Episode 85 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on April 3, 1991 and titled The Renewed Goku in Funimation's dub, is the one where Vegeta's pride shatters. The prince of the Saiyans tries everything he has against Frieza and discovers he is not the legendary warrior he believed himself to be. While the tyrant takes revenge for his betrayal, the signal everyone was waiting for comes from the spaceship: Goku has healed.
Summary
Vegeta replays his wasted blows and, in a rage, opens fire: one huge energy wave, then a barrage of smaller blasts. Frieza dodges or absorbs them without a mark. The prince then pours everything he has left into an attack powerful enough to wipe out all life on Namek, but the tyrant simply kicks it back. Vegeta barely dodges, the blast disappears into the sky, and he is left hovering there, drained. He has used every last ounce of strength and achieved nothing.
That is when something breaks. Vegeta trembles, cannot move, and cries for the first time in his life. Frieza is in no hurry to finish him: he hurls him into the sea, parts the water with his aura alone and strolls up to him. Then he wraps his tail around Vegeta's neck, lifts him up and starts pounding his back like a punching bag. Piccolo, Gohan and Krillin watch, frozen: stepping in would mean dying.
In the healing tank aboard Frieza's spaceship, meanwhile, Goku senses Vegeta's power plummeting. A beep tells him his treatment is complete. He bursts out of the machine, leaves the ship and searches the air for his friends' energy. He knows he has very little time.
Our take
The Japanese title, "How I've waited for this moment!!! Son Goku is back", promises the hero's return, but the episode belongs to Vegeta. It is one of the first times the series shows the prince up close in his fragility, and it does so without mercy: the man who boasted of being the Saiyan elite weeps in front of his enemy. In the manga, Toriyama left the explanation to the narrator; the anime gives it to King Kai, who realizes from his planet that the prince has lost the will to fight.
This is a good example of how the adaptation works at this stage. The manga dispatches the scene in a few pages: a single blast, Frieza's kick, the surrender. The anime adds the deflected barrages, the explosion of the big attack, Vegeta being thrown into the sea, and Frieza parting the water and eating a crab that was clinging to the Saiyan's shoulder. Some additions serve the tension, others dilute it. The crab, though, is perfect: one comic, disgusting detail captures all the tyrant's contempt for the man in front of him.
The tail torture is one of the harshest images in the saga, and it sets up the next scene. For Vegeta's death to land, the series first had to turn him into a victim.
Trivia
- It adapts chapter 306 of the manga. Written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa, directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with animation direction by Masayuki Uchiyama.
- With a 17.8% ratings share, it is the least-watched episode between 84 and 96, the stretch leading up to Goku's first transformation.
- According to Frieza, Vegeta's final attack would have wiped out all life on the planet, which is why he kicks it away instead of letting it explode.
- From this episode on, the Remastered Box Sets use an excerpt of Bruce Faulconer's score from Captain Ginyu... The Frog for the eyecatches, replacing Nathan Johnson's music.
Did you know? The Funimation title, The Renewed Goku, puts Goku front and center, even though he only shows up in the final minutes.
Characters
- Frieza and Vegeta
- Goku
- Gohan, Krillin and Piccolo
- King Kai, Yamcha, Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu