Episode 39 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on March 7, 1990 and titled Friends or Foes? in Funimation's 2005 uncut dub, opens the first big block of original material in the Namek storyline. In the manga the trip to the planet takes just a few pages; the anime turns it into a space adventure with a mysterious ship, a string of traps and a crew nobody expects.
Summary
Seven days have passed since the departure from Earth and the journey is going smoothly. Gohan and Krillin use the time for image training, fighting imaginary battles in their heads. The calm ends abruptly: an unknown spaceship opens fire, followed by a swarm of battle machines. The two fighters strike back and shoot them down one after another.
Right after that, something even stranger appears: a ship that looks exactly like their own. It is an illusion, because what they are seeing is a gigantic spacecraft covered in mirrors, reflecting the image of anyone who comes near. An invisible force pulls Kami's ship inside, and the trio has no choice but to explore the huge vessel.
The exploration quickly turns into an obstacle course, with one trap after another testing the reflexes of Gohan and Krillin, who get through every time while Bulma trails behind, more nervous by the minute. Eventually they reach a hall with a table laid out for a feast. Bulma warns them not to touch anything, but the two hungry fighters dig in anyway.
That is exactly the mistake their hosts were waiting for. While the group is distracted, Bulma is captured, and the ones holding her at gunpoint are not soldiers or monsters but a band of armed children. To keep their friend safe, Gohan and Krillin have to surrender.
Our take
This is filler, plain and simple, and it should be judged as such: a way to buy time while Toriyama kept the manga going week by week. That said, the episode has one strong visual idea, the mirrored ship, and a retro space-adventure atmosphere that Dragon Ball had never really explored before.
What works best is the trio. With Goku off screen, Krillin becomes Gohan's big brother and Bulma the voice of reason, ignored right on cue. The banquet gag is predictable, but it fits two characters raised in Goku's school, where food always comes first.
The ending with the armed children flips expectations and sets up the next episode, the one where Frieza's name is spoken for the first time in the anime.
Trivia
- Written by Takao Koyama and directed by series director Daisuke Nishio, with Yukio Ebisawa as animation supervisor.
- Only the first four pages of chapter 246 come from the manga; everything else is original. Ratings share: 22.0%.
- This is the start of the original run of episodes 39 to 43, which continues on Raiti and Zaacro's fake Namek.
- In the 1997 Ocean/Saban dub, episodes 38 and 39 were merged into a single episode, Journey to Namek.
Did you know? Because of a production error, Funimation's remastered DVD sets also gave Episode 41 the title card Friends or Foes?. The Blu-ray release corrected it to Look Out Below.
Characters
- Gohan, Krillin and Bulma
- The children of the mirrored ship