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slothcritic · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 10 Review

A satisfying conclusion with plenty of jabs, jibs and a ghost whatnow?

While The Punchline has been split up into three parts, I will be reviewing and judging all three parts as a single episode within a single review. I will be giving out scores for each part just for posterity however, but only the overall score will be considered this episode’s actual rating.

In the cold open, Vegeta is absolutely thrilled over snapping Nappa out of existence, and Goku asks Krillin and Gohan to retreat while he deals with Vegeta. Krillin is already gone, screaming and crying. Gohan and Goku have a brief conversation about putting dinner on, because he's hungry. There might be some reference I'm not getting here, or if it's really just a face-value scene, but I think it would've been funnier if the title sequence had begun just after Krillin is shown running (flying) away to safety.

[Title Sequence, Part 1]

Goku and Vegeta opt to find a new battlefield, as the one where Nappa decimated the Z Fighters is a little "corpsey." King Kai starts taking bets on which of them is going to win, and even the Narrator tries to get in on that, despite already knowing the outcome.

The delivery on Vegeta's lines early on is not promising. I'm not sure if it's poor audio quality caused by a crappy microphone or if Lanipator was struggling with some kind of throat infection while recording these lines, but it's noticeable as there's a long extended conversation with a voice that sounds like sandpaper to the ears. I actually went back to check on the previous episodes to see if I was taking crazy pills, and no, Vegeta sounded just fine before. I have no idea what the reason or cause of this change might be, whether it was a deliberately different delivery or if they were rushing to put this episode out, but Vegeta sounds consistently more raspy in this episode than the gravelly deadpan to which I've become accustomed. For all I know, yelling as Vegeta might just by taxing on his vocal chords.

Putting the voice issue aside, Goku's oblivious lack of understanding for the word "elite" and the back and forth between the two of them works on the whole as a great scene.

"I'm going to start beating you now. I don't know when I'll stop."

I can't remember whether or not that's a reference, but I love the delivery on it. Vegeta has just finished dealing with Nappa and now has absolutely zero patience for someone just as braindead.

Sure enough, after being taunted about a cave full of gumdrops and ice cream, Vegeta drops the "That's it! EVERYONE DIES!" which might be one of my favorite things said in this episode, but it’s followed closely by:

"Say goodbye to your planet, Kakarot." "Well that's not very nice." "OF COURSE NOT! I'M FUCKING EVIL!"

The dynamic here works astoundingly well. It's very different from Vegeta and Nappa's duo, but works on similar foundations. With Vegeta and Nappa, Nappa was the ridiculous one and Vegeta served as his anchor. With Vegeta and Goku, the roles are flipped and Vegeta is now the ridiculous one, screaming his head off in frustration and writhing around in the death throes of his pride, while Goku's complete obliviousness and innocence keeping him grounded as the anchor. Nappa was purposefully annoying because he was a bratty, childish mook, while Goku is just annoying by happenstance and being very, very hard to put down. It doesn't help that Vegeta actually wants to kill Goku, and unlike Nappa, he's having less than success with this one.

The overall production of the climatic beam struggle is surprisingly well executed, and is perhaps the best moment in this entire episode from a technical perspective. Goku speaking as he charges up the Kamehameha doesn't sound cheesy, canned or forced, and neither does Vegeta's delivery. The sound effects and music are also on point here. This is an important moment in the series and I'm glad they got it just right. I have no objections with anything here.

If anything, at about five and a half minutes in, the viewer has had enough time to adjust to Vegeta's new raspier voice and it no longer seems out of place. If he had been speaking "normally" up until this point, I probably would have criticized the delivery on these lines, but it almost feels like it fits on the whole now that this has been established as the "new normal" for the last five minutes. The main point I'm attempting and probably failing at making is that my original complaint was that the new voice took me out of the episode, but in this moment with the beam struggle, Vegeta's voice flows naturally and I honestly wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't just (as of now) dedicated two whole paragraphs of this review to JUST talking about how Vegeta sounds slightly different now.

