Episode 276 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on August 23, 1995 and titled Evil Kid Buu! in Funimation's dub, closes the long stretch inside Majin Buu's body. Goku and Vegeta find the monster's weak spot, free their friends and get out, but the win triggers one last transformation: Super Buu shrinks back to his original form.
Summary
Deep inside Super Buu, Goku frees Vegeta from the pink mass about to absorb him. With the Saiyan prince out cold, Goku faces the enemy's avatar alone, firing blast after blast, even a full-power wave, without really hurting him. When a stray shot is about to hit the pod holding good Buu, Super Buu throws himself in the way to shield it. It is a detail that Vegeta, just coming to, does not miss.
As Super Buu is about to swallow Goku too, Vegeta plants himself next to the pod and threatens to rip it out. The monster drops his prey and begs him to stop. Vegeta pulls with everything he has and the pod comes loose. Super Buu's avatar writhes, resurfaces for a second screaming and melts into a puddle. Outside, Dende and Mr. Satan (Hercule) watch the pink giant double over in pain.
The two Saiyans gather the pods holding Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Piccolo and hunt for an exit. They find one in a vent where Buu lets off steam: Goku holds back the blast with a Kamehameha just long enough for them to slip through. Outside they return to normal size, but the four are still unconscious.
Meanwhile Super Buu is changing. First he swells into a hulking shape, then he shrinks into a small, childlike creature. On the Sacred World of the Kai, Kibito Kai realizes with horror what is happening: Buu is reverting to what he was in the beginning. Goku and Vegeta, on the other hand, look at that tiny frame and think he is finally within their reach.
Our take
The saga sheds its skin here, thanks to a hunch from Vegeta. Super Buu diving in front of the pod is an almost buried moment, yet the whole turn rests on it: the monster who absorbed everyone in his path is suddenly afraid of something, and that something is the part of himself he swallowed to get stronger. That Vegeta spots it and not Goku says a lot about the pair: one fights on instinct, the other watches and finds the crack.
Then there is the birth of Kid Buu. The design runs against the grain: after ever bigger forms, the final villain of Z is the smallest of them all, with the stare of a spoiled child. Akira Toriyama had played that card with Frieza, more compact and more lethal in his final form; here he takes it to the limit. Goku and Vegeta's mistake, assuming that a smaller body means less power, sets up the shock of the next episode perfectly.
The anime pads out the escape: in the manga the Saiyans never fight the enemy from inside, Super Buu's head does not burst back up screaming and no Kamehameha is needed against the steam. It feels like filler at times, but the ending, with the transformation seen by two Saiyans still holding their friends' bodies, lands.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 507 from page six to the end and the first three pages of chapter 508. Written by Atsushi Maekawa and directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with Shingo Ishikawa as animation director.
- It drew a 15.9% share.
- It marks Kid Buu's first appearance in the anime.
- Funimation's dub aired it on November 19, 2002; the next episode followed almost four months later, on March 17, 2003.
Did you know? The hulking form Buu passes through for a few seconds is the shape he took millions of years earlier after absorbing a Supreme Kai, as Episode 277 reveals.