80 "Ikki ni Keisei Gyakuten!! Okurete Kita Senshi - Piccolo"
(At Once The Situation Reverses!! The Warrior Who was Late - Piccolo)		 91-2-27
65 "Gohan Attacks" 99-9-27

Freeza beats Gohan mercilessly, and all Vegeta can do is watch in horror. Suddenly a Kienzan cuts Freeza's tail off, and Kuririn appears, leading Freeza into a chase. The distraction allows Dende time to heal Gohan, as he did Kuririn, and the battle is joined with the welcome arrival of Piccolo.

This one is the last of "the three that became two," and a fairly sub par effort. But there have been much worse, of course.

The first cut that I mention might actually end up being rather "historic," since, at over 3 minutes, it will most likely be the longest single snip from this point until the end of the series. Unless of course there's enough objectionable material in one episode that makes them need to combine episodes again. I seriously doubt that. Sure, there are going to be plenty of scenes from here until the end that will be snipped, but nothing as drawn out as the "Kuririn impalement." Remember, all the cuts happening in this episode and in 78 are being done for time, in order to combine three episodes into two. My feeling is that they didn't chop up the Freeza torturing Gohan scenes because they were too violent, but because they didn't have time to show the full episodes, and since SOMETHING had to go, they decided that they might as well go after the most violent stuff just to be on the safe side. In my opinion, though, these scenes are very important dramatically and in terms of character, and the battle with Freeza as a whole is somewhat weakened by their deletion.

English episode 65 continued

(3:35) More of the "Freeza torturing Gohan" scene. Basically the same stuff as I've already described, Freeza crushing Gohan's head with his foot while grinning villainously and whatnot. There's also a shot or two of the "Goku worried in the rejuvenation tank" variety, no big loss. Probably the biggest cut here, though, is a scene that shows Piccolo flying to the battle site, most of which consists of an extended flashback where he is remembering Gohan and their time together.

I was glad to see that Kuririn spanking his booty ("here's your target!") at Freeza was left in. Of course, there's no REAL reason why this would have to be cut, but I think Saban would have made FUNi snip this. After all, they canned the shot of Yajirobe biting Kuririn's ass in episode 20, and this is kinda in the same league, so I was a little worried about it. But it's there, so that's cool.

But I'm not holding my breath on the whole "flipping the bird" thing that's going to come up next season...

Freeza: "You cut off my tail, you imbecile! And now I'm going to eat you!"

Uh... excuse me, but what the HFIL is that? I'm going to EAT you? Well, I guess I can't complain about this in philosophical, or character, or storyline terms, but I can complain about it in "stupid" terms.

Dende: "Go green!"

Yeah. Go green. Yeah, baby. Green all the way. Green power. Green pride.

(46 sec.) Just some long drawn out "closing shots" where the narrator overexplains everything and Goku sits in the rejuvenation tank looking worried. No big loss.

End English episode 65

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