Alright, now it's time to back up a tad, which isn't something I like to do a lot. Twice in this episode, Goku has used the Kaio-Ken and then the Kaio-Ken times three. The first time he used it, he seemed to at least match Vegeta. The second time he used it, he jobbed Vegeta straight into a rocky wall. But it's only good for a few seconds, so it has no sustain. It's essentially one really strong punch or a really quick beat down, but leaves Goku winded and struggling at the end of it.

The reason I didn't bring these up as they happened was because frankly the scenes didn't do enough for me to write about it. I write about what I feel is significant to my review to give context or explanation to my thought process, not to give a play by play. Simply put, they were funny, but nothing notable happened because of it. It was a quick skit, okay, move on. But it's now important to draw attention to those two moments, because while they did very little for me the first two times... Well, during this beam struggle, just as Vegeta feels like he’s gaining the upper hand, the dramatic music quiets to nothing but the sounds of the beams clashing, and all we hear is...

"Kaio-Ken..." Vegeta look on in horror. "...No..." "Times..." "No no no..." "FOUR!"

Vegeta is sent skyward with a loud FFFFUUUUUU- and then twinkles like Team Rocket just blasted off again. Goku is the victor... of this fight at least.

Then there's an odd cutaway back to Roshi's island that's slow to start, but eventually got me to smile. It's all the characters from Dragon Ball reminiscing of times where they used to be relevant to the story. Guest appearance by Baba who almost doesn't appear in Z at all!

It initially felt like a bit of tone whiplash but it warmed up to me. And "Whatever happened to Launch?" actually got a laugh out of me. Seems like Toriyama isn't the only person who forgot about her.

I'm not sure what the point of this scene was, but I agree with the decision that after that climax, a break or calming down period in the tension it had built up was definitely necessary, even if the transition felt a little jarring at first.

"Meanwhile, back at the plot", which is an amazing segue, Vegeta gets off Mr Goku's Wild Ride and the beam continues on without him into the pink sky.

I don't think -UUUUUUCK! counts as an F-Bomb so it doesn't get censored. Booyah!

Vegeta then undergoes a post ass-kicking identity crisis. After devising a plan to turn into the mighty Ozaru, he then undergoes a where's-the-damned-moon crisis.

Good thing Blutz Waves are a thing. He yeets the artificial moon into the sky and boom, King Kong. The other King K attempts to coach Goku through dealing with this beast (that is canonically stronger than Captain Ginyu at this point) and advises Goku to find a safe, secluded location to charge up the Spirit Bomb.

Goku however decides to do it right out in the open. Just as Ape Vegeta's massive fist obliterates Goku, King Kai's crystal ball turns to static and gets the operator disconnected message. I think a dial tone would've been slightly funnier, but this has the same energy so I'll take it with no complaints. An excellent way to end the first part of this episode!

[Part 2]

This part begins with Goku hitting a rock so hard he thinks he's in Dragonball Evolution for a moment. After blinding Vegeta with a solar flare, which I'm still not entirely sure how that works or why people don't use it more often to get cheap surprise shots on blinded targets, Goku finds a quiet spot that he can use to charge the Spirit Bomb. He ends up borrowing so much energy from the planet that he may or may not have drained all the life from an old father deer. Dark, but morbidly hilarious.

Goku tries to fling the Spirit Bomb at Vegeta, but surprise: He's got a mouth laser! Knocks the Spirit Bomb right out of him and sends him tumbling against a rock.

"Hey Kakarot, what's the opposite of Christopher Walken?" "Huh?" "Christopher Reeves!"

CRUNCH! The giant monkey stomps down right on Goku's legs, crushing and immobilizing him.

This is such a bad, good joke. I still think about this one from time to time. And honestly, considering how I started binge-watching these in high school (where I more or less developed into an entirely different person), this joke here might very well be the genesis of my love for black humor. I'm fully willing to admit I'm biased on this, but I think this is one of the funniest dark jokes in DBZA, full stop. If not the whole series, then at least within Season 1. Don't care, evil.

Just as he's about to be crushed for good, Goku shoots a quick energy blast into Vegeta's eye, causing him to stagger backwards. This is where Goku makes his cunning escape, dodging, weaving and doing aerial acrobatics around the massive monkey man, accompanied by victorious fanfare. Or not. Goku's legs are still broken. But it's nice to just imagine how cool that would’ve looked, y’know?

