Ch 318 saiyan hair just wants to go up. i bet vegeta's dad was king because his hair went up the most (i actually have no idea what he looks like so i could be wrong) (The Super Saiyan) I've decided I don't like newly super saiyan Goku all that much. He's kind of... unnecessarily... harsh? It's a bad situation, for sure, and maybe Gohan wouldn't have gone if Goku had been a bit more nice about it. He tells Gohan to get out, because at this point it would be very bad if Piccolo (and therefore Kami) bit the dust. He says he'll find a way back to Earth on his own, and snaps at Gohan when he asks how. Gohan gets the picture and manages to somehow pick up Piccolo. like an ant carrying something 50x its own body weight Gohan says "thanks" to Goku and leaves with Piccolo. Predictably, Freeza makes as if to attack them, but Goku moves to block his line of sight (and therefore line of attack?) instantaneously and grabs Freeza's forearm. Looks like it hurts, too; when Freeza gets free, he holds that wrist with the other hand. Goku tells Freeza he's getting sick of him (same here). Freeza's shaken by all of this; Saiyans aren't supposed to transform into anything but those giant apelike (but tailed) creatures. it'd be funny if this isn't what the legendary super saiyan actually is, but something else altogether Goku beats on Freeza for a while, then they stop to have a bit of a conversation about innocence and species-wide culpability. Freeza asserts that even if Goku is this fabled super saiyan, he's still not going to be able to actually win, and attacks with a series of powerful-looking blast-beam hybrids. Goku emerges unscathed and holds out his arm in front of him. Without seeming to do anything at all, he bowls Freeza over. Ch 319 (The Tables Turn) Oh how they turn. Goku attacks, and Freeza can't seem to do anything about it. Even when he does attack, he either gets blocked or his attacks don't seem to have much effect. the return of the good ol headbutt Freeza retreats a bit and tries to hit Goku with one of his laser-like beam attacks, but Goku dodges all of them. there's a special kind of infuriated that you feel when someone just offers to let you hit them after you miss them a bunch And Freeza certainly is that special kind of infuriated with Goku! But not so much that he refuses to take the shot. The beam hits Goku right in the face and knocks his head back, but all it does is maybe bruise up his chin a little and give him a bit of a bloody lip. dude you are tempting fate by being this arrogant * that one batman clip immediately started playing in my head * you can't just... look, this is a bit too much for me to handle in just two panels, couldn't you have spread it out a bit more so i wouldn't have to contend with all of it all at once? vegeta just needed to meditate a bit. get his head in the right place. channel all that anger of his. Gohan finds Goku's ship and leaves Piccolo inside before flying off to find Bulma. Goku gets into kamehameha stance and Freeza says he'd rather kill himself than die by Goku's hand. Goku, reasonably, tells him to go ahead. Instead, Freeza goes back to his original plan: destroy Namek. He can live even in the vacuum of space! He doesn't need any of that pesky oxygen or shielding from the radioactivity of the stars! That's more than can be said for Goku, even if he has a fancy new aura and hair color. this is why you should have been kamehameha-ing and not talking to him!!!
