Characters / Dragon Ball Original Series Villains

Dragon Ball Main Character Index
Antagonists
Original Series Villains (Red Ribbon Army [Cell]) | DBZ Villains (Frieza's Empire [Freeza/Frieza [A to H, I to Y], Cooler/Coola], Majin Buu) | DBZ Movie Villains (Broly) | GT Villains | DBS Villains (Goku Black, Zamasu/Zamas [Fused Zamasu/Zamas])

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Pilaf Gang

In General

Pilaf Gang (ピラフ一味, Pirafu Ichimi)

^{Click here to see the Pilaf Gang in Super}

A group run by Emperor Pilaf that tries to obtain the Dragon Balls for Pilaf, so he can Take Over the World.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the original manga, they aren't introduced until Goku and friends have collected six Dragon Balls and reached his castle (Chapter 18). In the anime, they show up in the very first episode and acquire the Dragon Ball that they have in the manga. For the rest of the meta-arc, their various exploits in attempting to acquire the other Dragon Balls are depicted.
• Affably Evil: Both Mai and Shu are decent enough and only do bad things under Pilaf's orders.
• Ascended Extra: While we only first meet them near the end of the manga's first arc, the anime introduces them in the very first episode and has them around as reoccurring villains from the start, even showing how they got ahold of their Dragon Ball. In addition, they are also secondary antagonists for the first few episodes of the Red Ribbon Army arc, before being easily defeated by the Red Ribbon Army, and they make one last appearance shortly before Goku and Chi Chi's wedding, whereas in the manga they were never seen again for the rest of the manga's original run after being betrayed by King Piccolo. They come back in force during Super and remain important to the plot until the Universe Survival Arc.
• Blind Obedience: Mai and Shu follow Pilaf's orders without question, despite his stupidity. Even he complains about it sometimes. They all do really care for each other though.
• The Bus Came Back: After being completely absent from Dragon Ball Z and if you don't count GT, the Pilaf gang makes their canon return in Battle of Gods. They get on the bus again during the Tournament of Power, but return during the party in the ending montage.
• But Not Too Evil: After their appearances in Dragon Ball, they're definitely this. After Majin Buu exterminated humanity, Porunga resurrects all of those killed since the day of 25th World Martial Arts Tournament, with the exception of the truly evil ones. The gang comes back, so they can't be all that bad.
• Butt-Monkey: They take a lot of Amusing Injuries like being thrown off of a moving airplane by King Piccolo, or in Mai and Shu's case being punished by Pilaf.
• Edible Theme Naming:
  • Pilaf is named after rice pilaf.
  • Shu and Mai's names are two parts of shumai, a type of Chinese dumpling.
• Expy: All three are based on the Space Patrol Squad of Dr. Slump.
• Fountain of Youth: Super reveals that they managed to gather the Dragon Balls and wish for restored youth not long before the Android Saga. Unfortunately for them, they don't specify how young they want to be and end up being regressed into babies. In Future Trunks's timeline, it ended up being the last wish made on the Dragon Balls before Piccolo and Kami died.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: After the first arc of Dragon Ball, the gang's only purpose is to randomly show up and get their butts kicked.
• Harmless Villain: After their first defeat they stopped being a real threat to Goku. The most they do is just annoy him.
  • Their ineffectiveness against Goku becomes quite sad in hindsight when his doppelganger shows up in the future. Pilaf and Shu are implied to be dead and Black treats Mai's attempts to kill him as a game.
• Heel–Face Turn: The gang hung around Capsule Corp early on in Super to be in a position to swipe the Dragon Balls when they come into play again, but eventually just stopped caring and actually started helping around the lab. They're actually as happy as everyone else is when Bulma gives birth.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Although Mai and Shu are both more competent than Pilaf, that isn't saying much since Pilaf is a Psychopathic Manchild Genius Ditz, who isn't half as smart as he thinks he is. Shu tends to be dimwitted, while Mai is smarter, but is held back by her more stupid comrades.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Being kicked off their airship by Demon King Piccolo only causes them to hit the ground Wile E. Coyote style.
• Karmic Jackpot: Even though they're forced to help Sobert and Tagoma revive Frieza, they kept them from using the second wish to bring back King Cold by wishing for a million Zeni. They used the money to have a feast.
• Laughably Evil: They can never catch a break nor do they really deserve one. Watching them fail in all their endeavors is half the fun of watching them.
• Made of Iron: All three of them were forced to jump out of their airship above cloud level by Demon King Piccolo without parchutes when they outlived their immediate use to him; the Rule of Funny alone saved them, rendering them dizzy and bruised in craters rather than splattered and dead.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: It's not noticeable with Pilaf, who was already a Manchild to begin with, but the gang act much more like children after being de-aged.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • A Filler from the first series has Mai and Shu take Chichi hostage. She beats them up the moment she realizes they're actually serious.
  • Mai holds Trunks at gunpoint and demands the Dragon Balls in Battle of Gods, having no clue how powerful Trunks or the other characters at the party are. The cast thinks it's all a game.
• Non-Action Guy: All of them are in Super due to being children and not being ki-using warriors. Pilaf specifically requests that Trunks never spar with them again.
  • Mai averted this by trying to kill Gohan in the Battle of the Gods version, but was ineffective and almost got Videl killed instead.
• Odd Friendship: The three of them get along surprisingly well with Trunks, despite still being wannabe villains.
• Older Than They Look: All three of them are this thanks to an accidental wish on the Dragon Balls sometime before the Android Saga that turned them into babies (they've grown into children by the time of Super). In the present timeline they are a few years older than Bulma, and Mai's future self is in her 70s or 80s but looks as old as she was when Goku was a small child.
• Plucky Comic Relief: The group provided this even when standing next to King Piccolo - even when the Piccolo arc was the darkest the series had ever been at that point.
• Post-Final Boss: The gang is this in the Fortuneteller Baba arc. After Goku faces off against Baba's fighters, including his temporarily resurrected grandpa, Pilaf & co. are revealed to be holding the last Dragon Ball, only to get quickly defeated by Goku. The anime has them put up a decent fight, but at the end, they were still easier to beat than any of Baba's fighters.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Mai and Shu are definitely not really evil and are content with not taking over the world or hunting Dragon Balls; they always just followed Pilaf's orders.
• Redemption Promotion: In Super, the gang eventually starts outright helping the heroes, and have gotten more screen time since than they got from the King Piccolo saga onwards.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: More or less what Demon King Piccolo does to the gang, being the ones who sold out mankind to the devil for world conquest after they had outlived their usefulness (though he does "spare" their lives).
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • Their last appearance in the Dragon Ball franchise before Battle of Gods (not counting their cameos shortly before Goku and Chi-Chi's wedding in the anime and in GT) is being betrayed by Demon King Piccolo, whose arc was the darkest the series had ever been at that point.
  • They're completely absent in Z, the part of the franchise best known for changing the tone of the franchise from a martial arts comedy to a Shonen fighting action series.
  • Inverted in the Future Trunks Arc. While this portion of Super is one of the darkest and most depressing stories in Dragon Ball's history, this arc is where they have their largest amount of screentime in Super and most plot importance due to being Present Trunks's friends and both versions of Mai's relationships with the two Trunkses.
  • While the Universe Survival Arc has its fair share of comedy, there is more of an air of tension. This leads to them not appearing after the arc starts, along with Goten and Trunks who get this trope enforced on them in-universe by Vegeta.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • In a childish and monumentally stupid move, the Pilaf Gang released Demon King Piccolo from his imprisonment in the Enchanted Rice Cooker sealed in the deepest ocean-trenches in a desperate final bid to take over the world. Though this had the fortunate side effect of toughening up young Son Goku as a warrior to heights he never would have achieved before, not to mention allowing Piccolo Jr. to come into existence to slay the Saiyan invader Raditz and save the world.
  • They only appear in the very first episode of GT, as well as a brief scene near the end of the Baby Saga, but it was them rediscovering the Black Star Dragon Balls that kick-started the entire first arc, as well as Goku's becoming a kid again.
  • In Resurrection 'F', the gang were the ones who gathered the Dragon Balls so that Sorbet and Tagoma could revive Frieza. They also stop them from reviving King Cold by stealing the second wish and in Super the third wish.
• Team Rocket Wins: Maybe not a complete victory, but throughout the entire series, the gang are by far the most successful villains when it comes to successfully gather/wishing upon the Dragon Balls. While Pilaf's wishes either tend to backfire or be ridiculously small in scope compared to other villains like Garlic Jr., he has still managed to gather the Dragon Balls no less than three (four counting GT) times.
  • They are some of the few to get their wish for youth and have it turn out well even if being reduced to infancy was an accident. Not only do they get to be young again, their quality of life significantly improves after moving in with Trunks's family.
• Terrible Trio: Together with Pilaf.
• Undying Loyalty: Mai and Shu to Pilaf despite his abuse. Even when wished back to being children, they still stick by Pilaf's side.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Their future counterpart's wish to make them young again pretty much doomed the entire timeline, as it made the dragon balls inactive before the death of future Piccolo, and hence, future Kami, at the hands of Future 17 and 18. This eventually leads to the rest of the Dragon Team dying to the Androids and later on, Future Gohan, forcing Future Bulma to create a time machine for Future Trunks to go back to the past, which was the main contributing factor into Zamasu as Goku Black attacking with Future Zamasu the future timeline and its subsequent erasure by the hands of Future Zeno.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Sure, Pilaf insults the other two a lot, but in the end, the other two are the closest thing to friends each one has. The three even grow old together. And then young again. Eventually, Pilaf even starts showing the "Best Buds" part as much as the "Vitriolic" part.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After Demon King Piccolo regains his youth, he kicks the gang off their own airship. Apparently, their reward was "not dying."

Pilaf

Pilaf (ピラフ, Pirafu)

Voiced by (Japanese): Shigeru Chiba
Voiced by (English): Dave Mallow (Mystical Adventure), Michael McConnohie (DB) (Harmony Gold dub); Don Brown (DB 1995), Dean Galloway (DB 2004) (Ocean/Blue Water dub); Chuck Huber (Most media), Mike McFarland (Mystical Adventure) (Funimation dub); Sharon Mann (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub); Tom Fahn (Bang Zoom/Toonami Asia dub in Super)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Yamil Atala

"I am a brilliant researcher and an unrivaled mastermind... with a special knack for devious behavior."

The first villain in the original series, a short midget with dreams of... what else... taking over the world. After Goku and friends ruin his original attempt and destroy his castle (thanks to Goku's Great Ape form), he appears a few more times as a minor annoyance, but he plays an important role in reviving King Piccolo in the hopes that he'll be allowed to share in his global conquest; Piccolo betrays him as soon as it's convenient. Then he's never seen again... at least not in the Z series. He makes an appearance in GT though, actually kicking off the entire series.

He, as well as his lackeys, return in the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F movies, where it's revealed that the trio got-de-aged by Shenron previously. Likewise, they reappear in Super, where they get recurring (if minor) roles.

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• Ambiguously Human: He's very small, blue-skinned, and has pointy ears and no nose. It's never stated what he actually is, nobody comments on his appearance, and nobody else like him is ever seen besides some resembalance to Garlic Jr from the movies and a non-canon filler arc.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: It is never explained what Pilaf really is, and nobody comments upon him being a cyan-skinned midget with pointed ears and no nose. Then again, the general population in cities is shown to consist of human-animal hybrids, different colored aliens, etc. Even some of the major characters (Tien with his three eyes, Oolong being a pig-man) are not commented upon. Toriyama states that there are human-type, animal-type, and monster-type earthlings. Pilaf is one of the latter.
• And Then What?: Shu asks Pilaf what exactly will he do once he takes over the world. Pilaf never thought that far ahead.
• Arc Villain: The first major one that was not a Villain of the Week, but it would be a while before an actual Big Bad that could fight would appear.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Pilaf's first response to any form of failure is a gratuitous DEATH THREAT. He is childish compared to the madness of the Z series such as Frieza and Buu.
  • In the anime, he once threatened Shu with a chainsaw for breaking wind in his presence...when it was Pilaf himself who actually farted!
• Bad Boss: In Dragon Ball. In an early episode, he had Shu physically restrained and nearly sliced him up with a chainsaw simply because Shu wouldn't take the blame for Pilaf himself farting. By Super, Pilaf has actually undergone Character Development after realizing the depths of Shu and Mai's Undying Loyalty to him and engages in Pet the Dog moments toward them more often.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • In his appearance in GT, Pilaf finds the Black Star Dragon Balls and summons Ultimate Shenlong with the intent of wishing to Take Over the World. Before he can, he idly says it would be nice if his enemy Goku were a little kid again. Ultimate Shenlong interprets this as Pilaf's wish and turns Goku into a child, leaving the still-powerful Goku to mop up Pilaf and his gang.
  • Reversed in Battle of Gods where Pilaf wished for youth, feeling that there'd be no point in ruling the world if they would not live long afterward. In response, Shenron turns him and his minions into children.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He pictures himself as the main villain, but is more of a whiny, spoiled brat. It would be a while before any really evil villains showed up.
• Bratty Half-Pint: He acts like a spoiled child and throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way.^note Even before Battle of Gods.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: His tirade against Mai's scat joke in the manga has him state that the manga-ka is trying to make Dragon Ball a bit more sophisticated than his previous work.
• Bullying a Dragon: Pilaf has a really bad habit of doing this. Even with his PTSD of Goku, he still tries to fight him for his Dragon Balls. And he tries to treat King Piccolo, the freaking demon king, like a mook.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: His favorite way to deal with his subordinates when they fail him, like threatening to cut them in half or striking them with lightning. He also tried this with Goku and the others by attempting to burn them alive in a heated cell.
• Comically Missing the Point: He thinks Mai is referring to "something else" when she talks about the "sack between [Goku's] legs", when she's actually referring to the sack that contains Goku's four-star Dragon Ball.
• Death Trap: How he likes to deal with his enemies. Some of his traps include closing walls and tormenting his prisoners with a giant pinball maze.
• Dub Name Change: He is renamed Oculi in the Harmony Gold dub.
• Epic Fail: Pilaf has used the Dragon Balls no less than THREE times, and yet he is still not the ruler of the world. At least, in the first case, you could say he was thwarted by Goku and his friends, but the other times, particularly the second, he had no such excuse. For instance, he summoned Shenron to grant them youth - to rule the world longer. He does. Likewise, they summon Shenron again when the Dragon Balls can make 2 wishes true, they are coerced into resurrecting Frieza by Sorbet, what he uses the second wish on? World domination as he's always dreamed? Immortality? Frieza's remains in the sun? Or a banquet? If you chose a banquet, then you've accurately described Pilaf's Skewed Priorities. Truly, a man too stupid to take the opportunity to Take Over the World is definitely a man not deserving of it. There's also his GT appearance which saw him accidentally say the wrong thing "I wish you were a kid again so I could REALLY teach you a lesson!" while in front of Black Star Shenron. We all know how that ended up.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: He sets King Piccolo loose in the hopes that he will either be able to control him or mooch off of his conquest. As soon as Piccolo doesn't need him anymore, he punts Pilaf and his gang off of their own airship.
• Evil Overlord: Thinks he is this. He really is not.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Pilaf reacts with disgust when he learns from Bulma that she thought he would strip and violate her in order to garner information as to where the Dragon Balls were. He also reacts with disgust at some of Demon King Piccolo's actions, but wisely keeps his mouth shut.
  • Even he thinks that tossing a baby (Pan) out the window of an in-flight mech is a horrible thing to do.
    "I'm a villain, not a monster!"
• Genius Ditz: Has invented a Dragon Radar-proof box so nobody could track what Dragon Balls he got his hands on (unless you go to a seer), and improved on Bulma's Dragon Radar. He is also the most successful at tracking down the Dragon Balls outside of Bulma, something that Sorbet notes. And he's still a ditz. In Super, he also helps Bulma with the time machine's programming to allow it to work, with the Manga version even modifying it to be able to travel between the infinite parallel timelines and futures, something which causes Bulma to state she has "a long way to go".
• Genre Blindness: How could he not see that Demon King Piccolo had no intention in giving him half of the world or even a fifth.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He loses his temper easily and yells at others for their failings, even when it is mostly his fault.
• Hidden Depths: Pilaf, of all people, is apparently very competent at computer programming.
• Honor Before Reason: In Dragon Ball Super, despite the three of them having been starving for several days, Pilaf refuses to take any food from Bulma's party out of pride and orders Shu and Mai to do the same. He quickly changes his mind when Goten and Trunks bring them food, seeing it as an offering.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Mai questions whether it was a good idea to trust Piccolo in the first place after being betrayed.
  • He seems to have learned his lesson since he didn't trust Sorbet and Tagoma but is forced to work with them. He even asked outright if they planned to kill them once they weren't needed anymore. Luckily for them, despite being part of Frieza's group, they are much nicer than King Piccolo.
• Hypocritical Humor: He tends to be the first to chew out his minions for acting too low-brow, but will himself often sink to similar low-brow and childish behavior himself.
• Irony: At the beginning of GT, Pilaf accidentally wishes that Goku was a kid again. During Super, it's revealed that Pilaf had made a wish for his youth back, only for him and his henchmen to be turned into children themselves.
• Jerkass: He is an asshole, but unlike most villains, he cannot do anything about it. He mellows out considerably after becoming a child and moving into Bulma's, but his motives are usually still villainous.
• Large Ham: Pilaf knows how to make math fun. When he, Trunks, Mai, and Shu are taking a math class, Trunks is asked to answer a math problem. When Pilaf notices Trunks failing to correctly figure out the problem by not following the order of operations, he gives the answer himself in the most over-the-top way possible, breaking out to sounding like he's trying to sell something.
• Lethally Stupid: Who thought it was a good idea to release the devil who nearly caused the genocide of humanity last time? It says something when his minions actually had doubts about it.
• The Napoleon: He is short, a recurring theme in the series.
• Never My Fault: He blames all of his mistakes on his minions, even when they're clearly his fault.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He's a spoiled, Ax-Crazy brat, but has none of the physical power to exert it.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense:
  • Given all the stuff he has built (his castle, flying fortress, death traps, and all his machines) he obviously has no cash flow problem. How he comes into such funds is never stated.
  • Subverted in the canon movies where he and his crew have fallen on hard times and work more than a few day jobs, despite being able to find the Dragon Balls almost as easily as Bulma. Shu also wished for one million zeni to stop King Cold from being revived.
• Self-Deprecation: Pilaf has expressed his hatred of Doctor Slump (created by Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball), saying Shonen Jump became much more sophisticated after its cancellation.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He fancies himself as an evil overlord but frankly, both Demon King Piccolo and Frieza have him beat in intelligence and brutality. He also uses the title of emperor, but Shuu and Mai appear to be his only subjects.
• Smug Snake: Thinks he is much smarter and cleverer than he actually is.
• Spoiled Brat: His whole motivation is based around sheer bratty entitlement.
• Starter Villain: The first villain to last longer than a single episode and not become a good guy, but truly evil villains would not show up until near the end of the first half of the series.
• Stupid Evil: Most of his schemes are petty revenge and rely on the latest gimmick at the time which backfires as Goku becomes more and more of a badass.
• Surrounded by Idiots: He believes this, although his subordinates are (slightly) smarter than he.
• Take Over the World: His life motive.
• Too Dumb to Live: Due to his pettiness, he treats Demon King Piccolo like a Mook, and is lucky to only get thrown off his airship as a result.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Or near-doom, at least, after releasing Demon King Piccolo.
  • In Resurrection 'F' they help revive Frieza with the Dragon Balls.
  • In the Dragon Ball Super bonus chapter, he collected the Dragon Balls to make a wish at the same time the surviving characters were hoping to use them to stop the Androids, only to bungle his wish and end up de-aging himself and his minions into babies moments before Piccolo is killed, thus killing Kami, rendering the Dragon Balls useless and robbing the heroes of their last chance to save the planet, leading to Future Trunks' miserable future.
  • And in GT, he unintentionally caused the Earth to explode a year after using the Black Star Dragon Balls^note if the balls aren't returned to their original place a year after being used, the Earth explodes - even if he had made his original wish, he wouldn't have been able to rule over the Earth for that long anyway.
• Villain Decay: He was never very competent, but he came close to killing Goku and his friends in the first story arc and was only foiled because he didn't know about Goku turning into a Great Ape. He also gave Goku a somewhat decent fight at the end of the Red Ribbon Army Saga. By the time King Piccolo shows up, Pilaf is little more than tech support and he disappears altogether in Z. In the canon movies and Super the heroes don't even recognize him anymore (although they are stuck in kids' bodies).
• Yes-Man: To Demon King Piccolo. Piccolo sees right through it.