Vegeta then decides he's just going to squeeze the life out of Goku, and his screams can be heard well into the distance, all the way to Krillin and Gohan.

The giant monkey keeps squeezing Goku until he squeaks like a rubber ducky, or a chew toy. He does it again, and another squeak.

"Oh my god, that's hilarious."

In the middle of squeaking Goku relentlessly, Gohan decides to make a stand, having blown back to fight Ape Vegeta. He gives a verbose speech that culminates in "The bigger they are, the harder they fall." and then strikes a fighting pose like his five year old ass is going to do anything against a fifty foot behemoth. Battle gong and everything playing in the background.

Vegeta just stares at Gohan, and then after a pause, squeaks Goku again. This has delightfully petty energy to it, especially coming from Vegeta.

While Gohan has caught Vegeta monologuing, Krillin attempts a sneak attack on Vegeta, but he effortlessly humiliates him and thwarts his efforts by simply hopping over the Kienzan that was coming from behind.

However, he couldn't anticipate two sneak attacks. That or Yajirobe was simply that unlikely of a hero, but here he comes sword and all to save literally everyone's lives as he slices Vegeta's tail clean off his rump.

With no more tail, Vegeta regresses to his original Saiyan form. He's no less dangerous, however, and just as Krillin tries to bring the hype, he gets immediately pinballed into the nearest rocky structure and the owned count strikes 9.

The writing on Vegeta's speech following this is actually quite good. "I thought I'd be angrier" is not a take I expected from someone who's had such major meltdowns and cataclysmic conniptions thus far. It does a good job of illustrating how far down the rabbit hole we've gone, to the point where he has become so angry that he's encountered a stack overflow.

Goku and Gohan have a touching moment, both broken, beaten and bloody, but as they share a heart to heart, and their hands extend towards one another's like a Michelangelo painting, Vegeta comes in like a good fiend and gives Goku a killer knee-shot to the ribs. You have to wait for the right moment!

They immediately cut away to an intermission, which they never do in any other episode, but honestly it fits here. The alternative would be to end the episode here and we've still got another three minutes and some change to go. It's an arbitrary production joke but it's necessary and well done for the scene as a whole so it gets a pass and then some from me.

When we resume, Vegeta and Gohan duke it out, which provides a convenient distraction for Goku to hand off part of the Spirit Bomb to Krillin. It turns out he'd been saving some of the earth juices from when he got the snot knocked out of him earlier, but only a little bit of it. Krillin is confused as to why Goku would trust him of all people with it, and Goku concedes that his back is kind of against the wall on this one.

With a yipee-kay-yay and a booyah motherfucker, Krillin lobs the Spirit Bomb Lite at Vegeta, who simply jumps Krillin’s attack for the second time. Maybe aim a little higher next time, or better yet don’t loudly announce your attacks. Not that anyone in this series would understand that concept anyways.

Now the Spirit Bomb is heading straight for Gohan. But it's okay because Gohan is a main character, so he just Uno Reverse Card’s the Spirit Bomb off his hands and it sproings upwards towards Vegeta once more.

Side note, I don't think it's ever explained, either in the abridged or the original series, how Goku is able to communicate telepathically with Gohan. Yes, Master Roshi says in Dragon Ball that "any highly skilled martial artist can read minds" but does that just mean reading minds or actually communicating between them? And if that's the case, why doesn't Goku use this more often? I could probably find at least one plot point that could've been avoided by this, but the answer is probably extremely simple. Goku is a moron. It's very easy to explain away forgetfulness or inconsistent writing when you can just default to saying that your main character is an idiot who forgot he could do those techniques that you forgot existed as a writer. Don't think about it too much I guess.

"What smells like deer?"

I’ve actually missed this joke every single time I've watched this episode so far, except for just now, when I watched it to write this review. The old father deer from before! That is such a cool and unexpected callback.

Anyways, Vegeta gets punked by the Diet Spirit Bomb and goes sailing into the sky. The Z Fighters - which is now just Goku, Gohan and Krillin - are ecstatic in celebration.

