Episode 56 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on August 1, 1990, is the heist episode: Vegeta empties Frieza's throne room and vanishes with his five Dragon Balls. Funimation's uncut dub titles it Zarbon's Mission, after the deadline the tyrant gives his right-hand man, while the Ocean/Saban version called it Vegeta Revived. The hunt gets complicated, though, because the Earthlings now hold two balls of their own.
Summary
Zarbon scours the skies, convinced Vegeta has fled. In fact the prince is still aboard the ship, standing before the unguarded Dragon Balls. He draws the pair's attention with a blast that blows open the ceiling and sends flames straight at Zarbon, then hurls the five balls out through the opening, measuring his strength so they land close together and far from the base. By the time Frieza and Zarbon reach the throne room, the balls are gone. Vegeta, hiding behind a mountain, swims away underwater so he will not be spotted in the air.
Frieza wants no more apologies: Zarbon has one hour to bring back Vegeta and the Dragon Balls, or else. Meanwhile Gohan, following the radar, reaches the village Vegeta massacred. Faced with the bodies of the Namekians, children among them, he is overcome with grief and anger. He buries them, promising to bring them back, then dives into the lake and recovers the hidden ball.
Vegeta finds his five balls and gloats: counting the one in the lake, he thinks he has six. Then he senses a nearby energy. It is Krillin, flying toward the cave with Guru's ball, so thrilled with his new power that he never notices he is being followed. Vegeta gives chase, and Zarbon, out hunting the Saiyan, first spots Krillin, then his pursuer, and joins the race.
In space, Goku's ship flies into a magnetic storm and the gravity machine goes haywire, spiking to a hundred times Earth's gravity. Goku is pinned in place while Dr. Brief, on the video link, tells him to hold on until the storm passes. At the cave, Krillin lands in front of Bulma, who is amazed at how big Namek's Dragon Balls are. Moments later Vegeta appears and demands the ball, threatening to take it out on Bulma. Then Zarbon lands with an elegant flourish, and Bulma, with no idea who he is, instantly falls for the handsome warrior, sure he has come to rescue her.
Our take
The episode is built like a chain of pursuits: everyone is chasing someone, and the audience always knows more than the characters do. Vegeta thinks he has almost every ball and has no idea Gohan just emptied his hiding place; Zarbon thinks he is hunting a fugitive and does not realize he is racing toward his own end. The direction makes good use of that irony.
Gohan's scene in the village is an anime addition and one of its best. With no fighting at all, it shows the human cost of the Dragon Ball hunt and reminds us that Goku's son is still a child who cries over the dead. Bulma's crush on Zarbon, by contrast, is pure comedy, though in hindsight it is deliciously ironic given who she ends up marrying.
Trivia
- Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa, directed by Yoshihiro Ueda, with animation supervision by Yukio Ebisawa. Ratings share: 17.2%.
- It adapts chapter 266 and the first nine pages of chapter 267.
- Gohan burying the Namekians and the magnetic storm that sends Goku's gravity machine out of control are both anime additions.
- The creature clinging to the Dragon Ball Gohan pulls from the lake resembles the shellfish that ensnared him and Krillin on the fake Namek.
Did you know? Goku's spaceship was built by Dr. Brief using the technology of the pod that brought Goku to Earth as a baby, and its gravity machine was designed to reach a hundred times Earth's gravity: the storm simply pushes it to its limit.