Mai

Mai (マイ)

Voiced by (Japanese): Eiko Yamada
Voiced by (English): Melodee Spevack (Harmony Gold dub); Teryl Rothery (DB 1995), Debbie Munroe (DB 2004) (Ocean/Blue Water dub), Julie Franklin (DB), Cynthia Cranz (Mystical Adventure), Colleen Clinkenbeard (Tenkaichi Budokai 3, Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, and Super) (Funimation dub); Jodi Forrest (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub); Julie Maddalena (Bang Zoom!/Toonami Asia dub in Super)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Carola Vázquez (DB), Susana Moreno (Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', Super)

"Pilaf, may I remind you that we don't have time to shop today?"

Pilaf's female minion. She always works with Shu and, although she is intelligent, the two of them always manage to fail their objectives. She is a rather beautiful Asian-looking woman, who always resorts to weaponry and technology; her serious tone (most of the time) is a foil to Shu's comic personality.

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• Accidental Pervert: When she mentions the "sack between the boy's legs". Pilaf is Comically Missing the Point and thinks Mai is referring to "something else" when she actually means Goku's sack that contains the four-star Dragon Ball.
• Adaptational Badass: In Dragonball Evolution, her movie incarnation actively fights Goku.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Mai's eyes were black in the manga, but blue in the first anime series and was changed back to black in Battle of Gods/Super. This led to a Series Continuity Error when, in a flashback to the King Piccolo saga in Super, it shows Mai with blue eyes, despite the black eyes being overall consistent with manga.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Mai has a weird case of this. In the manga, she had no make-up, but the color editions gave her eyeliners, and the first anime gave her eyeliner and lipstick. She loses the make-up as a child in Super, and her future version reasonably doesn't have any to wear either. She's still seen as extremely beautiful from both Trunks's viewpoints and in the English dub, Goku tells Future Trunks that her future version is cute.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She is taller than both her boss and her coworker (to a downright silly extent), she is calmer and more mature, and she has long dark hair.
• Ascended Extra:
  • In the live-action movie Dragonball Evolution, she appears acting as Piccolo's dragon.
  • In Super, she gets a future counterpart.
• Badass Longcoat: Mai has a long military coat on, but it's subverted in that she is a bumbling villain.
• Characterization Marches On: At the start of the manga, Mai was introduced as a semi-competent lackey to an incompetent villain. When she gets reintroduced in Battle of Gods (and by extension, Super), she's easily as silly as her boss and Shu, enough that she goes along with their shenanigans. This is not helped by the fact that all of them were de-aged into children.
• Co-Dragons: With Shu to Pilaf in the original series.
• Dub Name Change: The Harmony Gold dub renamed her Femina.
• Emotionless Girl: In the Super manga, she begins to act like this when she becomes a teenager, barely reacting to Trunks and Baytah trying to impress her. But then she starts to have a surge of emotion return when she sees Great Saiyaman 1's scarf that suddenly reminded her of Future Trunks.
• Everyone Has Standards: When the gang accidentally kidnaps Pan in Super, as their mech was exploding, her only concern was Pan's safety.
• Evil Counterpart: At a certain point she was one for Bulma. Bulma was a girl who was looking for the Dragon Balls to be able to have a boyfriend (although it was something absurd, it wasn't wrong), whereas Mai looked for the Dragon Balls to make her boss Pilaf become the king of the world. Bulma was a smart girl but she had her moments when she could act something ridiculous, and Mai was a girl who acted in a more serious of the Pilaf gang but in reality, she was clumsy as the rest of her comrades. Although Bulma had a great interest in men and romance (which was the reason why she wanted to ask for a boyfriend), Mai has a very conservative view of romance and in previous sagas, she showed no interest in any man (except in Super where she showed interest in Future Trunks).
• Oblivious to Love: Poor Present Trunks's love-struck behavior just comes off as weird to her. She does seem to like him, though.
  • Averted in the movie versions; Mai is open about Trunks being her boyfriend at the end of Battle of the Gods and Resurrection F.
• Only Sane Man: Mai compared to the rest of Pilaf's gang. She tends to point out all the flaws in Pilaf's plans.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Mai has been shown to be somewhat proficient in firearms and hand-to-hand, but the setting of Dragon Ball being as it is, her combat record hasn't exactly been stellar.
• Pet the Dog: In an episode of Super, Mai, Shu and Pilaf have accidentally kidnapped baby Pan in their new fighting mech, and it's going out of control due to Pilaf angrily smashing a button on the control panel. As they all scream in fear of their lives, Mai claims she doesn't care what happens to Pilaf, Shu or herself, just let the baby survive.
• Precocious Crush: On Future Trunks. Of course she's actually much older than he is, but she currently has the body and brain chemistry of a child.
• So Last Season: In Battle of Gods, Mai threatens Trunks and Son Gohan with a gun... which would've been ineffective even at the start of the series, let alone now. The entire cast laughs, thinking it's a skit. The only actual danger came from the fact that Gohan didn't control the ricochets and Videl, pretty much one of the few people there who could actually be injured by them, did indeed get injured.
• Stalker with a Crush: To Future Trunks. She stares at him from the bushes while he's thinking about Black, though she's too embarrassed to talk to him directly. This is partly a result of Trunks having held her hand beforehand, being glad she's all right, and talking about how much her Future counterpart meant to him - being Older Than She Looks, the hand-holding definitely made an impression on Mai, semi-similar to Present Trunks's "bold" approach.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Mai dwarfs her teammates, who only come up to her knees. This remains true to a lesser extent when they're all de-aged, as Mai's a full head taller than both Pilaf and Shu.
• Token Human: Mai is the only regular human in the group.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Her elderly self in GT very well invokes this.
• Wasteful Wishing: When Sorbet summons Shenron, she wishes for "the world's best ice cream". In her defense, she hadn't had any for a while and prevented one of the wishes from being used for bringing back King Cold as well as Frieza.

Shu / Soba

Shu (シュー, Shū), originally Soba (ソバ) in the Japanese manga

Voiced by (Japanese): Tesshō Genda
Voiced by (English): Dave Mallow (Harmony Gold dub); Doug Parker (DB 1995), Jonathan Love (DB 2004) (Ocean/Blue Water dub); Chris Cason (Most media), Brian Thomas (Mystical Adventure) (Funimation dub); Jodi Forrest (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub); Tom Bauer (Bang Zoom!/Toonami Asia in Super)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Ricardo Hill (DB), Luis Daniel Ramírez (GT), Miguel Ángel Leal (Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', Super)

"Are we gonna retreat?"

An anthropomorphic dog and Pilaf's ninja lackey. He and Mai usually work together to carry out the work of their short-tempered boss.

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• Adaptation Name Change: The anime producers asked Akira Toriyama to name Pilaf's henchmen, and, forgetting he'd already named the dog fellow "Soba," Toriyama rattled off "Shu" and "Mai." Toriyama decided to roll with it and he became "Shu" in the manga too.
• Co-Dragons: With Mai to Pilaf in the original series.
• Dub Name Change: The 1995 dub of the Pilaf Saga gave him the name "Shao" for whatever reason. Bizarrely, he's back to being Shao in the Funimation and Bang Zoom! dubs of Super.
• Funny Animal: He's a walking talking dog who dresses like a ninja.
• Hidden Depths: Shu is a ninja after all. He watches Future Trunks doing image training and tells Mai how it works.
• Ninja: Shu is a ninja dog. While depicted as incompetent most of the time, as shown in the Future Trunks Saga, he has knowledge of the basics.
• Wasteful Wishing: He wishes for 1 million Zeni when Sorbet summons Shenron. While better than what Mai wished for, he could have wished for almost anything. At least he stole the second wish from Sorbet, preventing King Cold from being revived.

The Red Ribbon Army

See Dragon Ball Red Ribbon Army

The Crane School

Master Shen

Master Shen (鶴仙人, Tsuru Sen'nin, "Crane Elder")

Voiced by (Japanese): Ichirō Nagai (Most media), Hiroshi Iwasaki (Kakarot onwards)
Voiced by (English): Robert Axelrod (Harmony Gold dub); Chuck Huber (Funimation dub); Clark Robertson (Elder), Jonathan Love (Teenager) (Blue Water dub); Paul Bandey (AB Group/"Big Green" dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Carlos Segundo

Master Roshi's rival and Mercenary Tao's older brother. Tien and Chiaotzu's original teacher, the Crane Hermit has his students enter the 22nd World Martial Tournament in order to show up Roshi, hearing how far Goku and Krillin went in the previous tournament. When he hears that Goku defeated Tao, he changes his plans and tries to get his students to kill Goku and company. However, his interference in the final match causes his students to make a Heel–Face Turn, and he is sent flying by Roshi's Kamehameha wave. He shows up at the next tournament with his brother but is forced to flee when his ex-prize student easily beats Tao.

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• Avenging the Villain: When he learns what happened to his brother, Tao, he swears revenge against Goku and the Turtle School.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Shows up at the 23rd tournament seeking revenge on the Dragon Ball gang, but is quickly chased off after Cyborg Tao is defeated by Tien.
• Cain and Abel: Dub Text in a flashback of his paints his relationship with Tao as such, with Shen's inexperience with teaching and Tao's arrogance in his skills causing friction to the point that even a bowl of rice would force them apart (though it doesn't stop Shen from trying to kill his brother's executioner). This later gets contradicted during the 23rd World Tournament where they are shown teamed up to get revenge on Goku and Tien and he's all but encouraging of Tao's awful actions during his match with the latter.
• Cool Shades: Is never seen without his sunglasses.
• Corrupt the Cutie: It is implied that seeing the cruelty of King Piccolo and the defeat of his master is what sent him down the path of evil.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: He's the one who teaches Tien the Spirit Cannon/Kikoho, much to Roshi's displeasure.
• Depending on the Writer: It's somewhat open-ended in the manga, but in the anime, Roshi implies in his recounting of Demon King Piccolo's reign that Shen became the cold cut-throat he is in the present due to seeing Mutaito being defeated by the tyrannical monster and losing all faith in righteousness. During Goku's training in the past via the Time Room on Kami's Lookout, however, Shen is depicted very much like a detestable jock who forces himself onto a girl he and Roshi competed for long before the Piccolo War ever occurred.
• Dirty Old Man: Attempts to grope Bulma, much to her disgust. Creepily, he isn't affected by the well-placed blow from his potential victims like Roshi is.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Toriyama says that he and Mercenary Tao were killed in an unknown incident (only described as "an evil deed" they were committing) and haven't been brought back to life.
• Dub Name Change: The name "Master Shen" is invented for the English dub. In the original Japanese version, he is only ever known as Tsuru Sen'nin or "Crane Elder." Harmony Gold's dub gave him the name "Lord Wu Zu"
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Genuinely cares for his little brother and wants to avenge his death.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He knows well enough about the terror of Demon King Piccolo to never even consider releasing him, even with his desire for revenge.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When he sees Goku, Krillin, and Yamcha all wearing the Turtle School uniform despite having surpassed Master Roshi, he accuses the three of being his puppets. He completely fails to understand that they're doing so because even though they're stronger than Master Roshi now, they still respect him.
• Evil Counterpart: To Muten Roshi. Both trained under the same master, are Living Legends, are Renowned Selective Mentors who expects only the best out of their students and will put them through Training from Hell, and both are perverts. Shen becomes corrupted by King Piccolo after he beat and humiliated his master, turning him into a cynical, cold man who abuses his students and trains them to be assassins instead of helping people.
• Evil Mentor: To Tien and Chiaotzu along with his brother. He trained Tien and Chiaotzu to be cold-blooded killers.
• Evil Old Folks: He is as old as Roshi, maybe older, but is morally corrupt and petty.
• Face–Heel Turn: Turns to evil after his master was defeated by King Piccolo. One filler episode after Piccolo's death implies that his bad streak was there long before the Demon King's reign and his mentor's defeat pushed him over the edge completely.
• Flight: He invented the technique (at least on Earth) and thought it to Tien and Chiaotzu. They're implied to have then taught Goku how to fly.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He orders Chiaotzu to paralyze Goku during his match with Tien in order to give his student an easier time killing him, but Tien's martial artist pride flares up and causes him and Chiaotzu to turn on Shen. His disrespecting of Tien's sense of honor likely did more to disillusion the latter from the killer's path than any of Roshi's "come walk in the sunlight" speeches ever did.
• It's Personal: Enters the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament to show up the Turtle House. Then he learns that Goku killed his younger brother and then it becomes personal.
• Jerkass: Tries to turn his students into assassins and then attempted to kill them when they disobey his orders.
• Jerk Jock: Long before King Piccolo came around, a filler episode during Goku's training with Kami shows that an 18-year-old Shen was already pretty bad to the point he kidnapped a girl that he and Roshi competed for when she turned him down and lured his "friend" and Goku into a trap that nearly burned them to death. He even had a possé that supported his every choice.
• Living Legend: He is very well known within the martial's community and is seen as Master Roshi's equal and rival. Although his Jerkass personality isn't as well known, and Tien says he's weaker than Roshi, though not to Shen's face.
• Manipulative Bastard: Gets Chiaotzu to use his paralysis on Goku when the latter is fighting Tien, but this only triggers a Heel–Face Turn in both of his students.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: He is a student of Mutaito, one of the only survivors of King Piccolo's massacre after Master Roshi:
  • Mutaito → Master Shen → Tien and Chiaotzu
  • Mutaito → Master Shen → Tao → Tien and Chiaotzu
• Moral Myopia: He swears revenge against Goku for killing Mercenary Tao, who happens to be his younger brother. Goku counters that Tao attacked him since he was hired to kill him and he only defended himself. He doesn't care.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In a Hoist by His Own Petard moment, if he hadn't let Tien know about his letting Chiaotzu paralyze Goku during their match, it is possible that his students would've continued on their dark path and wouldn't have betrayed him over disrespecting Tien's pride.
• Older Than They Look: Implied to be the same age or older than Roshi, meaning he too is at least 300 years old.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Technically, one of his students wins the tournament. They have left his dojo by that point thanks to his petty ways.
• Renowned Selective Mentor: He's about as picky about his students as Master Roshi and is also a legend in the Martial Arts world. As far as we know his only students are his younger brother, Tao, Tien, and Chiaotzu.
• Revenge Myopia: He swears vengeance on Goku for killing Mercenary Tao, his younger brother, not caring that, as Goku pointed out, Tao was a Psycho for Hire who was not only hired to kill him, but also killed one of his friends, and Goku was acting in self-defense.
• Rival Dojos: With the Turtle School.
• Rival Turned Evil: He and Roshi used to train under the same master. He turned to darkness after his master was humiliated by King Piccolo and left to die on the ground.
• Sadist: Likes seeing other people in pain and passes this tendency to his students.
• Shadow Archetype: He's a shadow of Master Roshi. He represents what Roshi would be like if he becomes corrupted.
• Training from Hell: His training style for Tien and Chiaotzu. Unlike Roshi, he neglects to give them a rounded education, and Chiaotzu pays for it during his fight with Krillin when Krillin outwits him with a grade-school math problem.
• The Unfought: None of the main characters fight him. The closest is when Roshi knocks him out with a single Kamehameha that sends him flying out of the arena. A more direct example is when Shen attempts to kill Emperor Chiaotzu with a Dodon Ray but was thwarted when Tien knocks him out with a Tri-Beam in the Mystical Adventure movie.
• Victory Gloating: Does this after Tien beats Yamcha at the tournament.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: After Tien knocks out Tao at the 23rd tournament and literally hands his brother's unconscious body to him, he flies off and is never seen again (not even in the anime, unlike Tao).
• We Used to Be Friends: Roshi and he used to be good friends who trained under the same master before he turned to evil.

