Episode 74 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on January 16, 1991 and titled Captain Ginyu... The Frog in Funimation's dub, ends Captain Ginyu's run in the most humiliating way imaginable. Goku gets his body back, Vegeta nearly loses his, and the day is saved by a passing frog. Then the story slows down as the group prepares to face Frieza.
Summary
The Body Change beam is about to hit Vegeta when Goku, still in Ginyu's body, throws himself in the way. The swap happens with him instead: Goku recovers his own body, along with every injury the captain inflicted on it, and Ginyu returns to his own wrecked frame. Goku tries a Kamehameha, but he lacks the control and misses.
A furious Vegeta lays into Ginyu, who oddly does not fight back. Goku immediately sees why: the captain is letting himself be beaten for another shot at swapping with the prince. He tries to warn Vegeta, to no avail. When Ginyu fires the beam again, Goku, unable to move, spots a Namekian frog nearby and hurls it into the path. When the light fades, Ginyu is trapped in the amphibian's body while his old one hops around with a frog's brain. Vegeta is about to squash him, but Goku talks him out of it: living as a frog is punishment enough.
Fearing Frieza's arrival, Vegeta takes Goku, Gohan and Krillin inside the ship and puts Goku in a Medical Machine. It is an older model, he explains, because he broke the new one himself, but it will do the job. Before climbing in, Goku panics at the sight of a needle. Vegeta then hands Gohan and Krillin two suits of Frieza Force armor, stretchy and extremely tough, the same kind that let him keep his clothes on as a Great Ape. Krillin wonders why the bad guys always have the nicest stuff and notices that Vegeta looks exhausted, which the prince denies.
While Goku heals, Krillin decides to visit Grand Elder Guru for the password. Far away, Frieza finishes off Nail.
Our take
The frog is pure Toriyama: the saga's strangest villain defeated by a gag that could have come straight out of Dr. Slump. It works because it fits Goku, who even when helpless finds an instinctive solution and kills no one. Vegeta mocks him, but goes along with it.
In the original version, when Ginyu targets Vegeta again, Goku smiles, because that second swap is what lets him get his own body back. Funimation's dub rewrote the moment as a look of horror, changing what the scene means.
The anime adds plenty: the missed Kamehameha, Vegeta beating Ginyu before the swap (in the manga the captain acts immediately), the corridors littered with dead guards and the needle phobia. The walk through the ship is the most obvious filler, since in the manga Frieza had no direct underlings left on Namek after Zarbon and Appule.
Trivia
- Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa, directed by Yoshihiro Ueda, with animation direction by Masayuki Uchiyama. It adapts chapter 290 and the first pages of 291, with a 23.4% ratings share.
- It closes the Captain Ginyu arc and season 2 as divided on Wikipedia.
- This episode features Krillin's infamous dub line, "Whoa, mondo cool!"
- Goku's fear of needles is a running gag of the anime, and this is not its first appearance.
Did you know? Frieza promised to beat Nail using only his left arm, yet in this episode he punches him in the stomach with his right.