Episode 20 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on September 20, 1989 and titled Goku's Ancestors in Funimation's dub, is almost entirely an anime invention. Goku has to whack the lightning-fast grasshopper Gregory with a hammer, and during a break King Kai tells him the history of his people: a story of conquest and genocide that leaves him shaken.
Summary
With Bubbles caught, King Kai gives Goku his second task: bonk Gregory, the god's assistant, on the head with a huge, heavy mallet. Gregory is a talking grasshopper, incredibly quick and rather touchy, and hitting him looks impossible.
On Earth, Gohan has learned to dodge Piccolo's punches, but a surprise energy blast knocks him off a cliff. The boy cannot climb back up and calls for help that never comes. Meanwhile, at Kami's Lookout, Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, Chiaotzu and Yajirobe continue their training under the guardian of Earth.
Over lunch, King Kai tells Goku who the Saiyans really are. Long ago they lived as savages on the planet now called Vegeta, alongside the Tuffles, a weaker but far more advanced people. The Saiyans wiped them out, took the planet and its technology, and began roaming space, teaming up with other powers to clear entire worlds of their inhabitants and sell them. In the end, King Kai says, the god of that world rained meteors down on them; only four survived, Goku among them.
Shaken and angry, Goku goes back to the grasshopper with new resolve. On Earth, the fighters finish their training with Kami, whom they have now surpassed, and decide to keep training on their own. After two weeks Goku's mallet finally connects with Gregory, and King Kai agrees to teach him the Kaio-ken. At Kame House, Master Roshi asks his sister, Fortuneteller Baba, to look into what awaits the planet, and the answer is chilling: Earth has no future.
Our take
The anime is doing what it often does in this saga: stretching time so the show does not catch up with the manga, which was still coming out week by week. But it does so with an idea that sticks. The Tuffles do not exist in Toriyama's manga; they are a Toei addition, and they return years later in Dragon Ball GT as the race behind Baby.
King Kai's story carries real dramatic weight: Goku learns he belongs to a race of conquerors and reacts with anger, rejecting that legacy. It is the first step in a theme that runs through the whole series, the Saiyan raised on Earth against the Saiyans raised to kill. That said, this version of the backstory does not last: it is later revealed that Frieza, not divine punishment, destroyed Planet Vegeta.
Gregory, created for the anime and also kept in Dragon Ball Kai, is an effective comic foil. The oddest scene, though, is Gohan stuck at the bottom of the cliff, which is not in the manga and gives the boy a moment all his own.
Trivia
- Trapped in the ravine, Gohan shouts a string of random words: he is playing shiritori on his own, a Japanese game where each word must begin with the last syllable of the previous one, and loses with "raion" (lion), which ends in "n". Funimation rewrote the scene twice, once making Gohan defiant and once making him beg for help.
- During King Kai's story, the Japanese version uses the song Shura-Iro no Senshi.
- The episode adapts chapter 211 and drew a 19.6% ratings share in Japan.
Did you know? King Kai also mentions the Saiyans' ability to transform under the full moon, but Goku does not react. He only understands when he faces Vegeta's Great Ape form.
Characters
- Goku
- King Kai, Bubbles and Gregory
- Gohan and Piccolo
- Krillin, Tien Shinhan, Yamcha, Chiaotzu and Yajirobe
- Kami
- Master Roshi and Fortuneteller Baba