Episode 291, first broadcast in Japan on January 31, 1996 and titled Goku's Next Journey in Funimation's dub, is the last episode of Dragon Ball Z after nearly seven years on the air. Goku fights Uub, discovers enormous talent in the boy and decides to leave with him to train him. The series closes on two figures flying toward the horizon.
Summary
Enraged by the insults, Uub attacks, and the fight turns out to be surprisingly even. The boy learns as he goes: Goku blocks one of his kicks and is left with a throbbing arm, then lets him take the initiative to gauge his limits. Mr. Satan and the good Buu come out to watch, while two frightened competitors try to sneak away.
When a shout from Uub blasts Goku into the air, the Saiyan stays hovering and realizes the truth: the kid cannot fly, because nobody has ever taught him. He calls off the match, apologizes for the insults, meant only to provoke him, and offers to go live in Uub's village and train him. Uub hesitates, since his family is poor and he needed the prize money; Goku says he will borrow it from Mr. Satan. From now on, he tells him, protecting the peace will be Uub's job.
Goku says goodbye to his friends: he will be gone for a while. Pan bursts into tears and he comforts her, tells Goten and Trunks to keep training and apologizes to Vegeta for the postponed rematch; the prince replies that their next fight will need another planet. Then Goku puts Uub on his back and heads south. Vegeta has seen through the plan: Goku is not just raising a defender for Earth but a worthy opponent. In midair Goku admits as much, while back at the stadium Pan entertains the crowd by beating Goten with a slap. The two vanish into the sky, shouting together.
Our take
It is a brave ending because it closes nothing. Goku came back to the tournament for an opponent and walks out mid-match; he has saved the universe and leaves without ceremony. The passing of the torch is there: the student of Master Roshi and King Kai becomes a master himself, entrusting the Earth to a child who carries the power of his greatest enemy. But the Japanese title tells the truth, and Vegeta is the one who spells it out: Goku's dream is to get even stronger, and Uub is first and foremost the promise of a new rival.
Compared with the manga, where the bout lasts only a few pages and Goku leaves in a hurry, the anime lengthens the fight and adds the farewells: Pan's tears, Vegeta's line about the planet, Chi-Chi being comforted by Gohan and Videl. It is the right way to say goodbye to a cast audiences had followed for almost seven years. And the final image of Z, Goku and Uub shrinking into the distance with whoops of joy, has the spirit of the earliest adventures: a journey just beginning.
The story, of course, does not end here. One week later Dragon Ball GT premiered, picking up five years after this tournament. Much later came Dragon Ball Super, set in the ten years between Buu's defeat and this finale: our watch order guide explains how the two continuities fit together.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 519, the final chapter of the manga, from page eight to the end. Written by Masashi Kubota and directed by Takahiro Imamura, with Shingo Ishikawa as animation director.
- Its 21.3% share is the highest of the last six episodes.
- It is the last episode with "We Gotta Power" as the opening and with music by Shunsuke Kikuchi, replaced on GT by Akihito Tokunaga.
- For the kanzenban reprint of the manga, Toriyama redrew the ending: Goku gives Uub the Flying Nimbus, and Vegeta vows that sooner or later he will beat Goku.