In Episode 40 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on March 14, 1990 and titled Held Captive in Funimation's 2005 uncut dub, the trip to Namek offers a first, unsettling glimpse of what lies ahead. The children who captured Bulma are not pirates: they are orphans on the run, and the name they speak with dread is Frieza.
Summary
Bulma, Krillin and Gohan are surrounded by armed kids. Their leader, an older boy named Zeshin, barely listens to their explanations, and another boy with a scarred cheek, Bun, insists the prisoners be killed: they must be henchmen of someone called Frieza. Before things get out of hand, the whole ship starts shaking. They have flown into a meteor swarm.
In the chaos a ceiling panel breaks loose and is about to crush several children; Gohan and Krillin catch it just in time. A fire breaks out and the two help Zeshin put it out, while Bulma runs to the bridge, takes the controls and steers the ship out of the meteors. Gohan even shields a little girl, Emi, from an exploding fuel line with his own energy.
Once they are safe, Bun still does not trust them, but Zeshin orders everyone to lower their weapons: real Frieza henchmen would never have saved anyone. The children tell their story. Soldiers invaded their planet in Frieza's name and killed their parents; they escaped because they were sent away on ships, but the pursuers shot down every vessel except the mirror ship. Krillin notes that these soldiers sound a lot like the Saiyans, but Zeshin points out that they had no tails. The kids passed Namek two weeks earlier, and they give Bulma the coordinates for a shortcut.
Back on Earth, Goku, still in the hospital, screams in terror at the sight of a needle. Far away in space, Vegeta's pod lands on a planetary base: soldiers find him unconscious and put him in a healing tank. Aboard Kami's ship, the shortcut turns into a roller-coaster ride, but at last a blue-green planet fills the window. Bulma is thrilled: they have saved more than two weeks and reached Namek. Or so they think.
Our take
This is almost entirely filler too, but it does one thing well: it introduces Frieza before Frieza shows up. In the manga the tyrant makes his entrance directly on Namek; here his name reaches us through his victims, children left on their own, and it is an effective way to build the threat. Bun's eyes as he relives his parents' murder carry more weight than any grand introduction.
The episode is also a small showcase for Bulma, who, when it comes to piloting a ship through a meteor field, proves just as valuable as the two fighters. And the gag of Goku terrified of a needle adds a trait the series will keep coming back to.
Trivia
- Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa and directed by Mitsuo Hashimoto, with Tomekichi Takeuchi as animation supervisor.
- Only pages 5 to 8 of chapter 246, with Vegeta reaching the base, come from the manga; the whole mirror-ship story is original. Ratings share: 22.4%.
- This is the first time Goku's fear of needles comes up; it returns as late as Dragon Ball GT.
- In the 1997 Ocean/Saban dub, episodes 40 and 41 were merged into Friends or Foes?, and the dialogue suggested that Frieza himself, drawn to look like Cui, led the invasion of the children's planet.
Did you know? The soldier Bun remembers killing his parents looks exactly like Cui, the Frieza henchman who appears alongside Vegeta a few episodes later.