In Episode 37 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on February 21, 1990 and known as Plans for Departure in Funimation's 2005 uncut dub, the plan to reach Namek goes up in smoke within seconds, quite literally. Putting it back together falls to a character who has so far stayed in the background: Mr. Popo, keeper of Kami's Lookout, who knows a secret buried in a desolate corner of the world.
Summary
Goku, Gohan and Krillin are in the hospital. Goku's screams while his bandages are changed terrify the other two, who try to sneak away when their turn comes, only to be hauled back by Chi-Chi and Master Roshi. Krillin and Gohan will be fine in a few days, while Goku faces months of recovery; Korin reassures him that a new crop of Senzu Beans will be ready in about a month.
Meanwhile, in the ruins of the city Nappa destroyed, a team of scientists is studying the Saiyan's pod. Bulma shows up at the hospital convinced she has figured out the remote Krillin took from Vegeta, and while everyone watches the news report she presses a button to make the pod move. It is the self-destruct: the ship explodes on live television, and with it their only way to Namek.
The gloom does not last. Mr. Popo appears outside the window on his flying carpet: he may know of another spaceship, but he needs someone with technical know-how. A reluctant Bulma follows him to the Yunzabit Heights, where an odd insect-shaped structure stands. Popo shares what Kami told him a century ago: as a boy he arrived there alone and waited a long time for parents who never came.
Bulma realizes that Kami's "house" is actually the ship that brought him to Earth. Saying the word "Piccolo" opens the entrance, but inside, the controls only respond to voice commands in the Namekian language. Luckily Popo learned it from his master. For a test flight Bulma picks Jupiter: the ship takes off at incredible speed and, after a botched request for a seat that produces a toilet and a bed, arrives in no time. It works.
Our take
A light episode, almost a sitcom, and a welcome one after the grief of the previous installment. The destruction of Nappa's pod is a perfectly cruel gag: an entire story arc nearly ending because of one wrong button.
The best part, though, is Popo's story. The manga gives the childhood of the Namekian who would become Kami a single panel; the anime expands it, showing the boy waiting for his parents among the rocks of Yunzabit and growing up alone until he leaves. It is a melancholy passage that adds depth to a character who has just died and lays the groundwork for everything we will learn about Namek.
The Bulma and Popo dynamic, made of suspicion and small misunderstandings, is pure entertainment: it is their first real meeting, and it shows.
Trivia
- Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa and directed by Jōhei Matsūra, with Mitsuo Shindō as animation supervisor.
- It adapts the second half of chapter 243 and chapter 244, with a 21.1% ratings share.
- Goku's fear of the hospital and the test flight to Jupiter, with the accidental toilet and bed, are anime additions.
- In the original broadcast, half of the next-episode preview was given over to a ticket lottery for the film The World's Strongest, released in Japanese theaters on March 10, 1990.
- In both English dubs, Kami's ship talks back with a computer voice; in the Japanese version it stays silent.
Did you know? Until now Mr. Popo had only dealt with the fighters who trained at the Lookout: this episode is his first real meeting with Bulma and the rest of the group.
Characters
- Goku, Gohan and Krillin
- Bulma and Mr. Popo
- Chi-Chi, Master Roshi, Korin and Yajirobe
- Kami (in Popo's story)