"Choumajutsu ka Trick ka!? Mr. Gurudo ga Okotta zo"
(Is This Great Sorcery or Just a Trick!? Mr. Gurudo is Angry!)		 90-9-26
"Time Tricks and Body Binds" 98-2-14

Gurudo steps up to fight the two Earthlings first, and is forced to use his time-stopping technique several times in order to keep from being hit with their energy blasts. Gohan and Kuririn are simply too fast for him, however, and Gurudo plays his trump card - a paralysis technique which holds them frozen in the air. After having a little fun attacking the helpless warriors, he decides to simply skewer them with a tree that he fashions into a spear. It flies toward them, but the paralysis breaks at the last second, as Vegeta cleanly slices Gurudo's head off with a thin, controlled Ki blast.

Boy, Gurudo's death is FUNimation's biggest lie of all! If you read the synopsis just now, and have only seen the English version, you're probably saying to yourself, "wait a minute, Vegeta doesn't cut his head off..." You have been DUPED, my friend, he sure does!

Also, this episode contains the first Kame Sennin scene since Ian Corlett left the show, which means that unsuspecting viewers are subjected to the exquisite torture of hearing his new voice. Read more about what I think of this voice on my opinion page and the movie reviews section, it hurts for me to put anymore thought into the situation, so I won't reiterate here.

Begin English episode 50

When Gurudo attacks Gohan and Kuririn while they are frozen, there is a mysterious white, staticky-looking fog that surrounds them while they are being hit. What the HELL is this supposed to be?? What a pathetic attempt at...I don't know what! I'm not even sure what illusion FUNimation is trying to get across here, but whatever it is, they fail miserably. This is REALLY stupid, and it just looks so forced. I don't understand why they felt the need to censor this in the first place. I thought it was just hits to the head that had to be blocked out? I don't know, I guess this just looks too much like torture or something for FUNimation to be comfortable. But just because the hits are being covered, it doesn't mean you can't tell that they are happening! WAKARANAI!!

OK, another one of those creative FUNimation tricks that's very easy to show someone, but very difficult to explain.

In the Japanese version, Vegeta's Ki ray slices through Gurudo's neck, popping his head off. Then it cuts (sorry) to an overhead shot, which shows the body falling over, and the head lying a few feet off to the side. The head, still alive, berates Vegeta for screwing up his plans, and Vegeta laughs and blasts it into nothingness. OK, cool.

So here's what FUNimation does. Vegeta's Ki ray slices through Gurudo's neck (2 seconds or so of the head popping off is snipped), then it cuts to the overhead shot, only now the head has been moved from the ground beside the body and placed atop Gurudo's neck. Then the body falls over, and hits the ground, head still intact. Vegeta walks over to Gurudo (no chitchat from the disembodied head, of course) and says "Time to send you to the next dimension!" and blasts him. Difference is that FUNimation added Gurudo's body to this shot, whereas before it was just the head that Vegeta blasted. (Gurudo's headless body actually stays around for quite a bit in the real version, which I shall mention in the next episode.)

Hopefully that made sense. This shot was without a doubt the most complicated of all FUNimation's digital painting so far, and I must say, it looks pretty good.

English episode 50 continues...

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