Masenko is Gohan’s signature ki shooting technique in Dragon Ball Z. Although it is quite familiar to longtime fans of the franchise, the identity of the person who taught it to Gohan is still a big surprise.

The Dragon Ball franchise has created many trends and even standards in modern anime and manga. In addition to details about the content or fierce battles, one of Dragon Ball’s successes is the very good depiction of unique moves for each character.

Besides familiar fireball moves like Goku’s Kamehameha, Vegeta’s Galick gun or Krillin’s destruction disc, the audience also knows another very impressive move associated with Gohan.

Son Gohan’s Masenko technique is one of the popular moves in this long-standing franchise. Although Gohan has used it quite often against many famous villains in Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super, he was not the one who created this technique in the first place. This is a move created by a Namekian and of course it is none other than Piccolo.

Back in the original Dragon Ball, Piccolo once used his bare hands to create a ki blast (the type of ability that was considered a challenge at the time) to defend himself. This was the first time Masenko’s attack was performed and it was also the time Piccolo understood how powerful he was. However, this move was not used by him for many years, until he decided to pass it on to his students.

After Goku’s defeat at the hands of the aggressive invader Raditz, Piccolo accepted Gohan as a student. He witnessed the child’s amazing potential firsthand, and understood that power was essential to defeating the Saiyan enemy to come.

Piccolo’s training regimen is unimaginably harsh. The first stage of this training is illustrated in episode 7 of Dragon Ball Z, where he simply leaves a 4 year old child in the wild and fends for himself. Later in episode 17, Piccolo begins teaching Gohan the principles of hand-to-hand combat, strategy, and how to control his immense power.

Although viewers never determine the exact moment, it is quite clear that the Masenko move that Gohan later uses is the result of a year of rigorous and persistent training by his teacher Piccolo. When Nappa murdered Piccolo, Gohan used Masenko for the first time to fight back. This shows that Gohan was unaware of ki attacks before studying with Piccolo.