Mercenary Tao

Mercenary Tao / Tao Pai Pai (桃白白, Taopaipai)

^{Click here to see Cyborg Tao}

Voiced by (Japanese): Chikao Ohtsuka (DB, video games up 2010), Yukimasa Kishino (DBZ, video games from 2017 onwards)
Voiced by (English): Michael McConnohie (Harmony Gold dub); Scott McNeil (Z), Doug McKeag (DB) (Ocean/Blue Water dub); Kent Williams (Most media), Christopher Sabat (Z ep. 128 only) (Funimation dub); Ed Marcus (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Gerardo Reyero (DB eps. 58-60), Pedro D'Aguillón Jr. (rest of DB), César Soto (Z)

The brother of the Crane Hermit, a mercenary and assassin hired by the Red Ribbon Army to collect the Dragon Balls for them. Swift and merciless, he is the first human character to hand Goku a defeat outside the World Martial Arts Tournament. After some training though, Goku manages to return the favor and Tao accidentally blows himself up when a grenade is kicked back at him. He returns later as a cyborg but is quickly defeated again despite the upgrades. Makes a few more appearances in filler of the Z series.

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• Adaptational Wimp: If one interprets Tao Pai Pai as capable of flying but simply chooses not to (Which a lot of characters did that pre-Z), then he's definitely this in Budokai Tenkaichi 2, where he's among the characters who can't fly and flail when mid-air, only to eventually fall down. Budokai Tenkaichi 3 corrected, likely because producers must've remembered that Crane School were the first characters who could fly by using ki, so Tao Pai Pai should be included, even if he's never shown flying.
• All for Nothing: He spent all of his money to become a cyborg more powerful than ever, and was still too weak to defeat Tien, or even do any damage besides a cut on his chest, which only makes Tien angry.
• Arm Cannon: His Super Dodon Ray.
• Ax-Crazy: Tao is utterly bloodthirsty, flying into a murderous rage at any perceived slight, and kills both assigned targets and innocent people as casually as he walks.
• Backstab Backfire: Get blown up by his own grenade when he attempts to throw it at Goku when his back is turned.
• The Bad Guy Wins: He's the first villain to hand Goku a defeat.
• Badass Boast: Tells Blue he'll kill him using only his tongue. He delivers.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: The only known victim of his that won't be mourned is General Blue, a petty, horrible boss who had his men executed for minor offenses and (in the anime) was strongly implied to be a pedophile.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Shares this role with the Crane Hermit during the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament. He would have been a powerful and dangerous opponent... three years earlier. However, since Goku and the others battled King Piccolo and were forced to become stronger from it, he is hardly a Warm-Up Boss for Tien.
  • In Dragon Ball Online, he is the leader of the new Red Ribbon Army, unfortunately for him, he is also the leader of the weakest faction of the game. (They are levels 22-30 in a game where the maximum level is 70.)
• Blade Below the Shoulder: After becoming a cyborg, he possesses a retractable blade hidden in his left hand.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: For a Professional Killer, he's pretty damn careless. In their first fight, he shoots Goku with a Dodon Ray but doesn't bother to check Goku's body and make sure he's actually dead. Unsurprisingly, Goku is still very much alive, and while Tao is attending to other matters, trains with Korin to become strong enough to defeat Tao.
• Broken Pedestal: Even after his Heel–Face Turn, Tien still admired and respected Tao, who was his former master. During the Piccolo Jr. Saga, Tao resorts to a Blade Below the Shoulder to attack Tien, breaking the tournament rules in the process; Tien is absolutely disgusted by this, declaring that Tao has cast away his honor and pride as a warrior by resorting to such tactics.
  Tien: What respect I have for you has now turned to pity! You have no honor!
• Cain and Abel: A flashback from Master Shen in the 22nd World Tournament paints Tao's past relationship with his elder brother like this, with Shen saying that his arrogance and the latter's inexperience with teaching led to infighting between them and caused them to lose all contact. However, this is only in the English dub. In the original scene, there is no audio; it's supposed to be the Crane Hermit reflecting on good times with his brother to illustrate why he's so angry that Goku "killed" him. Canon events in the 23rd World Tournament show that they get along rather well and that Shen is completely supportive of Tao's behavior in killing Tien.
• Came Back Strong: Years after his supposed death, he returns as a cyborg. This makes him stronger, but not strong enough to contend with most of the protagonists.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He's a Psycho for Hire who delights in his sadism and cruelty, to the extent that after forcing a tailor to do a week's worth of work on his destroyed uniform in three days, he refused to pay him on the grounds that doing so would ruin his reputation as a cold, ruthless assassin. Tao then reconsiders and decides to offer the man "payment" in the form of doing what he does best: killing someone. When the man declines, not wanting anyone dead, Tao shows his offer wasn't optional by killing him with a single finger to the head.
• Child Hater: He mentions in volume 8 of the Dragon Ball manga that he hates children.
• Climax Boss: He is the toughest enemy Goku fights in the entire Red Ribbon Saga, including Gohan, Sr. Master Roshi didn't even believe Goku when he says he killed Tao.
• Clothing Damage: Compliments of Goku's Kamehameha. His clothes get damaged again during his rematch with Goku.
• Combat Pragmatist: In his fights with both Goku and Tenshinhan, he pulls out a blade (a dao-like sword in the first, a knife-arm in the second) when his fists don't appear to be doing the job. In both cases, he's more effective for it, but is defeated anyway.
• Colourful Theme Naming: After a color. "Taopaipai" roughly translates to "Peach-White-White."
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • His "fight" with General Blue. He easily dodges all of Blue's attacks, No Sells his paralysis technique,^note in the anime, it's not used in the manga and kills him using only his tongue.
  • He pulls an effortless spear catch on Bora, tosses him into the air, and then throws his own spear at him, killing him in one shot. This was mere minutes after Bora took out a squad of Red Ribbon soldiers while shrugging off submachine gun and shotgun fire.
  • How he beats Goku in their first fight, especially compared to how Roshi beat him. While Roshi had to use every technique in his arsenal to keep up with Goku's natural talent and only beat him by exploiting their natural difference in height, Tao counters Goku's attacks without even using his hands, easily immobilizes him, tanks his formerly unstoppable Kamehameha with only a ruined outfit to show for it, and one-shots Goku with the only beam attack he uses in the entire fight. Goku returns the favor in their second match.
  • After his return as a cyborg, he takes Chiaotzu out without breaking a sweat. He's then defeated with a tap and a punch by Tien during the tournament.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: He's actually still about on par with Goku during their rematch, bruising and bloodying him with his punches, with Goku even admitting that his blows hurt a lot and he was still really strong. Also while Goku does manage to block his Dodonpa, he has to brace himself ahead of time, still gets pushed back a lot, and shakes his hands afterwards while whining about how much it stung. He is at a sizable disadvantage due to initially underestimating his opponent and said opponent stuffing that power in a much smaller package, however.
• Cyborg: He is rebuilt into one after Goku kicks his own grenade in his face. He also becomes even more powerful, but it doesn't really help him since the cast greatly surpassed him by the time of his return.
• Dirty Coward: Considering the fact that he promises that he will change just to keep Goku from killing him, and as soon as Goku lets his guard down, he attempts to kill him with a grenade, it's pretty reasonable that he qualifies as such. He also uses dirty tricks against Tien in the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, like pulling out a knife hidden in his robotic arm.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Toriyama stated in an interview that he killed Mr. Satan's master and beat Mr. Satan to the brink of death for making fun of his hairstyle.
• Dramatic Irony: His fight against Tien in the 23rd tournament mirrors his first fight against Goku, only with the roles reversed and the intention of the stronger one being different, since Tien never had any intention to kill Tao Pai Pai. In both cases we have the stronger character winning with just two attacks, with the first hit not being serious, and the second hit ended the fight after the other character did something to piss them off (Goku's Kamehameha destroying Tao Pai Pai's clothes, Cyborg Tao using a blade in a tournament, showing Tien he has no pride as a martial artist left). The winner also casually dealt with the opponent's strongest attack; Tao Pai Pai tanked Goku's Kamehameha, and Tien neutralized the Super Dodonpa with just a kiai shout.
• The Dreaded: He is feared by everyone since he is the world's greatest assassin, capable of killing someone who is Immune to Bullets. Goku defeating him was so outstanding that Master Roshi initially didn't believe Goku (though Goku was wrong about killing Tao). One of the guides states that Mister Satan became the coward he is because Tao came to his master's dojo, and brutally beat up everybody including himself and his master. From then on, Satan swore only to challenge people he knows he can beat, and is still deathly afraid of Tao.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Toriyama says that he and the Crane Hermit were killed in an unknown incident (only described as "an evil deed" they were committing) and haven't been brought back to life.
• Dub Name Change: The short-lived Harmony Gold dub made him "Tao Pei." The Funimation dub called him General Tao (due to mistakenly believing him to have been a member of the Red Ribbon Army) and then the more proper Mercenary Tao.
• Evil Is Petty: For starters, after forcing a tailor to do a week's worth of work on his ruined uniform in three days, he refuses to pay him on the grounds that doing so would ruin his reputation as a cold, ruthless assassin, and kills him instead (he offers to "pay" him by carrying out a contract killing on anybody of his choice, only for the tailor to quite understandably balk at that). Not only that, but Toriyama states that in the past, Tao killed Mr. Satan's master and beat Satan himself within an inch of his life simply because the two made fun of his hairstyle.
• Evil Mentor: To Tien and Chiaotzu, next to the Crane Hermit.
• Expy: His appearance is based from the villain of the '78 Jackie Chan movie Snake in the Eagle's Shadow.
• Failed a Spot Check: How he missed the 4-star ball and the fact that Goku was still alive after getting nailed in the chest with a Dodon Ray.
• Finger Gun: His Dodon Ray technique, via the Crane School of martial arts.
• Fingerpoke Of Doom: His introduction has him killing General Blue with his tongue. He later uses this to kill a tailor after he asked for his payment.
• Fights Like a Normal: Relatively speaking for the time period he was around. Before Z, characters almost never flew, even when they could do it, and despite being part of Crane School, he is never shown flying, and is even the only one from Crane School who never flew, even when he shows up again in the 23rd tournament, he doesn't fly in any of the matches he takes part of, and Crane Elder does fly to take him away, so it seems it's a personal choice. Either that or he's not capable of flying but that is never commented on.
• Gratuitous English: What kind of assassin goes around with "KILL YOU!" written on his clothes?^note The kind who can kill anyone who makes fun of him for it.
• Gratuitous Hawaiian: "Aloha!"
• Greed: Implied by the fact that he charges a very hefty price for his services; normally, he charges ten billion Zeni per kill, but when Commander Red approaches him, he gives him a 20th anniversary discount of five billion.
• Hate Sink: He seems to have been made with the intention of being loathed by the viewers, starting with the very fact that he's the first human who killed someone good in the cast. After murdering Upa's father in front of him and defeating Goku in battle, he laughs at Upa and tells him that he's lucky that he's still alive, meaning that he has absolutely no problem killing children. One of his worst offenses has got to be when he forces a tailor to overwork on making an outfit for him in about three days...which he rewards by killing him. When he returns to Karin's Tower to look for the one Dragon Ball he neglected to find, he grabs Upa and throws him against the tower (fortunately, he was saved by Goku).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Throwing a grenade at Goku was a bad idea.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Tao is the first example in the franchise, being a Professional Killer and Psycho for Hire who delights in his sadism and cruelty. Among other things, he kills Upa's father Bora in cold blood, forces a tailor to do a week's worth of work on his ruined uniform in three days, kills said tailor rather than pay him for his hard work, and openly admits he'll kill anyone, man, woman, or child, as long as he gets paid.
• Informed Ability: He states that he has become much stronger after being converted into a cyborg. This isn't really shown since Tien easily defeats him and he only beats Chiaotzu since he was shocked to see Tao alive after being confirmed dead six years ago.
• I Surrender, Suckers: He tries to surrender to Goku and when his guard is lowered, throws a grenade at him. Goku simply kicked it back at him.
• Jerkass: Besides being a Professional Killer who has no problem killing a child, he also killed the tailor because he had the nerve to ask to be paid for doing a week's worth of work in three days. What with his fee being ten billion Zeni per assassination (except when it's his 20th anniversary as an assassin, in which case he "only" charges five billion), it isn't like he lacked the money. He also murders Bora, a friend of Goku, for no particular reason.
• Kick the Dog: See above. Killed Bora and the tailor, also attempted to kill Upa. None of this was for any real reason, other than to emphasize how merciless he is.
• Knight of Cerebus: Before him, nobody good had died onscreen and nobody bad had ever defeated Goku, and his cruelty is played seriously. However, as soon as Goku got stronger, he's relegated to a joke and it would not be until King Piccolo that a villain would be playing for keeps.
• Know When to Fold Them:
  • He doesn't even try fighting Goku in Z when he comes for Tao's employer for one of the dragon balls, he only stalls him with puzzles, followed by running away and giving him the dragon ball once Goku beats the puzzles fair and square.
  • He immediately quits his fight against Gohan once he realizes who he's the son of, knowing that it was far too much effort and a fight he could not win (and even if it was, he knows provoking Goku's wrath, especially now, is a fool's errand).
• Lack of Empathy: Coldly murders Bora for no good reason and tells Upa that he's lucky that he did not decide to kill him. Roshi even stated that Tao has nothing resembling a conscience, and he's 100% correct on that matter.
• Lightning Bruiser: The first villain in the series to be truly faster and (initially) stronger than Goku.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: It is heavily implied that Tao was trained by his brother the Crane Hermit and helped train Tien and Chiaotzu: Mutaito > Master Shen > Tao < Tien and Chiaotzu
• Minor Injury Overreaction: He's so furious that Goku's Kamehameha ruined his outfit, even though it didn't actually harm him, that he dispenses with his Just Toying with Them style of killing and blasts him with a Dodon Ray.
• Motive Decay: During Red Ribbon Army Saga he's a very proud and smug assassin who detests any inconvenience, may kill people because of any slight to his reputation, and is ultimately a coward when facing with a stronger opponent. During his return in the 23rd tournament, in almost every line of dialogue he spouts he's going to kill Tien and/or Goku, and is so desperate for revenge he quickly stops caring about the tournament and just wants to kill Tien once he proves to be superior.
• Mundane Utility: Cyborg Tao has a hidden blade under his mechanical left arm and a cannon under his right.... and also stores puzzle rings inside his mechanical arm too.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Fist Fight: Subverted, as he does get himself disqualified but the illegal weapons are the only way he managed to hurt Tien, however insignificantly.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His murder of Upa's father Bora is what leads Goku to actively seek out the Dragon Balls and destroy the Red Ribbon Army.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: He takes out his targets fast, often with one-hit kills. When Goku proved to be resilient to blunt blows, he tries to pierce his heart with a Dodon Ray. His only mistake was not bothering to check Goku's body.
• Not Quite Flight: When he wants to go somewhere, he just throws a pillar and rides it to his intended destination. To make it clear, he throws the pillar, and then leaps onto it while it is in flight. Slightly ironic considering that the Crane School's signature technique is teaching their students to fly, although Tao in the video games is shown to be able to fly. Slightly justified as ki-based flight as a mode of long-distance transport in Dragon Ball was only used by Piccolo Jr. and briefly by Master Shen.
• Not So Above It All: Tao's debut characterized him as a professional and cool assassin who shows little emotion when dealing with his target. Come Z where he was just as giddy as Vodka and his gangster henchmen when they successfully tricked Goku into giving away his Dragon Balls and even joined Vodka in going for a walk in a river.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Has a complete breakdown when Goku proved to be stronger than him.
  • It happened again when Tien proved to be his superior at the 23rd tournament.
• Oh, Crap!: He gets one when Goku kicks his grenade back at him.
• Only Mostly Dead: A fairly ridiculous example as Goku clearly saw him being blown up into nothingness.
• Pressure Point: How he kills General Blue; by jabbing a pressure point in his temple with his tongue.
• Professional Killer: The best in the world.
• Psycho for Hire: He charges 10 billion Zeni per kill, but nonetheless loves killing people. Hell, the very first thing he says to Goku is "Pleased to kill you."
• Razor-Sharp Hand: And feet. And fingers. And tongue.
• Real Men Wear Pink: And will kill you if you dare say otherwise.
• Really 700 Years Old: He's almost as old as his brother Shen, who is about the same age as Master Roshi.
• Sadist: BIG TIME, although not as sadistic compared to other villains in the series. Most of his actions are motivated by money.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: His reaction to finding out Gohan was Goku's son (Filler only).
• Self-Imposed Challenge: An In-Universe example; Tao likes to attack using only one appendage, especially one that isn't normally very robust. His Establishing Character Moment comes when he kills General Blue using only his tongue, and in his first fight against Goku, he uses mainly his ponytail.
• The Sociopath: He fits the bill in several ways. Tao is utterly cruel and merciless, has no qualms against killing women and children for money, takes open pride in being a Psycho for Hire, and as stated by Master Roshi, has nothing resembling empathy or a conscience.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In Dragon Ball Online, he manages to survive until the year 1,000.
• Stoic: Remains cool and professional as he is killing his target.
• Third-Person Person: He often refers to himself as "this Taopaipai" in Japanese, an indication of his inflated ego.
• Unexplained Recovery: Despite there being no visible remains after he got blown up, somehow he was brought back as a cyborg.
  • Back in the 22nd tournament Tien learns that Goku killed Tao, and when Tien tells Crane Hermit about it, he wonders if this is why he hasn't heard of Tao over the last 3 years. This all makes Tao's sudden return on the 23rd tournament more baffling.
• Vanity: Went to the tailor to get new clothes after Goku destroyed his outfit. As he puts it, "having torn clothes wasn't befitting". It ends up costing him since he didn't return to Korin until three days later, giving Goku time to climb the tower and become strong enough to defeat him.
• Villain Cred: In the dub. As mentioned above, under Card-Carrying Villain and Evil Is Petty, he has a reputation as a cold, ruthless assassin, and outright refuses to pay the tailor who repaired his outfit on the grounds that doing so would ruin said reputation.
• Villain Decay: He really gets hit by this. When he was introduced, he was a ruthless and renowned assassin who easily beat Goku. Even in their rematch, he still gave Goku a tough fight. By the time he returns during the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, Tien beats him with just a tap on the shoulder and a punch to the gut. He gets even further reduced if you count the Z fillers where he runs at the mere mention of Goku's name. This even extends to ordinary people where he went from killing a tailor instead of paying him to sheepishly asking a gangster if he still gets paid for his services.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: His transformation to cyborg did increase his strength, but by the time he reappears his old student Tien is so powerful he goes down in one shot. By the time he makes his brief appearance in Z, he knows he's completely outclassed and flees at the mere mention of Goku.
• Villainous Breakdown: Once Goku proves to be his superior, he loses it and is reduced to pulling I Surrender, Suckers to try to kill Goku. He has another one when fighting Tien at the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament and he proves to be much stronger than him. By the end, he pulls a knife on Tien, leaving an everlasting scar on his chest.
• Villains Want Mercy: Begs for his life when Goku overpowers him and then tries to blow him up with a grenade. Subverted in that the begging was all a performance to get Goku to lower his guard and leave himself open to the grenade attack, rather than a genuine plea that he went back on after it was granted.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Before Tao, Goku was easily beating the Red Ribbon Army. Even their best, General Blue, only got ahead thanks to his paralyzing technique. Tao came and not only beat Goku, but utterly destroyed him with no effort.
• We Can Rebuild Him: Is turned into a cyborg after he's nearly killed by Goku.
• Weak, but Skilled: He's the World's Greatest Assassin, knowing many crafty techniques, but by his return in the 23rd World Tournament he's so physically weak compared to the current characters that he got one-shotted by Tien, and that's before his reappearance in filler episodes of Z, where planet busting has become the standard.
• Whole Costume Reference: Nigh-identical in appearance and personality to Sheng Kuan◊, the main villain of Snake in the Eagle's Shadow.
• The Worf Barrage: The Super Dodon Wave, despite being a stronger Wave-Motion Gun version of the Dodon Ray, never once successfully deals damage to anyone. Granted, it was used only once in the manga, but even then was blocked by a simple kiai.
• The Worf Effect:
  • After easily taking out Goku in their first fight, he's defeated (though not without trouble) in the second. Years later at the 22nd Budokai, Tenshinhan and the Crane Hermit are both utterly shocked by hearing that Goku managed to defeat Tao, "the world's greatest assassin." They don't even believe him until after he trounces Chappa, Pamput, and finally Krillin with no effort, while still holding a lot of power back. Even then they state it's still only maybe possible that he did. Their doubts are only full dispelled when he shows his real power against Tenshinhan.
  • He returns as a cyborg more powerful than ever...and gets one-shotted by Tien.
• World's Strongest Man: The world's greatest assassin and the most potent martial artist on Earth for much of his life. When he first showed up he was far stronger than Goku and Roshi, who were themselves head and shoulders above all the greatest martial artists and monsters from the first three arcs (before he showed up). Even after Goku levels up enough to defeat him they're still fairly close in power, while Goku then proceeds to effortlessly dispose of all of Baba's fighters at a much lower level of power (including Devilman, who won two prior world martial arts tournaments himself). Three years during the 22nd Budokai and Piccolo Daimao arcs, his power is still held in high regard by his brother the Crane Hermit and former student Tenshinhan, who don't believe Goku could've beaten him until they see him uncork his full power. Flashbacks in the anime version show that Tao and the Crane Hermit used to spar and were about on par with each other, tying them for the world's title of the strongest by the time Tao showed up in the series, though by the 22nd Budokai Tenshinhan, Goku, and Roshi have all surpassed them both. Piccolo follows suit when he's resurrected.
• Would Hurt a Child: He stated that he would kill anyone, man, woman, or child for the right price. He also did not hesitate to attempt to kill Goku, even though he is 12. He also tells Upa that he's lucky to still be alive.

