Time to close out this first of four chunks of DBZ with the first TV Special, “A Final, Solitary Battle: The Father of Z-Warrior Son Goku, Who Challenged Freeza”, or more simply for the English speak market: “Bardock – Father of Goku”. Really this should be with the Frieza arc stuff in the next batch of DBZ but that would make this chunk have three films/specials compared to… well, a lot more for each of the others, so for the sake of spreading them out a bit let’s consider this a “preview” for whenever I get round to the next bit, plus it’s obviously set well before it and the Saiyan arc anyway, so… Yeah. The two Z TV specials have one thing in common and that’s that they’re far more mature and brutal compared to the manga/TV series they’re based on, with this taking a look at the Saiyans and how they fell in a story that in reality has no heroes in it at all…
The story opens with a group of Saiyans wiping out the population of the planet Kalnassa for the sake of Frieza, as well as for the sake of “fighting is fun”. The team is led by Bardock, a man who unlike a certain movie villain last week has a good reason for looking like Goku: he’s his dad! As his group is resting after a good day’s slaughtering the female member of the group (either Selypa or Fasha, depending on original Japanese and English dub…) mentions that Bardock’s son was born recently, but he has no interest in a son whose power level was so low. As everyone laughs a surviving Kalnassan wakes up and manages to strike Bardock in the back of the neck, transferring his people’s ability to see into the future to the Saiyan before being killed. Bardock collapses and then later wakes in a healing tank, ignoring odd flashes of what seems to be his son fighting foes in the future while running past the infant waiting to be launched to Earth, all in order to join his crew on their next mission to wipe out the people of the planet Meat… or so he thinks. You see Frieza has been mulling over the old legends of Super Saiyans and generally starting to think about just how powerful some of the “monkeys” are getting so has decided to “nip the issue in the bud” and commit genocide, as he tends to do. In order to thin the numbers of the stronger fighters though Bardock’s group is ambushed and killed by Frieza’s left hand man Dodoria.
All but one of Bardock’s crew look on in surprise… well, apart from Selypa/Fasha, who just looks annoyed…
Bardock arrives and finds out what happened from his last remaining man Toma, and as the blood sinks into his partner’s bandage he puts two and two together with the future glimpses he’s been having and realises that Frieza is going to destroy planet Vegeta. Some lackies arrive as Bardock wraps the now blood-red rag around his head and the Saiyan soon dispatches them, despite some flash-forwards of his son fighting Prince Vegeta throwing him off. His victory is short-lived however as Dodoria arrives and blasts him, Bardock only surviving when the corpses of his fallen allies land on top of him. Bardock crawls into his pod and heads back home, flying past his son’s pod as it’s sent towards Earth. He just about manages to stagger to a nearby bar and announces to the room full of Saiyans that they’re about to be wiped out, but all they do is laugh. Bardock curses at them before heading out alone to try and save himself, his people and his planet as a whole…
Thankfully Bardock resisted the urge to say “Don’t you die on me!” at this moment…
For a piece of Dragon Ball media its very off-brand, even the next TV special, as dark as it is, still has good-hearted people as the protagonists, this has a guy who starts the episode happily committing his latest genocide and not giving a damn about his newborn son as its protagonist. It works though, and I much prefer it to what Dragon Ball Super did to the character, which is odd to say as that was scripted by Toriyama whereas this wasn’t, but on possibly just this one occasion I think the anime team did it better. Goku shouldn’t have nice Saiyan parents who cared for him, people should be amazed that a Saiyan can end up kind hearted. He became the strongest Saiyan because he wasn’t like them, because he wasn’t like his father. It works out much better thematically, at least in my book.
Overall Thoughts:
I wonder if Bardock’s real last thoughts were “I told you so!” ?
“Bardock – Father of Goku” will always stand out to me as a great 40-ish minutes of anime, but a very odd example of Dragon Ball. Toriyama at the time, if I remember rightly, said he watched it and how strange it felt to see his work being so serious (but liked it enough to include Bardock in a manga panel later!) but given the story it was telling it couldn’t be anything else. It adds a lot of weight to Frieza as an enemy but also makes sure we know that the Saiyans weren’t heroes who were unfairly killed by a tyrant, they were genocide-committing soldiers who got genocided themselves and despite this lineage our main series protagonist ended up being a kind-hearted “hero” (ish…). Highly recommended.
Bardock floats into the upper atmosphere of the planet and starts barrelling through countless Frieza soldiers in order to get to his goal. Frieza decides to head out in his floating chair and meet their guest. Bardock charges up an attack and claims its for his and everyone’s fate and fires, just as Frieza creates a massive ball of Ki that easily absorbs Bardock’s tiny blast and throws it as the planet. Bardock is soon caught in the blast and as he dies he sees one last flash-forward of his son Kakarot standing face-to-face with Frieza, allowing him to die smiling that his race, and even his own bloodline, lives on to challenge the tyrant once again.
I remember seeing a version of this screenshot very early into my fandom / the internet in general. Had me really excited to see it in action one day!
Planet Vegeta explodes as Frieza admires the fireworks, the majority of the Saiyan race along with it. On a far-away planet Vegeta, at this point still a child, is informed that his planet has been destroyed by a collision with a meteor and doesn’t care. We then see Grandpa Gohan find the young Kakarot in his pod and name him Son Goku, beginning the Dragon Ball saga…
Hogan Reviews 