Did You Catch This High-Tech 'Dragon Ball Z' Easter Egg?

It has been over a decade since Dragon Ball Z went live, but fans are still finding hidden treasures in the show. Akira Toriyama's series is straightforward with its action, and it is easy to get lost in those action sequences. But, if you look a bit deeper than expected, you might find some intriguing easter egg.

You know, for instance, there may be some hidden in code somewhere. Maybe in the DNA of Dr. Gero's murderous androids?

Over on Reddit, fans came together to talk about one easter egg spotted by one user named Into The Sky. The post delves back in episode 168 where Bulma goes looking into Android 16's source code. In most cases, these animated screens are filled with illegible writing or nonsensical numbers, but it looks like Android 16 really had something to show.

As it turns out, the android was coded using BASIC, an old-fashioned programming language. Fans have started to look over the sequence to see if it looks legit, and it seems the code is valid even if it cannot command violent androids at will.

"What I thought was cool was that this is the BASIC programming language and, as far as I can tell, it is all valid code! It looks to me that, based on the return comments and the functions being used, this particular snippet is some sort of low-level machine vision function that would return a normalized (scaled to the number 1) location of an object in relation to the observing object, which would presumably be android 16 in this case," the fan explained.

The screen itself would be interesting enough, but fans have analyzed the tidbit even further. BASIC was very popular in the 1970-1980s in the first PCs and gaming consoles. If Dr. Gero had been a real person on our Earth trying to code some bloodthirsty robots, he would have been using BASIC, and that just show a bit of his incompetence. By the time the 1990s rolled in, BASIC was considered a simple coding system, but it looks like Dr. Gero just didn't catch the memo.

Whoops?

Is this the first time you've ever noticed this coding tidbit? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on Funimation, VRV, and Crunchyroll.

If you want to catch up with the English dub, the first 52 episodes of Dragon Ball Super are now available to stream on FunimationNOW, VRV, and available to purchase on Amazon Video as well. The 52 episodes span the full range of what has aired in the North America and covers the "Battle of Gods" arc, "Revival of F" arc, the "Universe 6" arc, and bringing the series right up to the current TV airings of the "Future Trunks" arc.