Episode 202 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on September 29, 1993 and titled Gohan's First Date in Funimation's dub, is a romantic comedy built on a misunderstanding. A classmate named Angela hints that she knows Gohan's secret and pressures him into a date; terrified of being exposed, he goes along with everything. It is an entirely anime-original episode, lighthearted from start to finish.
Summary
Having overslept, Gohan flies to school as the Great Saiyaman and lands on the roof to change. Only afterwards does he notice a red-haired girl up there: Angela. He cannot think about anything else during class, until the teacher sends him into the hallway holding two buckets of water. Soon Angela joins him, having got herself thrown out too after spending the lesson doodling dreamy pictures of Gohan. She whispers that she knows his secret: if he does not want her to tell everyone, he will have to go out with her.
At home, Gohan asks Chi-Chi for advice, and she seizes the chance to tell the story of her first date with Goku. In her memory the two of them, still kids, end up in an all-out brawl, which she still remembers as a perfectly wonderful day.
The date gets off to a rocky start. The movie is a romance, and Gohan gets so bored that Angela storms off; he apologizes, and they move on to a café, where she pours ten packets of sugar into her coffee. When she mentions certain strange clothes she never expected to see him wearing, Gohan becomes convinced he really has been found out.
Then a downtown tower catches fire. Videl arrives by helicopter and tries to open the big water tank on the roof to douse the flames, but the valve will not budge. Gohan ditches Angela with an excuse, transforms, saves Videl and punches a hole in the tank, putting out the fire. Later Videl catches him trying to sneak away and leans in to whisper something to him. Angela sees them, assumes it is a kiss and gets her revenge by revealing the famous secret: two days earlier she saw him in the locker room wearing teddy-bear underwear. On the roof, she was not wearing her contact lenses and saw nothing at all. The next day she is already flirting with another boy, and Gohan, all things considered, is happy for her.
Our take
Not all filler is created equal, and this is one of the most likable episodes of its kind. The setup is simple, blackmail that never actually existed, but it holds up because it rests on teenage Gohan's defining trait: the fear of being discovered makes him clumsy, eager to please and unable to put two and two together. Viewers realize early on that Angela is talking about something else, and the fun lies in watching Gohan scramble.
The highlight is Chi-Chi's flashback, which turns her first date with Goku into a fistfight and tells it like a fairy-tale romance. It is a gag that says a lot about her and about their marriage. The fire, on the other hand, mostly exists to put Videl back on screen and feed her curiosity about the Great Saiyaman, setting up the episodes that follow.
Trivia
- Entirely anime-original episode. Written by Satoru Akahori and directed by Daisuke Nishio, with Yūji Hakamada as animation director. It drew a 21.7% share.
- Chi-Chi and Goku's first date is also an anime invention: it never happens in the manga.
- Kid Goku has two different voices in the original Funimation dub of the flashback: his first line was read by Ceyli Delgadillo and the rest by Stephanie Nadolny, who later redubbed that first line for the season box set.
Did you know? Funimation's dub was scheduled to air on September 19, 2001, but a skyscraper in flames just days after 9/11 was judged too sensitive. Cartoon Network ran the next episode in its place and only aired this one on November 27, 2001. More on cases like this in our page on censorship and localization.
Characters
- Gohan (Great Saiyaman), Angela and Videl
- Chi-Chi
- Young Goku and Chi-Chi, in the flashback
- The teacher and the reporters