"It's been tough, but now, we'll never have to see that rotten Saiyan ever again."

Cue Vegeta's lifeless body ragdolling to the ground with a meaty thwap. Krillin tempts fate by approaching the body, and that goes as expected. Vegeta opens one eye and screams. Then the others all start screaming.

Very weird production mis-step or weird decision with the source footage here. Vegeta's face at least moves, but because all the others have panning shots, they freeze in weird, awkward positions. The action lines don't move, some characters aren't fully in frame, and it's very obviously a still image instead of something like a loop. Maybe this is just what they had to work with. Still, very immersion breaking. Though honestly, I'm almost glad that if something like this had to happen in this part, it was at least in the last ten seconds.

Goku is confused because he can't move. I mean, they won right? Why is everyone screaming.

[Part 3]

This part begins immediately with Krillin getting bitch slapped, earning a 10/10 on the owned counter. Vegeta then decides he has had exactly enough of everyone and everything, and goes for the nuclear option.

Fortunately for our heroes, Vegeta has been so worn down, battered, sent through the ringer, and has suffered so much damage to that one eye in particular, that he doesn't have enough energy left to kill everyone all at once. Instead, he opts to get his hands dirty and cut them each of them down one at a time. Speaking of cut, here comes Yajirobe with his sword. It can pierce through Vegeta's armor, which is wonderful news but ultimately pointless. However, it serves as an excellent distraction.

Remember that fake moon? Remember how Vegeta only returned to normal form because his tail was amputated? Remember earlier how Piccolo had to destroy the Earth's actual moon because Gohan was a rampaging Donkey Kong lunatic? Well guess who just woke up staring right at that fake moon in the sky.

Lacking any barrels in the vicinity, Ape Gohan decides to throw around some rocks.

Goku, again, reaches to him telepathically and reminds him not to go on a rampage killing everyone.

"Remember Icarus? He did it."

Now, purely within this episode, this isn’t an issue. It’s a funny haha moment. However, this scene gets a little more irritating or perplexing once you’ve seen some of the DBZA movies. This knowledge did hamper my enjoyment of this scene on rewatch. However, that ultimately isn’t fair to this episode as a stand alone product, and my gut instinct of “My knowledge of episodes that came out well after this one retroactively makes this episode worse!” is also something I try tooth and nail to avoid. So I’m going to talk about this for a bit and get it out of my system so I can approach it fairly.

Simply put, Icarus is a headache. He's Gohan's friend and pet dragon of sorts, for like three random movies, some episodes of Z and then never gets mentioned again. Goku implies that Vegeta is responsible for Icarus' death, despite the fact that Icarus is still alive at some point after Goku defeats Freeza. I would normally take up the stance of “okay, let’s ignore the official canon / non-canon and just stick to DBZA” but he ALSO features in the DBZA movie Cooler’s Revenge, so this is multiple layers of crazy.

I understand that DBZA exists primarily as a form of parody and thus prioritizes humor and “working with what you’ve got” over some things a harsh anal-retentive person might deflagrate them for (cough cough) and are not afraid to contradict themselves on points of little significance for the sake of humor. I also don’t think they had any long-standing plans to incorporate Icarus into Z at the time this episode was made - They may have simply wanted to make a joke about the DBZ equivalent of Poochie the Dog from Itchy & Scratchy.

Like I said, Icarus is headache. However, simply in this moment and nothing else, I do feel it works. It’s shows a cute dragon geting exploded. Who couldn’t feel bad for this poor random dragon that I totally haven’t ever seen before? It also works within the story itself - Gohan gets sufficiently angry, and Vegeta starts treading the tightrope of desperation.

Gohan's Ozaru form isn't long lived however, as Vegeta suddenly learns the Kienzan and slices his tail off with it. Small problem though, Gohan was airborne, and the regression back to a normal Saiyan form is not instantaneous. His massive body looms over him, and with a Big NO, Vegeta go splat.

He's down but not out. He at least has enough energy to call for his Space Uber to come and pick him up. As he's crawling hands and knees into his escape pod, Krillin suddenly decides he wants to be important, and appears with Yajirobe's sword, poised to strike.

