Episode 274 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on August 9, 1995 and titled Mind Trap in Funimation's dub, is almost entirely an anime invention. Goku and Vegeta push on through Super Buu's body past giant worms and floods, then reach the monster's head, where hostile copies of Gohan, Gotenks and Piccolo are waiting. Only in the final minutes does the story rejoin the manga, as the real friends are found.
Summary
Goku shakes off the slimes with a burst of energy and blasts the worm that was about to eat him; outside, Buu clutches his stomach. A second worm shows up and calls for its father, a huge specimen. Vegeta, who cannot stand worms, fires at him, and the giant simply swallows the blasts. He then scolds his sons, who have a habit of eating anything that moves, and apologizes to the two Saiyans. The little ones say they have seen their sons and point the way.
Outside, Buu has a stomachache. He conjures up a toilet in the middle of nowhere and shuts himself inside. Mr. Satan (Hercule), hiding with Dende, thinks this is the perfect moment to catch him, but an unbearable stench knocks them both out. Inside the body, a surge of liquid sweeps Goku, Vegeta and the worms toward the least dignified exit imaginable. Vegeta flatly refuses: he blasts a hole in the wall of the duct and flies off, with Goku right behind.
After a long climb the two reach Buu's head, split up, and find what look like their comrades. But Gohan, Gotenks and Piccolo attack them: Goku ends up fighting his son, Vegeta takes on Gotenks and Piccolo. The two hesitate to hit back for real, and even when they do, their opponents get up every time as if nothing happened.
Just when there seems to be no way out, Buu gets hungry and his head fills with thoughts of sweets. Instantly the three attackers turn into desserts: they were nothing but images conjured from the monster's memories. Soon after, Goku and Vegeta find the real Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Piccolo, sealed in pods attached to the walls, unconscious but alive.
Our take
To see how freely this episode treats its source, look at the numbers: from chapter 506 it adapts only pages 8 and 9, where Vegeta finds Piccolo and Goku spots the boys in their pods. Everything else, the worm family, the toilet, the flood and the illusions, is original material. In the manga the two find their friends almost right after splitting up.
The Japanese title sells the episode on the promise of a father-son clash between Goku and Gohan, and the scene has its appeal: it is a fight the series never staged for real, allowed here only as a dream, or rather a nightmare. The idea of copies born from Buu's memory also has an internal logic, since the monster knows those fighters intimately; they are literally inside him. The payoff, with the illusions turning into cakes the moment Buu thinks about food, fits the character and closes the sequence with a smile.
Toilet humor may feel out of place this close to the finale, but it is not alien to Toriyama, who made childish comedy a trademark back in Dr. Slump. The weaker part is the middle stretch, which lengthens the journey without moving the story forward.
Trivia
- It adapts only pages 8 and 9 of chapter 506; the rest is an anime addition. Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with Keisuke Masunaga as animation director.
- It drew a 14.7% share in Japan.
- The toilet scene, with Dende and Mr. Satan knocked out by the smell, was cut from the televised version of Funimation's dub and from the Ocean dub.
- In a few shots Goku and Vegeta flicker between base form and Super Saiyan, a small animation slip.
Did you know? In Dragon Ball Kai, which cuts the anime additions, the whole of chapter 506 fits into a single episode, number 148.