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"Tiles and Tribulations" is the twenty-fourth episode of the third season of Team Four Star's DragonBall Z Abridged and is the fifty-fourth episode overall. It was uploaded on YouTube on August 22, 2016.

Tagline[]

"Dragonball Z Abridged Ep 54: The #CellGames are on their way. Trunks struggles to come to terms with Cell's power level and the Gang gathers to hear what Cell has in store. Will Goku and Gohan ever make it out of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber? Find out in Dragonball Z Abridged"

Plot Summary[]

Gohan is busy training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber when Chi-Chi suddenly shows up as Piccolo couldn’t stop her. Chi-Chi is ready to take Gohan back to Earth and return to his studies, but Cell appears and kills both Chi-Chi and Piccolo, before turning around to reveal he has Goku's face. Gohan soon wakes up, revealing it to be a nightmare, and Goku manages to calm him down, revealing he had the same dream as well. Gohan thinks that they've been here for too long, which Goku, seeing that Gohan has been writing on the walls, agrees with.

Outside, Piccolo tells Bulma what happened, making her think that they won, much to his and Tenshinhan's annoyance. Meanwhile, Trunks is angry about his fight when Krillin and Vegeta arrive. Trunks laments that his fight was meaningless, not helped by Vegeta's mocking, but Krillin tries to defuse the situation. Then, Android 16 appears, and he and Krillin bond over the fact they liked Android 18. Vegeta and Trunks are confused by this, though Trunks hopes Krillin doesn't try to screw 16 like 18.

Meanwhile, Cell is preparing for the tournament and creates his ring. He's at first happy until he finds out there's a green tile. He gets frustrated and leaves to make another ring.

The group returns to Capsule Corp and are greeted by Mrs. Briefs. Krillin asks if Bulma's back as they need to repair 16, but Dr. Briefs arrives and offers to do it for them. He does ask though if they could keep the guests to a minimum since Yajirobe just left and they're still short on food, though immediately afterwards, the group from Kame House arrives. As Dr. Briefs starts up the repairs, Trunks tells everyone about his fight with Cell, to which Krillin reassuring him that at least he got lucky and didn't die. This makes Trunks surprised that five of them (Krillin, Chiaotzu, Yamcha, Master Roshi, and Vegeta) have already died, with two of them dying at least twice. As Yamcha is still mocked by Vegeta over his embarrassing death, Roshi reminds them that Cell is still out there plotting. Though it turns out Cell is flabbergasted that his second ring is a circle made up of squares and that there's another green tile.

Meanwhile, Dr. Briefs finds out that Android 16 is missing a lot of data, and with Dr. Gero's servers destroyed, there's no way to recover them. 16 doesn't mind this though, as he can become his own android, and plays with Dr. Briefs cat. Outside, Chi-Chi refuses to let Gohan fight against Cell, even though the Z-Fighters point out they would need him in their next fight and that he's the third strongest in their group, though Vegeta asks who the fourth strongest is. Chi-Chi admits that she can be harsh, but that's only because she doesn't want Gohan to live off tournament money or welfare checks anymore. She also knows that she can't stop Gohan from fighting but threatens that no dragon in the universe can save them from her wrath if Gohan gets hurt or (God forbid) dies.

Meanwhile, Cell makes his third ring and is happy that this one is perfect. Unfortunately, one of the tiles is shorter, but he annoyingly lets it go as he has bigger plans.

The next day, Trunks is watching TV, hoping to see Cell on there when Bulma comes back. Yamcha and Krillin decide to work out together so they'll be ready when Cell appears, but Vegeta mocks them for even thinking about it. Yamcha fights back, even asking Vegeta about his broken spine, to which Vegeta gives Yamcha a 5-minute head start before he hurts him. As Master Roshi is watching TV, Cell suddenly appears and moves upwards to the news channel. Cell introduces himself and declares that he is hosting a tournament with Earth at stake. He declares the tournament as the Cell Games, borrowing the rules from the World's Martial Arts Tournament, only he will be the only bracket the opponents will face. Cell gives the fighters one week to prepare and shows how much damage he can cause by blowing up the back wall and a section of the city. He leaves the city with the Z-Fighters shocked over what they saw, only for Roshi to change the channel to porn, much to Krillin's annoyance.

