"Sayonara Ten-san! Chaozu no Sutemi no Senpou"
(Goodbye, Ten-san! Chaozu's Life-Risking Defense!)
89-10-25
"The Saibamen Strike" and
"Nappa...The Invincible?"
97-2-8
97-2-16

A furious Kuririn launches an energy blast that takes out three of the remaining Saibaimen, and Piccolo finishes off the last one. Vegeta then decides to get the real battle underway and allows Nappa to attack. The giant knocks Tenshinhan's forearm off, and Chaozu surprises Nappa by clinging to his back. Tenshinhan's friend says his final goodbye, and releases all of his energy in an attempt to kill Nappa, but the titanic Saiya-jin emerges unharmed.

I wondered how the hell FUNimation was going to handle this episode, what with Tenshinhan's arm being knocked off and all. I thought that they would just paint an arm on, but that would have taken an enormous amount of time and energy, and I'm glad they were forced to leave it the way it is. You know that this would have been censored or cut if they could have gotten away with it.


English episode 17 continued

Various shots of Yamucha's body being shown on the TV screen are censored to show an empty crater. Kind of makes you wonder why the film crew would bother getting such uninteresting footage.

(12 sec.) For added "reassurance" after Buruma cheers up knowing that Yamucha can be restored to life, Kame Sennin gives Buruma's rear end a good pat. Well, actually it's more like a massage, and he gets a good pounding for it.

Poor Kame Sennin, FUNimation really screwed him. Not only does his voice suck by about fifty times compared to the Japanese one, but from watching the English version, you wouldn't even know that he's a dirty old man.

End English episode 17 (about 9 minutes in)

(5 sec.) The "removal" of Tenshinhan's arm lasts a few seconds longer in the Japanese version. You just see the beginning of it in the English one, the arm begins to detach, but you don't really see it fall off. I'm amazed that you can see it at all, actually. Blood is clearly spraying from the arm socket, but I guess since the shot is one of those wierd "photographic negative" effects that shows everything only as white outlines, the blood is okay.

Tenshinhan: "You just wait till it grows back!"

Oh, please, give me a BREAK! Another line that almost made me vomit. Explain to me why the idea that Tenshinhan's limbs can regenerate would make this somehow less offensive to parents. If anything, it would just makes things worse! What if kids decide that they want to cut their arms and legs off, thinking that they will grow back? Amazing how FUNimation tries to sugarcoat violent scenes like this, but only manages to dig themselves deeper.

In all fairness though, this line may not be as ridiculous as it sounds. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like I heard somewhere that the original Dragon Ball series established that Tenshinhan can indeed regenerate limbs, and it is somehow related to his 12 eyes (split form) technique.

But even if that is the case, it's pretty obvious that FUNimation put this line there for the purposes of "sanitizing", and if it does indeed "work" as far as continuity is concerned, it is sheer coincidence and luck on FUNimation's part.

In any case it still sounds pretty damned stupid, and it's not supposed to be there. All we hear from Japanese Tenshinhan is him screaming in pain.

Again, I have to stick up for FUNimation here. Most of you who have only seen the English version are probably thinking to yourselves at this point: "Tenshinhan's arm must have been gushing blood here, but it was probably all censored, right Chris?"

This is what I assumed too, that is until I finally saw the Japanese version of this episode. Believe it or not, the original is just as bloodless as FUNimation's, there is only one brief point where there is any blood at all, and it is just a few drops on the side of Tenshinhan's stump.

I was especially surprised, because in the manga, which I read before seeing either version, there is indeed a hell of a lot of blood coming out of the wound, very different than the "cleanness" of it in the anime.

So, believe it or not, this proves that even the original manga was "censored" somewhat in the transition to anime. It would appear that even Japanese TV has some standards, quite a bit more sensible than ours, but still there nonetheless.

Tenshinhan has blood on his face at the point where Chaozu is attacking Nappa. And Chaozu is a mess as well after Nappa smashes him into the mountain. All you see in the English version, however, is the dirt.

Amazingly enough, there is one point where Tenshinhan has some blood coming out the side of his mouth, and it actually ISN'T censored in FUNimation's version. Why that is, I have absolutely no idea.

English episode 18 continues...

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