Tenshinhan / Tien Shinhan

See Dragon Ball Tien Shinhan

Chaozu / Chiaotzu

See Dragon Ball Allies

The Demon Clan

Demon King Piccolo

Demon King Piccolo (ピッコロ大魔王, Pikkoro Daimaō)

^{Click here to see Old King Piccolo}

Voiced by (Japanese): Takeshi Aono (Most media), Bin Shimada (Dragon Ball Heroes onwards)
Voiced by (English): Christopher Sabat (Funimation dub); Scott McNeil (Z, flashbacks), Mike Shepherd (DB) (Ocean/Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Carlos Segundo

"Order is dead and chaos reigns, thus says King Piccolo!"

Not to be confused with his son Piccolo, who would eventually become a hero in Dragon Ball Z. Piccolo Daimaō - literally "Piccolo the Great Demon King" - was a demon of Namekian origin who was Made of Evil, created when the evil side of Kami was expelled and gained sentience. He once plunged the Earth into utter mayhem and pandemonium with his army of animal-like demon spawn, before being sealed away by Mutaito - Master Roshi and Master Shen's master - at the cost of his own life. Centuries later, he was freed by Pilaf and proved to be the toughest opponent yet for the young Son Goku. Of course, like all the villains he goes down eventually, in this case by a fist straight through his midsection, but not before passing his mind onto the last of his offspring.

Piccolo's arrival marked a major turning point in the series. The story and the villains became Darker and Edgier, which is when the anime split into Z.

---

• Adaptational Badass: In Supersonic Warriors Demon King Piccolo puts up a decent fight against Piccolo Jr. after he had fused with Kami, despite being exponentially weaker than his son at that point.
• The Ageless: Demon King Piccolo eventually obtains eternal youth from Shenron, though he doesn't live long enough for the 'eternal' part to come in. Strangely, the Funimation dub changes his wish just before summoning Shenron to have his youth restored. The Daizenshuu reveals that he passed this on to Piccolo Jr.
• Alien Fair Folk: Originally advertised as a demon but eventually revealed to be an alien, albeit an alien with supernatural origins. Thanks to Bowdlerization the US dub sidesteps all of this, with the narrator explicitly referring to him as an alien.^note It's commonly believed that Piccolo being an alien is a "retcon" to him being a demon, but the manga and original Japanese anime never state that Piccolo's alien origins negate his demonic nature. Furthermore, neither the manga or Japanese anime state that being a demon and being an alien are mutually exclusive and there are other characters in and outside the original story that can be considered both (Garlic Jr., Slug, and Majin Buu to name a few).
• And I Must Scream:
  • He was trapped in a rice cooker for hundreds of years at the bottom of the ocean. There's a reason why he's terrified of the Evil Containment Wave.
  • Karin says that people killed by King Piccolo and his children won't go to the afterlife and are doomed to an endless suffering in limbo. His son Piccolo Jr. doesn't share this trait, as Son Goku's first death demonstrated. Kami speculates that this may be due to Piccolo Jr. being less geared towards villainy.
• Anarcho-Tyranny: Demon King Piccolo escapes from his prison and proceeds to Take Over the World after regaining his youth and sending his minions out to murder every fighter who might be able to oppose him. He decides to abolish all laws and encourages people to fight and kill each other while he remains in charge, enjoying the chaos he has unleashed.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Demon King Piccolo became this to Goku after he murders Krillin and Master Roshi, leading the young boy on his first true Roaring Rampage of Revenge, a feat that wouldn't be seen again until the Saiyan's battle with Frieza. Demon King Piccolo feels the same and gave his grudge to his final son, Piccolo Jr.
  • King Piccolo served this role to Master Roshi since his master Mutaito had to sacrifice himself to seal Piccolo away with the Mufuba and he murdered his fellow disciples with the exception of Shen. Once he realises that Piccolo has returned Roshi immediately tries to reseal Piccolo at the cost of his life. And while Piccolo wasn't aware of who Roshi was he did send his sons out to murder every martial artist he could find on the off chance that someone with the knowledge of the Mufuba could exist.
  • Finally, King Piccolo serves this role to Kami due to the former being the personification of the evil that Kami had to expel in order to become God. Kami has had to watch the evils that Piccolo committed without being able to interfere and, when his son Piccolo Jr. attempts to follow in his father's footsteps, he directly decides to intervene and seal Junior away himself. When it seems like Junior can't be stopped he even asks Tien to kill him before his evil can hurt anyone else.
• Awesome, but Impractical: He generally doesn't use his full power as it shortens his lifespan, but he's near unbeatable when he does.
• Ax-Crazy: Demon King Piccolo relishes pain and destruction, and is prone to maniacal laughter and Slasher Smiles.
• Bald of Evil: As a Namekian, he has no hair and is a cruel despot to boot.
• Benevolent Boss: He treats his minions well since they are his children. He becomes upset when he feels Cymbal and Tambourine die and goes out of his way to avenge them. This stands out since he is the only Benevolent Boss in the series until Sorbet is introduced. This doesn't extend to Pilaf and his cronies though, since they're not his offspring.
• Big Bad: Demon King Piccolo and his son are the first true big bads and are also the final villains of the last story arcs of the original Dragon Ball.
• Big Eater: An infamous filler scene shows Piano ordering cooks to prepare 101 servings of each of his favorite dishes such as dinosaur tongues and newt feces. Blegh. Ironically, his species doesn't even need food.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: He gives birth to his children by vomiting out eggs after reciting a nursery rhyme, which freaks out the Pilaf Gang. In the dub, he gives a chant about his children serving him. Apparently these eggs form in his throat rather than his abdomen or torso, since he was able to spawn Piccolo Jr right after Son Goku charged through his midsection.
• Black Speech: In the original Japanese, he gives a strange chant as he lays eggs of his offspring. In Real Life, this is based on a children's chant in Japan..
• Bookends: Demon King Piccolo started Dragon Ball's descent towards more serious plots. Majin Buu - whose backstory is a word-for-word duplicate of Demon King Piccolo's - marks the point where the series brings back some levity (albeit still having terrifylingly high stakes).
• Breath Weapon: Notably used it to kill Shenron.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He openly admits that he hates peace and justice more than anything.
• Cast from Lifespan: Producing more offspring is an exhausting and painful process noted by Piano to shave any his vitality, though he insists that there would be no drawbacks after gaining eternal youth. Drum and Piccolo Jr. eggs notably didn't require a chant, and were quicker to produce.
• The Chessmaster: Demon King Piccolo's plan of world domination was so well thought out and intricately planned it even took the heroes by surprise. The first thing he did was have his henchmen kill all the Earth's strongest martial artists so that no one could oppose him. Then he swallowed the Dragon Balls he had gained so that if anyone tried to kill him they would in the process destroy the Dragon Balls. After he had wished for his youth to be restored, he then kills Shenron just to ensure that no one could use the Dragon Balls and use any wishes against him.
• Combat Pragmatist: He immediately killed Chiaotzu when he tried to sabotage Demon King Piccolo's quest for immortality by making his wish to Shenron before Piccolo did. He also checked Goku's pulse before confirming he was dead in their first battle. Then during his second battle with Goku he took Tien hostage, threatening to kill him if Goku approached him.
• The Corrupter: It is stated by Master Roshi that Shen became corrupted after witnessing King Piccolo's cruelty and humiliating his master. Also, part of the reason why Piccolo frees all the prisoners and abolished all laws is to stroke the darkest aspects of humanity.
• Curb-Stomp Cushion: While he kicks Goku's ass easily during their first fight, Goku did manage to land several hits and even knock him to the ground.
• Darkest Hour: Demon King Piccolo took over the world, killed several beloved characters, killed Shenron so no one could be wished back, was going to blow up a section of the world every year; things were not looking good until Son Goku got a last-minute power-up.
• Death of Personality: Maybe. It seems to depend on what mood Toriyama is in. Either Piccolo Jr. is just his son and King Piccolo is still around in the afterlife or Piccolo Jr. really is his father's reincarnation and Demon King Piccolo has effectively ceased to be. Videogames that give characters personalised interactions based on their opponents seem to imply that the two Piccolos are in fact separate entities.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: For some reason, having a hole punched through his chest resulted in him exploding. Even stranger is that most characters killed by physical attacks at this point in the series normally simply die.
  • Well, he is Kami's Enemy Without. He might be literally Made of Evil.
  • The anime implies it's an attempt at Taking You with Me, depicting Goku being injured and flung by the detonation. In the manga, he just fell.
  • A better explanation would be that since he pocketed his essence into that last egg, thus reincarnating himself, his old body couldn't sustain itself any longer. The new demon was now officially Piccolo, and there couldn't exist two of him at once, so the original had to go.
• Despair Event Horizon: What he plunged the world into, twice, after he took over.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • His reactions when his kids get killed by Goku and Yajirobe. Even his right-hand man has a tough time believing it.
  • Both Piano and King Piccolo are shocked when Goku reappears, still alive and stronger than ever, right after Piccolo all but killed him.
  • Piccolo never saw coming that he would lose to Goku because he failed to disable his right arm.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He actually killed Shenron with a mouth blast, just to prevent anyone from using the Dragon Balls again.
• Didn't Think This Through: Had Demon King Piccolo not been so estatic at regaining the power of "Everlasting youth" and remembered to add the small but significant suffix "and life" to his wish from Shenron that Freeza would have done, he would have been literally invincible. Thankfully, his euphoria did override his common sense, resulting in a still-mortal lifespan (which he admits would significantly shorten if ever he used his full power) and make him pefectly-killable, as demonstrated by young Son Goku punching a hole clean through him.
• Dirty Coward: Near the end of his fight with Goku, Demon King Piccolo took Tien hostage and threatened to kill him if Goku tried anything. He then proceeded to break one of Goku's arms and both of his legs, immobilizing the boy. Too bad he left Goku an arm.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: The first thing he does as Global Dictator is declare on International Television "I DON'T intend to lord over you: in fact, you are free to do as you please from now on: Kill, pillage, steal and rob to your heart's content: I hereby declare the end of peace and justice!". Cell must have taken notes from his genetic memory to have done the same 13 years later.
• The Dreaded:
  • He is called the Demon King Piccolo. Master Roshi was terrified of him and he was considered the devil of the Dragon Ball world. Yajirobe really liked eating his minions, but upon learning who they were minions of he started shaking in fear and gave Goku the Dragon Ball that would have brought the demon to him. Three years after his death, when the World Martial Arts Tournament spectators discover Piccolo Jr.'s identity during his fight with Goku, they run out of the stadium en masse.
  • From Piccolo's point of view, an Electric Jar. He was sealed in one for hundreds of years at the bottom of the ocean and fears it more than anything else, as well as the Evil Containment Wave, the technique that put him there. His first order of business upon his return is to kill every martial artist in the world to ensure he could never be imprisoned again. During his fight with Goku, he freaks out when he thinks Goku is about to perform the Evil Containment Wave (he was really charging a Kamehameha). And during his fight with Master Roshi, just Roshi mentioning his master Mutaito's name was enough to make Piccolo break out into a cold sweat. When Roshi shows him an Electric Jar, he runs for the hills screaming. He also recoils in horror when Tien reveals that he intends to use the Evil Containment Wave on him (though Drum stops him from doing so).
• Dub Name Change: In the Latin American Spanish dub, while largely retaining his original Japanese name, his name is pronounced in it as "Pikkoro Daimaku" for unknown reasons.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: Once Demon King Piccolo takes over the world, he says that he has no desire to rule over his subjects. Instead, he lets everyone do whatever they want, including robbery and murder. Later he decides to hold a lottery to destroy one region of the world per year. His goal is to make everyone live in fear for the rest of their lives.
• Earn Your Title: He's called the Demon King and he turned the world into a living hell not once, but twice.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • King Piccolo's children look nothing like traditional Namekians, having various odd features like wings or looking like reptiles. Suggested explanations are that either the parent Namekian can choose the appearance of their offspring, or King Piccolo's evilness twisted his offspring into mutants. It could also be a corrupted version of the magic Kami used to create Shenron.
  • A filler scene shows Piano demanding chefs to prepare King Piccolo a massive feast to honor his taking over the world, but it is later revealed in the Namek Saga that his kind only needs water to sustain themselves. It is likely though that he either eats for pleasure or needs the extra nutrients to sustain himself on a planet that only has one sun.
  • He bleeds red despite being a Namekian, whose blood is later shown to be purple. His reincarnation continued the trend up to his demise in the Saiyan Saga, though the Kai re-edit recolors his blood in that arc. By strange coincidence, they showed his son Drum's blood as purple.
  • The fact that he didn't regenerate after Goku put that huge hole through his torso despite his reincarnation saying way later in the Buu arc that he can restore any injury as long as his head remains intact. To be fair, King Piccolo had already expended a good amount of his power on two Explosive Demon Waves during the fight with Goku, so he likely no longer had the reserves to do so.
• Enemy Without: He is the evil within Kami's heart who took physical form after Kami expelled all the darkness inside himself.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For all of his evil, Piccolo does seem to care for his underlings/sons and personally goes after Goku to avenge them.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Kami. He's the evil that existed within Kami before he became the Guardian of the Earth.
  • He's also an evil counterpart to Goku. Both are aliens from worlds that were in distress (one being outright destroyed), they both were raised in isolation away from the civilized world, lost their memories of their old worlds, and had come to see the blue planet as their one true home. Their arrival on Earth also greatly impacted the planet changing it forever. The difference between them is that while living on Earth gave Goku the best qualities of humanity, it gave the Nameless Namekian that later split into Kami and Piccolo the worst qualities.
  • The Backstory about him being a demon "born" on Earth who once lead an army capable of destroying it before being sealed away are elements of Sun Wukong Dragon Ball Son Goku didn't inherent, making him even more of an evil counterpart. And, of course, Piccolo wasn't given a restraining bolt or Morality Chain when he was unsealed.
• Evil Feels Good: He practically breathes this trope. See Card-Carrying Villain.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: After his youth is restored, he summons Pilaf, Shu, and Mai and announces that their reward for helping him is...they get thrown off the ship. Pilaf is stunned for a few seconds and assumes he's joking. King Piccolo tells him that he doesn't waste time with jokes, and has them thrown out. Although what King Piccolo finds amusing is a lot different from what most people do. Pointedly, he saw Master Mutaito's struggling against his finger beams during their first battle as him "dancing" and brought it up again during their second.
• Evil Is Bigger: He's huge compared to virtually everyone else he interacts with, as seen here. Though it should be noted that this was back when Dragon Ball played it fast and loose with character heights. If Demon King Piccolo ever had a chance to appear in Dragon Ball Z or its successors, it's possible he'd just be above average in size.
• Evil Laugh: Frequently given how much he enjoys his work. His most notable moments are when he announces Piccolo Day and earlier when Shenron grants him eternal youth.
• Evil Old Folks: He's very old when he emerges from the rice cooker. Regaining his youth is his first priority.
• Evil Overlord: He calls himself the king of demons and wants to be emperor of the world.
• Exact Words: He repeatedly expresses the belief that no human could ever defeat him and is in disbelief when Goku does so. To be fair, he was technically right: no human ever beat him ^note though the human warriors would all surpass him eventually. Goku is a Human Alien.
• Expy:
  • His status as a demon seems to be a nod to the multiple demon enemies that Sun Wukong faced in Journey to the West.
  • King Piccolo is also notable, in a series known for its persistent (if minor) use of Recycled Script, for having by far the greatest number of expies of his own in future Dragon Ball villains. The list includes:
    • Characters who play on his Ancient Evil sealed in a can theme (both Garlic Jr. and his father, Bojack, Majin Buu, Hirudegarn, and Moro)
    • Characters who play on his backstory (Garlic Sr. is an evil alien who attempted to become Earth's Kami, Lord Slug is an evil Namekian who wishes to have his youth restored, Dabura is a literal Demon King, Beerus is an (affably) evil counterpart to the local God expy who will die if said God is killed).
    • Piccolo Jr. is basically a direct continuation of his father's storyline and continues to frequently refer to himself as the Demon King.
    • Cell is essentially a Darker and Edgier (with a dash of Doing In the Wizard) retool of King Piccolo's entire storyline, including being a Hope Crusher Sadist, coming from a different time period (the past for Piccolo, the future for Cell), gathering a set of artifacts in order to acquire a stronger physical form, trolling the world by threatening with eventual (instead of immediate) destruction, spawning children to destroy the heroes instead of doing it himself, and is eventually defeated by a small child with only one arm (and exploding!).
    • Majin Buu continues the trend by being released by a diminutive villain who plans to rule the world/universe but is no real threat to the heroes himself (and is eventually betrayed by Buu to boot), being opposed by the local God and his attendant, and eventually reincarnating into a new body who eventually becomes an ally to Goku after fighting him at the next World Martial Arts Tournament.
    • Even Broly could be considered an expy, since both draw on the parts of Sun Wukong that Goku didn't exemplify: Sealed Evil in a Can for Piccolo, Power Limiter headband for Broly, unimaginable power (at the time) for both.
• Eye Beams: Notably the first character to utilize them, particularly when he zaps the original electric jar that Mutaito sealed him in. His reincarnation would utilize them to a greater extent.
• Family Theme Naming: King Piccolo and all of his children (Tambourine, Drum, Cymbal, Piano, Piccolo Jr.) are named after musical instruments.
• Fangs Are Evil: He has his teeth on full display whenever he laughs, which is fairly often.
• Fantastic Racism: Not quite to the extent of Frieza's hatred of Saiyans, but he does view humanity as a whole to be lowly worms to be used for entertainment at best and target practice at worst, stating demons to be superior. He passed the attitude onto all his sons, most notably Tambourine.
• Faux Affably Evil: He speaks politely to Goku and even praises his skills in their first fight after Goku lands a few hits and manages to knock him down... before beating Goku within an inch of his life. He also calmly offers one of the king's guards a position as one of his men. When he refuses, Piccolo puts his hand through the guy's chest.
• A Father to His Men: Figuratively and literally, and his only redeeming trait. Compared to every villain in the entire Dragon Ball series outside of Sorbet, he actually has some care for his underlings and will go out of his way to avenge them.
• Final Boss: He is the final villain Goku confronts as a child or the Boyhood chapters in the manga.
• Fluffy the Terrible: The demon king of the Dragon World is named after a musical instrument. Launch outright mocks it, asking if that's his real name. Master Roshi is quick to point out that there is nothing charming about him despite his name. We learned much later that Piccolo chose the name because of its in-universe meaning.
• For the Evulz: Why he does everything. He loves to make others suffer.
• Freak Out: King Piccolo has the most noticeable showings of fear among Dragon Ball villains, his fear of Evil Containment Waveis why he sent his demon spawn to kill the world's best martial artists (At first it just seemed to be a simple case of Pragmatic Villainy), and it's is so intense that the smallest hint someone is about to use it makes him panic, such as when he initially thought Goku's Kamehameha was Evil Containment Wave. And during his fight with Roshi, when Roshi says he was Mutaito's apprentice, King Piccolo breaks into cold sweat, and when Roshi shows an electric rice cooker and is about to use Mafuba, King Piccolo quickly tries to fly away. The only villain to show similar levels of fear is Android 19 from the Androids Saga, and even he only decided to run away once Vegeta ripped off his hands, which meant he couldn't fight back anymore, King Piccolo's fear prevents him from even fighting back if he thinks someone can use Evil Containment Wave.
• Genius Bruiser: Where do you think Piccolo got it from? Demon King Piccolo gives himself plenty of insurance before and after acting on his plans. He had all of Earth's martial artists assasinated after a tournament when the strongest among them would be too worn out to fight back, he killed Shenron after getting his wish from him so that nobody else could use the Dragon Balls against him and he tried to turn humanity against itself so that they wouldn't unite against him.
• Greater-Scope Villain: For the original series before becoming the Arc Villain of the King Piccolo Saga. It was his actions that caused Kami to create the Dragon Balls. He wanted to give the people of Earth something to hope for after Piccolo's original rampage. Piccolo's cruelty is also the reason why the Crane Hermit became corrupt and abandoned his master's teachings. He also gave birth to his final son/reincarnation Piccolo Jr before dying.
• Green and Mean: As a Namekian, he has green skin and is a daimao or "demon king" that brought unspeakable levels of terror and chaos to the Earth twofold. "Mean" would be giving him too much credit.
• Hero Killer: While he only directly kills Chiaotzu, he is also responsible for Master Roshi's death (who dies after failing to seal King Piccolo with the Evil Containment Wave) and orders the deaths of Krillin and many other World Martial Arts fighters. He also briefly kills Goku, though, in Goku's case, he was Not Quite Dead. He also comes damn close to killing Goku in their second fight and would have won if it was just them. Goku admits he would have been toast if Tenshinhan hadn't saved him from one of Piccolo's city-destroying blasts, and their fight would have been a mutual kill even with Ten's intervention if Yajirobe wasn't there to catch him at the last second.
• Humans Are Bastards: King Piccolo's opinion of humanity is so low that he believed cutting them loose would cause more mayhem than establishing a dictatorship.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • He kills one of the king's strongest men by literally putting his hand through his chest.
  • How he met his end at the literal hand of Goku, having punched right through him.
• Irony:
  • Nearly every one of King Piccolo's ambitions are fulfilled over the course of the series, such as Son Goku's death and humanity turning on each other for petty reasons. Of course, he doesn't live to see any of it and the last of his line became a good guy, so his victory is a hollow one.
  • The boy who killed him would go on to have a son that would befriend Demon King Piccolo's own son.
• Knight of Cerebus: The wackiness of Dragon Ball with its childish enemies ended officially with him. There is nothing comical or light-hearted about him and his arc is the darkest in the original Dragon Ball in terms of both threat and deaths. Even in his old age, he beats Goku so thoroughly that Goku's heart stops, leaving him clinically dead for several minutes. Master Roshi acknowledges this when talking about his initial reign of terror long ago:
  Roshi: "His name may sound funny, but I assure you there is nothing amusing about that savage beast!"
• Large and in Charge: He is well over 8 feet tall.
• Leitmotif: Notable in that Kikuchi not only designed several variations for one particular tune but that it also carried over to Piccolo Jr. well into Z.
• Looks Like Orlok: He's bald, has goblin-ears, a hooked nose, pronounced canines and long nails. The anime also depicts him in a vampire-like fashion such as emphasizing his fangs and giving him a black and red cape in his past.
• Made of Evil: He's the physical incarnation of Kami's dark half. It is claimed that King Piccolo's malice is so potent that anyone who is killed by him or one of his demon spawn will have their souls trapped in limbo. As Son Goku was able to go to the afterlife upon being killed by Piccolo Jr, it appears that he might not be the same as his father.
• Make Sure He's Dead: After beating Goku into the ground, he makes sure to check Goku's pulse before he leaves, discovering that Goku's heart has indeed stopped. Of course, he never anticipated that Goku's heart would restart itself shortly after he left.
• Maou the Demon King: "Demon King" Piccolo. He was initially meant to be a demon lord that was the evil half of Earth's god and spawned a bunch of demonic minions, but later on, he was retconned as an alien Namekian, albeit one that was Made of Evil.
• Meaningful Name: An in-universe example. Piccolo means 'another world' in Namekian. So Demon King Piccolo's name translates to 'demon king from another world'.
• Mind over Matter: He levitates the hidden Dragon Balls, along with his two after Roshi dies. He was also able to fly back when Uniqueness Decay hadn't stripped away the mystique of such an ability.
• Mook Maker: Demon King Piccolo created his followers by birthing them through eggs.
• Moral Myopia: He's outraged that Goku has killed two of his sons and personally confronts him over it. This is despite the fact that Piccolo had been both - directly and indirectly - responsible for the deaths of countless innocents, including Goku's best friend Krillin.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: States something to this effect prior to giving birth to Piccolo Jr.:
  "He's won for now... but my legacy on this planet will survive!"
  • Piccolo Jr would eventually go on to kill Goku, indirectly give Vegeta the idea to find Dragon Balls on Namek and provide genetic material for Cell.
• Near-Villain Victory: Piccolo succeeds in getting everything he wanted. He got the Dragon Balls to give him eternal youth and killed the dragon so no one could ever use the Dragon Balls against him. He also murdered a large number of the strongest fighters in the world, and seizes control of the entire world, turning it into a living hell. His reign was only short-lived because of Goku.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If King Piccolo hadn't spat out that last egg containing Piccolo Jr., Kami would've died with him, Shenron wouldn't have been restored, and all the people killed by King Piccolo and his sons would've stayed dead. In a wider sense, if Piccolo Jr was never born, Goku wouldn't have been as strong as he was to fight Raditz and assuming he managed to beat his brother on his own by some other means, he would be missing a powerful ally in all his future battles. Not to mention Gohan wouldn't have gained the combat skills necessary to help his father.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: An alien demon emperor kung-fu master, complete with his own gi, spaceship, and skull throne.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Toriyama's editor Kazuhiko Torishima admitted King Piccolo's character and lust for malevolence were inspired by the tyrannical Roman Emperor Nero.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Demon King Piccolo delivered this to Goku in their first encounter. The beating was so severe he even stopped Goku's heart briefly.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Demon King Piccolo's first order of business upon his return is to kill all the world's martial artists so no one could ever seal him again and collect the Dragon Balls to wish for youth. Upon finding out that two of his children are killed, he goes and deals with the threat directly and nearly kills Goku, even checking his heart to make sure he was dead. He allows the other heroes to collect the remaining Dragon Balls and swallowed his so they couldn't steal them. When he was about to make his wish Chiaotzu attempted to interrupt, only to be quickly killed. Once he regained his youth, he kills the Eternal Dragon so no one could ever use the Dragon Balls against him. There's a reason he remains the only villain in the series to win, only losing in the end because he never counted on Goku's heart restarting after he left.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond:
  • If most power level claims are anything to go by, he's actually extremely weak by Namekian standards (260 at his peak, compared to the 3000 of the unnamed warriors Dodoria slaughtered easily), and he's technically not even a "real" Namekian, being half of one. Despite this, he was strong enough to be Earth's Satanic Archetype. Justified in a sense, as growing up on a planet with only a single sun, along with alien air and water would have left him severely malnourished compared to his brethren, to say nothing of his spawning ability draining his lifeforce.
  • To elaborate, Piccolo, Jr. in 23rd Tournament has grown much stronger than his father. Yet, Junior was unable to defeat Raditz by himself, despite Raditz, in turn, being much weaker than even henchman villains like Dodoria!
  • It has been stated by Guru that Kami and Piccolo became much weaker individually after they separated. Nail theorizes that the two fused together could beat Frieza (in his first form, at least), while Piccolo after fusing with both Nail and Kami made him a match for the Androids and Imperfect Cell.
  • Demon King Piccolo is well and truly dwarfed by Dabura, who Shin states is in fact the true demon king. To add insult to injury, Dabura's main contributions to the plot involved getting brainwashed and eaten.
• No-Sell: Demon King Piccolo took the Kamehameha head-on and did not receive so much as Clothing Damage.
• Oh, Crap!: Demon King Piccolo inspires many of these when people realize who he is. Although he has a few himself; like realizing that Roshi knows the Evil Containment Wave, thinking Goku was going to use the Evil Containment Wave (he was doing the Kamehameha), when Tien (in the anime) uses it, and just before Goku punches a hole through his gut and he sees the shadow of the Great Ape.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He decided to destroy one section of the world once a year. His first target was Bulma's hometown West City but was stopped by Goku before he could go that far. Needless to say, he is the first of many villains in the franchise to be this.
• Orcus on His Throne: For the early part of the saga, he remains on Pilaf's airship and lets his sons do the fighting for him. It isn't until Goku and his friends kill Cymbal and Tambourine that he directly intervenes.
• Our Demons Are Different: Contrary to what some would have you believe, he is very much a demon in addition to being an alien (Namekian), not an extraterrestrial who mistook himself for something demonic. His being Kami's evil being given physical form and the mutant appearance of his sons should make that apparent. His final son/reincarnation also shared this trait for the beginning of his life, though it gradually lessened throughout Z until, by the time of his rejoining with Kami, it had all but vanished.
• Outside-Genre Foe: Before King Piccolo and his sons all of Goku's opponents have been mostly human and funny animals with some robots, androids, cyborgs, and mutants thrown in. King Piccolo's arrival marked a major shift in the story's tone and set the standards for the new enemies Goku will be facing. That said, he was anything but out of genre, as the old fantasy novels and movies which DB was inspired by had ancient demon kings as villains so often that it became cliche (case in point, Journey to the West).
  • Retrospectively, his supernatural origins and abilities would put him in the minority of Dragon Ball villains, as Toriyama invested more and more into aliens and androids, only going back to magical beings when DBZ was winding down.
• Papa Wolf: Despite his evil, Demon King Piccolo genuinely cares about his children and is furious when Goku kills two of them.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: He's the first in a long line of villains who is well-spoken, polite, and is complimentary to his opponents. This contrasts with Goku who is blunt and greets Piccolo by yelling at him and threatening to kill him. That being said, King Piccolo's misanthropy is apprent no matter how respectful his tone might be.
• Post-Mortem Comeback: Right after Goku ran straight through his gut, Piccolo threw up an egg that carried his offspring - his way of getting revenge for dying at the hands of Goku. Junior was definitely a powerful opponent at the time, but a subversion comes in the form of that legendary Enemy Mine between the two against Raditz... which ends with Ma Junior (Piccolo) killing Goku...
• Power Degeneration: Says that his life is shortened when he goes to his full power. It's never witnessed directly since Goku kills him soon after he goes all out.
• Psychic Link: He has this with all his "children." He can immediately tell when they've been killed.
• Psychic Powers: Demon King Piccolo is able to levitate objects and mentally link with his children.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Demon King Piccolo often laughs as he is killing people.
• Sadist: Once he took over the world, he set all the criminals free and abolished all laws, just so he could enjoy watching humanity tear itself apart. He then had a lottery where he would destroy one section of the world for the next 36 years, all so he could enjoy the terror on people's faces during their final moments.
• Satanic Archetype: An obvious Satan parallel in the context of the Dragon Ball world: God gives him physical form, and he plunges the Earth into pure chaos and anarchy—twice—just for evil's sake. Anime filler even goes so far as to depict some nasty Earthlings as willing to act on his behalf the moment he gives them free rein, like followers of an evil cult. He's the progenitor of a series of demons that spread fear and malevolence on his behalf, and in a final stroke to ensure his legacy, gives birth to his last child: an anti-Christ-like figure that hides out inconspicuously among humans waiting for the opportunity to reveal his true power and kill the divinely-trained hero. Note that King Piccolo's character was loosely inspired by Emperor Nero, who in Biblical circles, was actually considered satanic for his persecution of Christians. It's no surprise that the French and Latin American dub, King Piccolo is literally called this.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He panicked and attempted to bail once Roshi started up the Evil Containment Wave, only to be caught. He was only spared due to, ironically, the wave causing the rice cooker to shift which made Roshi miss his target.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: He was sealed inside an electric rice cooker for over 100 years before being released by Emperor Pilaf.
• Shadow Archetype: Given their similar backstories, Piccolo is what Goku would have become if he embraced his ruthless Saiyan nature.
• Shrouded in Myth: By the time of his return, only Master Roshi and the Crane Hermit remember his initial rampage, because they're the only ones left alive who witnessed it.
• Skeleton Motif: His throne is adorned with horned skulls, fitting for a demon king. It is later shown that other Namekians use the same chair, including his original pre-split self, although the skulls are unique to King Piccolo's.
• Slasher Smile: He loves showing off his teeth with these and is usually sporting one if not a Psychotic Smirk.
• Sleeps with Both Eyes Open: It looks like he's still staring ahead at the wall and it's no less creepy as the Pilaf Gang saw firsthand.
• Smug Super: Believes himself to be the strongest in the world and that no human can ever match him. In fairness, he was right, no human ever matched him. Too bad Goku isn't a human.
• The Sociopath: Fittingly since he is Kami's evil given life, Demon King Piccolo naturally doesn't possess empathy and morality. He cares for nothing outside of himself and takes great delight in causing pain and suffering to humanity just cause he can. Although he treats his children well, he still sees them as minions, and them getting killed is more a matter of his pride being hurt than him really caring about them. He notably saw Drum's death as a sign of Goku's defiance against him rather than show any genuine grief for the freshly killed demon. Hell, he didn't even take time to pay Piano's death any heed...despite being just as responsible for his eldest son's demise as Goku was.
• Starfish Alien: He has demonic powers, can lay eggs out of his mouth, alter his size, grow extra fingers, and can kill Shenron. It's later revealed he's a Namekian.
• Superior Species: Firmly believes that he and his sons are this compared to humans and outright states as such. If he only knew that Namekians are small fry compared to some of the other alien races out there.
  "That's the problem with the human race. No respect...for the superior species."
• Takes One to Kill One: King Piccolo is utterly invincible to any human who didn't know the Evil Containment Wave, which kills the person who uses it. Only Goku manages to outmatch Piccolo and later his son Piccolo Jr. They are both aliens sent to Earth to save their lives.
• Take Over the World: He was actually successful in doing this, but Goku quickly restored the natural order of things.
• Theme Naming: A piccolo is a type of flute. His sons continue the theme, being named Piano, Tambourine, Cymbal, Drum, and Piccolo.
  • Double points for continuing the series's established pattern of Edible Theme Naming: the pronunciation matches the Japanese pronunciation of "pickle", hence his green coloration (and occasional name of "Mr. Pickle" in some translations).
• This Cannot Be!: Whenever the Evil Containment Wave is used or anybody appears to be using it against him, he panics. Once during Goku's rematch with him, he is flabbergasted to see Goku, a mere "human" boy, being able to stand up to his power.
• To Create a Playground for Evil: His ultimate plan.
  "First, I will tell you the two words I hate the most. They are justice and peace. Let me just say that I do not plan to bind you all into slavery or anything like that. Not at all. In fact, I want you to do anything you want. I'm going to abolish every law enforcement agency. You can steal, destroy, injure, and murder! No one will stop you! Evil shall be unfettered! Those who brandish the sword of justice shall be exterminated by my demons! This will be a glorious world of terror and hate!"
• Tom the Dark Lord: Lunch ridicules his name when she first hears it. Roshi acknowledges that it sounds cute, but he's actually terrifying.
• Torso with a View: Goku takes him out by punching a gaping hole clean through his chest.
• Truly Single Parent: Demon King Piccolo asexually produced green demons, dragons and a pterosaur man. Also Piccolo.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The show's status as a comical romp temporarily ends with his resurgence.
• Villain Ball: Demon King Piccolo broke Goku's legs and left arm to render him helpless, then he flew up into the air to finish him off with a dramatic attack. By the time he realizes that he forgot to take out Goku's right arm as well, he's doomed.
• Villainous Breakdown: He becomes increasingly unhinged as his fight with Goku drags on. He was close to shivering in terror by the end and called Goku a monster.
• Villainous Legacy: He expels an egg from his mouth mere seconds before his demise. This egg eventually hatches and gives life to Piccolo Jr., who consciously seeks to conquer the world at his father's request. Fortunately, he becomes a good character in Dragon Ball Z.
• Would Hurt a Child: Has no problems killing Chiaotzu or beating Goku to the point of near-death.

Tambourine

Tambourine (タンバリン, Tambarin)

Voiced by (Japanese): Ryūsei Nakao
Voiced by (English): Dameon Clarke (Funimation dub); Tony Binns (Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Humberto Solórzano

Tambourine was King Piccolo's second-oldest son at the time he was released from his imprisonment and the longest-lasting of the three named sons who engaged in combat (Piano lasted longer and seemed to be older, but he never fought before Goku killed him by throwing his father at him), he is by far the evilest and sadistic of the three, he was ordered by his father to hunt down and kill any martial artists who participated in the World Martial Arts Tournament to prevent him from being sealed, he becomes Goku's arch enemy for the first half of the saga because he murdered his best friend Krillin, he stole his Dragon Balls, and he destroyed his Kinto'un cloud. After these events, Goku faces off against him and loses. He eventually faces off against him again for a final showdown and Goku kills him with a Kamehameha.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: After he kills Giran while the latter was terrorizing a village, he strikes an innocent villager for trying to shake his hand in gratitude. In the original, he merely tells the shaken but still alive villager not to touch him. In the English Dub, he claims to have killed the villager for fun.
• Asshole Victim: He killed Krillin and several other innocent people for fun, and even bragged about his murder of Krillin to Goku's face. He more than had it coming when Goku killed him in the rematch.
• Ax-Crazy: Likes killing way too much.
• Berserk Button: Being touched whether in aggression or gentleness really seems to annoy him. He only stopped playing around with Giran after the latter got in a decent tail whip on him, putting his claw through the giras' side. When a grateful villager came out and thanked him for riding his home of Giran, the demon crossly cut the hapless bear down for the same reason.
• Big Little Brother: He is a tall gargoyle-like Namekian and is the second-oldest of Piccolo's present-day spawn, but his elder brother Piano is shorter than even their father's shins.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: There's his arriving on Yamcha in the anime only shortly after slaying Giran. When Piccolo recalls him to go after Cymbal's killer, the gargoyle demon is literally centimeters from running the crippled Yamcha through. Instead of finishing his target while he's still around, having only found him through contrivance, Tambourine basically goes "Just wait right here and I'll be back for you" and leaves Yamcha alive. Even assuming that Tambourine wouldn't return after finishing his other business, Yamcha and the others could've easily relocated to a new area and he'd never find them again. They don't do that and this close-call is never referenced again.
• Breath Weapon: One of his signature moves.
• Calling Card: At the sight of his murders he would place a piece of paper which the Demon Symbol on it nearby.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: In the flashbacks, Roshi and Shen are fighting dozens of Piccolo's sons who look just like Tambourine, but are much easier to beat.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Inflicts fatal ones on King Chappa, Pamput, Bacterian, Man-Wolf, Giran, and Kuririn. Many were single stroke battles.
• Dirty Coward: Acts like an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy when in control of a situation, but when Goku beats him senseless in the rematch, he tries to make a break for it.
• The Dragon: To King Piccolo. He is Piccolo's most powerful child before he regained his youth.
• The Dreaded: As revealed in Super, Krillin is terrified of him decades after his death; seeing an illusion of him in the Forest of Terror freaks Krillin out more than illusions of far more powerful villains like Frieza and Cell.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: It's hard to notice, but when Goku finds him at the end of Chapter 135, his head lacks the spines he is normally depicted with.
• Evil Feels Good: He really enjoys his work of murdering people.
• Evil Laugh: A creepily high-pitched cackle that he lets out every time he makes a successful kill; heard best after he slaughtered King Chappa plus all of his students.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: He is very raspy in the English dub. It is basically Dameon Clarke using an even scratchier version of Cell's imperfect form's vocals.
• Eviler than Thou: He kills Giran while the latter is in the middle of terrorizing a village of helpless storybook animal people. Giran was certainly no saint, but he did help Goku out in an earlier filler, and seeing him go down so brutally emphasizes who the real monster is.
• Family Theme Naming: All of King Piccolo's children (Tambourine, Drum, Cymbal, Piano, Piccolo Jr.) are all named after musical instruments.
• Fantastic Racism: In the English dub, he frequently flaunts his superiority over human characters.
• For the Evulz: His favorite hobby is killing people, and he takes sadistic glee in killing people and causing as much pain as possible.
• Green and Mean: He is a demonic Namekian, of which are all colored green to an extent, who is shown killing at least fifty people during his tenure and has an intense disdain towards humans. He fits like a glove.
• Hates Being Touched: To the point, he'll kill anybody with extreme prejudice who dares to lay a finger on him regardless if they're defending themselves or mistaking him for Kami-sama.
• Hate Sink: Between killing people For the Evulz and gloating about it to their loved ones and being a smug coward, Tambourine goes well out of his way to be as loathsome as possible in the short amount of screentime he has. His prolonged beating and death at Goku's hands was nothing short of satisfaction.
• Hero Killer: Aside from murdering many of the recurring martial artists, Tambourine was the first villain in the history of the franchise to KILL Krillin.
• Kick the Dog: Gloats about his murder of Krillin to Goku's face.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Immensely downplayed if not outright subverted with some of his victims. Pamput and Bacterian certainly weren't sympathetic in their spotlight arcs, but they certainly didn't do anything bad enough to warrant being sadistically murdered by a demon and sent to limbo. Man-Wolf had already made peace with Master Roshi/Jackie Chun after the former helped change the latter back into a human and King Chappa, while possibly resenting Goku for humiliating him in the preliminaries, is only shown to be strict at worst to his students but never abuses anyone. Played somewhat straighter with Giran who was terrorizing a village of innocent animal people when Tambourine came to whack him, but even then, Giran was shown in an earlier filler to help Goku and Nam solve the latter's water shortage problem as a sign of respect for the former beating him in their tournament match, so even his death comes off as more pitiful rather than deserved.^note Giran is later revived by Porunga in a wish meant to exclude truly wicked people on Earth, so he can't be all bad Averted completely with Nam and Krillin, who are both good people who most definitely didn't deserve to be killed.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A demonic alien gargoyle, specifically.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Is on the receiving end of one of the most brutal beatdowns in the series, courtesy of Goku. Goku even stopped short of beating him to death because he wanted him to suffer longer.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Very effective and cold-blooded when killing, often killing his victims in one hit.
• The Noseless: He has no visible orifices, similar to his little brother Drum.
• Oh, Crap!: When he realizes that, in his second fight with Goku, he has no chance at all at winning. Gets another one when he looks back while trying to escape and sees Goku about to fire a Kamehameha right at him.
• One-Hit Kill: Tambourine is strong enough to easily kill many powerful martial artists with just normal blows.
• Our Gargoyles Rock: Bears a resemblance to a Namekian gargoyle.
• Psycho Electro: It's not his main power, but he can electrocute people to death, as Bacterian found out the hard way.
• Psycho for Hire: His character profile lists his hobby as killing people, which is also his job. It's expanded on in the English Dub, whereafter he kills Giran, a bear person who Giran was bullying tries to thank him, and Tambourine promptly cuts him down, openly admitting to the bear's son that while Giran's murder was him doing his job, he killed the father just for fun.
• Reused Character Design: Inverted in the anime; where Master Roshi's account of Piccolo's original reign showed a similar-looking spawn, albeit with lighter skin and red-colored pants, before Tambourine himself formally appears.
• Sadist: Much like his father, he enjoys killing people and causing as much pain as possible.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Tries to fly away when he realizes that he's outmatched by Goku. Goku doesn't let him get away.
• Serial Killer: Tambourine is treated more like a sadistic murderer than an actual fighter, and racks up a body count of at least 50 people, including Krillin.
• Shock and Awe: He electrocutes Bacterian to death this way. Cymbal is later shown using this ability when he fights Yajirobe.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Mainly killing Krillin ended up impacting him to fear death, even after he was wished back alive.
• Smug Snake: Acts confident and cocky when he's in control. The moment Goku proves stronger than him and is ready to kill him, he breaks and runs for his life.
• Smug Super: He is utterly convinced of his power. Most of it is justified since he easily kills the best fighters on the planet, most with a single strike like Krillin. He also scoffs at Goku when he challenges him again since he easily defeated him earlier. Then Goku beats the shit out of him and he tries to run away once he realizes that he can't win.
• Superior Species: Shares this attitude with his dad. It's more pronounced in the English versions during both of his fights with Goku.
• Theme Naming: Piccolo and his minions are all named after musical instruments. Guess which one for him...
• This Cannot Be!: His reaction when Goku beats him senseless during their rematch, right before he attempts to make a break for it.
  Tambourine: How can we of the warrior tribe be defeated by YOU?!
• Villainous Rescue: Killed Giran as the brute was terrorizing a village, but makes it obvious he didn't do it for them when he attacks one of the thankful villagers afterward for extending his hand to him.
• Warm-Up Boss: After Goku recovers from his fight with Tien, he easily beats Tambourine into submission and then atomizes him with a Kamehameha.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In the anime, he has Yamcha, who's still recovering from his match with Tien, at his mercy and is about to run him through when King Piccolo contacts his son and orders him to put the killing of martial artists on hold in order to avenge Cymbal's death. Instead of quickly finishing off Yamcha, Tambourine abandons the fight wholesale and vows to return for him later. Ignoring the fact that Yamcha and the others never attempt to hide away nor mention this incident again, it wouldn't have killed Tambourine to spare another minute just to finish things with his prey since he only found Yamcha by total happenstance and would probably have issues tracking them down afterward.
• Would Hurt a Child: Kills Krillin without any remorse and brags about it to Goku before beating him until he lost consciousness.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: He takes the time to brag about how he killed Krillin to Goku's face.

Cymbal

Cymbal (シンバル, Shinbaru)

Voiced by (Japanese): Daisuke Gōri
Voiced by (English): Brad Jackson (Funimation dub); Dean Galloway (Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Ricardo Hill

Piccolo's third youngest son. He is by far the weakest of the three sons who engage in combat, but he is still more than a match for the winners of the martial arts tournaments... not that it matters, as Tambourine murdered most of them. He was assigned to find the Dragon Balls by King Piccolo. While searching for one, he came into conflict with Yajirobe and Goku. The former engaged him in a brief fight that ended with him being cut in half and eaten. His death caused Piccolo to send Tambourine to investigate.

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• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Invoked. His father created him to search for the Dragon Balls, so it's only fitting that he looks like a dragon.
• Big Little Brother: He's the second largest of King Piccolo's spawn seen in the present and is only the third oldest plus the second-shortest lived.
• Bowdlerise: Yajirobe's eating of him was removed from the English broadcast. Instead, a scene of Goku losing his patience with the fight was added that depicted him vaporizing Cymbal's bifurcated body with a kamehameha.
• Breath Weapon: Like his big brother, Tambourine.
• Butt-Monkey: Goes through a rather hard Humiliation Conga in his brief time alive, one that ends with Yajirobe eating him.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: He at least manages to hit Yajirobe a few times.
• Dark Is Evil: His skin is the darkest green we see on any namekian, demonic or otherwise, and he's just as bad as his parent and siblings.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: In the anime, he makes a pun on Yajirobe's name "Shinjirobe" ("shi" means death in Japanese). The English dub didn't include this. Instead, it has him muse that Yajirobe is a "good dancer" for dodging his lightning blasts, which is what King Piccolo told Master Mutaito long ago during their initial fight.
• Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is appropriately deep for a creature of his size, voiced Daisuke Gōri no less (who'd later voice his little brother Drum). Brad Jackson also gives him a suitable rasp in the Funimation dub, though not to the same extent as Tambourine.
• Family Theme Naming: All of King Piccolo's children (Tambourine, Drum, Cymbal, Piano, Piccolo Jr.) are all named after musical instruments.
• Green and Mean: Like his father and brothers, though his skin is a much darker shade than any Namekian we see either good or bad within the series.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Yajirobe cuts him in half at his waist.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He's a demonic alien dragon spawned to resemble the latter due to his purpose in seeking the dragon balls.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Technically speaking, he is a dragon-shaped Namekian.
• Prehensile Tail: He is based on a dragon.
• Reused Character Design: Inverted. Like with Tambourine, a similar-looking spawn to Cymbal appears in Roshi's flashback to Piccolo's reign two episodes prior to his debut. While Piccolo only saw fit to model Cymbal's appearance after a dragon due to finding out about the Dragon Balls, to be fair, several others of his spawn in the flashback also adorned draconian features.
• Shock and Awe: His ki blasts resemble lightning.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Once Yajirobe stops fighting hand to hand and pulls out his sword.
• Smug Snake: Talks big, but is quickly cut down by Yajirobe and eaten.
• Theme Naming: He's named after a cymbal.
• Warm-Up Boss: He can kill any normal human, too bad he fought someone who was on Goku's level.
• The Worf Effect: He basically existed solely to make Yajirobe look cool.
• Would Hurt a Child: He had no problems threatening Goku with violence upon coming across him and Yajirobe...not that he gets the chance, mind you.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: He's utterly stupified to see Goku and Yajirobe playing Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who will fight him.

Drum

Drum (ドラム, Doramu)

Voiced by (Japanese): Daisuke Gōri
Voiced by (English): Bob Carter (Funimation dub); Dave Pettitt (Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Yamil Atala

Piccolo's second youngest son, Drum was born at a time when Piccolo's power was at its peak, which made him much more powerful than Cymbal or Tambourine. When Tien attempted to trap Piccolo with the Evil Containment Wave, Drum defeats him in short order. Just as Drum is about to finish Tien off, Goku makes the save and kills Drum with a single kick to the head.

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• Acrofatic: Despite being obese, he managed to dominate Tien prior to Goku defeating him easily; in particular he liked Flash Stepping in front of Tien to block him from getting to Piccolo himself and behind him to attack.
• Alien Blood: His blood is not only purple, but he is the first Namekian who bleeds purple. Although in some scenes, his blood looks pink.
• Asshole Victim: Goku's dispatching him via busting his head was harsh, but given how nastily he tormented Tien during their brief battle, it's safe to say no one besides King Piccolo will miss him.
• Big Little Brother: By far the largest of Piccolo's spawn seen in the present, but is also the second-youngest, counting Piccolo Jr.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: He doesn't have a snout, none visible anyways, and yet Tien punching him hard enough around that area makes him bleed purple blood...and this was a while before it was revealed that King Piccolo and his demon clan originated from an alien race.
• The Brute: The strongest of the demon children, barring Ma Junior. Notably, he pretty much just pummels Tien, not even resorting to energy attacks or anything fancy.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He's got a sickenly deep set of pipes courtesy of Daisuke Gōri (who also voiced his older brother Cymbal). Bob Carter and Dave Pettitt followed suit in the English dubs of the series.
• Eye Scream: Goku kicks him in the face so hard that his eyeball pops out.
• Family Theme Naming: All of King Piccolo's children (Tambourine, Drum, Cymbal, Piano, Piccolo Jr.) are all named after musical instruments.
• Faster Than They Look: He's a big fat guy, but able to Flash Step.
• Fat Bastard: As evil as he is obese.
• Flash Step: His specialty. Despite his size, he could move fast enough to escape Tien's three-eyed sight, though evidently not Goku's.
• Four Is Death: Drum is the fourth demon Piccolo spawns in the present and also the shortest-lived.
• Green and Mean: Has green skin courtesy of being a demonic Namekian. His small tenure showed him delighting in the pain he inflicted on poor Tien, so there's that.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite his massive size, Drum's pretty fast, able to get behind Tien faster than he can react. In fact, his speed was the most dangerous thing about him.
• Nasal Trauma: Tien, in the anime only, socks Drum's face hard enough to make him bleed. This is despite the fact that Drum has nothing resembling nostrils.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He is a demon that comes from an alien species.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers one to Tien but is given one of his own by Goku.
• The Noseless: He has no visible orifices, similar to his brother Tambourine. Yet, somehow, Tien made him bleed around the area where a nose would have been. Weird.
• One-Hit Kill: By Goku. He hit him so hard that one of his eyes shot out.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: He doesn't really resemble any reptile from real life or real-life mythology, unlike his older brothers, though he's still just as unrepentantly evil.
• Taking the Bullet: In the anime, he shields Piccolo from Tien's Evil Containment Wave.
• Theme Naming: He's named after a musical instrument.
• Warm-Up Boss: For Goku at least. He exists just to show how much stronger Goku became after drinking the Ultra Divine Water.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He's born in the 154th chapter/118th episode and dies in the very next issue/installment.
• The Worf Effect: Tien was Goku's equal at the end of the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. He gets easily curb-stomped by Drum, although he performs a little better in the anime. When the new-and-improved Goku shows up, he takes Drum down with one kick.

Piano

Piano (ピアノ)

Voiced by: Masato Hirano
Voiced by (English): Sonny Strait (Funimation dub); Corby Proctor (Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Ernesto Lezama

The oldest and weakest of King Piccolo's children, but also the one who lasted longest (besides Ma Junior). Demon King Piccolo created the pterodactyl-like Piano to serve as his attendant and majordomo. Piano was accidentally killed when Goku punched Piccolo so hard that he fell on his son and crushed him.

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• Accent Adaptation: He is the only one of King Piccolo's sect to be given an obvious accent in the dub, namely a British one.
• Bald of Evil: Zigzagged, as the crest makes it not so obvious, Piano actually has very small hairs growing on the sides of his head. He is the only Namekian (outside one of Yajirobe's fantasies in Z) to show any signs of hair.
• Camp: He has a wonderfully over-the-top English accent in the Funimation dub, courtesy of Sonny Strait. Think General Blue on helium.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the original version, Piano is killed when Demon King Piccolo lands on him. As such, he does not make any sound when laying on the ground. In the dub, however, he whimpers feebly (though he is still motionless), which could indicate that the impact merely left him severely injured instead of dead. Later on in the fight, King Piccolo powers up, causing a small earthquake that causes Piano's body to sink into the rubble and disappear. In the original, this just got rid of his already dead corpse. In the English dub, this is what actually kills him and not his father falling on him.
• Dies Wide Open: His expression of fear remains after Piccolo collapses on top of him...fatally.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He can barely utter "What have you done to him!?" after Goku starts wailing on his dad during their rematch, showing that his loyalty is sincere if nothing else. He also mourned his brother Tambourine after Piccolo sensed he had been killed.
• Evil Brit: His accent in the Funimation dub is best described as Alfred Pennyworth on helium.
• Expy: Of Baramos, another pterodactyl headed cloaked humanoid from Dragon Quest III. The game was drawn by Toriyama and during the same year as the King Piccolo Saga.
• Family Theme Naming: All of King Piccolo's children (Tambourine, Drum, Cymbal, Piano, Piccolo Jr.) are all named after musical instruments. He even snarks about it in the English version to his dad after the latter hatches Cymbal.
• Flight: The only real power he displays is levitation.
• Green and Mean: He's a far lighter green than most of the evil Namekians we see and even with his status he's still pretty unpleasant to anybody not named "Piccolo".
• Little Big Brother: Piano is the eldest of King Piccolo's children seen in the present, but he is also the shortest. He doesn't even go up to his pop's kneecaps.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A demonic namekian with a head shaped like a pterosaur.
• Non-Action Guy: He stays out of combat to advise his dad.
• Number Two: To Piccolo. He mostly acts as an advisor and gives Piccolo information about the world.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Resembles a humanoid pteranodon, and while he's no fighter, he is no less cruel than his father and brothers.
• Servile Snarker: Though he is still completely loyal to his father.
• Shapeshifting: In one of the NES RPGs, he shapeshifts into Goku to fight.
• Squishy Wizard: He displays a few non-combat powers but easily goes down after Piccolo lands on him.
• Theme Naming: Like the rest of Piccolo's family, he is named after a musical instrument.
• Undignified Death: His little brothers got bifurcated and eaten, blown apart, and dismembered respectively. Piano got crushed under his father when Goku socked the demon king hard enough to send him flying over to towards his son. Piccolo himself barely seems to register his death before pressing on with the fight.
• The Unfought: He never gets a true fight and is last seen getting crushed by King Piccolo.

Piccolo Jr.

See Dragon Ball: Piccolo

Independent Villains

Pteranodon

Pteranodon (プテラノドン, Puteranodon)

Voiced by (Japanese): Hiroshi Otake (DB ep. 1), Kōzō Shioya (DB ep. 29), Keiji Hirai (Dragon Ball: Origins)
Voiced by (English): Richard Epcar (Harmony Gold dub); Doug Parker (BLT/Ocean dub); Brad Jackson (DB), Phil Parsons (Dragon Ball: Origins) (Funimation dub); Dave Pettitt (Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Mario Sauret

A giant pteranodon who kidnaps Bulma shortly after she meets Goku in the wilderness. He has the honor of being the first antagonist fought in the whole franchise.

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• Adapted Out: He is removed from the movie retellings of the first arc; namely Curse of the Blood Rubies and The Path to Power.
• Blatant Lies: Goku finds him with Bulma and he quickly agrees with the kid's guess that he's a friend of the terrified girl now screaming in his tail...and he then proceeds to tie Goku to a tree so he can have some one on one time with her. Even Goku quickly sees through him.
• Card-Carrying Villain: The one who tried to eat Nam freely admits as much when Goku tells him he looks shady.
• Deadpan Snarker: When Goku realizes he's been had, the pterosaur wastes no time rubbing it in:
  Goku: (now tied to a tree) "Gosh, I think he was lying."
  Pteranodon: "You're a regular einstein. See ya!" (takes off with Bulma)
• Evil Sounds Deep: The first of many villains in the franchise to have deep pipes.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Another first for several villains in this franchise. Brad Jackson's take, in particular, has an oily snarl to it that he'd later use for Cymbal in the King Piccolo arc.
• Identical Stranger: Others of his kind appear throughout the anime, the most prominent example being the one from a filler episode just before the Red Ribbon Army arc who captures and attempts to eat Nam. Goku stumbles across them and kills the pterosaur in the same fashion as he did with Bulma's captor. The only way you'd know they're not the same individual is that their Japanese voices are different.
• Oh, Crap!: In the manga when Goku gets up to him and just before the boy slams his Power Pole onto the beast's head.
• Prehensile Tail: He holds Bulma in his tail at first while tying up Goku.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His pupils in the anime are red in color. That coupled with his yellow sclera make his malevolence obvious.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: He plans on having Bulma as his meal and resorts to trickery to keep Goku out of the way.
• Starter Villain: You don't get much plainer than this guy. Even Goku at the very start of the series could defeat him effortlessly.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Goku asks if he's Bulma's friend? Sure, he totally is. He just wanted a private conversation with her to the point that he ties Goku to a tree. Goku, in the dub at least, quickly saw through it.
• To Serve Man: Absconds with Bulma to devour her. In the original version, he cackles that he enjoys the taste of human flesh. The one who grabs Nam in the Roaming Lake filler also fully intended to eat him as well as Goku once he comes along.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: His sclera in the anime are colored yellow in addition to his red pupils.

Bear Thief

Bear Thief (山賊熊, Sanzoku Kuma)

Voiced by (Japanese): Masaharu Sato (TV series), Takahiko Sakaguma (Revenge of King Piccolo)
Voiced by (English): Mike Reynolds (Harmony Gold dub); Michael Donovan (BLT/Ocean dub); Dameon Clarke (DB), Bob Carter (Revenge of King Piccolo) (Funimation dub); Steve Olson (Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Carlos Magaña

A bear thief who attacks Goku and Bulma while they're escorting Master Roshi's Turtle back to the ocean.

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• Accent Adaptation: He was given a Russian accent in the Funimation dub...based on the fact that he's a bear.
• Bears Are Bad News: He's a bear and a bandit who attacks Goku and Bulma to eat Turtle.
• Delinquent Hair: The hair/fur on his head is in a mohawk.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: All of his portrayers have given him a sickening rasp to emphasize his cruelty.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has a prominent scar across his left eye, which is whited out.
• National Animal Stereotypes: The Funimation dub gives him an over-the-top Russian accent similar to General White.
• Reused Character Design: A land-dwelling pirate with his general look appears during the King Piccolo arc where his crew has possession of the Seven-Star Ball. He even has a missing eye and shares the same Funimation voice actor.
• Russian Bear: He has the accent in the Funimation dub, courtesy of Dameon Clarke.
• Smug Snake: He looks and acts like a tough guy, but Goku takes him down with one punch.
• To Serve Man: While he mentions that human meat gives him heartburn, he is all too willing to have Goku as an appetizer when he refuses to surrender Turtle.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He mentions how sea turtle is his favorite dish. Humans, according to English dubs, give him heartburn.
• The Worf Effect: Exists just to show how strong Goku is.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: His one functioning eye's sclera is colored yellow.

