Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone

Following his defeat by Goku at the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, Piccolo trains alone when he is caught in an ambush by a group of mysterious warriors. Chi-Chi along with her father and son, Gohan, are attacked by the same group while Goku is away fishing. He senses the danger his family faces and returns to find that his son has been abducted.

The impish Garlic Jr. is responsible and commenced the attack in order for him to retrieve the four-star Dragon Ball that was attached to Gohan's hat. Garlic Jr. senses an immense power within Gohan, and decides to make him his pupil rather than kill him. After gathering the remaining six magical Dragon Balls, Garlic Jr. summons the eternal dragon Shenron and he wishes for immortality. Goku prepares to rescue his son when Kami, Earth's guardian, arrives and explains that centuries prior, he and Garlic Jr.'s father, Garlic, competed for the position of Guardian of the Earth and Kami was victorious. In revenge, Garlic unleashed a demonic horde onto the Earth until Kami defeated him and ended the invasion. Goku proceeds to search for Gohan when he is attacked by the villain's henchmen while Kami faces Garlic Jr.

Krillin and Piccolo arrive with the latter defeating henchman Sansho while Goku manages to defeat the other two henchmen, Ginger and Nicky. Meanwhile, Kami is bested by Garlic Jr. until Goku and Piccolo rescue him. With Garlic Jr.'s newly obtained immortality and a new, muscular form, the rivals Goku and Piccolo are forced to work together and are able to eventually defeat him. Still possessing disdain for one another and mistakenly believing Garlic Jr. to be dead, Goku and Piccolo prepare to fight when Garlic Jr. opens up a portal into another dimension; a void of darkness known as the Dead Zone. Gohan becomes enraged as he witnesses his father and friends in danger and releases his latent power, hurdling Garlic Jr. into his own vortex to be trapped for all eternity. Unable to recall the events, Gohan believes that his father defeated Garlic Jr. while Goku realizes his son has amazing hidden potential. Piccolo vows to defeat Goku while watching him and his friends depart.

A fourth English dub released in Malaysia by Speedy Video features an unknown cast.

• OP (Opening Theme):
  • "Cha-La Head-Cha-La"
    • Lyrics by Yukinojō Mori
    • Music by Chiho Kiyooka
    • Arranged by Kenji Yamamoto
    • Performed by Hironobu Kageyama
• IN (Insert Song):
  • Tenka'ichi Gohan (天下一ゴハン, "The World's Greatest Gohan")
    • Lyrics by Sakiko Iwamuro
    • Music by Takeshi Ike
    • Arranged by Kenji Yamamoto
    • Performed by Masako Nozawa
• ED (Ending Theme):
  • Detekoi Tobikiri Zenkai Pawā! (でてこいとびきりZENKAIパワー!, "Come Out, Incredible Zenkai Power!")
    • Lyrics by Naruhisa Arakawa
    • Music by Takeshi Ike
    • Arranged by Kenji Yamamoto
    • Performed by Manna

The film was licensed in North America by Funimation and the home video rights were sub-licensed to Pioneer Home Entertainment. Pioneer's dub used the same voice cast as the TV series did at the time, and was dubbed by Ocean Productions. They released the film as Dead Zone, and later retitled it Dead Zone Vortex for its television airings. As a bonus feature on the Pioneer DVD, deleted scenes from the original episodes 1 and 9 are shown in Japanese with English subtitles, as these two episodes were yet to be dubbed in full at the time. In North America, Pioneer's dub was released on VHS, LaserDisc and DVD on December 17, 1997.[6] Since then, Funimation was released this movie of Rock the Dragon Edition set with Ocean dub on DVD on August 13, 2013, it has 53 edited episodes of the TV series, plus two movies of The World's Strongest and The Tree of Might (Movie Edited Version).

Once their sub-license expired, Funimation released the movie to DVD on May 31, 2005, with a completely new dub done by Funimation's voice cast with "Ultimate Uncut Edition".[7] There's also released the movie on November 14, 2006 as part of a movie set subtitled "First Strike", also containing The World's Strongest and The Tree of Might. It was later digitally remastered and released in Double Feature set with The World's Strongest for Blu-ray and DVD on May 27, 2008, in feature full HD 16:9 aspect ratio 1080p format. The film was re-released to DVD on November 1, 2011 in remastered-widescreen set containing the first five Dragon Ball Z movies.[8]

AB Groupe, a French company that holds the license to the Dragon Ball franchise in most of Europe, licensed and dubbed the movie, which they re-titled In Pursuit of Garlic.[9] This dub featured a voice cast that was unknown for years, but it is now believed that English-speaking voice actors in France were involved with this dub.[10] In Pursuit of Garlic aired on TV in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, and was sold on DVD in the Netherlands by Bridge Entertainment Group. Speedy Video, a Malaysian-based company, released the film on Video CD, here subtitled The Vengeance of the Demon King. Speedy also released the Pioneer English adaptation on VCD. Both the AB Groupe and Speedy dubs are notoriously known for inaccurate translations (e.g. Piccolo was called "Big Green" in the AB Groupe dub) and dialogue that did not fit the mouth flaps.

• Official anime website of Toei Animation
• Dead Zone at IMDb
• Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia