Episode 45 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on April 25, 1990 and known as Frieza Strikes! in Funimation's uncut 2005 dub (Face-off on Namek in the Ocean/Saban version), lines up the three parties chasing Namek's Dragon Balls: Frieza and his men, Vegeta, and the small team from Earth. Vegeta settles an old score with Cui, and Gohan and Krillin lose their ride home.
Summary
At Frieza's camp, a soldier hands another Dragon Ball to Dodoria. Zarbon reports that the second pod belongs to Cui, who has come after Vegeta, and that two small unknown power levels appeared and then vanished; he has sent two scouts to investigate. With Frieza's permission, Cui can finally settle his long rivalry with the Saiyan prince, and he taunts Vegeta over the scouter, boasting that he is the stronger of the two.
Bulma heads for the ship while Gohan and Krillin argue about staying or leaving. Before they decide, the scouts arrive. They wear armor like the Saiyans' without being Saiyans, and they take the Earthlings for tourists in the wrong place at the wrong time. To stop them escaping, they blast a hole through the spaceship. Krillin and Gohan power up and take them down in seconds, but the damage is done: Bulma has no idea how to fix the ship, and the trio is stranded.
Zarbon has been watching on his scouter. He tells Frieza the two mystery fighters climbed to about 1,500, enough to beat his men. Frieza is not worried, but he wants them dead the next time they show up.
Cui reaches Vegeta and mocks his power level. Vegeta explains that on Earth he learned from the locals how to control his energy, and then he shows it: Cui's scouter explodes at around 22,000, and so does Zarbon's back at camp. Dodoria's newer model reads 24,000, more than either henchman on his own. Cui tries offering an alliance against Frieza, then pretends Frieza is standing behind Vegeta and blasts him in the back. When the smoke clears, Vegeta is untouched. He catches the fleeing Cui, knocks him into the air and blows him apart.
Vegeta knows the others saw everything. So he comes up with a plan: find one Dragon Ball and hide it, then steal the other six once Frieza has gathered them. Meanwhile Bulma, Gohan and Krillin duck into a cave just as a group of terrifying power levels flies overhead.
Our take
This is where Vegeta becomes a different character from the one in the Saiyan Saga. He is no longer the self-assured conqueror but a hunted traitor who has to think: he has learned to hide his power from his enemies, and now he uses strategy to beat people stronger than him. The Cui fight is short, but that is its job, to measure how much the prince has grown.
The Earthlings' little skirmish has a purpose too. Gohan and Krillin beat two rank-and-file soldiers with ease, and we realize Frieza's army is a pyramid: people like them at the bottom, something unimaginable at the top. Wrecking the ship then closes every exit.
The scouter numbers, 22,000 and 24,000, are the kind fans can still recite from memory.
Trivia
- Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa and directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi.
- It adapts the last page of chapter 247 and chapters 248 and 249, with a 19.6% ratings share.
- In the manga, Krillin suggests that only Gohan leave with Bulma; in the anime he wants all three to go.
- The two scouts are unnamed in the anime and manga. The video game Dragon Ball Z: Goku Gekitōden calls them Banan and Sui.
- In the Funimation dub Zarbon says Cui is much stronger than Vegeta; in the Japanese version and the manga he says they are equals.
Did you know? Blue scouters are an older model than the green ones, which is why Zarbon's blows up mid-reading while Dodoria's manages to measure Vegeta.