The History of Piccolo: How Dragon Ball's Demon King Became Gohan's Mentor and a Z Fighter

Piccolo started out as Goku's rival. He wanted to kill him, and early in Dragon Ball Z he actually did. Soon after, a looming threat from outer space turned him into a mentor to Goku's son, and 2022's Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero revealed that he goes on to mentor Goku's granddaughter Pan as well.

This is a piece I had wanted to do for years: the entire history of the Namekian. That includes some behind the scenes secrets from series creator Akira Toriyama about how Piccolo was created, and his life story from a demonic entity and the final true foe Goku faced as a child to one of the most popular Z Fighters in the crew.

Piccolo Daimao Was Built On Religious Philosophy, Starting With His Name

When most fans think of Piccolo, they think of Gohan's surrogate uncle and trainer from Dragon Ball Z. That is the most popular version of the character, but to truly understand Piccolo we have to go back to Daimao and his origin. After the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai, all seemed peaceful, but in Dragon Ball peace never lasts. Dragon Ball manga chapter 135, which lines up with anime episode 101, ends on a shocking cliffhanger: Goku's best friend Krillin is murdered by a mysterious warrior. That turns out to be Tambourine, one of Piccolo Daimao's minions.

Piccolo Daimao translates to Great Demon King Piccolo, but the FUNimation dub censored him to just King Piccolo, because they were told at the time to omit any references to gods, demons or anything religious. The fact remains that Toriyama's original idea behind Piccolo was unquestionably based on religious philosophy. Dai Mao is the Japanese name for Satan from the Bible, which should give you an idea of what Toriyama was going for.

Toriyama's editor, Torishima, has stated that Piccolo's face was based on him, something the author was known to do. And of course Toriyama used musical instrument puns to name Piccolo and his minions.

Mutaito Sealed Piccolo In A Rice Cooker, And Pilaf Let Him Out

Master Roshi explains that many years earlier Piccolo Daimao plunged the Earth into darkness. Back then Roshi was a student of the legendary Mutaito alongside the Crane Hermit, Roshi's top rival and the sensei of Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu. Piccolo was far too powerful to defeat in combat, so Mutaito used a secret technique called the Mafuba to seal him in a rice cooker and toss him into the depths of the ocean. It turns out it was Pilaf who freed him. Of course it was Pilaf.

Most of the arc follows Goku and Tien training in two different ways to beat Piccolo. Goku builds his body and mind with pure power because he wants to kill Piccolo, while Tien aims to learn the Mafuba so he can seal him up. Either way it was a race against time, because Piccolo had already gathered the seven Dragon Balls and wished himself younger, regaining the mythical power that had been unbeatable in the past. He went on to murder Master Roshi and Chiaotzu, and he became the first, and at the time of writing the only, villain to ever kill the Eternal Dragon. Killing Shenron is still one of the most shocking moments in this story.

Piccolo's arrival marked a major tonal shift. For the first time we had a truly evil, no nonsense villain. Earlier villains were all somewhat relatable and kind of funny, and this was the first actual global threat to Earth's population. This arc was also the first time Toriyama truly used the so called Dragon Ball formula, something the series would keep using through Dragon Ball Z and beyond, and something I may explain another time. We also learn why Piccolo sent Tambourine to the tournament grounds: he wanted his minions to kill every martial artist on Earth so nobody could stop him or seal him again. He did it out of fear, a memory from his past life he could never shake.

Kami Is God And Piccolo Is The Devil, Two Halves Of One Being

After Goku defeated Piccolo with help from Tien, several of his friends were dead, and because the dragon was gone too there were no Dragon Balls to wish them back. Goku was told that if he spoke to God, God might resurrect the Dragon Balls. He ascends to heaven using the Nyoibo, and there are a lot of very Taoist religious metaphors in that sequence. The Nyoibo becoming a holy item to reach heaven is a blatant lift from Sun Wukong in Journey to the West. After meeting Mr. Popo, God's servant, Goku meets Kami and is appalled that he looks exactly like Piccolo, even attacking him until he is humbled.

Kamisama literally translates to Lord God, because Kami is the god of Earth. The English dub again changed this, to Guardian of Earth, for censorship purposes, but make no mistake: he is God. If he is God and Piccolo is the devil, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the inspiration. Toriyama loves playing with opposites and duality, and it goes down to details like the architecture of the buildings in the heavenly realm, which can be traced to philosophical origins from Buddhist shindens combined with a Muslim mosque. I could write whole pieces on Dragon Ball's architecture because I am that much of a nerd for it, though they probably would not get many readers.

