''Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound'' is a 1993 Japanese

animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

science fantasy file:Warhammer40kcosplay.jpg, Cosplay of a character from the ''Warhammer 40,000'' tabletop game; one critic has characterized the game's setting as "action-oriented science-fantasy." Science fantasy is a hybrid genre within speculative fiction ...

martial arts film Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expression a ...

and the ninth ''

Dragon Ball Z ''Dragon Ball Z'' (''DBZ'') is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation. Part of the ''Dragon Ball'' media franchise, it is the sequel to the 1986 ''Dragon Ball'' television series and adapts the latter 325 chapters ...

'' feature film. It was released in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

on July 10 at the Toei Anime Fair, where it was shown alongside '' Dr. Slump and Arale-chan: N-cha! From Penguin Village with Love'' and the first ''Yu Yu Hakusho'' film. The antagonist Bojack was created by

Takao Koyama is a Japanese screenwriter and novelist focusing on anime productions. His name was written as until 1987. Career He graduated from Waseda University in 1972 and joined to Tatsunoko Production as a story creator and a screenwriter. He left fro ...

and was designed by series creator

Akira Toriyama was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He came to be regarded as one of the most influential and important authors in the history of manga, authoring highly influential and popular series, particularly Dragon Ball (manga), ''Dra ...

. The film is the last to feature

Kōhei Miyauchi , better known by the stage name , was a Japanese actor and voice actor born in Kagoshima Prefecture. On June 2, 1995, Miyauchi died on his hospital bed at the Nihon University Itabashi Hospital from abdominal varices. At the time of Miyauchi's d ...

Master Roshi Master Roshi, known in Japan as as well as , is a fictional character in the Japanese manga series ''Dragon Ball (manga), Dragon Ball'' and its anime adaptations created by Akira Toriyama. Within the series, he is an elderly martial arts master ...

, who died two years after its release. It was preceded by '' Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan'' and followed by '' Dragon Ball Z: Broly – Second Coming''.

Plot

A wealthy family hosts an intergalactic

martial arts Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; ...

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

on Earth in which fighters from across the galaxy compete including

Gohan is a fictional character in the Japanese franchise '' Dragon Ball'' created by Akira Toriyama. Gohan is the son of the protagonist Son Goku and his wife Chi-Chi and made his appearance in chapter #196 "Kakarrot", published in ''Weekly Shōnen ...

Piccolo The piccolo ( ; ) is a smaller version of the western concert flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" or piccolo flute, the modern piccolo has the same type of fingerings as the ...

Future Trunks is a fictional character in the ''Dragon Ball'' manga series created by Akira Toriyama. Within the series, he is the half- Saiyan half-human son of Vegeta and Bulma and has at least two noteworthy incarnations. Trunks makes his debut appearance ...

Tien Shinhan , known as Tenshinhan in Japanese media and Viz Media's release of the manga, is a fictional character in the ''Dragon Ball'' franchise created by Akira Toriyama. He made his appearance in chapter #113 "The 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai", first publish ...

Yamcha is a fictional character in the ''Dragon Ball'' manga series created by Akira Toriyama. He is first introduced as a desert bandit and an antagonist of Son Goku in chapter #7 "Yamcha and Pu'ar", published in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' magazine on S ...

, and

Krillin (known as Kuririn in Funimation's English subtitles and Viz Media's release of the manga, and Klilyn in Japanese merchandise English translations) is a fictional character in the '' Dragon Ball'' manga series created by Akira Toriyama. He is int ...

