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| Rest in Peace, noble hero. |
After the Freezer Saga, Akira Toriyama was in a bit of a pinch. The manga was much too popular to end it there, but he had just finished the most epic battle imaginable. What can he do for the next saga? Another battle against an insurmountable enemy would only pale in comparison to Freezer.
So I have to hand it to Toriyama, he clearly saw a problem and hit it with everything he could, crafting for Dragonball a new arc that was completely unlike the Freezer & Saiyan arcs, a story full of twist after twist after twist. It makes for the most complex arc in DBZ by far. Right up to the end, the Cell Saga is full of exciting subversions.
But I have to wonder if, in subverting his own conventions, did he make it a tad more morally ambiguous than was the intention? Goku, up until this point in the series, had been a kind and noble man, who offered mercy to his enemies. But this time he decided to murder Cell without giving it even a second thought, and what's worse... Cell wasn't an enemy at all.
I'm sorry to go into such a tirade about it. This isn't A Song of Ice And Fire -- nobody gives a fuck about my Dragon Ball Z conspiracy theory. But suffice to say, I'm convinced that Perfect Cell is a good guy. Or, at the very least, he's the most mild villain the Z warriors have ever faced, and they decided right from the get go to summarily execute him.
When Piccolo ascends to Kami's Palace and insists to Kami that they must merge together to face the overwhelming power of the evil artificial humans, Kami's response is that there's no proof the artifical huamns are evil. "You guys picked a fight with them." he says. And he was right, although the artifical humans declared their intent to kill Son Goku, it was Vegeta who confronted them and demanded a duel. After defeating the Z Warriors, the artificial humans allowed them to take senzu beans, and had no intention of killing them at that particular moment.
Three out of the four androids we're dealing with here turned out to be decent blokes, by all accounts. Why then is the fourth, Cell, assumed to be irrevocably evil without so much as a Q&A? Moreover, what did Freeza and Vegeta do to deserve mercy, while Cell was given no such chance?
Cell showed the exact same mercy and lack of malice that the androids did -- in fact he showed more so. As soon as Cell becomes Perfect, he no longer values killing or destruction. He is the spawn of Goku, Piccolo, and Vegeta, what Cell wants is to fight a good fight. After witnessing Trunks and Vegeta multiply their powers by tenfold in just one day, Cell decides to give the Z Warriors 10 more days to prepare. He's basically begging them to defeat him. Even when he defeats Goku in the Cell Games, he tells Goku to eat a senzu bean so they can continue fighting. What exactly is so violent, evil, or menacing about that?
The Z Warriors picked the fight with Cell, just like they picked the fight with the Artificial Humans. All the fuck Cell did was put on a martial arts tournament! Why did the Z Warriors have to decide to kill him? Why didn't they try to reason with him? Even if Cell wasn't a 100% perfect angel, he was nowhere near as bad as Piccolo or Vegeta were before they turned good, let alone Freeza who Goku still offered mercy to.
Cell's one and only crime is that he absorbed all the people in a handful of rural towns. Freeza probably averaged that many kills per second, considering he was the mastermind of a universe-wide genocidal organization, and Vegeta killed half of Goku's friends, plus countless people on countless planets -- not to mention the Earthlings killed in the city the Saiyans destroyed probably equals all the rural townsfolk Cell absorbed considering the disparity between rural villages and cities. And the final cherry is, Imperfect Cell is the one who killed the villagers. It stands to reason that Perfect Cell, as a more evolved being and as a being who contains the genes of great heroes such as Son Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, and Tenshinhan, obviously it's possible his Perfect form may be less barbaric and more open to reason. But did anyone bother to test this likelihood? Absolutely not, they just decided to murder Cell. Perfect Cell never did anything wrong until he was backed into a corner and facing certain death at the hands of his aggressors. And as a matter of fact, it wasn't until he lost #18 that he made any move against the Earth. In other words, Perfect Cell again is not the culprit.
Perfect Cell may have announced his plan to destroy the Earth if no one beat him in the Cell Games, but it was clearly an empty boast. Cell's intention was to stage an epic martial arts tournament and the only way to do that was to inspire fear. But even in inspiring fear, his attempts were feeble, lazy, and unambiguously facetious. Meanwhile, Artificial Human #16 clearly intended to kill Son Goku and was still entertaining notions of doing so even during the Cell Games -- he says as much right to Goku's face. Who is the real villain here, the guy who just wants a good fight and puts on a fucking martial arts tournament, or the soulless robot who wants to kill Goku? The bitter, cruel irony of it is that #16's death is what turns Gohan SSJ2, when Cell may well have saved Goku's life by killing #16. What if Cell is murdered and #16 remains alive? #16 has no other mission in life but to kill Goku.
And if you're fool enough to believe Cell really would have destroyed the Earth, why was he so visibly scared when Goku aimed his full-power Kamehameha at the Earth? Cell was more worried than anyone else, that the Eart would be destroyed. Cell is not an alien from beyond the stars. He has not destroyed planets. The Earth is his home, and his only mission in life is to have a good battle with a worthy opponent. He would never kill the Z Warriors, if he did his life would become meaningless. He needs them to survive for the same reason Goku spared Vegeta's life. Cell never enjoyed destruction the way that the evil #17 & #18 from Trunks's future did. What Cell gets pleasure from his from fighting with a WORTHY opponent. How is that nobody realized this? Goku literally begs Gohan to kill Cell as soon as Gohan has the upper hand. What happened to the Goku we know and love?
Cell was virtually begging for the Z Warriors to convince him to join the team. He demonstrated his mild intentions time and time again. He was a powerful foe who, like Vegeta and Piccolo before him, could easily have been turned into an even more powerful ally.
The obviousness of Cell's lack of malice is almost obnoxiously overwhelming. The ridiculousness of Goku's bloodlust towards Cell is so extreme that it makes me think less of Dragon Ball/Z/Kai. Mind you, Kai is still one of the greatest fucking shows ever made (probably top 5 all-time), but it's not as good as it should have been. If Toriyama wanted Cell to be evil, he should have made Cell evil, it's as simple as that.
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But other than that, the Cell Games Arc was a fun watch, and Kai represents an enormous improvement over Z, as always. The fighting, as always, was top-notch. Goku vs. Cell was a true joy to witness, without all of Z's original filler. And there was one scene I had forgotten, which was the best scene in Kai's whole latter half: when Piccolo stays behind to offer Vegeta a hand after Cell's death. Now... Piccolo has held a grudge against Vegeta this whole time, and understandably so: Piccolo died fighting Vegeta during his original visit. But Piccolo is also in a unique position to understand Vegeta. Piccolo WAS Vegeta. Piccolo fought to take over Earth, Piccolo lived to kill Goku, and Piccolo came around to the good side because he was shown the kindness of friendship. In offering his hand to Vegeta, Piccolo is offering Vegeta this same gift of friendship. It's devastatingly beautiful, and even if Cell was viciously murdered, I'm glad that at least some personal growth could come from it.
I'm also eagerly awaiting the Buu Saga. As long as they keep using Z's original music and they don't leave too much filler in, I'm sure seasons 5 & 6 will be better than season 4.
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