Episode 204 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on October 27, 1993 and titled Blackmail in Funimation's dub, wraps up the Great Saiyaman arc's trio of filler episodes with a twist that belongs to the main story: Videl discovers that Gohan is the one under the helmet. Before that, though, there is a baby dinosaur to bring home, an unscrupulous circus and a fight between the two teenagers born of a misunderstanding.
Summary
Gohan and Goten climb the mountain to visit a nest of flying dinosaurs, a family they have known for years. The newly hatched baby, however, is missing. That evening, watching TV, the brothers spot it in a circus commercial, forced to perform tricks while a trainer yells at it.
Gohan heads to the city and politely asks the ringmaster, Musuka, to give the animal back, but the man will not hear of it. So Gohan returns as the Great Saiyaman and simply takes the baby. To the police, though, he is a thief, and Videl joins the chase. When she catches up she attacks without hesitation; he blocks her blows and tries to explain that if the baby does not go back to its parents, they will come looking for it, and Satan City will pay the price.
Right on cue, the two enormous dinosaurs descend on the city. Musuka panics and opens fire, the animals lose their temper and turn on Videl, and the Great Saiyaman saves her at the last second. Trying to calm the baby's father, Gohan lets half a sentence slip about who he really is, and Videl takes note. Now that she understands what is going on, she helps return the baby; the family flies back to the mountains, the ringmaster is arrested and Goten cheers for his brother.
The next day at school, Videl notices a scratch on Gohan's face, exactly where the Great Saiyaman was hit. She pulls him aside by the lockers and corners him: she knows who he is, and she has also figured out that he is Son Goku's son. She will keep his secret on one condition: Gohan has to enter the tournament and teach her how to fly.
Our take
The baby dinosaur adventure is harmless and a bit naive, with a textbook villainous ringmaster and an animal-welfare message front and center. It mostly works as an excuse to pit Gohan and Videl against each other, and their clash is the most interesting moment: she attacks convinced she is doing the right thing, while he only defends himself and tries to explain. She comes out of it well, switching sides the moment she realizes her mistake.
The final scene is the real reason to remember this episode. In the manga, Videl unmasks Gohan with a verbal trick while he is still in costume, right after they arrest a pair of robbers; the anime moves everything to school and has her find the proof in a scratch. It is less clever than the original, but consistent with Episode 203: Videl gets there as a detective, piecing the clues together.
Trivia
- Kanzenshuu lists it as entirely anime-original. The Spanish Wikipedia, however, credits it with part of chapter 425: the scene where Videl discovers Gohan's identity and blackmails him comes from the manga, but it is completely restaged, with a different setting and a different clue. Which reading you prefer depends on how much a scene rewritten this heavily still counts as adapted.
- Written by Yoshiyuki Suga and directed by Takahiro Imamura, with Yukio Ebisawa as animation director. It drew a 25.5% share.
- The final deal, the tournament and flying lessons in exchange for silence, is the same as in the manga and leads straight into the World Martial Arts Tournament.
- The Funimation dub premiered on Cartoon Network on September 20, 2001.