Episode 7 of Dragon Ball Z, Survival with Dinosaurs! Gohan's Harsh Training, first aired in Japan on June 14, 1989, starts Gohan's training in the cruelest way possible: by leaving him alone. Piccolo abandons him in the wilderness with a simple, terrible task, survive for six months. It is a small, intimate episode, built almost entirely on the tears and first victories of a four-year-old.
Summary
Piccolo explains to Gohan that the first stage of training will not be fighting but survival. He will leave him there for six months, with wild beasts for company; only afterwards will he start teaching him to fight. Gohan asks where the food, the bathroom and the bed are, and Piccolo laughs. Before leaving, he tells him to believe in his own power: the fate of the Earth is partly in his hands. If he wants to blame someone, he adds, he should blame fate, as Piccolo always has.
From his palace, Kami watches with Mr. Popo. The Piccolo of old would never have trained Goku's son, they note; Kami is convinced that Piccolo will die fighting the Saiyans, and that he himself will die with him, since the two are bound together. Perhaps, he suggests, Piccolo is trying to leave something behind.
On Snake Way, meanwhile, Goku keeps running and nearly falls into Hell. Krillin visits Goku's house to break the news of his death, but faced with Chi-Chi and the Ox-King he loses his nerve and leaves without saying a word.
Alone, Gohan is chased by an enormous dinosaur. Just as it is about to bite, he makes a prodigious leap and ends up on top of a towering rock spire that he cannot climb down from. He stays there until nightfall, hungry and crying. Then he finds some apples beside him, although there are no trees up there, and devours them even though they are sour. From afar, Piccolo keeps an eye on him.
Our take
The episode adapts chapter 207 of Akira Toriyama's manga, with a few anime additions: Krillin's visit to Goku's house and Goku's near-fall from Snake Way do not come from the comic, where Chi-Chi only learns the news later. They are short bits of filler that keep every storyline alive while the pace slows down.
The heart of the episode, though, is the silent bond between Piccolo and Gohan. Piccolo plays the ruthless master, but the apples he leaves in secret give him away. The conversation between Kami and Mr. Popo offers the key: perhaps the demon is no longer only a demon. It is a nuance the manga plants discreetly and the anime preserves.
For an audience used to fights, an episode whose lead is a child crying on a rock may feel slow. But it is also the moment when Gohan stops being merely "Goku's son" and starts becoming a character in his own right.
Trivia
- With a 13.7% ratings share, this is the least-watched episode of the Saiyan Saga in Japan. It was written by Keiji Terui and directed by Minoru Okazaki.
- The 1996 English dub merged it with episode 8 as Gohan's Metamorphosis; the 2005 redub titled it Day 1.
- In Dragon Ball Kai, the events of this episode are split between its fourth and fifth episodes.
Did you know? In the manga, Gohan whines while eating the sour apples that he would rather have Chinese food, and Piccolo, spying from a distance, loses his temper: gratitude is not his strong suit.