Episode 266 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on May 31, 1995 and titled The Elder Kai's Weapon in Funimation's dub, is where the saga shifts gear. On Earth, Super Buu has the powers of Gotenks and Piccolo and has Gohan on the ropes. On the Sacred World of the Kai, the Elder Kai makes an unprecedented choice: he gives his own life to Goku so he can go back and fight. And in Other World, King Yemma calls an old enemy back into service: Vegeta.
Summary
Super Buu punishes Gohan with the weapons of those he swallowed: Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon and Gotenks' kamikaze ghosts. Gohan blocks the beam, but it nearly drains him. From the Sacred World of the Kai, Goku watches, barely breathing.
Buu grabs Gohan by the throat and charges the finishing blow. Just then, the little dog Bee runs up barking, and Mr. Satan (Hercule in the dub) kicks the monster in the head to protect him. Buu hesitates, as if remembering the days he spent with them, then decides to kill them both. Gohan recovers just enough to strike him and save them. Buu binds him with Gotenks' energy rings and fires a Kamehameha, which Gohan dodges by breaking free at the last second.
On the sacred world, Goku wants to rush to his son, but he is dead and cannot return to the world of the living. The Elder Kai has the answer: he will give Goku his life. He says goodbye, keels over, and the halo moves from Goku's head to his own. A moment later he sits back up and scolds Goku to hurry, because he refuses to have died for nothing. Meanwhile, at King Yemma's palace, Vegeta is handed a body once more along with a mission to save the Earth, with Fortuneteller Baba as his escort. The Saiyan prince smirks: the afterlife is asking a villain for help.
As Gohan runs for his life, the Elder Kai lays out his plan: Goku must fuse with his son. There is no time for the Fusion Dance, so the old god takes off his Potara earrings and hands them over. If two people each wear one, they become a single warrior.
Our take
The Elder Kai's sacrifice is played almost as a gag: he dies, flops over, and pops right back up with a halo, grumbling. That is how Toriyama treats his gods, never fully solemn. Yet the gesture carries weight. After the Cell Games, Goku chose to stay in Other World, convinced the Earth was safer without him; now a deity decides the universe cannot do without him. The Japanese title, "For the sake of the entire universe", says it outright.
The Earth half is hard to watch, in a good way. The anime additions have Gohan hit by the signature moves of his mentor and of the two boys, which makes absorption feel concrete and cruel. More intriguing is Buu's hesitation in front of Bee and Mr. Satan, which is not in the manga: for an instant the monster seems to remember his life as the good Buu, as if that side of him had not entirely vanished.
Then there is Vegeta. His return after the explosion he sacrificed himself in is an event in itself, and his smirk sets up the clash to come. The universe's hopes now rest on two Saiyans who have never been able to stand each other.
Trivia
- It adapts pages 7, 9 and 10 of chapter 500 and the first six pages of chapter 501. Written by Sumio Uetake and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Keisuke Masunaga as animation director.
- It drew a 16.0% share in Japan.
- The Special Beam Cannon and kamikaze ghosts, Bee and Mr. Satan's intervention and Buu's hesitation are all anime additions.
Did you know? Goku and Vegeta return to Earth on very different terms. Goku loses his halo because he is genuinely alive again; Vegeta keeps his. King Yemma gave him a body, but he is still a dead man on leave.
Characters
- Gohan and Super Buu
- Mr. Satan and Bee
- Goku, the Elder Kai, Supreme Kai and Kibito
- Vegeta, King Yemma and Fortuneteller Baba