"Semaru Choukessen! Ginyuu Tokusentai Tadaima Sanjou!!"
(The Great Decisive Battle Draws Near! The Ginyu Squadron Comes Calling)
90-9-12
"Arrival of the Ginyu Force" 98-2-7

Goku decides that his 100G training is complete, and sets the machine back to normal, instantly noticing a dramatic speed increase. On Namek, Gohan and Kuririn arrive to see the Great Elder, and are followed closely by Vegeta, who mistakes a great power within the Elder's temple to be that of Kakarotto. He is surprised to see that it is Gohan after all, but everyone is interrupted by Dende's announcement that something powerful is headed directly for Namek: The Ginyu Squad. The five of them land near Freeza's spaceship and emerge from their pods with a campy introduction that leaves their master lost for words, but pleased nonetheless.

This was one of those episodes that was light on censoring, just one, and not a single second cut, but heavy on mistranslation, as one of the main plot points was presented totally incorrectly.


Begin English episode 48

Goku is not supposed to be wearing that digital towel that it shows in the English version, all you see is his barenaked tushy. Also, doesn't that thing look just awful when he is jumping into the bath? They actually animated it moving around, and it looks like hell.

Goku (picks up beer): "Why is this thing in here? I think I'll have a sports soda instead, it's much better for me and tastes great!"

Ewww. Bleccch. You know this would have been simply cut if it wasn't so damned convenient for FUNimation just to leave it in and insert their little "moral lesson" to curry favor from the parents. Funny thing is, the real dialogue isn't all that much different, but the line delivery and the exact wording in the English version just make it drip "public service announcement."

A big mistranslation here. In the English version, Vegeta seems to know that it's Gohan in the Elder's temple, when in the original version, he thinks it's Goku. This is why when Gohan comes out, Vegeta looks so surprised, which just looks kind of funny in the English version, since he would have no reason to be. Also, when Vegeta is detecting the Ki that is coming, he senses that there are five, and counts them out one at a time, "Ichi... Ni... San... Shi... Go..." So, his dialogue in the English version looks and sounds kind of stilted because he says "That's... Not... Kakarot... Not... Kakarot at all!" in order to get the lipsynching correct.

I don't know, I guess this is pretty minor, but I thought I'd note it, since I gloss over the mistranslations most of the time because there are just too many of them to list. But this is an example of the kind of thing they do all the time for no reason, and it seems like they are not only misrepresenting what is supposed to be happening, but complicating things for themselves.

I would like to mention that FUNimation's handling of the scene where the Ginyu present themselves to Freeza (one of my favorites in all of DB) could not possibly have been done any better. For once they didn't completely miss the point. What I thought really needed to be retained most of all here was the moment of absolute silence just after the Ginyu do their grotesque little display, and Freeza just stares at them. It just makes the whole thing so much funnier. I'm glad FUNimation left it that way, because if they had their crappy synthesizer music droning on in the background, or someone talking off-camera, whatever, it would have destroyed the scene utterly. FUNimation seems to be totally oblivious to that kind of thing most of the time, but luckily, they handled this one just as they should have.

End English episode 48

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