Masenko explained: how Gohan's Demon Flash became his signature

The one key attack Gohan truly mastered in Dragon Ball Z (1989), even before the Kamehameha, was the Masenko, otherwise known as the Demon Flash. In this technique guide I'm going to go through everything I know about it: where it came from, how it works, who else uses it and one error that slipped into the anime.

In the one year before Vegeta and Nappa arrived, Piccolo took Gohan under his wing to train him to be a fighter. There were some hiccups along the way, but Gohan still learned things he had not known before and tapped into some of that big, powerful hidden energy we saw him use against his uncle at the beginning of Dragon Ball Z.

Piccolo presumably taught Gohan the Masenko

We never see it on screen, but we know, presumably, that Piccolo was the one who taught Gohan how to use the Masenko. However, we didn't see Piccolo use the Masenko in the original manga before Gohan used it.

There is an anime filler scene in Dragon Ball where Kid Piccolo uses a technique that looks remarkably like the Masenko. I can't confirm whether it is the same move, though.

Manga chapter 223 is, I do believe, the Masenko's first manga appearance and Gohan's first deliberate attack

The first time we see the technique used in the manga is chapter 223. I do believe this is also the first time we see Gohan use a technique in battle intentionally. This is not him going into a rage and headbutting somebody, or pushing someone through the Dead Zone. This is him meaning to do it.

Why did he mean to do it? Because Piccolo sacrificed himself to save him, and Gohan knew he had to do something to harness that power. Gohan fired the Masenko at Nappa in response to Piccolo dying for his sake.

Nappa deflected it easily. Even so, Nappa said his hand was numb afterward, which showed that Gohan did have some power behind that first Masenko.

What the Daizenshuu 2 guidebook says about the Masenko

The guidebook Daizenshuu 2, on page 210, describes the move this way. Gohan raises the palms of his hands in front of his forehead and gathers ki. It's a ki manipulation technique: after gathering the energy, he thrusts both hands out at his opponent and fires a bundle of ki.

The guidebook also lists it as one of the techniques Piccolo taught Gohan to make him an adult warrior in preparation for the battle with Nappa and Vegeta. It describes the Masenko as essentially the same family of techniques as the Kamehameha, with only the pose for gathering ki being different.

Why the Masenko is in the same family as the Kamehameha

The guidebook puts the Masenko in the same family as the Kamehameha not because it's a variation of the Kamehameha. Although the hand positions are different, it's the same kind of technique: a pure energy manipulation ki attack.

Gohan takes the particles around him, puts them together, ignites them and fires them at his opponent at a fast, rapid rate, meant to injure. Those are the same properties as other moves like the Kamehameha and the Galick Gun. It's the most basic kind of ki attack and the most frequently used kind of ki attack in the Dragon Ball series.

Future Trunks most likely learned the Masenko from Future Gohan

Trunks also used the Masenko, but for a long time only in the first Broly movie. That's the only time we saw Trunks do it, so it's probably something he learned from Gohan off screen. In that movie we see Gohan and Trunks do it together, which was a cool scene.

It never showed up for Trunks in the manga or the anime, that is, until the Dragon Ball Super anime, when Future Trunks uses the Masenko once against Goku Black. To me, Trunks obviously learned the move from his mentor, Future Gohan. It's not stated, but that makes the most sense. Who else would he have learned it from?

I think the Masenko is more Gohan's move than Piccolo's

Piccolo does use the move, most notably during the father and son Kamehameha, when he attacks Perfect Cell from behind with the Masenko. Even so, I think it's a move more associated with Gohan. When you think about the Masenko, you think about Gohan doing it, because he uses it more often than Piccolo, and for a while it became a signature move.

The name Masenko translates to demon flash of light, or Demon Flash. I thought it was cool that Super Sonic Warriors 2, one of my favorite Dragon Ball games and one I have many great memories of playing when I was younger, kept the name Demon Flash.

The Masenko is used in nearly every Dragon Ball game I can think of that has Gohan as a playable character. It's more or less his signature move. There is also a Super Masenko, which Gohan uses in Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, the Playdia video game OVA. It's an upgraded version, essentially the same move with more power.

The anime once called Gohan's Masenko a Kamehameha

One interesting piece of trivia is that the Masenko is tied to one of Toei Animation's few errors in making the series. When Gohan uses it against Vegeta in their battle on Earth, Gohan refers to it as the Kamehameha, both in the Japanese version and in the original Ocean dub.

That's incorrect, because the move he uses is the Masenko.