"Shinanai de Tousan!! Kore ga Gohan no Sokochikara"
(Don't Die, Father! This is the Depth of Gohan's Power)		 90-1-24
"Vegeta: Sayan Style!" and
"Stop Vegeta Now!		 97-5-10
97-5-17

Gohan and Kuririn arrive at the battle site to find Yajirobe, who tells them that he has been hiding and watching the whole time. Kuririn attempts to slice Vegeta's tail off with his Kienzan, but Vegeta avoids the disk. To everyone's surprise (including his own), Yajirobe suddenly comes out of nowhere and cuts the tail off with his katana, returning Vegeta to his normal state. A furious Vegeta and Gohan begin to fight, and Goku passes what is left of the dispersed Genkidama energy to Kuririn.

I realized something when I watched this episode in English for the first time: Vegeta and Yajirobe are voiced by the same guy! Doesn't that strike you as s little odd? Well, maybe not, It's probably one of those things that only those of us accustomed to the Japanese version would have a hard time accepting, since we're so used to how incredibly DIFFERENT the voices are in the original version. Somehow I find the thought of Ryo Horikawa playing Yajirobe with his deep, somber voice pretty damned hysterical. And if Mayumi Tanaka tried to play Vegeta...well, that would just be downright ugly.

Funny thing is, Yajirobe's English voice is pretty much dead-on when compared to the original. Having said that, the fact that the character is played by a woman in Japan really makes an interesting statement about the English voice. What incredibly inapporopriately casting for Vegeta! The same guy really should NOT be able to do them both. The voices of the two characters should be at opposite ends of the spectrum, in fact.

Man, sometimes I wish you US DBZ victims could hear just how different the real Vegeta sounds...

English episode 24 continued, it ends about 4 minutes in.

(5 sec.) Various snips of Vegeta and Gohan's hits connecting with each other. There is one in particular that stands out. When Vegeta punches Gohan with that good, hard, belt to the stomach, the actual hit is cut, you just see Vegeta's arm coming forward and then Gohan reeling in pain. Strange that they leave Vegeta kneeing him in the stomach (many episodes from now) uncut. Maybe punching is somehow worse than kicking in FUNimation's eyes. Whatever, it's not meant to make sense, I guess.

(14) Just after Vegeta jumps on Goku's chest when he and Gohan are having that "touching moment" he starts laughing and kicking Goku on the ground repeatedly, while Goku just sits there and screams. This especially brutal stuff is the kind of thing that FUNimtion really shies away from. Too bad for us, eh? We LOVE the especially brutal stuff!

All of the censoring in this episode is the typical "blood cleanup," so I'll just list them all at once. Goku still has that blood coming out of the side of his mouth, and there are a few bruises here and there that are covered up. Gohan has a huge, bloody very PAINFUL looking bruise on his forehead after Vegeta headbutts him, and Kuririn's broken left arm is bloody. Also, when Vegeta jumps on Goku's chest, the scene of Goku screaming is censored where some blood is spraying out of his mouth. As for Vegeta himself, he's still looking pretty clean, but be patient, there's still two episodes to go...

English episode 25 continues...

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