Having God look just like Satan is a brilliant use of subversion, and they turn out to have a real connection. Toriyama's God is not the Judeo Christian one. Kami is not omnipotent; he is a mortal with spiritual powers. Toriyama takes a polytheistic view, sort of like Greek mythology, with gods at different levels. Kami is one of the lower ones because he only oversees Earth, while the Kais and the Kaioshin handle galaxies and the like. Being a god is a job, and this Kami took over from the previous one.

Kami's Self Purification Gave Birth To The Demon King

Before he could ascend to godhood, Kami had to purify his body of all the evil inside him. Toriyama bases this on the Hindu belief in self purification, and the anime even shows a flashback of Kami expelling the evil from his body, creating what is called a divided spirit. Self purification is rooted in self cultivation from ancient Chinese metaphysics: Kami purges his evil, hatred, anger, jealousy and sinful thoughts, burning away impurities. That expelled evil took physical form and became Piccolo. Journey to the West, the basis for Dragon Ball, uses the same idea, with Sun Wukong starting as a demon and expelling his evil to find his Buddha nature.

Son Goku, on the other hand, is pure of heart and has nothing to expel. The original manga states that only the pure of heart can speak to God, an idea borrowed from pretty much every religion, and everyone who trained directly with Kami was already relatively purified. Piccolo's spirit fell from heaven to Earth, literally and metaphorically, and although he was pure sinful energy, coming to Earth may have made him worse. Kami became God and Piccolo became the self proclaimed King of the Demons.

Piccolo was not born a demon, though. He is not a Majin and he is not from the demon realm; Toriyama would not come up with those concepts until much later. Originally the evil inside Kami became quite literally the devil, one half of a whole being. Toriyama revisited this with Majin Buu expelling his evil to create the skinny grey Buu, the exact same idea. As I see it, "this is yin and yang used at its best."

The Namekian Retcon Explained Piccolo's Eggs And His Reincarnation

The Namekian retcon explains why Piccolo could lay eggs, as some Namekians do. Because Demon King Piccolo is pure evil, his eggs are corrupted, and instead of Namekians he births mutant creatures called the Mazoku, until his death, when he births his own son and reincarnation. That is a polluted, mutated version of Namekian birth, and the offspring becomes the Piccolo we know from DBZ. Toriyama borrows self reincarnation from religious sources such as the Egyptian story of Osiris and Horus, among tons of other examples.

Years later, the grown offspring entered the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai to face his nemesis, the man who took out his previous incarnation: Son Goku. That led to the climactic battle of the original Dragon Ball anime, and to this day "Goku vs Piccolo still stands as my favorite fight of the entire franchise."

When Dragon Ball Z began, Toriyama added a twist. Goku was revealed as an alien, and he was not the only one. When Nappa and Vegeta arrived they identified Piccolo as a Namekian, and both Piccolo and Kami realised they had always subconsciously known they were not from Earth. Piccolo and Kami were once one person, the child of Katats, and they still share a split soul. Kami shares it not only with Demon King Piccolo but with his offspring, Piccolo Jr. If either dies, so does the other, and so do the Dragon Balls, because Kami, as their creator, has to be alive for them to work.

The Nameless Namekian Landed At Yunzabit Heights Around 300 Years Before The Series

The early Namek Saga episodes fill in the backstory. The original unified, nameless Namekian was born in Age 242 to Katats, on a planet threatened by a strange weather phenomenon, and was sent to Earth to keep him safe. People think Goku was inspired by Superman, but he is not the only one. Age 242 is about 300 years before the series began, which explains why Kami and the Demon King, before his wish, were such old men.

His ship landed at the end of the Earth, Yunzabit Heights, and he left it behind there. That was the first time we saw Yunzabit Heights, but maybe not the last: in the Garlic Jr. Saga, Piccolo appears to train somewhere that either is Yunzabit Heights or looks just like it. Mr. Popo later takes Bulma there, and she and Dr. Briefs upgrade the ship so they can travel to Namek and use its Dragon Balls to resurrect Piccolo, Kami and the others killed in the fight with Nappa.

Much of the nameless Namekian's life is a secret. We know he wanted to become the apprentice of the Kami of that time and possibly succeed him, and that he learned the only way to become god of Earth was to expel his evil. Borrowing from Cain and Abel, Piccolo and Kami became twins, one good and one evil. While Kami trained in the heavenly realm, Demon King Piccolo witnessed mankind's atrocities and at one point created an army of Mazoku demons, leading to Mutaito, the Crane and Turtle Hermits defending the planet. At some unknown point Kami created the Dragon Balls instinctively, without knowing how he knew, because the memories of the Namekian people were still in his subconscious and he was part of the Dragon Clan.