Vegeta is understandably terrified, because after the day Krillin's had, he's gone full ride or die mode and isn't about to wait on an invitation to go full Thanksgiving turkey on this maniac.

However, Goku wants the pacifist ending and gives a very simplified version of the original speech to Krillin. If he's sorry, we have to let him leave. Because that's what being a good boy is all about. It's noteworthy that one of my all-time favorite Vegeta quotes happens right here in the original dub.

"When I come back to this planet, you're all going to suffer. And when you beg me for mercy, I'll stare into your eyes as I crush the life out of you."

However in this version, we're treated to "Yes, I'm very very sorry. Sorry that you're all still alive, suckers!"

And honestly, both versions are fitting for their respective interpretations of Vegeta.

As we pan out, the narrator waxes on the victory of the heroes and how he made bank from his bet with King Kai. Next time, don't make bets with the narrator you stupid idiot. Big dumb idiot god.

I'm writing this at close to 4am if you couldn't tell. Scheduled uploads!

"Has anyone really not seen this show already? Find out in the next season of Dragon Ball Z Abridged!"

And that's it folks! Well, almost. We have one final scene to go through first.

Vegeta is hurdling through space in his Saiyan pod, lamenting his laundry list of losses and failures, but at least concedes that his situation cannot get worse. But we all know what happens to people who tempt fate.

"Vegeta... VEGEEEEEETA..." "Wh-What?" *DING* "I'm haunting you."

And thus, we've reached the end of Season 1! The Ghost Nappa song plays and the outro credits roll.

Conclusion

First off, definitely a longer review than I'm used to writing. Secondly, this was a great three-parter. I wasn't sure if the format would hold up like it does for single segment episodes, but it does. Now I'm sure there are bad episodes to come in the future, but for now I'm happy that the last three or four episodes have all scored relatively high. TFS is going into Season 2 with some great foundations built upon their older, more crude material, and they still have a lot of room yet to improve. I should consider being more critical with this next season as the expectations will be higher!

There’s one noteworthy gripe I have with each of these three parts, but only one worth writing about. -Vegeta suddenly sounding different, as if I didn't talk about that enough. I swear I'm not taking crazy pills. -Weird freeze frames at the end of Part 2. -Icarus, simply because he messes with me on a personal level. This fucking dragon doesn't make any god damned sense.

Other than that, I liked it. I don't know if I'd say "I loved it" but for the series as a whole, we're getting there at breakneck speed.

The first part had some great back and forth interactions with Goku and Vegeta, both the dialogues and the beam struggle, while the second part had more stand-out moments with just Vegeta, from the squeaking Goku, to the "I thought I'd be angrier" speech, his perfectly timed knee to ribs, and the famous last words "What smells like deer?"

The last part... didn't actually have much of this. I didn't find the talk about Vegeta’s father to be terribly funny and nothing else he said was extremely stand-out like in the previous two parts. This part didn't so much have humor as it was the "let's wrap things up" segment. Most of the noteworthy moments happen close to the tail end. I will admit, even ten years later, I still got a little sentimental hearing that outro from LK, and let's not sleep on Ghost Nappa. They may have done you dirty in Kai 3 but we still love you!

Overall, I'm happy that this was as good as I remembered it. I found jokes I didn't pick up the first few times, flaws that I didn't know existed, and a new appreciation for some subtle details that may have glossed over me while I was busy laughing about Christopher Reeves.

Part 1: 75 Part 2: 78 Part 3: 72

Score: 75

Passing Thoughts

"Kaio-Ken!" "Kaio-What?"

Small error on my part - Piccolo blows up the moon in Episode 4, and in my review of that episode, I mistakenly attribute a scene from this episode to DBZ Kai Abridged.

"I'm going to enjoy this far more than I should." - And like that, Vegeta has suddenly become relatable.

"Thank God, I thought he meant penis!"

"Time to crush you like an Arlian." "A what?" "Exactly."

"I haven't killed a damned thing since I got to this god-forsaken planet! Not for lack of trying mind you."

#slothcritic #DBZ #Dragon Ball Z Abridged #TFS #teamfourstar

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