Episode 60 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on September 5, 1990 and known as Bulma's Big Day in Funimation's uncut dub, belongs almost entirely to Bulma. Snatched by two of Frieza's soldiers, she has to get out of trouble with the only weapon she has left: her wits. Meanwhile Goku wraps up his 100x gravity training aboard his ship, and the Ginyu Force draws ever closer.
Summary
Bulma is in the hands of two of Frieza's henchmen, Raspberry and Blueberry, and she refuses to play the helpless captive. She bites one of them, tries to run, and finally eavesdrops long enough to realize they know nothing about the Dragon Balls. That gives her an opening. She explains that the balls grant a wish, one that could make them stronger than Frieza himself, and the two goons immediately demand to be taken to the rest of them.
Bulma suits up in her diving gear and leads them to the ocean floor, claiming a Dragon Ball is hidden down there. In fact she guides them into the nest of a giant crab and lets them mistake its eggs for Dragon Balls. While they scramble for the prize, she grabs the Four-Star Ball, brings the cave down on them with a small missile and swims off. The soldiers make it out, only for the enraged crab to surface and drag them back under. Moments later Bulma nearly loses her ball again as it rolls toward the water.
Out in space, Goku tests how far he has come. Using the Kaio-ken, he forms an energy sphere and tosses it into the gravity machine's pull, sending it circling around the room, then fires a Kamehameha. Both blasts end up hitting him, one in the chest and one in the back, and he shrugs them off.
On Namek, Gohan urges Krillin to fly faster toward Grand Elder Guru, but the extra energy catches Vegeta's attention. Surprised that the pair are not heading for his Dragon Balls, the prince follows them, taking one ball along as insurance. And the Ginyu Force is now just an hour away from the planet.
Our take
This is a textbook bridge episode, and it makes no secret of it: it adapts only a handful of manga pages and fills the rest with a brand-new story. The pleasant surprise is that the filler works, because it starts from a fair question: what is Bulma doing while everyone else fights? Toriyama leaves her in her hideout for what feels like weeks; the anime gives her half an hour to be the resourceful girl from the original series again, the one who outsmarts enemies with a well-built lie.
None of this is in the manga. The kidnapping, the giant crab and the underwater escape were created for the anime, and so was Goku's Kaio-ken test on board. That last scene earns its place, though. It prepares viewers for what is coming: the Goku who will land on Namek is not the one who fought Vegeta on Earth, and the show starts proving it before he even arrives.
Long-time fans also get a small treat. When she is captured, Bulma flashes back to her old misadventures, Emperor Pilaf included. It is one of the very few times Pilaf's gang appears anywhere in Dragon Ball Z.
Trivia
- It adapts the end of chapter 270 and the first two pages of chapter 271, with a 22.9% ratings share in Japan.
- Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa and directed by Yoshihiro Ueda, with Mitsuo Shindō as animation supervisor.
- In the original Ocean/Saban dub this was episode 47, Scramble for the Dragon Balls!.
- Aside from this flashback, Pilaf's gang only turns up in Z as a cameo on playing cards in the movie Bojack Unbound.
Did you know? The Japanese title is all about Goku, his Kaio-ken and his Kamehameha, which take up only a few minutes of screen time; both the Funimation and Italian titles put Bulma front and center instead.