Episode 282 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on November 8, 1995 and titled Old Buu Emerges in Funimation's dub, hands Vegeta's rescue to the last person anyone would expect. Mr. Satan (Hercule), convinced he is having a bad dream, picks a fight with Kid Buu. The monster is about to kill him when something stops him from the inside: the good Buu, who has not forgotten his friend.
Summary
Kid Buu drags Vegeta by the neck and slams him through the rocks until the prince drops back to his base form. Some distance away, Dende and Kibito Kai want to rush in and help Goku, but the Elder Kai holds them back: they would only give Goku one more thing to worry about.
Just as Buu gets ready to finish Vegeta, Mr. Satan steps out. The world champion is certain that everything he sees is a nightmare, and nothing in a dream can hurt you, so he strikes a pose, taunts the monster and goes on the attack. Goku can hardly believe his eyes. Buu drops Vegeta and turns to his new target, but as he is about to strike he freezes, clutches his head and screams in pain. Satan thinks his fighting spirit has scared him.
The truth is different. Inside Kid Buu, the good Buu, the fat Majin who had been absorbed, is still there, and he refuses to let his friend be killed. Annoyed, Kid Buu spits him out. In the anime, Satan runs to his old companion's motionless body, realizes Buu has protected him once again, and charges at Kid Buu in a rage, to no effect. The monster moves in to kill him, but a blast from the good Buu saves him: his friend has come to, and he is ready to fight his evil half.
From the ground, Vegeta tells Goku to use the duel between the two Buus to power up. But Goku realizes he is not just failing to build energy: he is losing it. Exhausted, he drops out of Super Saiyan 3 and returns to his normal state.
Our take
At the Cell Games, Mr. Satan was the clown: Cell backhanded him into a rock face, and he later took credit for Gohan's victory. Here he becomes decisive, and the clever part is that he does it without ceasing to be himself. Courage has nothing to do with it; a misunderstanding does, because he thinks he is dreaming. And yet, once he understands that the good Buu protected him, his anger is real.
The heart of it is his friendship with Majin Buu. Satan was the only one who treated that creature like a person, taught him that killing is wrong and shared the puppy Bee with him. Now that bond physically stops a murder: the part of Buu that cares about him is stronger, if only for a moment, than pure destruction. It is a genuinely tender moment, and it lays the groundwork for the redemption Satan will earn a few episodes later.
For Vegeta, on the other hand, it is a quiet humiliation: his stand is saved by a man he always looked down on. And the ending ramps the tension back up, because Goku loses his transformation just as things seemed to be opening up.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 511 from page ten to the end, all of chapter 512 and the first page of chapter 513. Written by Masashi Kubota and directed by Jun'ichi Fujise, with Yukio Ebisawa as animation director.
- It earned a 15.5% share.
- Dende and Kibito Kai's hesitation, and Satan's attack on Kid Buu after the good Buu is spat out, are anime additions.
Did you know? The Japanese title calls Fat Buu "Ganso Bū," where ganso means the originator, the original. Subtle irony: the monster's primordial form is Kid Buu, but for Satan and for viewers the "real" Buu is the fat one.
Characters
- Goku, Vegeta, Kid Buu and the good Buu
- Mr. Satan
- Dende, Kibito Kai and the Elder Kai