Episode 62 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on September 19, 1990 and titled New Ally, New Problem in Funimation's uncut dub, shows the Ginyu Force in action for the first time. It takes only seconds to prove Vegeta's fear was justified: the Dragon Balls the trio worked so hard to gather change hands in an instant, and all that is left is to fight. Meanwhile Goku gets ready to land.
Summary
Frieza gives the squad its orders: recover the Dragon Balls and bring Vegeta back alive. Guldo is seething; in a flashback he remembers the prince insulting him, and only Frieza's intervention stopping his revenge. After a choreographed warm-up that leaves even the emperor bemused, the five take off.
Aboard his ship, Goku wakes up, brushes his teeth and puts on a fresh gi from a closet full of identical uniforms. Namek is ten minutes away.
Vegeta, Gohan and Krillin have just gathered the Dragon Balls, but a moment of hesitation from Krillin is all the squad needs to catch them. Gohan freezes at the sight of their power. Vegeta tries to scatter the balls by hurling the one he is holding far away, but before the others can even turn their heads, Burter has caught it. So he orders Krillin to destroy his: Guldo stops time and plucks it from his hands. Vegeta realizes the rumors about Guldo's powers were true, and that running is pointless.
Captain Ginyu takes the Dragon Balls to Frieza and leaves the rest to his men. Recoome, Jeice, Burter and Guldo settle the matchups with rock-paper-scissors, tie after tie: Recoome wins the "first prize," Vegeta, while Guldo gets Gohan and Krillin. Vegeta tells the boys to use their heads, since a straight attack will not work, and grudgingly admits Goku's help would come in handy. Then Gohan and Krillin unleash their full power, and the squad is stunned: these two can hide their strength as well.
Our take
The Japanese title promises Goku, but the episode belongs to the Ginyu Force, and it works because it presents them first as a joke and then as a real threat. The calisthenics and the rock-paper-scissors are comic relief; the ball snatched in mid-air by Burter and the one Guldo lifts in frozen time are two small humiliations that convey the power gap better than any scouter reading.
A lot of what we see was expanded by the anime. The Vegeta-Guldo flashback does not exist in the manga, nor does most of Frieza's briefing or the departure choreography, which in the comic is just a quick huddle. The scene where Gohan and Krillin hesitate to hand Vegeta their ball is also an addition: in the manga the Ginyu Force shows up right after the boys reach the prince's hideout. Finally, in the manga Goku's new gi comes in a bag apparently sent by King Kai, while the anime pulls it from a closet on the ship.
Trivia
- It adapts the second half of chapter 272 and chapter 273, with a 21.5% ratings share.
- Written by Keiji Terui, directed by Jun'ichi Fujise, animation supervised by Masayuki Uchiyama.
- Goku's gi with the 悟 kanji on front and back debuts on TV here, though it had already appeared in the third Z movie, The Tree of Might, released in Japan a couple of months earlier. Funimation's dub hints that Dr. Brief made it.
- In Guldo's flashback Vegeta has no tail, because the animators used his current design rather than his Saiyan Saga look.
- In the Ocean/Saban dub it was episode 49, Elite Fighters of the Universe... The Ginyu Force.
Did you know? The 悟 gi becomes Goku's signature outfit: his third and final Turtle School uniform with a kanji on it.