oh hey, that reminds me of a fic I found that is a book written in-universe by gohan about this very subject! https://archiveofourown.org/works/10951899/chapters/24374409
Ch 320 exactly 200 chapters away from the end of the manga (The End of Namek?) Freeza tosses his energy charge down at the planet. It's acutally pretty small, much smaller than the genki-dama, but I guess it must really pack a punch. excuse me why are you trying to make me think namek's completely gone when i fucking know it's not (spoiler) Kaiou somberly gives the news to Tien, Yamcha, and Chiaotzu: it seems that Planet Namek's been destroyed. Despte Goku's transformation, it all came to naught. It's a heavy moment. Then Kaiou gets a call. heyyyy, kami! been a while! (wouldn't work so well for all the people with katakana names, but i like it when those who can have their kanji on their clothes.) Mr. Popo is out gathering dragon balls (Earth's, that is). I suppose with most of the usual cast dead or out in space, it makes sense that he'd be the one to send. Guess he can find them without radar? He works in mysterious ways. hey yeah that's right! if you're still around, then that means piccolo must be too!! Kaiou casts around with his antennae and sees that while shit is indeed going down on Namek, it hasn't quite been completely obliterated yet. Freeza's charge apparently wasn't powerful enough to destroy it in a single instant. However.... The planet's core has been, according to Freeza, universe-renowned planetary physics expert, "utterly disintegrated". Namek now has a lifespan of 5 minutes before it does meet its untimely demise. Goku says that's enough for him to gather up everyone and get offplanet before it explodes, but Freeza has other plans, namely facing Goku at 100% strength to keep him from escaping. He attacks Goku with some sort of ki attack, knocking him into the water. things are REALLY getting down to it at this point, because goku can't lose much more clothing before we get into the Nudity Danger Zone (and that's Not Allowed for big goku) Ch 321 (Maximum Desperation) Freeza starts seriously charging up. Goku's just kind of hanging around, watching him. Kaiou calls with some good advice, namely "GET HIM NOW WHILE HE'S OCCUPIED YOU DIPSHIT!!" that's it i'm through with you. get out of my house Kaiou, much like me, flips his shit a little at this, reminds Goku that this isn't just some friendly match, it's a serious confrontation with someone who means to kill him (not to mention his son and two friends, including his oldest one). Goku says he's going to fight 100% Freeza and beat him. yeah yeah that's certainly a secondary motive but it's not your primary goal. don't try to justify your actions by using krillin's death. that fucking sucks, man Gohan perseveres despite the planet falling to pieces around him. He snatches Bulma out of harm's way at the last second, just as she was about to be crushed by a falling rock. Bulma has a lot of questions, but there's not really any time to answer them right now. Meanwhile, Freeza's made it to 100% power (at least, he claims he has), and has gotten significantly bulkier. It's not a good look, I much prefer his sleek and lithe not-100% bodytype. At this point, Goku's not super interested in having any kind of chatter; he just wants to get this stuff over with. Kaiou, dejected, gets word from Kami that Mr. Popo's gathered all of the Earth's dragon balls, so they can bring back Tien and Yamcha, although Chiaotzu's kind of SOL, given that he's been rezzed before. Tien's very sweet and offers to stay dead with Chiaotzu so they won't be separated. (;.;) Kaiou says "wait hold up" and starts making some inquiries about what Earth's dragon balls can actually do and what kinds of wishes can be granted. Could they bring back multiple people? Yes, if they died within a year and in common circumstances. Could they bring back someone who died from natural causes, like old age? That's a no. What about old age hastened by the actions of someone else? Kami's not sure; it hasn't happened before. If they were revived, they'd likely live the amount of time their life was shortened by. Kaiou spends a moment thinking and then makes a decision. it's so surreal to me that kami's going to be making wishes to the dragon he himself created The basic rundown on Kaiou's plan: use Earth's dragon balls to bring back those who were killed by Freeza and his compatriots; hope the Grand Elder gets revived for at least a little bit; use the final Namekian wish to get everyone off of Namek before it explodes. Pretty hot stuff, Kaiou! Bulky!Freeza has been beating up on Goku for a while now, and says that it's just been a warmup for his final assault. Goku makes him even angrier by saying that he'd be disappointed if this was the limit of Freeza's strength. Back on Earth, Shenlong is summoned.
