The first episode of Dragon Ball Z, broadcast on Fuji TV on April 26, 1989, picks up the story five years after the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament. Its full title is Mini-Goku is an Overprotected Boy! I Am Gohan., and in the original English dub it became part of The Arrival of Raditz. Goku is married to Chi-Chi and has a four-year-old son, Gohan, while a warrior from space arrives looking for someone called "Kakarot". Half the episode follows a lost little boy in the woods; the other half introduces the villain who single-handedly rewrites the rules of the series.
Summary
A round space pod crashes into a field. A farmer drives over with his shotgun and finds a man with a long tail, armor and a strange device over one eye. The stranger reads the farmer's power level, a mere 5, and when the farmer fires he catches the bullet and flicks it back, killing him. He then grumbles that this planet still has living people on it, as if someone had failed to do a job.
Meanwhile on Mount Paozu, Chi-Chi calls Gohan in for lunch: the family is expected at Master Roshi's house. But the boy has wandered off after a butterfly and is lost. A saber-toothed cat steals his hat, the one with the Four-Star Dragon Ball that his father gave him, and Gohan ends up clinging to a log swept away by a river. Goku searches for him on the Flying Nimbus, but the waterfall gets there first. When Goku finally finds him, Gohan is hanging from a branch far above the falls, with no idea how he got there.
The stranger flies on, following his scouter, and runs into Piccolo, who confronts him certain that he is the strongest being around. Piccolo's power level is 322, and his attack does not even scratch the newcomer. The alien is distracted, however, by a much higher reading. Convinced it is the greatest power on the planet and therefore Kakarot, he leaves. Piccolo collapses, frozen by fear.
Our take
For anyone coming from Dragon Ball, the surprise works on two levels. Goku is now a grown-up, a father, almost a homebody; and the new villain is not a wizard or an army but a man who measures strength with a number. The scouter is a simple, brilliant idea: for the first time, power becomes a figure on a screen, and the series will lean on it for years to build tension.
The episode does not adapt much, though. Chapter 195 of Akira Toriyama's manga covers the landing, the farmer and the meeting with Piccolo; Gohan's long adventure in the woods was added for the anime. It is not wasted time. It introduces the boy, shy and bookish, and shows his hidden power before anyone explains it. The waterfall jump foreshadows what will happen within a few episodes.
Series director Daisuke Nishio, who directed this episode himself, plays on contrast: sunny fields and a family cottage on one side, Raditz's dark silhouette on the other. Seeing Piccolo, the old archenemy, reduced to trembling is the quickest possible way to tell the audience that the stakes have changed.
Trivia
- The Japanese title roughly means "Mini-Goku is a pampered boy! I'm Gohan". The Funimation subtitles render it as Mini-Goku is an Overprotected Boy! I Am Gohan., while the uncut 2005 redub calls the episode The New Threat.
- In Japan the episode drew an 18.2% ratings share. The script is by Takao Koyama, the series' head writer.
- It marks the debut of the opening theme Cha-La Head-Cha-La by Hironobu Kageyama, used until episode 199.
- In the original 1996 English dub, episodes 1 and 2 were merged into a single installment.
Did you know? As Raditz flies off, the episode briefly shows a baby with a tail being placed in a space pod. It is the first hint, before anyone says it out loud, that Kakarot and Goku are the same person.