Episode 39 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on November 19, 1986 and known in the English dub as Mysterious Android No. 8, introduces one of the saga's best-loved characters: Android 8, the scary-looking giant with a soft heart whom Goku nicknames Hatchan (Eighter in the Funimation dub). With him at his side, Goku makes it through the Muscle Tower maze and comes face to face with General White.
Summary
Out of the cell steps a huge creature with a flat head, a scar on his forehead and chains on his wrists, which he snaps without effort. Murasaki orders him to kill Goku, but the giant refuses: he does not like hurting anyone, and what the Red Ribbon Army is doing to the village seems wrong to him. It is a manufacturing defect, the ninja rants as he pulls out a remote: there is a bomb inside the android, and if he does not obey, it will blow.
Before Murasaki can press the button, Goku knocks the remote away with his staff, smashes it and slams the ninja into the wall. The android is safe. The two introduce themselves: he is number 8, and Goku decides to call him Hatchan, an affectionate nickname built from his number. It is Hatchan who reminds him that there is a mayor to rescue.
White, livid, rallies his last troops. Meanwhile Goku has wandered into the maze floor and is going around in circles, partly because the general is moving the walls from the control room. Hatchan catches up: he knows the way. Five soldiers try to block their path and end up in a heap, and the pair find a way around the shifting walls.
On the sixth floor, in the control room, White is waiting. Hatchan tries to persuade him to stop hurting people, and Goku demands the mayor. In reply the general pushes a button: a trapdoor opens under their feet, and the two plunge to the floor below, into a monster's lair.
Our take
Hatchan is one of the happiest inventions of this stretch of the manga. Toriyama takes the classic image of Frankenstein's monster and turns it upside down: the giant built to kill is the gentlest creature in the tower, far more humane than the men who give him orders. The fact that his pacifism is labeled a "defect" says everything about the Red Ribbon Army.
The friendship with Goku is born in seconds, as always with him, and it is believable precisely for that reason. Goku does not judge by appearances, and Hatchan is the first to treat him as a person rather than a weapon. The nickname he gives him is the sign of a real bond.
The anime stretches the maze crossing with the soldiers and the shifting walls, absent from the manga, where Hatchan guides Goku without a hitch. It does not add much, but the episode moves along nicely. Hatchan, after all, is a character built to last: for many fans he is the first sign that a Red Ribbon android can choose which side to be on.
Trivia
- The episode adapts chapter 63 of Akira Toriyama's manga, with additions, and drew a 22.6% ratings share in Japan.
- English Wikipedia renders the title as "The Mysterious Cyborg No. 8", but jinzōningen is the same word later used for Androids 17 and 18.
- Many years later the series reveals that Android 8 was designed by Dr. Gero, the Red Ribbon scientist who will build Androids 17 and 18.
Did you know? The name Hatchan comes from "hachi", eight: Goku turns the android's serial number into a childlike pet name.
Characters
- Goku
- Android 8 (Hatchan)
- Ninja Murasaki
- General White
- Muscle Tower soldiers