Dragon Ball‘s official site pulled a genuinely old-school panel out of the archives this week, dedicating its Weekly Character Showcase to none other than Great Demon King Piccolo on September 1, 2026 (via the official website). The character highlight feature strings together Akira Toriyama’s original artwork straight from the manga’s Tale 135 onward.
The feature walks readers through the tyrant’s entire reign of terror panel by panel. For longtime fans, it’s a rare chance to revisit just how genuinely menacing this stretch of the franchise looked before Piccolo ever became a hero to anyone.
TITLEDragon BallCREATORAkira ToriyamaIMDb RATINGS (as of September 2, 2026)8.5/10WHERE TO WATCHCrunchyroll
Demon King Piccolo’s Prison Break Gave Us Goku’s Brutal First Loss
Demon King Piccolo from Dragon Ball | Credits: Toei Animation
Long before he became a green mentor figure, Great Demon King Piccolo was pure nightmare fuel, and the showcase doesn’t shy away from that at all. The story recap opens with Mutaito, master of the Kamesennin (Master Roshi, to most fans), using the forbidden Mafuba technique to trap the demon king inside an electric rice cooker and sink him to the bottom of the ocean, talisman and all. It’s one of those details that sounds almost silly on paper but reads as genuinely unsettling in Toriyama’s actual panels – a monster that powerful, stuffed into kitchenware and dropped somewhere nobody would ever think to look for centuries to come.
Naturally, that seal doesn’t last forever, because nothing in this franchise ever really does. The Pilaf Gang, always chasing world domination and always tripping over their own greed, cracks it open hoping for an edge over everyone else standing in their way, with zero clue what they’re actually unleashing. Out comes King Piccolo, still terrified of the Mafuba and immediately spawning Tambourine as a henchman tasked with hunting down anyone who might use the technique against him again.
Tambourine’s rampage claims Krillin along the way, still one of the more brutal gut-punches of early Dragon Ball, gone in an instant with barely a fight put up in return. When Goku finally squares off against the demon king himself, he’s completely outmatched, beaten badly and stripped of his own hard-earned Dragon Balls in the process, a genuine low point for him in the story. Even Roshi’s own attempt at a second Mafuba nearly seals King Piccolo away for good, but he tears free right as the technique is about to close, proof of exactly how close that call really was for everyone involved that day, and how dangerous he still is even sealed halfway.
How a Bloody Coronation and the Egg Changed Dragon Ball Forever
Once King Piccolo gets his hands on all seven Dragon Balls, the showcase’s tone shifts from menacing villain to full-blown apocalypse in a hurry. He wishes himself back to his prime, then immediately destroys Shenron so nobody can ever turn the dragon’s power against him the same way he just did, cutting off any chance of a counter-wish. From there, he marches on King Castle, flattens part of the surrounding town as a warning shot, and dethrones the World King outright without much resistance offered.
He even names the day of his coronation “King Piccolo Commemoration Day” and sets up a lottery that randomly wipes out a section of the city on any given day, a level of casual cruelty that still holds up as one of Dragon Ball‘s darkest stretches decades later on, long after the series moved on to flashier villains. The showdown is the real payoff, though.
Tenshinhan gets sent in to stop him; King Piccolo counters by unleashing his henchman Drum, and it’s Goku, freshly powered up on the Super Water from Karin Tower, who ends up turning the tide against him and rescuing Tenshinhan in the process. The demon king throws everything he has left into his Explosive Wave, leveling King Castle entirely in the process, but Goku still refuses to go down for good.
Cornered and desperate, King Piccolo takes Tenshinhan hostage and lands one last cheap shot before Goku blasts a Kamehameha into the ground to launch himself skyward and punch clean through him at last, ending the fight for good. True to Dragon Ball form, the demon king has one final trick left up his sleeve: right before dying, he spits out an egg carrying his will, which later hatches into Piccolo Jr., the very same Piccolo fans still know and love today, proof that even his death was really just the start of something new.
What are your thoughts on Demon King Piccolo? Was he one of your iconic villains from the series? We’d love to know your opinions and outlook in the comments below.
All Episodes of Dragon Ball are available to watch on Crunchyroll.
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