and Gohan believed dead, the two boys are the only hope left, and they must be taken to the safety of the Lookout. Elsewhere, a battered Supreme Kai stumbles along searching for Gohan.
Our take
Buu's resurrection is the same cruel joke Cell once played on Goku: a total sacrifice, an explosion that seems to settle everything, and an enemy who rebuilds himself from a fragment. Toriyama repeats the trick on purpose and makes it even crueler, because this time the victim had just made the first selfless gesture of his life. The Japanese title, "The Nightmare Again", says it all.
The episode is not only despair, though. It brings back Bulma's group, which will fill a good part of the next two installments, and it changes Babidi's nature: from conqueror to avenger, with a personal goal that will shape the next phase of the saga. And there is Piccolo's quiet tribute to Vegeta, a sign of how much the relationship between Goku's two former enemies has changed.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 468 of the manga. Written by Takao Koyama and directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with Masayuki Uchiyama as animation director.
- It earned a 21.0% share.
- Piccolo trying to go back to Vegeta, the plane breaking down and being saved by Android 18, and Yamcha repairing it are anime additions.
- Oolong does not appear, even though the whole group is shown outside the plane; he is back in the following episode.
- Funimation's version premiered on Cartoon Network only on September 16, 2002, ten months after the previous episode; Ocean's Canadian dub had already aired it in May 2002.
Characters
- Majin Buu and Babidi
- Piccolo and Krillin, with Goten and Trunks unconscious
- Bulma, Chi-Chi, Yamcha, Videl, Android 18 and Marron
- Master Roshi, the Ox-King and Puar
- Supreme Kai (Shin) and Vegeta