In the stinger, a bald man gets a call from someone regarding Cell's announcement. The bald man, revealed to be Nappa, tells his "champ" to start training.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Stars[]

  • Amber Lee Connors - Panti
  • Christopher Zito as Hetap Actor 1
  • Marc Swint as Hetap Narrator
  • Caitlyn Bairstow as Aerobics Instructor

Music[]

  • Shunsuke Kikuchi - Cha-La Head-Cha-La (Variations)
  • Kenji Yamamoto - A Battle of Rivalry
  • Hironobu Kageyama - Cha-La Head-Cha-La
  • Shunsuke Kikuchi - Funky Kame-Sennin
  • Kenji Yamamoto - A Wondrous Phenomenon
  • Kenji Yamamoto - A New Foe Rears His Head
  • Gioachino Rossini - The Barber of Seville Overture
  • Kenji Yamamoto - Tranquil Times
  • The Trashmen - Surfin' Bird
  • Akira Yamaoka - My Heaven from Silent Hill
  • Kenji Yamamoto - Symphonic Transformation
  • Shunsuke Kikuchi - Saiya-jin Kitaru
  • AinTunez - The Cell Games Announcement

Differences from the original episode[]

  • When Cell turns around to Gohan after killing Chi-Chi and Piccolo in Gohan's nightmare, he ended up screams in the original version. In the Abridged version, Cell ends up turns around and says "I love you, son" with Goku's face.
    • He also breaks Chi-Chi's head with his foot like he did with Piccolo, in the original version Chi-Chi dies from the pain after the slap that Cell gave her
  • Oolong tells Roshi that "there's an actual porn on the internet", in the original he calls him an dirty old man but decided to watch the "porn" anyway

Callbacks[]

Cultural References[]

  • Krillin's quote to Vegeta - "view must be great from that glass house of yours" - comes from the phrase "he who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones". The meaning of the phrase is that you shouldn't mock someone for faults and flaws that you yourself has, which was exactly what Vegeta was doing when they met up back with Trunks after Cell left, and which Krillin himself pointed out to the prince.
  • When looking into Android 16's bird program, we see birds from popular culture including; Flappy Bird, Big Bird from Sesame Street, Red from Angry Birds, and the FalconZord/Sacred Ninja Beast Tsubasamaru from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (the footage for said zord is from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie). All to the theme of The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird".
  • Gohan's wall writing "All training and no play makes Gohan a dull boy" is a reference to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", originally written by Stephen King.
  • The Hetap commercial uses footage from the 1979 anime Mobile Suit Gundam.
  • The Country Music Channel uses footage from UFO Robot Grendizer.
  • The aerobics girls are saying lines from the theme of the movie "Space Jam" by the Quad City DJs.
  • One of the channels that Master Roshi flips through uses footage from Sword for Truth.
  • As Cell chokes the WHN news reporter, he makes a disclaimer warning of adult content similar to TV-MA rated shows.
  • Cell suggest the citizens as part a Purge or kill their boss like in Horrible Bosses.
  • The theme used in the "Kill Son Goku" scene is part of the music track My Heaven from the original Silent Hill. As well, another nod to Silent Hill is in the appearance of the screen itself, which is rustic in color.
  • In response to Cell announcing the Cell Games, Master Roshi changes the TV channel to some porn to effectively use the one week given before the games. He was watching a hentai known as Legend of the Pervert.
  • When Dr. Brief is working of 16, the sounds of repairing an item from Fallout games can be heard.
  • The list of places destroyed by Cell includes Penguin Village, from Akira Toriyama's other manga/anime series Dr Slump, whose population includes famously-stronger-than-SSB-level-because-its-a-gag-manga character Arale (and a couple equally-strong robots). Arale has some obscure Abridged references in videos about TFS playing Dragon Ball games.

Trivia[]

  • The title is a pun on Trials and Tribulations.
  • First appearance of both Goku and Gohan's Full Powered Super Saiyan forms.
  • Chi-Chi is the sixth person to read the disclaimer more than once, after Vegeta, Freeza, Yamcha, Bulma, and Cell.
    • Interestingly, she said "non-profit" in the disclaimer despite Team Four Star removing the word two years ago. Team Four Star admitted they used an old disclaimer recording and missed the mistake.
  • This is the first appearance of Nappa since "Freeza: The Final Cut" and "The Dead Zone".
  • Gohan's developing apathy towards his mother is becoming more apparent in this episode since he was shown actually delighted to see her die instantly at the hands of Cell in his dream after he bitch-slapped her.
  • The original source had Cell give the Z-Fighters 10 days to prepare for the Cell Games, but here, Cell gives them a week.
  • Krillin says that Gohan is the third strongest fighter he knows (and heavily implies that Gohan's stronger than Vegeta), however, the last time he saw Gohan at this point was before Gohan went to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, where he wasn't even stronger than Piccolo.
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