Dragon Ball
‘Dragon Ball Z’: this continuity error between Vegeta and Gohan demonstrates the unnecessary filler in the anime
The final stretch of Frieza’s arc on Namek was not spared from Toei’s typical filler through scenes unpublished in the manga.
‘Dragon Ball’ is the clear example of an anime artificially lengthened through filler with respect to the manga, episodes and even entire plots -such as Garlic Junior’s- that subtracted more than they added, beyond having more episodes and footage of one of the most famous and popular anime in history. And ‘Dragon Ball Z’, Goku’s adult stage in TV anime form -remember that in the manga it was always ‘Dragon Ball’, from beginning to end-, is known for having much more filler than would be desirable; perhaps that’s why, not many years ago, ‘Dragon Ball Z Kai’ was released, a much more faithful remastering of Akira Toriyama’s manga without any additional filler from Toei, which shortened the series considerably in the number of total episodes.
‘Dragon Ball Z’ filler and its continuity errors
The Freezer arc of ‘Dragon Ball Z’ is one of the stages with the most filler in Toei’s anime. So much so, that the number of episodes was stretched to exhaustion in a totally artificial way with invented plots such as the one about the ship of the children lost in space, the fake planet Namek where Bulma, Krillin and Gohan ended up or the episodes of the past of Frieza and the Saiyans in which Vegeta, Nappa and Raditz were seen together for the first time. However, during the epilogue of this arc, with Freezer already agonizing on Namek before the Super Saiyan Goku, a continuity error occurred between two episodes as part of yet another display of unpublished filler in the manga.
And the fact is that after the appearance on Earth of all those who were on Namek except for Frieza and Goku, the survivors -some of them resurrected- Bulma, Krillin, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta and the rest of Namekians are awaiting the news coming from Namek through Kaito. It is then when Vegeta raises his voice assuring that with the death of Frieza and Goku on Namek, he has a free hand to conquer the universe as the most powerful warrior alive, something that arouses Gohan’s rage. It is then when both begin a fight that never took place in the manga, since in the original story Vegeta already begins to show signs that something is changing inside him.
However, in the anime and just at this moment, Vegeta continues to act as that stark Saiyan without any scruples, throwing away his arc of redemption that would make him soon after one of the Z warriors. Such is the nonsense in this little filler of the anime, that after the fight between the two -with the irruption of Piccolo to prevent the death of a Gohan beat at the hands of the Saiyan-, Vegeta takes off full of rage to disappear into the horizon.
All of this for him to just casually be present in the following episode among the group of survivors without any of the above having happened, this time following the manga script to the letter. Such is the continuity error that Gohan even approaches Vegeta while the latter is leaning on a tree holding out his hand as a sign of concord after everything that happened on Namek, with Vegeta hitting the hand of Goku’s son as a sign of contempt, but both acting as if the fight to the death that occurred in the previous episode had not taken place.
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