After some new, wholesome Piccolo content from an update on Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, fans are reminiscing about the franchise's best father.
The newest tidbits of information regarding Dragon Ball's next movie, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, has surprisingly resulted in a lot of new hype surrounding Piccolo. Thanks to new concept art of Piccolo's home -- apparently Team Four Star's frequent jokes regarding Piccolo's homelessness in DBZ made it to Akira Toriyama -- fans are delighted to see the iconic Namekian get his dues, simple as they may be.
Piccolo's pseudo-adoption of Gohan starts the way any healthy surrogate father and son relationship does -- he murders the boy's father and then abducts Gohan himself so they can train to fight aliens. At first, Piccolo's decision is strictly pragmatic, having just witnessed the child Saiyan's hidden power and understanding they'll need all the help they can get to defeat the Nappa and Vegeta. And if Gohan can help Piccolo take over the world after that, well, all the better.
The young half-Saiyan quickly wins over the didn't-know-he-was-a-Namekian-yet, as Piccolo grows protective of Gohan even while training him. After a long, bloody battle, Piccolo ultimately sacrifices his life to protect Gohan. Using his dying breaths, he thanks Gohan for being the first friend he's ever had. Ever since this moment, Gohan and Piccolo have had the most profound bond of any two characters in the Dragon Ball franchise.
Dragon Ball Z spends an absurd amount of effort getting Goku offscreen as frequently as possible, using death, injury, disease, tardiness, and even plain indifference to keep the mighty Saiyan uninvolved unless absolutely necessary. This leads to much of Gohan's formative years being spent with his bonus dad, affectionately nicknamed "Mr. Piccolo." Even after Gohan and Goku spend a year together in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, when they get out, Gohan goes straight to Piccolo to ask for clothes like his, right in front of Goku.
Piccolo's peak dad energy occurs again during the Cell Saga when the furious Namekian berates Goku for throwing Gohan into the ring with Cell. Even though Goku turned out to be right about Gohan's hidden power, Piccolo was also correct that Gohan is not a warrior at heart, a factor Goku had never considered. In the Buu Saga when Goku and Vegeta are both busy being dead again, Piccolo takes over mentorship and Fusion training of Goten and Trunks, treating them similarly to how he treated Gohan at their age. Roughly, exasperatedly, but from the heart