Ch 322 yajirobe always popping up when i least expect him (Two Warriors, One Finish) (what does that even mean) Namek's down to two, three minutes at the most. Better hurry it up with the wishing, Kami! Freeza is, at this point, extremely sick and tired of Goku's confidence and conviction. Time to put more of his 100% strength to use. He attacks Goku from above, but Goku grabs him. a rare backwards headbutt! After the headbutt, Goku whirls Freeza around a bit and flings him high into the air, forcing Freeza to use energy to stop himself. He surrounds himself with some sort of aura and dives towards Goku, who's gotten into kamehameha stance. ...Awww, I'm a bit disappointed. It's not Kami making the wishes, it's Mr. Popo. Well, that's alright, I guess it wouldn't make much sense for him to bring all of them up to Kami's place when he can do it just fine himself. The wish is posed to Shenlong, who's not sure he can do it, but gives it a shot. i uh feel like you're not allowed to say that Ch 323 (The Two Wishes) Color pages color pages! Freeza has a very pleasant pink aura going on. Works nicely with his purple accents. Goku's hair is a fairly pale yellow, and going super saiyan seems to have somehow... washed out the color of his clothes. The blue and orange are not as dark as previously shown. Maybe it's just for effect. Oh, and he has pale blue-green eyes. It's kamehameha vs. Freeza's pink energy bubble... until Freeza just flies out of the path of the beam. He hits Goku squarely with both fists, sending him flying down into the water and through the ocean floor. "what fresh hell is this" (and small ones!!! alive again! <3) So the wish must have worked! Once-dead Namekians are popping up all over the place, very confused and having not much idea what's going on. Do people who are revived have memories of being dead? I guess they must, or else Goku would have had no idea what went on when he was dead, but no one ever talks about it. Must be interesting to live in a world where you can have pretty good proof that there is in fact something to look forward to after death. The sky's also gone dark. Kaiou speaks directly to the Grand Elder, who's a bit disconcerted about being alive again. Freeza wants to get away from the planet before it explodes, because even though he can survive space, withstanding the blast would drain him of power he doesn't want to lose. Something catches his attention from the corner of his eye. THIS MADE ME LAUGH SO HARD HE'S JUST OMINOUSLY RISING OUT OF THE OCEAN I CAN'T REALLY EXPLAIN IT BUT FUCK I FOUND IT SO FUNNY tfw you think you killed the house centipede but then it scuttles away unharmed to terrorize you later Freeza is done with all of this. Namek has not gone how he wanted it to. He just wanted to go, become immortal, and then have an eternity of taking over planets and selling them. (Is that fun, or is that just... work? Like I don't understand sometimes what these people do for fun. Sudoku?) What he got instead was disobedience from a subordinate, the loss of his best crew, no immortality whatsoever, and opposition he never expected. He just wants to get the hell out of here. He decides it's time to explode Goku, just like he did that other pesky earthling. i think that may have been the wrong thing to say, freeza Kaiou tells the Grand Elder to wish"everyone who isn't Freeza" off of Namek. Goku breaks in to the conversation and tells them nope, make that "everyone who isn't Freeza or Goku", and by the way if anyone makes the wish without the Goku part he'll never forgive them. Kaiou reluctantly agrees. The Grand Elder locates the Namekian who's closest to Porunga's location, which is, of course my sweet boy dende <3 welcome back!! please don't die again!! poor kid. he's been through so much and people are still asking him to do things. after this i hope he can have a nice restful time and drink a lot of nice water and chill out in the sun and, i dunno, garden or something. whatever he enjoys doing. but he's so determined!! he'll do the thing that needs doing! what a fucking nightmare. DB continues to be full of my phobias. fucking vegeta woke up buried in the fucking ground. god. luckily it was a super shallow grave, so he probably had no issues getting himself out, but still. anyway, welcome back vegeta! did you have a good time in the afterlife? Porunga asks if Dende has a final wish, and boy, does he.
