#dbza ep59

[jacquelinemerritt]

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged Episode 59 Review

Originally posted September 13th, 2018

Awful parenting meets great storytelling.

Goku is an awful parent.

Up until now, that idea has been present in Dragonball Z: Abridged mostly as subtext, with it being most blatant in the way Gohan reacts whenever he has been forced to think about his relationship with his father, but here, in The Hard Cell, that subtext is made into explicit text, as Piccolo speaks out in righteous fury as Goku sends his son in to fight Cell, and then gives Cell a Senzu bean in order to give Gohan a fair fight.

I knew this was coming, as it’s one of the few moments in Dragonball that is so famous I couldn’t avoid having it spoiled, but even having it spoiled, the sheer shock of Goku’s recklessness and lack of care for his son was downright paralyzing when I first saw it, with the only relief being hearing Piccolo criticize Goku for his absolutely horrendous decision making and logic.

This is, without any doubt, an act of child abuse, and that reality is acknowledged here not only by Piccolo, who is even more furious with Goku in the abridged version than he was in the original (and he was downright pissed there), but also by the entire world around Goku, as Jimmy Firecracker publicly lambasts Goku for sending his son into a battle he himself was already losing, and Chi Chi madly picks up her TV and swings it around the room in a fit of blinding and justified rage.

That moment is pivotal, and thanks to Team Four Star’s stellar editing, voice-work, and writing, it feels exactly like the betrayal it is meant to be, with Goku’s decision to heal Cell using a Senzu bean coming off as particularly awful, since we hear Gohan’s thoughts just before as he realizes that he might have a chance against Cell. We even see that Goku’s plan is a complete failure, as Cell closes out the episode by wailing on Gohan, who lies caught by Cell’s attacks, being beaten to a pulp.

Without a doubt, Goku’s betrayal of Gohan here is the most important part of the episode, but the way it’s built to is equally compelling. This episode starts with Cell and Goku finally stepping up their game and beginning to actually fight each other, with Cell’s own obsession with Goku driving him to destroy his meticulously constructed arena, not realizing that Goku is far more interested in a casual fight than anything so grand and long-term as Cell dreamed.

It’s ironic, hilarious, and compelling to see their mutual attraction capped off like this, and it fits perfectly with Cell’s already obsessive behavior for him to want more than from this relationship than Goku, who has always been similarly non-committal, as we saw when he abandoned Freeza the moment he got bored.

There is a perfect balance maintained here that makes it absolutely satisfying to see Cell disappointed by Goku, while still feeling completely betrayed when Goku throws his son to the wolves, and yet even more compelling than that is the strange faith the Goku has in Gohan. As bad a parent as Goku is, he is about as far from being insincere about anything as you can get with a character, and for all the horror that throwing an 11-year old against a murderous monster is, you can’t deny that Goku genuinely believes in the capabilities of his son.

Goku’s actions here are objectively pretty horrendous, and the narrative does everything to reinforce that, but even with all of that going against him, the sheer faith Goku has in his son leaves us with a sense of hope that somehow, someway, Gohan is going to pull through against Cell.

A fool’s hope, to be sure, but a necessary bit of hope indeed.

Rating: 4.5/5

Stray Observations

As dark of a joke as it is, it feels entirely in character for Master Roshi to be in the sex-offender registry, and his reluctant acknowledgement of that throws a good bit of shade at Toriyama for unironically embracing Master Roshi’s perverted behavior, and by association, anime’s legitimately awful trend of normalizing pervy characters, especially old men.

Critical Eye Criticism is the work of Jacqueline Merritt, a trans woman, filmmaker, and critic. You can support her continued film criticism addiction on Patreon.