Dragon Ball Z Season Five

Season five picks up right where season four of Dragon Ball Z left off. Trunks traveled to the past in order to find some way to destroy the androids that ravaged his future time but things have turned out so differently from what he knew. News of a second, older time machine is unsettling to the Z Fighters, yet may shed some light on things. Containing the Imperfect and Perfect Cell Sagas, Dragon Ball Z Season Five is spread across six discs on 26 episodes.

Like season four, season five is another season I enjoyed immensely as it contains two of my favorite sagas, and features my favorite big bad in all of DBZ, Cell. It all starts out with a mystery. When Trunks, Bulma and Gohan investigate the second time machine, they find out that it's the same one Trunks used but it's pretty banged up and covered with moss, suggesting that it's been there for some time. It turns out that the second time machine has been there for four years, one year prior to when Trunks came to warn the Z-Fighters of the Androids. In Season four it was established that simply traveling back in time could result in a number of changes. So who, or whatever came before Trunks did could be the cause of the differences to the current timeline. I found this mystery to be genuinely interesting and it's still one of my favorite things about DBZ after all these years.

Piccolo fuses with Kami to combat Cell.

A short fight even by DBZ standards.

Kami has sensed some unknown menace festering on Earth for the last four years and feels that it's an even greater threat than the Androids. When the citizens of Ginger Town, a place that holds a population of over 15,000 people suddenly vanish, leaving on their clothes behind, Kami catches gets a look at the creature that killed them and finally decides to fuse with Piccolo, giving the Namekian even greater strength than he's had before. Piccolo leaves the Lookout and descends to Ginger Town, the now abandon city. Well all except the creature that killed everyone and holds a single man hostage, which of course, happens to be Cell. So just how did Cell kill everyone in the city? Thee were no energy blasts because up to this point, all the buildings are still standing. Cell is more than happy to show us how he did it, much to Piccolo's horror. Everyone in Ginger Town was killed via absorption from Cell's tail. The hostages he pretends to let go gets a tail in the back and has his flesh and bones sucked completely out of existence. My reaction to seeing that for the first time mirror Piccolo's. What a truly awful way to die.

As I said before, Cell is my favorite villain of DBZ. Not only is he interesting, so is his back story. Like the Androids, Cell was created by Dr. Gero. However, the process of creating Cell was slow, slow enough to the point where it if was left up to a computer to do the work in collecting the DNA that makes up Cell, which consists of Goku, Piccolo, Vegeta, Freeza and King Cold. Because Cell's body contains cells from these fighters, he can emit their chi, something Piccolo and the other Z-Fighters are quick to notice. Cell wouldn't be initially completed for another 24 years from the current timeline. After leaving Dr. Gero's lab, he still hadn't reach his full growth, needing to absorb Androids 17 and 18 to become fully complete. But when he woke in the future, the Androids were nowhere to be found because Trunks had destroyed them. Trunks was about to travel back in time again to tell the Z-Fighters that he was successful in defeating 17 and 18 but he was ambushed by Cell and killed. Cell took the time machine and traveled back to current time where 17 and 18 are alive and well. In the meantime, Cell is still capable of becoming even stronger by absorbing living energy from humans through his tail, which is why all of Ginger Town was his first feeding ground.

That looks pretty painful.

Krillin is the first to be touched
by perfection.

Cell is such a cool character right from the start. In his imperfect form, he knows he's no match for Piccolo so he goes from town to down, killing people to extract their energy to overtake 17 and 18 in strength. He's savvy enough to know that he can attract the F-Figther's attention so when he sense them coming, he decreases his power level all the way down and they always arrive to too late. In his first form, he's sneaky can calculating, avoiding conflict so he can get enough energy. In a short amount of time (by first DBZ anime standards) he success and and has power that dwarfs Piccolo's currently the strongest hero of the Z-Fighters. Once he absorbs 17, he gets even stronger and exerts an arrogant attitude similar to Vegeta. Then he absorbs 18 and he's even more arrogant but he takes on a laid back attitude like Goku and wants to test test the limits of his abilities, believing no one to be his equal in strength. This leads into the Cell Games Saga, which is all of season six.

For me, Cell pretty much steals the show, but there are other happenings that make season five pretty entertaining. Vegeta, Goku and Trunks all train to ascend beyond the Super Saiyan while Gohan trains to become a Super Saiyan, making him the youngest to achieve the form until Goten and (Kid) Trunks come along later. There's the awesome fight between Piccolo and 17, Vegeta beating the crap out of Cell in his Ascended Saiyan form and Krillin's dilemma to disable 18 in order to stop Cell's completion. Vegeta once again gets a lesson in humility by letting Cell absorb 18 and complete himself and gets another beat down.

It's funny, I didn't start watching DBZ until the final arc in the Majin Buu Saga, but the the era where Cell was the main threat is my favorite part of DBZ. Piccolo gets a brief time to shine, there's some amazing fights and the time machine mystery that gave way to the introduction to Cell was and still is spectacular stuff. I can't wait to get to the Cell Games Saga.