Ch 324 goal of the day: get through Vol 22 and the end of the Namek arc (The Quiet, Fierce Battle) If I know these punks, it's not gonna be quiet. Everyone just screams all the fucking time. Sometimes for no good reason. They're like parrots. (from the title art) i almost breathed rice through my nose laughing at this Freeza and Goku finally notice that hey, there's a fucking dragon over on the horizon! Freeza immediately heads straight for it and tries to wish for immortality. Unfortunately (for him) he does it in English/Japanese, and while Porunga somehow manages to speak those just fine, wishes that aren't made in Namekian are invalid. (Unless when a dragon speaks, everyone can understand, so it's not actually EN/JA? but then why would it only understand the one language.... everything is a mystery) Dende sees Freeza, freaks out for a moment, then finishes the wish that Kaiou asked the Grand Elder to pass along. HAHA FUCK YEAH! good job dende, good job beefy dragon. still love your antennae. wish shenlong matched humans better. maybe he could have human ears or something. a toupee good. now my boy is safe forever not really but i can pretend it's true right now Everyone else poofs off as well: the newly-revived Namekians and Vegeta, Piccolo, the Grand Elder, Gohan and Bulma. The wish being granted, the dragon balls do their turn-to-stone trick and hurtle off to all ends of the planet as the sky goes back to green. (It is green, right? It's been a while since I've seen Namek in proper color.) "No don't go --!" i am much better able to pretend, reading the manga, that 3 minutes is a reasonable amount of time to encompass everything that has happened from when freeza started the planet-destruction until now than i was when watching the anime, where this took place over... several episodes Goku lands, and Freeza follows suit. On Earth, those transported from Namek are wondering what the heck is happening. The Grand Elder (who Gohan calls "Grand Elder-san", oh my gosh, I love Gohan) takes it upon himself to explain what's going on before he passes away again, this time for good. Probably. Back on Namek, Goku and Freeza are still fighting. Ch 325 (Son Goku Quits) Freeza gets punched real hard in the gut and spits up a bunch of saliva? Stomach acid? Who knows! It's gross. He gets back at Goku with a chop across the back and a kick that nearly sends him into what must be one of the last standing cliffs left on Namek, which is still in the process of shuddering itself apart. Goku manages to get himself flipped around and goes on the offensive, giving Freeza a decisive pummeling. Goku abruptly gets bored and says that he's done. "you can't quit! I'm gonna fire you!!" dude vegeta wishes he could be as fucking stone cold as you sometimes are without even trying oh, he went back to black! definitely my preferred goku Goku starts to leave, but of course, Freeza can't let Goku just walk (well, fly) away after delivering such a crushing blow to his pride without doing something. He throws one of those sharp energy disks at Goku, and it grazes his cheek and sails past him. pot, kettle, black, etc. The disk circles around; Freeza's doing some energy manipulation and has it following Goku. Hmm, where have I seen that before? Oh right, in the fight with Piccolo earlier on, at the end of that one tournament! How did that end? Not well for Piccolo, if I remember correctly! well now don't i feel like a dumb idiot
Ch 326 i will see you dead you shiny three-toed bastard (Son Goku's Choice) I am so ready for Freeza to not be... existing anymore. * cheers on Goku * Goku does fly at Freeza and then swerves at the last second, and Freeza, unfortunately, does not get guillotined by his own attack. He sends it after Goku, and the disk goes right through the afterimage; Goku's on the ground and is not interested in continuing this fight with Freeza whatsoever. Plus, there are like... five seconds left at this point to get off the planet, and who knows if something's happened to his ship, wherever it happens to be. He suggests that Freeza go and do some practicing, learn some new moves, then come back and they can continue this later. In response, Freeza makes a second disk, presumably with the same homing properties and sends both of them after Goku. Goku does what seems to be the same thing as before, but as he gets close he sends up a plume of dust with a small blast; Freeza flies up to escape it, but Goku's waiting for him there and gets him right in the head with an elbow drop. Oops. i just... i can't adequately make any words about this panel, but if i had to experience it, then so does the rest of the thread Freeza crashes down right between his two disks. so... why, then? did you not think that this would be the outcome of the thing you did? did you expect him to just