. All but Yamcha effortlessly advance much to the concern of Mr. Satan who recognizes them from the battle against

Cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life * Cellphone, a phone connected to a cellular network * Clandestine cell, a penetration-resistant form of a secret or outlawed organization * Electrochemical cell, a de ...

and knows he will need to face whichever one of them wins. In the semifinals, Trunks fights Tien and defeats him and Piccolo is annoyed by the lack of challenge and forfeits against Krillin. Gohan, Trunks, and Krillin advance to the finals where they each battle an alien fighter. However, as the alien fighters are revealed, the fight promoter realizes that these are not the staged, fake aliens that he recruited for the event. Trunks is challenged by a sword welding alien warrior named Kogu, Krillin is defeated by a female alien named Zangya, Gohan confronts the mysterious alien Bujin, and another tournament contestant Doskoi is killed by the alien fighter Bido. Meanwhile, having been complaining of fake stomach pain to avoid fighting, Mr. Satan gets trapped in a transportation pod and sent to the battlefield. Trunks is surprised by his alien opponent's lethality and is forced to transform into a Super Saiyan to kill him. Trunks is then struck down by an unknown foe while Gohan continues his fight with Bujin until he discovers Trunks and Krillin have been incapacitated. Bojack arrives and tells Gohan about his plans to conquer the universe. Tien and Yamcha join the fight but are quickly defeated by Bojack's minions. Gohan fights them as Bojack watches on in amusement. While in the

Other World In historical Indo-European religion, the concept of an otherworld, also known as an otherside, is reconstructed in comparative mythology. Its name is a calque of ''orbis alius'' (Latin for "other world/side"), a term used by Lucan in his descr ...

Goku Son Goku is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Dragon Ball'' manga series created by Akira Toriyama. He is based on Sun Wukong (known as ''Son Gokū'' in Japan and the Monkey King in the West), a main character of the cl ...

and King Kai watch the battle with concern. King Kai reveals that centuries prior, the galactic warlord Bojack had been sealed inside of a

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

by all four Kais, but when Cell exploded on King Kai's planet, this allowed Bojack to become unbound. Gohan is overwhelmed by the trio of minions and is nearly killed by Bojack until Piccolo saves him. Piccolo challenges Bojack but is quickly defeated. Trunks also challenges Bojack but is paralyzed by Bujin's energy absorption technique and nearly impaled by Bido's spear before he is saved by the surprise arrival of

Vegeta ( ), fully referred to as , is a fictional character in the Japanese franchise ''Dragon Ball'' created by Akira Toriyama. Vegeta made his appearance in chapter #204 "Sayonara, Son Goku", published in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' magazine on January ...

. Bojack pummels Vegeta and assumes his "full power" form while Trunks is overwhelmed by Bojack's minions. With Vegeta, Trunks, and everyone else incapacitated, Gohan fights Bojack alone but is paralyzed by the combined energy absorption techniques of his minions. Gohan is attacked by Bojack but the sudden arrival of Mr. Satan's incoming pod distracts them. Gohan prepares to fight once again but is struck down by Bojack and his minions as Goku watches on helplessly as his son is captured in a

bear hug The bear hug is a grappling maneuver often seen in sports, such as wrestling. It also exists outside sports, such as street fighting, martial arts personal defense, military hand-to-hand combat, and even affectionate hugging. Bear hugs can be d ...

and tortured. Against the rules of Other World, Goku abruptly uses his instantaneous movement technique to transport himself to the fight and strikes Bojack before he can kill Gohan. After some advice and reassurance, Goku places his son on the ground safely and vanishes. Gohan, reinvigorated by his father's words, transforms into his Super Saiyan 2 form. Now unaffected by their attacks, Gohan effortlessly kills Bido and Bujin and Zangya is killed when Bojack blasts her toward Gohan. Bojack is impaled through the abdomen by Gohan's fist and as a last resort, he powers up a massive energy blast which Gohan counters with a ''Kamehameha'' wave. The energy beams clash and Bojack is killed. Gohan, exhausted, falls in delight as Goku praises his son from Other World. After the battle, the warriors and their friends laugh as they watch the news from the hospital that Mr. Satan is the one who defeated the alien intruders. On the roof, Vegeta and Piccolo sit, unimpressed by the cheerful tidings.

Cast

A third English version, produced and released exclusively in Malaysia by Speedy Video, features an unknown cast.

