King Piccolo

"There are two things that I, Demon King Piccolo hate most in this world: Peace and Justice."

- King Piccolo expressing his hatred

"It feels good, doesn't it? We're no different, you and I. We both love inflicting pain.  It's an intoxicating feeling, isn't it?"

- King Piccolo to Goku

"Son, we can once again combine to make this world OURS!"

- King Piccolo to his son in Budokai Tenkaichi 3

King Piccolo, originally known as the Demon King is the penultimate villain of the original Dragon Ball series. He was born when Kami separated himself from his evil side in order to become God of Earth. King Piccolo is notable to be the most evil villain at this point in the series, whose story arc toned down the comedic aspect of the series, and the first villain responsible for the death of many major protagonists.

Pre-Dragon Ball
Kami and King Piccolo were once the same being, the Nameless Namek, but when he wanted to become Guardian of Earth, he had too much evil in his heart, so he expelled that evil, dividing him into two, the good half, Kami, and the bad half, King Piccolo.

With Kami taking his place as Guardian of Earth, Piccolo sets loose and spreads chaos around the world, starting his reign of terror. With no one capable of matching his powers, humanity was left helpless against the demon lord, until one day Mutaito, Roshi and Shen's master, decided to challenge Piccolo. Unable to fight against him, Mutaito uses the forbidden technique called "Mafuba", a.k.a. Evil Containment Wave, which seals Piccolo inside of a rice cooker, at the cost of Mutaito's own life. The cooker is thrown away to the depths of the sea, never to be seen again. After seeing Mutaito's sacrifice, Kami creates the Dragon Balls to give hope to mankind.

Dragon Ball
Centuries later, the cooker is found and opened by Pilaf, who releases Piccolo expecting to gain his own kingdom after Piccolo conquers the world. Piccolo, fearful of the forbidden Evil Containment Wave, sends his spawn Tambourine to search and kill all martial masters in the world, so that no one could ever imprison him again.

When introduced, he is very aged, which effects his powers. Because of this, he is searching for the Dragon Balls to get the dragon to grant him youth. However, the fact that Goku is collecting the Dragon Balls gets in his way. After Goku defeats Piccolo's latest creation, Cymbal, Piccolo orders Tambourine to fight him, but as Tambourine is also defeated Piccolo decides to fight Goku personally, easily defeating him despite his old state and leaving him apparently dead, though he survives and is saved by Yajirobe. Piccolo takes Goku's Dragon Ball and goes after the remaining ones, being confronted by Master Roshi, who gathered the remaining Dragon Balls to lure him. Roshi attempts to use the Evil Containment Wave but fails, dying shortly after. As Piccolo summons Shenron, Chiaotzu attempts to make a wish to stop Piccolo, but Piccolo quickly blasts him before he can complete his wish. Piccolo finally makes hiw wish for eternal youth, but before Shenron leaves he blasts him, destroying the eternal dragon and preventing anybody else from making a wish on the Dragon Balls. Shortly after he dumps Pilaf away, setting off to spread chaos all over again. Tien, who watched the entire scene, decides to train to learn the Evil Containment Wave to stop Piccolo.

With no one left to stop him, Piccolo decides to take over the world instead of destroying everything like before. Using his newfound powers, he attacks King Furry and kills all of his guards, forcing the king to relinquish his position to him. King Furry reluctantly nominates Piccolo as the new king after Piccolo threatens to kill him and destroy the entire Central City. He immediately orders the release of all criminals around the world and institutes a rule that all are free to commit crimes as they wish. He also proclaims that in every year on the day of his crowning he will pick a random sector of the world and personally destroy it. His first pick is West City, so he flies to the place to destroy it.

Once he arrives at the city he is confronted by Tien, who has learned the Evil Containment Wave. Instead of confronting him, Piccolo spawns a new egg, giving birth to Drum, who proceeds to attack Tien. Tien is overpowered by Drum, but attempts to use the Evil Containment Wave anyway, which ultimately fails. As Drum is about to finish of Tien, Goku arrives and kills him in a single blow. Piccolo then confronts Goku, but this time Goku overpowers him, having become stronger thanks to the Ultra Divine Water. Unable to defeat Goku, Piccolo decides to take Tien as a human shield, forcing Goku to submit despite Tien telling him not to. Piccolo then cripples Goku by injuring his knees and left arm, so he tosses Tien away and prepares to finish Goku off, but Goku concentrates his power on his right hand, using a Kamehameha to propel himself and pucnh a hole through Piccolo's chest, mortally wounding him.



Before he dies, King Piccolo shoots out an egg, carrying his final spawn, Piccolo Jr. When Goku meets the guardian of Earth, Kami, he learns that Piccolo is the evil part of him that Kami had to expel in order to get the guardian of earth position.

Children/Spawn
Piccolo creates several minions, all named after musical instruments-

Piano, Drum, Cymbal, Tambourine, and his final creation, the reincarnation of himself, Piccolo Jr.. However Piccolo Jr. is much more powerful than his father, possessing all of the powers of his father and more. Piccolo Jr. starts out as evil as his father, he then becomes a hero when he becomes best friends with Gohan, Goku's son. Soon, Piccolo Jr. becomes a bit of father figure to Gohan and a true hero, sacrificing himself to save Gohan.

Powers and Abilities
At the time he appeared, Piccolo was the most powerful villain Goku had faced, easily defeating the boy. Piccolo displays abilities common to most Dragon Ball characters, including super strength, super speed (so fast that he appears invisible to normal humans), energy blasts, and super durability (being completely unaffected by Goku's Kamehameha, which was stronger than Roshi's, which destroyed the moon). However, he also has abilities unique to his Namekian physiology, such as regeneration and the ability to stretch his arms several yards.

King Piccolo's energy blasts are at least strong enough to destroy moons, as the much weaker Master Roshi was able to destroy Earth's moon. Piccolo can also seemingly materialize objects from thin air.

King Piccolo had a power level of 260 when in his youthful state.

Personality
Being the concentrated evil that use to live within Kami before the separation, King Piccolo is cold, ruthless, sadistic, vain, power-hungry and very intelligent. Whenever he is inflicting pain on an opponent, or watching one of his subordinates attack someone else, he always smiles and/or laughs.

Old
King Piccolo takes this form as a result of aging and appears like this until he wishes on the Dragon Balls for eternal youth, in this form Piccolo is weaker than his older form but still stronger than everyone on the planet (other than Popo and Kami).

Great Namek
King Piccolo has the ability to grow to a giant size in order to increase his physical strength, endurance, and durability. King Piccolo uses this form towards the end of his fight with Goku.

Super Namek
King Piccolo and Kami's original form: The Nameless Namek was a Super Namekian. Super Nameks have much greater power than ordinary ones, with Nail stating that the Nameless Namek was at least stronger than Frieza's 1st form.

Dragonball: Evolution The Movie


In the live action movie, King Piccolo, known as just Piccolo, he is an evil alien who wants revenge on the Earth, and to prevent Goku and company from stopping the arrival of his faithful and powerful servant Oozaru by keeping them away from the dragon balls. In the movie, he kills Grandpa Gohan by collapsing the building. Little similarities can be seen between the anime/manga and the movie.