"Aka to Ao no Lightning Ball! Jees to Bahta ga Goku o Osou"
(Lightning Balls of Red and Blue! Jees and Bahta Attack Goku)		 90-11-14
"Goku... Super Saiyan?" and
"Ginyu Assault"		 98-5-23
99-9-13

Goku stands over the defeated Rikuum, while Jees and Bahta look on dumbfounded. They attack him with incredible speed and ferocity, but not a single blast succeeds at touching Goku, whose movements are so fast that they are inperceptible to everyone watching. Jees and Bahta join forces to perform the Comet Crush Attack, and a frustrated Jees attempts his Crusher Ball, both of which Goku avoids easily.

FUNimation's second season closes with a...well... wierd choice of episodes, actually. I don't understand why they ended the season in such an unlikely place, nothing spectacular happened in this one at all. If they were going for the "cliffhanger" effect, then they should have just cut a few more episodes worth of material within the season, and ended it when the gang summons Porunga in episode 75.

In any case, English episode 53 became what was to be the final performance of the Ocean Group cast, and many believe that US DBZ truly ended there. Episode 54 marked the debut of Season 3 and an all-new voice cast from FUNimation Studios, the crappiest dubbing studio in the West.

Voices aside, Season 3 began pretty much exactly where FUNimation left off. They didn't simply drop the rest of 67 as was rumored. And it wasn't just the voices that changed... there was much less censoring too.

English episode 53 continued

The usual blood cover-ups.

End English episode 53 (about six minutes in)

Notice that in the "last time" segment, BLOOD is shown on everyone's face, even though this very same blood had been painted over in Episode 53. Heh, now isn't THAT interesting. Ah, but it was nice to see nonetheless. The first appearance of that lovely red fluid in the US version was in this episode, leaving many a dubbie a bit lost for words.

(After Goku hits Jees in the face)

Bahta: "Jeice are you all right? Is it bleeding? Be careful or you'll stain your gloves!"

Not only is this line pretty stupid sounding and completely unnecessary, but it, combined with the music, totally dilutes the "shock" of the punch. In the Japanese version, the only thing you hear is Jees groaning in pain, and it's a lot more cool and effective that way. What is with FUNimation and their non-stop dialogue?

Boy, I never thought I'd be happy to see Rikuum's bare ass, but I sure am here. The extra black that FUNImation had been painting over the "sensitive area" with has been done away with! Apparently, a little booty is just fine with Cartoon Network, and that's just fine with me!

But that makes me wonder... why did they cover up Goku's with a towel in the CN airing of Dead Zone? Maybe because it was his whole butt (his butt whole? heh), and Rikuum's is only partially revealed.

There are a lot of "kuso!"s in this and the next few episodes replaced with the completely inane-sounding "Darn!" "Heck!" "Gosh!" and (oh no) "Aw, nuts!" Oh well, obviously swearing isn't OK on this show, but couldn't they have used something else? "Darn" just sounds so dorky. "Heck!" is 100% lame, "Oh My Gosh!" is just embarrasing, and I won't even bring the "nuts" into this.

English episode 54 continues...

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