| Held Captive | |
|---|---|
| |
| Series | 
|
| Episode | 40 |
| Saga | Namek Saga |
| Original Airdate | March 14, 1990
|
| Manga Counterpart | The Return of Vegeta
|
| Previous Episode | Friends or Foes? |
| Next Episode | Look Out Below |
Held Captive (ホントにホント? あれが希望のナメック星, Honto ni Honto? Are ga Kibo no Namekkusei) is the fifth episode of the Namek Saga and the fortieth overall episode in the uncut Dragon Ball Z series. The episode first aired on March 14, 1990.
Summary[]
Bulma, Krillin and Gohan are surrounded by armed children. An older boy steps forward, apparently the leader of the group. Gohan and Krillin try to explain their situation in turn, but both wind up dodging weapon fire. Gohan and Krillin Power Up, anticipating a fight, and as they do, a little girl with a teddy-bear, Emi, kicks Krillin in the shin.
A second boy with a bandaged cheek steps forward calling the leader "Zeshin", and urges him to quickly dispose of them, as they must be henchmen of someone named "Frieza". Before Zeshin can follow through, the entire Mirror spaceship starts to shake, and alarms go off. They have fallen into a meteor swarm. Zeshin rushes to the bridge, and Krillin and Gohan use the confusion to rescue Bulma.
Back at Wukong Hospital, Goku is screaming his lungs out as he watches the doctor prepare to give him an injection. Master Roshi is disappointed, but sympathetic to his pupil. Chi-Chi cannot believe what she is hearing, compared to the terrible hardships Gohan must be enduring. She heads off to the hospital chapel to pray for Gohan, distracting Goku just long enough for the doctor to stick him with the needle. The resulting scream turns heads all the way down in the parking lot.
As Bulma, Krillin and Gohan run away from their captors, Krillin and Gohan hesitate, feeling they should help save the kids. A giant ceiling panel comes loose, and would have surely crushed several children had Gohan and Krillin not caught it in time. Zeshin witnesses this heroic act, and does not know what to think.
A fire breaks out, and Zeshin leaves the second boy, Bun, in charge of things, as he, Gohan and Krillin man the hoses together. Bulma heads for the bridge, where she takes over piloting the giant ship from Bun, expertly guiding it through the rest of the meteors. Gohan even manages to rescue the girl with the teddy-bear from an exploding fuel line, directing enough of his own energy to shield her from the blast.
Once safe, Bulma cannot believe the kids mean to take her prisoner again. They claim she is a collaborator of the men who destroyed their homeworld. Krillin and Gohan catch up in time for Bun to accuse them of being in league with "Frieza." Anyone with the barbaric powers they displayed would have to be. Zeshin arrives and tells everyone to put their weapons down. If they were truly Frieza's agents, why would they be helping them now? Emi supports Zeshin, saying all Frieza's men did was come to destroy and kill their parents. Bun looks into Gohan's eyes and remembers seeing his parents killed by a soldier, as well as receiving the scar on his cheek. He does not see the same evil that was in the soldier's eyes in Gohan's, and walks away.
Krillin says Frieza and his men sound a lot like the Saiyans, but according to Zeshin, the soldiers did not have tails. Krillin asks what happened to their home planet, and Zeshin tells how they were invaded by soldiers who claimed the planet for Frieza. Their parents had been killed, and they only escaped because they were sent away in spaceships. Frieza's men, led by Cui, hunted down the other ships, however, and the mirrored ship was the only one left. The kids are headed for one of their world's trading partners, who will be glad to look after them. The two groups say their farewells, and Krillin finds out that the kids passed Planet Namek two weeks ago. Zeshin gives Bulma the coordinates for a shortcut, and is about to warn her about something, when the trio blasts off. Bulma inputs the shortcut into the ship's computer and heads off to bed. Krillin has a bad feeling about the men who attacked those children's planet, and wonders if they might be mixed up somehow with the Saiyans.
Eighteen days out from Earth, Vegeta's pod finally approaches a planet. On the surface, several humanoid soldiers wearing Battle Armor similar to Vegeta's monitor his approach. As they turn out on a landing pad to greet him, his ship lands with a soft thud. There is no sign of Nappa's pod, and Vegeta does not immediately get out. The soldiers discover Vegeta has a life-support mask on, and quickly get him to the base's medical facilities. He is immersed in a Medical Machine while an attendant monitors his condition.
On Kami's ship, Krillin and Gohan rest comfortably in their futons at the foot of Bulma's once-again-cluttered bunk. The ship starts to shake, and the two of them urge Bulma to see what is wrong, but she tells them it is just the effect of the shortcut. The shaking gets more intense, and everyone and everything starts bouncing around the cabin. Once the shaking stops, Bulma finds herself in a compromising position with Krillin, and promptly slaps him. Looking out the view-port, Bulma discovers the shortcut saved them over two weeks time, and they have already arrived at "Planet Namek".
Trivia[]
- This episode shows Goku having trypanophobia (fear of needles).
- Though this episode is entirely filler, it serves as a de facto introduction of Frieza to the series, even though he did not appear until much later in the original manga. A similar case was presented with Tien Shinhan, who in the manga was introduced at the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament but in the anime was first introduced in filler before his official debut. Of note, the Ocean dub of this episode apparently describes the invasion of Bun's planet as being led by Frieza himself bearing an identical appearance to Cui as opposed to Cui leading the invasion on Frieza's orders.
Gallery[]
{{#set:brief summary=Bulma, Gohan, and Krillin are captured by a mysterious group of militant, heavily armed refugees, while on their way to the planet Namek. Things could get ugly between the two groups!}} Namek Saga/Episodes