collapse completely and so not be in the path of the disks? is this because you suddenly realized that he's in imminent danger of being cleaved in half by his own attacks? i don't get your deal here. i know that you don't often want people to die (we've certainly seen that over and over and over), but why not do something, anything else if you wanted him to NOT be hurt by those disks? * throws hands up in the air * In any case, Freeza does not stay down. whoops And does indeed get cleaved into... four pieces, I think. Torso+head, legs, an arm, and a piece of tail. Goku lands nearby and seems a bit regretful about how all this turned out, but resigned to the fact that it's done now. He tells Freeza he's leaving for Earth and that he can find his end with Namek. goku kaiou + me: "don't you fuckin do it" dude it's just gonna be like raditz but worse oh good, you can see sense occasionally wait what (ʘ言ʘ╬) are you fucking kidding me right now
Ch 327 well i thought i would see that shiny, three-toed bastard dead (The End of Everything) Back on Earth, the Grand Elder finishes up his explanation. hey everyone look at this goddamn dickhead (also i feel like there should be a loophole because vegeta was, technically, a freeza henchman. a traitorous one, but one all the same. they should have come back. oh well.) (hang a sign around his neck: "i killed a bunch of namekians and couldn't even be bothered to pretend to feel slightly remorseful!" vegeta-shaming. oh, there is much potential for vegeta-shaming.) oh! the big dragon balls somehow came too? did they come with the grand elder? did porunga come too? i want the dragons to meet and hang out. The Grand Elder makes Muri (the one up above in the first panel) (let me guess: named for the latter part of "katatsumuri", or "snail") the new Grand Elder and peacefully vanishes. Piccolo says he hopes that the Grand Elder finds peace and severely confuses Gohan and Dende, until Dende realizes that Piccolo must have merged with Nail. Bulma wonders where Krillin and Goku are, and Gohan explains what's going on: Goku's back on Namek to deal with Freeza, and Krillin didn't come back because this is his second time dying. i'm kind of into the weird differences in dragon ball properties. why can't you bring a person back twice? iunno, but that's the case on earth! i'm sure the namekian ones have their own weird limitations But in any case, they can get Krillin back when the Namekian dragon balls finally become usable again. Poor guy only has to be dead (again) until that happens! That's good, because once again, Krillin Doesn't Deserve This Shit (for the most part). Piccolo worries about Goku's sanity in choosing to stay and fight Freeza, but Gohan tells him not to worry, because Goku became a super saiyan and can handle it. This startles Vegeta out of his aloof arms-folded pose. Namek's looking really bad now. So is Freeza. Spoiler: a little bit gory bad shit! Goku and Freeza find time to have yet another talk. Goku suggests getting off Namek and trying to find the value in life. Freeza asks how he thinks he'll be able to get away, given that Namek must be so, so close to just imploding by now. Goku's answer is Freeza's own ship, although as we know, it was pretty well and thoroughly trashed by Vegeta earlier on.... Goku seems confident that he can find a way, though, and leaves. Freeza tries one last attack because of course he does. Goku is absolutely, completely, 100% done with Freeza at this point, though. He calls him an idiot and finally just lets him have it via a beam attack of his own which seems to basically annihilate Freeza. :/ regret... Ch 328 (Namek's End) very good alt fashion goku Kaiou breaks the news that although Freeza is dead, Goku might also be if he doesn't find a way soon to get off the planet. Goku gets in the ship, finds the launch button (claiming it's very similar to the ship he came in), but... nothing happens. Even if something had, it does have that huge hole in it that Vegeta made before he pitched the dragon balls out, along with probably some others, and a non-airtight spaceship is not a particularly useful spaceship at all. The ship lists sideways and Goku flies out; it's started to fall down a crevice that's opening up on the surface below it. It doesn't seem to be an option anymore, and there really is no time left; Kaiou closes his eyes and says he can't bear to watch, but we have to see. well shit. When Tien, Yamcha, and Chiaotzu get the news, Yamcha decides he has to be the one to break the news. He has Kaiou contact Bulma for him, and tells her that Goku managed to defeat Freeza. i know it will (most likely) never happen but just once, just one single solitary time, i want vegeta to call him goku Then Yamcha tries to carefully tell her that Goku did not manage to make it out alive. bulma you literally could not have found even a slightly better way of saying that?? Turns out she was so flippant was because she was assuming that the Namekian dragon balls would be capable of bringing them back. Which they are, but the issue is the location; if they get brought back, they'd be in the dark void where Planet Namek used to be, and human (and human-adjacent) bodies don't tend to function well without the trappings of atmosphere, gravity, and the like. well that kinda fuckin sucks
