Summary

• Piccolo and Kami share an origin story similar to Goku, as they were sent out into space as the Nameless Namekian to save them.
• The Nameless Namekian's father, Katas, placed him in a spacecraft to escape a climate crisis on Namek, leading him to Earth.
• Despite their shared origin, the story never draws comparisons between Goku and Piccolo/Kami, leaving fans to notice the similarities.

Fans of Dragon Ball are very familiar with Goku's origin, having been sent off from Planet Vegeta as a baby in a spacecraft not long before the planet was destroyed by Frieza. However, there's another major Dragon Ball character, or perhaps more accurately pair of characters, who have a shockingly similar origin.

Piccolo and Kami are Namekians, who therefore should be native to the planet Namek, yet they've lived the bulk of their lives on Earth. That's because Piccolo and Kami are actually two halves of the same being, and Piccolo and Kami eventually merge back into one during the course of the series.

However, it's their progenitor, known only as the Nameless Namekian, who explains exactly how these two managed to be living their lives on Earth, and his origins are a little too close to Goku's for comfort.

Piccolo And Kami's Original Form Has the Same Origin as Goku

The Nameless Namekian was the son of a Namekian named Katas, as relayed by the Grand Elder Namekian, Guru. Guru states that Katas was a genius and also a good father to his young son. It's revealed that about 500 years before the main events of Dragon Ball Z, planet Namek underwent a sudden climate crisis which threatened to kill all the Namekians on the planet. Desperate to save his son, Katas placed the Nameless Namekian into a spacecraft, which eventually landed on Earth. Guru was the only survivor of this crisis, and, as such, the only one who knew the Nameless Namekian was out there.

From there, the Nameless Namekian became the guardian of Earth, and split into his good half, Kami, and his evil half, King Piccolo, who would give birth to the Piccolo fans know and love today. As split beings, Kami and Piccolo forgot about their true origins, and were unaware that there might still be other Namekians out there somewhere in the universe.

While the circumstances of the planet's destruction are different, as Planet Vegeta was deliberately destroyed, and the events took place hundreds of years apart, this is extremely close to Goku's origin story. Of course, sending out babies to random planets was a well-established trait of the Saiyans, so it wasn't quite as strange for Bardock to do this as it was for Katas. Both just happened to end up at Earth, where Kami would go on to create the Dragon Balls.

Unfortunately, the story never really draws any kind of comparison between Goku and Kami/Piccolo, despite this shared origin, suggesting it's more of a coincidence than it was some kind of deliberate thematic element. The Nameless Namekian's origin is far more obscure than Goku's, so many fans have likely never even noticed the similarities between Piccolo and Goku's stories. It's interesting that two of Earth's greatest defenders only wound up here due to chance after being sent out into space, and one wonders if Piccolo and Goku themselves have ever really noticed their common Dragon Ball origins.