Dragon Ball’s Masako Nozawa Reveals How She Originally Felt About Piccolo

Masako Nozawa, the star behind Goku, Gohan, and many more in the Dragon Ball franchise, opened up about how she first felt about Piccolo early on in the series! One of the coolest parts about Akira Toriyama’s long running Dragon Ball series is the fact that while some of the villains are defeated for good, many of them end up playing a role in future stories. While Vegeta is likely the most famous example of this, he’s not really one of the first major ones either as Piccolo played that deuteragonist role very early on when he and Goku were the strongest fighters Earth had to defend it.

Piccolo was introduced to the series as the final major villains of the original Dragon Ball run, and although he eventually became one of Goku and Gohan’s most trusted allies (as especially seen in the upcoming Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero movie), it turns out that Piccolo was such a villain at first that the voice behind Goku, Masako Nozawa, revealed in a recent interview with Weekly Spa magazine that she really couldn’t stand Piccolo. 

As Nozawa explained in the interview (as noted by @Herms98 on Twitter), the star was so dedicated to her role during the recording of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero that she unknowingly ended up snubbing Hiroshi Kamiya (who plays the new villain, Gamma 1) during breaks. As she explained further, she was so dedicated that she couldn’t stand Piccolo at first until he started revealing his kindness more and more through training Gohan. In fact, she’s turned around on him so much that Piccolo’s interactions with Gohan are a highlight that she notes for the new movie. 

Nozawa even notes how Toriyama gives the series’ villains unexpected soft spots and fun quirks, and that’s one of the major appeals of the series overall. It’s hilarious to see just how far Piccolo has come in the series with not only fans, but apparently with the voice of Goku and Gohan herself. It goes to show how close she is to the franchise as a whole, and is yet another major reason to be excited for Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero as it heads to theaters in Japan this June. 

What do you think? How do you feel about how far Piccolo has come over the course of the series so far? Did you like the character at first? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!