The Fusion With Kami Was Piccolo's Last Big Moment Until Super Hero

Piccolo and Kami stayed apart for many years until the middle of the Cell Saga, when Kami sensed a threat even worse than Demon King Piccolo, and the two fused. It was Piccolo Jr. rather than the original, so it was not exactly who they had been, but the fusion worked as if it were. That gave Piccolo the biggest power boost he had received in Dragon Ball Z up to that point. Before it, he was annihilated by 17 and 18; after it, he could fight 17 on even terms, in one of my favorite fights in DBZ.

The fusion was foreshadowed on Namek when Guru mentions a super Namekian who once lived there and left, obviously the child of Katats, so he was already sort of destined to be one of the strongest Namekians ever. Based on my own reading of it, it was almost as if more Namekians had this ability, not just him. And the fused Piccolo is far stronger than the nameless Namekian ever was before the split, thanks to all his training plus his fusion with Nail during the Frieza Saga.

Looking back, that reunion was the last time Piccolo was really relevant as a main character until Super Hero, where he shares the screen with Gohan. After the Cell Saga he becomes pretty much background fodder. In the Buu arc he trains Goten and Trunks, slices Babidi in half and helps here and there, and, presumably because he was Kami, he is the first to recognise that the Supreme Kai had come down to stop Babidi resurrecting Majin Buu. In Dragon Ball GT, Piccolo fans were insulted when he stayed on an Earth doomed by the Black Star Dragon Balls and died with it. I do kind of understand the symbolism, but "it felt like a waste" and I don't think anybody wanted that for him. In Dragon Ball Super he came back as a B tier character alongside Tien, Yamcha and at times Gohan, joining the fight in Resurrection F, Team Universe 7 in the Tournament of Power, and the Moro arc, but mostly just helping out.

Gohan Was The Key To Piccolo's Redemption

Power is not the only thing that changed. The most interesting aspect of Piccolo, in my opinion, is his character arc. His relationship with Gohan has been discussed in pretty much every Dragon Ball circle and memed quite a bit, from Piccolo being Gohan's real dad, which he is not, to Uncle Piccolo and now Pan's babysitter and trainer. But it did not start that way. When Dragon Ball Z began, Piccolo was still the biggest threat to Earth, and Goku, champion of the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai five years earlier, was waiting for him to strike. We do not really know what happened in those five years beyond Piccolo training and developing new techniques.

On the side, if you have wondered why Piccolo became a full size adult in the three years between King Piccolo's death and the tournament, it is either because he is a special Namekian or because, as a reincarnated demon, he grows faster. Dende did not age like that, so to me it seems to be a growth rate exclusive to Piccolo. Then Raditz arrived and Piccolo had to team up with Goku, whom he despised because, in his mind, Goku had killed him. Goku sacrificed himself to Piccolo's Makankosappo to kill Raditz, and Piccolo took on training Gohan for a year before Vegeta and Nappa arrived, reasoning that without working together there would be no Earth left to conquer.

During that year his evil began to soften. One could theorise it was already softening at the end of Dragon Ball, but there is not much evidence for that. As he sacrifices himself to save Gohan from Nappa, Piccolo says Gohan was the only person to ever treat him like a normal person, the true moment his character changed, and Kami notices the change early in DBZ. Piccolo saw a pampered kid far too young to fight by mortal standards who had to drop that life because real problems were coming. Gohan may have been one of the only people besides his adversaries who did not fear him; Gohan saw him as a father figure, and Piccolo saw Gohan as someone other than Son Goku.

How could a being made of pure evil turn good? Piccolo Jr. was a reincarnation but not the same being. He had the Demon King's memories, but he came from a very corrupted version of Namekian birth, and coming from a background of lunatics does not mean you have to be one yourself. Through Gohan he learned to appreciate life, and despite a year of tough treatment the bond lasted a lifetime. He later showed genuine fear for innocent people dying at the hands of Frieza, Cell and others. You could theorise he became ultimately good when he fused with Kami, but I still think his arc truly ended with the sacrifice for Gohan against Nappa. Pushed to the background, he remained a cunning, smart fighter who passed that knowledge to Gohan, Goten and Trunks, and Super Hero showed the series will always come back to Piccolo in one way or another.

Did Piccolo's turn to good really end with his sacrifice for Gohan, or was it only complete once he fused with Kami?