Ch 329 had some Sustenance so i'm ready to finish this heckin' volume!! (Where is Goku?) look at this sassy pose Bulma explains why resurrection isn't a possibility and Vegeta says something useful, which he does occasionally, when he's not being an incredible asshole, I guess. "or whatever" don't touch him, what if assholeishness is catching Vegeta's still a butt, though, and smacks Gohan's hand away. All he wants is to see what a super saiyan actually is, and then at some point defeat it. I may slightly disagree with his assessment of his own feelings, but ehhh, it's not worth it to dispute it every time. and yes i am probably putting way too much thought into analyzing vegeta's character when he's not meant to be that deep but whatever it's fun so i'm gonna do it Muri, the new Grand Elder, asks Bulma if she knows of a place they could stay while they wait for the dragon balls to become useful again. (He calls her "my earthling friend", which I find very endearing.) Bulma offers up her place, because it's large, there's food, and it's private (so they won't freak people out). She invites Vegeta too and makes him embarrassed by telling him not to get flirty with her. Thank you for existing, Bulma. Gohan also wants to stay at Bulma's for a while, because he hasn't done any homework, I guess not even on the ship on the way to Namek, and he doesn't want to face his mom. heyyy porunga did come after all! neat. there's a Lot to take in in this panel one of my favorite things might be when a namekian child is not quite tall enough to be in the panel and so you just see part of their head As is traditional at this point, Dende acts as translator and conveys the wishes to Porunga in Namekian. The first wish is to bring Krillin and Goku's souls back to earth. Porunga calls Krillin back, but can't do the same for Goku, because PSYCH, he's still alive out there somewhere! i have two alternate feelings about this: the first is that that's a GOOD fucking question, why isn't he home right now, you know, with his family and junk; the other is that it's a big assumption to make that however he managed to escape namek, it'd make him able to get back to earth within 130 days. poor krillin. thanks porunga for being a good guy and putting his body back together (+clothing it; i'd feel very bad if he had to experience getting rezzed unexpectedly in front of a whole bunch of people, a lot of whom are alien strangers, and was naked) As the last wish, they try to bring Goku back, but I guess you have to get the person's consent to transport them back by wishing; Goku refuses and says he'll head back on his own. So instead, they first bring Yamcha back, then Chiaotzu and Tien later, in the same round of three wishes that the Namekians use to colonize a new planet. They take Porunga with them, which makes sense, but is a little sad. And so a full year passes and Goku's still off somewhere gallivanting around in space. Gohan is studying (or maybe just wondering why Dad #1 hasn't come back yet) when he senses something, and almost immediately gets a call from Krillin. There's some ki out there approaching the Earth, and it's not a particularly nice once. Moreover, it's a familiar ki; it feels like Freeza. Vegeta and Piccolo recognize it for what it is as well, while Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, Roshi (and probably anyone else who can sense that kind of thing) just go "holy shit that feels bad". come on now what the actual fuck and that is officially the end of Volume 22! The fact that Freeza has a dad that he calls "papa" just uuuuuuh kind of changes my whole worldview? like you think you know something about a character but then you just don't whatsoever. too bad we don't get to see mom. that would be something. but aside from all of that I THOUGHT I WOULD SEE YOU DEAD YOU THREE-TOED, SHINY, CYBORG BASTARD
On one hand, not killing Freeza is in like Goku's top three blunders. On the other hand, the number of his friends who previously tried to murder him is pretty high, so I can see where the confusion comes from. On the gripping hand, soon. Soon it will be time for my non-piccolo favorite
Just wait 'til we meet Freeza's brother, Cooler! (note: we will not be meeting cooler since his exists purely in the semi-canonical realm of the movies/videogames)
