Dragonball Z Episode 16: Run Gohan! Back to Mt. Paozu Where Chichi Waits

(original, Japanese episode)

Two children find the shipwrecked Gohan lying unconscious on the beach and mistaken him for dead. They then see Gohan’s sword and the young boy starts playing with it. Gohan wakes up and startles the two kids but quickly passes out again. When he wakes up again, he is lying in a bed with the same kids looking over him. They introduce themselves as Rom and Chiko. They tell Gohan that they are orphans, along with the other children living there. Rom tells a story of how a tsunami two years before wiped out the city and now there are a lot of orphans living there. A van pulls up to the house and startles the young orphans. They tell Gohan to follow them as they lead him down a dark tunnel. Rom carries Chiko on his back as he swings from the house to a tree on a rope. The people that were in the van (they are from an orphanage) try to attack Gohan to take him away, but Gohan leaps from the building and lands in the tree house. Rom heckles the government workers as they retreat back into the house. As Rom tells some myths about the orphanage, one of the workers has caught one of the children in hiding. Pigero, a teenage boy, rescues the girl and fights the social workers, easily defeating them. The children start throwing rocks at the people. The lady worker pleads with the children to come to the orphanage for new clothes, clean rooms, and hot food. Pigero just tells them to leave. As the children celebrate, Gohan introduces himself to Pigero. The next day, Gohan and the children go to the market. Gohan walks to the middle of a crowd and begins complaining of a stomachache. As the venders rush over to help the boy, the other children begin stealing the food. The children are spotted and try to run away, being chased by the angry venders. The police join in on the chase, with the kids on bicycles and the cop on a motorcycle. After a high-speed chase, the cop wrecks and the children escape. Goku is shown briefly, still running along Snake Way.

During the night, Pigero is shown standing guard in a tree. He has images of the tsunami from the past. He then spots Gohan sneaking out at night. Gohan tells Pigero he is not an orphan and has a mother and he is on his way home to see her. Pigero agrees to show Gohan how to get to Mt. Paozu in the morning. The children, now awake, begin asking questions about what Gohan’s mother and school are like. Pigero decides to have an outing to Gohan’s house the next day much to the kids’ delight. In the morning, the social workers arrive again and are pelted by stones from the children. Pigero attempts to steal a van and the children all jump into the back. However, the social workers have brought cops with them this time. The kids fight back but Pigero gets handcuffed. Gohan helps Chiko out of a jam and then uses his sword to free Pigero from the cops. All of the other children have been caught, and rather than help them, Pigero grabs Gohan and steals a car and leaves the orphans behind. Pigero finally pulls over and Gohan instantly questions why Pigero left the kid. He punches Gohan in the jaw and tells them the children will be fine because they are young and won’t turn bad like him. He tells Gohan that Gohan is unbelievably powerful and to mind his parents and then speeds away. Gohan runs threw a forest and arrives finally at his house. Chi-Chi is shown inside throwing a fit. Gohan sees images of the kids in his mind and how interested they were in his mother. He decides not to go in and returns to the woods. Chi-Chi senses that her son is near and looks from her window into the woods.

Piccolo finds Gohan in the woods and asks him, “What is your mission?”

Gohan responds, “To defeat the Saiya-jins and save the earth.” The real training will finally begin as a haunting image of the Saiya-jins in space is shown.