Music

*OP (Opening Theme): ** "

Cha-La Head-Cha-La is a song by Japanese musician and composer Hironobu Kageyama, released as his sixteenth single. It is best known as the first opening theme song of the ''Dragon Ball Z'' anime television series. Columbia released the single on vinyl, cassett ...

" *** Lyrics by

Yukinojō Mori , better known by his stage name , is a Japanese lyricist, composer and poet who is affiliated with Amuse, Inc. He has written over 2,500 songs for numerous artists such as Kyosuke Himuro, Takuro Yoshida and Junichi Inagaki and theme songs ...

*** Music by Chiho Kiyooka *** Arranged by Kenji Yamamoto *** Performed by

Hironobu Kageyama is a Japanese musician, singer and composer. He is best known for his work on anime, video game and ''tokusatsu'' soundtracks. Kageyama first rose to prominence as a teenager in the 1970s as lead singer of the rock band Lazy. Following their br ...

*ED (Ending Theme): ** *** Lyrics by

Dai Satō is a Japanese screenwriter and musician. Having begun scriptwriting at a young age and writing scripts for various companies, Satō later focused his attention on writing for anime series. The first major series he worked on was the groundbreak ...

*** Music by Chiho Kiyooka *** Arranged by Kenji Yamamoto *** Performed by

English dub soundtrack

The score for the Funimation English dub was composed by Mark Menza. The Double Feature release contains an alternate audio track containing the English dub with original Japanese background music by

Shunsuke Kikuchi was a Japanese composer who was active from the early 1960s until 2017. He specialized in incidental music for media such as television and film. Kikuchi was regarded as one of Japan's most highly demanded film and TV composers, working princi ...

, an opening theme of "Cha-La Head-Cha-La", and an ending theme of "Beyond Galaxies Rising High".

Box office

At the Japanese box office, the film sold tickets and grossed ().

Releases

It was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

and

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

in North America on August 17, 2004. It was later released in Double Feature set along with '' Super Android 13!'' (1992) for

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

and DVD on February 10, 2009, both feature full

1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...

format in HD

remaster A remaster is a change in the sound or image quality of previously created forms of media, whether Mastering (audio), audiophonic, Cinematography, cinematic, or Videography, videographic. The resulting product is said to be remastered. The term ...

ed 16:9 aspect ratio and an enhanced 5.1 surround mix. The film was re-released to DVD in remastered thinpak collection on December 6, 2011, containing the second 4 ''Dragon Ball Z'' films.

AB Groupe Mediawan Thematics (formerly known as AB Groupe) is a French television channel business and audiovisual distribution group in the field of broadcasting that is owned by Mediawan. History Mediawan Thematics had its roots under the name of AB P ...

released the film in Europe under the title ''Dragon Ball Z: Super Guy in the Galaxy''. It was also the last ''Dragon Ball Z'' film to have an English dub produced by AB Groupe, although it was marketed as the 9th volume in the VHS/DVD set by Bridge Entertainment in the Netherlands, followed by '' Bardock – The Father of Goku'', '' The History of Trunks'', and ''

Dead Zone Dead zone may refer to: Science and technology * Dead zone (cell phone), an area where cell phones cannot transmit to a nearby cell site * Dead zone (ecology), low-oxygen areas in the world's oceans * Dead band, the region of insensitivity of a ...

''.

Reception

Notes

References

External links

Official anime website
of

Toei Animation is a Japanese animation studio primarily controlled by its namesake Toei Company. It has produced numerous series, including '' Sally the Witch'', '' GeGeGe no Kitarō'', '' Mazinger Z'', '' Galaxy Express 999'', '' Cutie Honey'', '' Dr. Slu ...

Bojack Unbound Guide

Pojo's Dragonball Z – Bojack Unbound script
* * {{Toei Animation films 1990s 1993 films 1993 anime films Bojack Unbound Funimation Martial arts tournament films Animated films based on animated series Films directed by Yoshihiro Ueda Toei Animation films Films scored by Shunsuke Kikuchi