#dbza ep40

[jacquelinemerritt]

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged Episode 40 Review

Originally posted March 4th, 2016

Our characters reconvene after defeat.

If you were to look at a plot summary of ”16, 17, and 18 Things I Hate About You,” you might determine that the episode is focused primarily on shuffling the characters around so that they’re where they need to be for the next episode to take place, and you might then determine that I am going to think poorly of it, because in that past, I have been fairly critical of episodes that have done nothing but serve the exact same purpose.

But I’m not going to do that, because while the events of “Things I Hate” serve the purpose of getting characters to where they need to be, the episode is about the actual motivations for each character to shuffle themselves into the proper location.

To start, the episode begins with Vegeta’s arm having just been broken by Android 18, and after this happens Trunks, Piccolo, and Tien jump into the fray to provide backup. Trunks’ motivation here is obvious: his father has been hurt and he wants to help, but notice that it is only after Trunks is taken down that Piccolo and Tien join the fight; they don’t particularly care about Vegeta, but Trunks already is a good friend and ally, so he deserves their help. Meanwhile, Krillin decides it’s wiser to stay out of the fight, and he only makes a motion towards fighting the androids when they make it clear that they’re going to kill Goku (as opposed to simply fighting his other friends).

After the androids have left, Krillin makes like a good delivery boy and brings Senzu beans to all his friends, healing them back up, and Vegeta immediately “nopes the fuck out,” which makes sense, given his recently shattered ego. Our remaining heroes have a conversation about how strong the androids are, and Krillin jokingly prods Piccolo about whether or not he can become a “Super-Namekian” and help them out.

What’s clever about this is that we know that Krillin isn’t necessarily off the mark, as Piccolo can absorb other Namekians and get a pretty significant power boost from it, so his lack of amusement makes sense and plays into his sudden departure towards Kami’s lookout, where he confronts his other half and demands that he be allowed to absorb him. We know the stakes of the androids already, but this interaction takes a turn when Kami describes another threat to the earth that’s even more dangerous than the androids.1

Rating: 4/5

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Stray Observations

1That leaves us with the short scene where Gohan brings Bulma and Yajirobe to the Briefs’ house/lab, and the phone conversation between Yajirobe and Korin during the tag. The character motivation for the tag is pretty clear, and it serves to further build the fantastic relationship that Korin and Yajirobe have, but the closest to a solid character beat for Gohan’s arrival is just his desire to quickly leave and check on his father. But it makes up for this lack of character motivation by being short, clever, and letting Shudo Ranmaru shine as Dr. Briefs’ airheaded wife, Panti.

For the uninitiated, a tag is a brief section at the end of comedies that often plays during the credits once the rest of the episode’s story has been resolved

Okay, Android 16 meeting the bird “Toriyama” from Revenge of Cooler is kinda funny, but it’s such an oddly specific callback that I honestly don’t know what to make of it. Perhaps it’s just in the vein of all the jokes based on the dub’s translation, but while most of those go over my head, the dialogue still makes sense without being able to make that connection. This doesn’t make any sense without that though, and the amount of time they spend on it (it’s admittedly only a few seconds, but it’s still the joke leading up to the title sequence) makes it fall completely flat if you either missed the moment in Cooler they’re referencing, or only watched the numbered episodes (which I did my first time through).

That said, Krillin being identified as a Space duck by 16 is pretty great.

Android 18: “Societal definitions of beauty are BS anyway.”

Nail: “Am I gonna have to move the pool table?”

Panti: “Honey, we have a food-stamper!” Dr. Briefs: “Tell em’ I have a gun because I pay taxes!”

Bulma: “Hey mom, why do you never seem to age?” Panti: *giggles* “Your father won’t let me.”

Mr. Popo: “All these squares make a circle.”

Mr. Popo: “Kami, I need you to tell me that I can leave the lookout if I want to.” Kami: “Mr. Popo you may leave the lookout if you…” Mr. Popo: “Bitch, don’t tell me what to do!”

Mr. Popo: “Well, that’s fucking ominous.”

Korin and Yajirobe are the sweetest couple.