Monster Carrot / Boss Rabbit

Monster Carrot / Boss Rabbit (兎人参化, Toninjinka)

Voiced by (Japanese): Hiroshi Ōtake
Voiced by (English): Ian James Corlett (Ocean dub); Duncan Brannan (DB), Bill Townsley (Dragon Ball Origins) (Funimation dub); Byron Close (Blue Water dub)
Voiced by (Latin American): Ismael Castro

The leader of the Rabbit Mob who can transform living beings into carrots with a single touch. After he turns Bulma into a carrot, Goku, Yamcha, and Puar defeat him and the Rabbit Mob. Goku forces him to change Bulma back and he sends them to the moon as punishment.

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• Adaptation Name Change: In the original version of the manga, he is named Tō-Ninjinka ("Tō" being the Chinese reading of the kanji for "rabbit"). The anime, however, rendered his name as Usagi-Ninjinka with "Usagi" being the traditional Japanese way of reading the kanji. While they both mean the same thing, it's surprising that such a misreading occurred when it was made clear in the manga to be read as the former "Tō".
• Cool Shades: Never seen without them.
• Funny Animal: A rabbit man, he is. Or as Oolong describes him in the dub "a reject from an Easter parade".
• Fragile Speedster: He's got an impressive jumping ability that he uses to chase Goku, but one good whack to the head and he quickly surrenders.
• Killer Rabbit: Thanks to his gang and magic touch.
• Logical Weakness: He has to actually touch people to turn them into carrots. Goku gets around it by beating him senseless with the Power Pole.
• The Magic Touch: His ability to turn any living being he touched into a carrot.
• Moon Rabbit: Monster Carrot’s fate pays homage to this Chinese myth.
• Non-Action Guy: Relies on his thugs for muscle. Carrot never threw a punch against Goku or Yamcha.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: The only impact his lone episode has is Bulma's change of outfit.
• Smug Snake: Acts like a big shot since no one can touch him without turning into a carrot and he threatened to eat Bulma if Goku didn't allow himself to be beaten up by his men. He gives up the moment Goku hits him.
• Squishy Wizard: No doubt he’s quite formidable, but he’s defeated quite easily by Goku, Yamcha, and Puar in part because they didn't allow him to touch them directly.
• Story-Breaker Power: He has the ability to turn anyone who touches him into a carrot. Touch this guy in any way and you're produce. Thankfully, he isn't all that strong and gives up just by being hit by Goku's Power Pole and is never seen again since he can easily take out people who don't know about his power.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In the anime only, Puar turns into him and tries to touch him. He panics and desperately warns her to stay back before Goku whacks him over the head.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: So Monster Carrot and his goons were placed on the moon by Goku, but didn’t Master Roshi/Jackie Chun blow up the moon?. He and his minions are seen on a panel from the Dragon Ball Super manga when Merus passes the moon.

Pirate Robot

Pirate Robot (海賊ロボ, Kaizoku Robo; 番人ロボット, Bannin Robotto)

Voiced by (Japanese): Kentaro Tone (Dragon Ball Heroes)
Voiced by (English): Chris Forbis

A powerful robot who attacks Goku, Krillin, and Bulma in the Pirate Cave.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Is he really just a robot performing his last assigned duties i.e. keeping intruders away from the treasure? Or is he really just as malicious as the pirates who made him hence his seemingly taking time to kill Goku and the others? Given his Implacable Man status and (in the anime only) surprising adaptability, it wouldn't be crazy to assume the latter.
• Arm Cannon: His left arm contains a machine gun and flamethrower.
• Cool Sword: Carries a huge one with his right arm until Krillin breaks it off fairly early in the battle.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His red pupils are the first thing that the heroes see within the shadows before he emerges.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Let's just say he's a lousy shot.
• Implacable Man: Or robot. Smashed into a wall? He shakes it off. Shot with a cannon? He can tank it. Run over into a pool? He's waterproof and can shock you with his tail. It took Goku going for broke and plunging downwards from off a building to finally destroy the damn machine.
• It Can Think: Implied through his quick adaptability to Goku and Krillin's fighting style and dogged persistence in killing them and Bulma for their intrusion. Whether he's simply performing his last assigned duties overzealously or is purposely dragging out the battle out for some sense of gratification is never made clear.
• Killer Robot: Gives both Goku and Krillin quite a run for their money. He manages to hurt Goku more than the Red Ribbon Army generals outside of Blue.
• Made of Iron: Or steel in this case. It takes multiple hits from Goku and Krillin, and also tanks getting shot with a cannon and Bulma hitting him with a truck without a scratch. It takes Goku jumping off a building and crushing its skull in to take it down.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: He's got some vicious pearly whites for an apparently non-sentient machine.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He's a skeletal robot resembling a xenomorph constructed by pirates in days long past that utilizes both a blade and at least two firearms.
• Nothing Is Scarier: He first observes Goku, Krillin, and Bulma from the shadows and rolls out so quickly that the gang initially thinks he's a ghost.
• Playing with Fire: Under his machine gun is a flame thrower he switches to once he runs out of ammunition.
• Prehensile Tail: His tail can coil around his opponent to give them a nasty electric shock. This was only in the anime.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His pinprick pupils are red in color which adds to his scary factor.
• Shock and Awe: Can conduct electric shocks through his tail.
• Shout-Out: His appearance is a pretty blatant homage to the xenomorphs, much like Frieza's third form.
• Silent Antagonist: Makes no vocalizations in the Japanese anime, though Dragon Ball Heroes does give him some.
• Sword and Gun: He wields a sword alongside his Arm Cannon.
• Suddenly Voiced: Is The Voiceless in the original dub, but the Funimation dub gives him four phrases: "Arr, mateys!", "Walk the plank!", "Yo-ho-ho!", and "Shiver me timbers!" He got a Japanese voice eventually in Dragon Ball Heroes.
• Sword and Gun: A huge blade in his right hand with his left limb being a literal machine gun. He loses the sword to Krillin fairly early and mainly resorts to shooting from then on.
• Talk Like a Pirate: Does this in the Funimation dub, as you’d expect.
• Xenomorph Xerox: The shape of the robot's head and body calls to mind the iconic aliens similar to Frieza's third form from much later on.

Demon World Demons

Shula (シュラ, Shura)
Gola (ゴラ Gora)
Melee (メラ Mera)

Shula

Gola

Melee

Shula voiced by (Japanese): Toshio Furukawa
Shula voiced by (English): John Burgmeier (Funimation dub); Ryan Luhning (Blue Water dub)
Shula voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Humberto Solórzano

Gola voiced by (Japanese): Daisuke Gōri
Gola voiced by (English): Mike McFarland (Funimation dub); Steve Olson (Blue Water dub)
Gola voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Carlos Segundo

Melee voiced by (Japanese): Masako Katsuki
Melee voiced by (English): Cynthia Cranz (Funimation dub); Allyson June Smith (Blue Water dub)
Melee voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Belinda Martínez

Three demons who live in the Demon World. Shula is presented as the King of Demon World and kidnaps a princess, Misa Kress, to be his bride. He holds a party/tournament in her honor which is open to all, including an intrusive Goku who enters the Demon World to save the princess. Gola and Melee guard the gateway between the mortal and demon realms with the latter allowing Goku access to stir up some trouble and get the princess out of there. Goku encounters Shula and fights a few demons before doing battle with the king himself. Though he technically is never formally defeated, Shula's wedding plans are foiled when Goku uses the resulting confusion from the backlash of his Kamehameha to take back Misa and seal the gates to Demon World forever.

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• Acrofatic: Despite Gola being very large he is just as athletic as Goku.
• Allergic to Routine: Melee is implied to be bored out of her mind with the repetitiveness of her guard duties and so allows Goku to crash Shula's party after seeing his fighting prowess against Gola in order to liven things up.
• Ascended Extra: Despite being filler characters who all appeared in only one episode, they get three levels dedicated to them in Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Shula kidnaps Princess Misa and forces her to marry him.
• Benevolent Boss: Shula invites Gola and Melee to his party even after they fail to stop Goku from escaping.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Gola is the big guy while Melee is the little guy or girl in this case.
• Blow You Away: Shula's Demon Spiral Fist gathers a small cyclone around his arms and can blast others from a distance or up close. It no selled Goku's Kamehameha wave fairly easily.
• Canon Foreigner: They were all created for the anime.
• Chaotic Neutral: Melee agrees to let Goku see Shula after holding his own against Gola in order to stir up some trouble after being bored for scores of years with routine. Otherwise, she takes her guard duty seriously.
• Co-Dragons: Gola and Melee both act as guards for Shula.
• Cool Crown: Not the Demon King Shula, but Melee has a blue crown adorning her head.
• Cool Sword: Shula used his to wedge the gateway between the Demon and Human Worlds open. Otherwise, he's never seen using it and the weapon is now being kept as a trophy by the Kress Royal Family. Melee also has one, but she never uses it even in Dokkan Battle.
• Dub Name Change: Mera became Melee in the English dub. With Shula and Gola, it was a little less complicated.
• Evil Redhead: Melee has red hair, though she's less evil and more Chaotic Neutral.
• Fat and Skinny: Gola is the fat while Melee is the skinny.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Melee is tiny compared to the incredibly large Gola.
• Lightning Bruiser: Gola is a big guy but can keep up with Goku's speed with little effort.
• Meaningful Name: Gola is derived from "gora" which can mean "strength", and he relies mainly on brute force. Averted with Melee's original name Mera which means "burn"; she demonstrates no fire-based abilities
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Shula is derived from "Shura", which literally means "carnage". Does that sound like somebody you would willingly associate with? Also, Melee is a French term "brawl" whereas her Japanese name Mera means "burn".
• Ninja: Melee's main weapon is a kunai knife attached to a red string.
• Noble Demon: Shula doesn't punish Gola or Melee even after finding out that they willingly let Goku past the gate to wreck his wedding to Misa and sealed Demon World off from the human realm. He actually finds it amusing and invites them back to keep the party going. Melee herself only allows Goku entrance after seeing him fend off Gola despite being (seemingly) human.
• Playing with Fire: Averted with Melee. Her Japanese name Mera means "burn", but even in Dokkan Battle, she displays no flame-based abilities.
• Smurfette Principle: Melee is the only female demon we meet, assuming that the one who disguised itself as Misa wasn't a female.
• Spell My Name With An S: Shula and Gola are corrupted in English from the Japanese names Shura and Gora. Due to the Japanese alphabet's lack of any "l", "th", and "v" sounds, this was a side effect of Funimation's translation.
• Terrible Trio: All three of them are the only demons worth mentioning that Goku meets while in the Demon World.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Shula and Gola are the two guys while Melee is the girl.

Movie Villains

King Gurumes

King Gurumes (グルメス 大王, Gurumesu Daiō)

^{Click here to see Disrobed Gurumes}

Voiced by (Japanese): Shuichiro Moriyama
Voiced by (English): Mike Reynolds (Harmony Gold dub); Garry Chalk (Ocean dub); Jeremy Inman (Funimation dub); Paul Bandey (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Marcos Patiño

The villain of the very first Dragon Ball movie, Curse of the Blood Rubies. Gurumes was a human king who discovered cursed Blood Rubies on his land, which mutated him into an obese monster with an insatiable appetite for rich foods. Gurumes oppressed his people to gain more rubies and sent his minions to find the Dragon Balls so as to wish for food to satisfy his hunger^note or to wish away his uncontrollable hunger, which brought him into conflict with Goku and friends. Gurumes was defeated when Penny, the village girl who brought Goku to fight him, wished on the Dragon Balls to undo all the harm caused by the Blood Rubies. This restored peace and stability to the kingdom and restored Gurumes to his human form, allowing him to enjoy life again.

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• Anti-Villain: In context, King Gururmes' goal with the Dragon Balls is to wish the hunger that destroys him; thus freeing himself of his corruption. Logically this could have wished away the Blood Rubies that caused it like what Penny ends up doing.
• Evil Overlord: Becomes this after he finds the Blood Rubies.
• Expy: Gurumes only appears in Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies, a retelling of Goku's origin, with Gurumes replacing Pilaf. Like Pilaf, Gurumes is an inhuman king who wants the Dragon Balls for purely selfish reasons.
• Fat Bastard: Continuously eat and still complain about being hungry.
• Gonk: Even in his human form, Gurumes is obese and covered in warts.
• Greed: His motivation for wanting the Blood Rubies and the Dragon Balls.
• Heel–Face Turn: The only movie Big Bad to reform.
• Horror Hunger: Eats endlessly, but can never become full.
• Meaning Ful Name / Punny Name: Gurumes = Gourmet
• One-Winged Angel: Right as Goku encounters him, Gurumes mutates even further into an even bigger, less human monster.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: When Penny makes her wish, he reverts back into a small ugly human.
• Villainous Glutton: His only motivation is sating his hunger. His emblem even has a fork on it.
• Was Once a Man: Turned into a monster by the curse of the Blood Rubies.

Pasta and Bongo

Pasta (パスタ, Pasta) and Bongo (ボンゴ, Bongo)

Bongo (left) and Pasta (right)

Pasta/Raven voiced by (Japanese): Mami Koyama
Pasta/Raven voiced by (English): Edie Mirman (Harmony Gold dub); Teryl Rothery (Ocean dub); Kate Oxley (Funimation dub); Jodi Forrest (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub)
Pasta/Raven voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Isabel Martiñón

Bongo/Domo voiced by (Japanese): Gorō Naya
Bongo/Domo voiced by (English): Michael McConnohie (Harmony Gold dub); Robert O. Smith (Ocean dub); Jonathan Brooks (Funimation dub); Paul Bandey (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub)
Bongo/Domo voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Mario Sauret

The two henchmen of Gurumes. Bongo is a large man with a three-section staff and Pasta is an attractive female gunslinger.

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• Amusing Injuries: Bongo seemed to have survived being flattened by Gurumes as he's seen lying unconscious near Pasta in the ending.
• Brains and Brawn: Bongo is the brawn and Pasta is the brains.
• The Brute: Bongo is the brawny enforcer who
• The Bully: Bongo is seen bullying villagers in the beginning.
• Dub Name Change: In the Ocean dub Pasta has her name changed to Raven. Her name is changed to Mallia in the Harmony Gold dub. Bongo also had his name changed to Domo in the Ocean dub.
• Expy: Similar to more competent versions of Shu and Mai.
• Evil Redhead: Pasta. Strangely, one of her English names (Raven) refers to black hair.
• The Goggles Gotta Go: Pasta manages to stun Yamcha once her cap and goggles are knocked off.
• Greed: Both are Only in It for the Money.
• Thanks for the Mammary: Yamcha accidentally grabs Pasta's breast in a fight.
• Theme Naming: After food (“Bongo” is a reference to “vongole” - clams).
• Samus Is a Girl: Yamcha didn't realize Pasta's gender until her goggles and cap were knocked off and he touches her chest. Seeing this activates Yamcha's fear of women and he retreats with the gang.
• Something about a Rose: Pasta holds one up after she shoots down Bulma's plane.

Lucifer

Lucifer (ルシフェル, Rushiferu)

Voiced by (Japanese): Nachi Nozawa (Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle), Katsuji Mori (Super Dragon Ball Heroes)
Voiced by (English): Mike McFarland (Funimation dub); Paul Bandey (AB Groupe/"Big Green" dub)
Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): José Lavat

The villain of the second Dragon Ball movie, Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle. Lucifer is a demon nobleman who rules the titular Devil's Castle in the distant Devil's Hand mountains. When Goku and Krillin petition Master Roshi to become his pupils, he first tasks them with bringing back the beautiful Sleeping Princess (on account of him being a dirty old lech). When Goku and friends get there, Lucifer and his army capture them just as he finishes his plan to destroy the sun, using the Sleeping Princess — which turns out to be a huge gemstone — to power a gigantic ray gun. After a fight, Goku's Kamehameha knocks the cannon out of alignment, pointing it right at Lucifer, destroying both him and his castle.

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• Anachronism Stew: He lives in a medieval castle, builds a futuristic laser cannon, and watches black-and-white television.
• Anime Hair: It's all spiky much like Dracula Man's, but looks more similar to Goku's do.
• Blood Lust: He ties up Bulma with the intent to suck out her blood to start the ceremony.
• Cool Shades: Which he wears to protect his eyes from the sun.
• Death Ray: His sun-destroying cannon.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Daizenshuu 7 clarifies that he is demonic god of some sort. However, he has NOT been officially recognized as a Makaioshin as some would mistakenly have you believe.
• The Dragon: His is a giant red demon named Ghastel who fights Goku and Krillin.
• Evil Plan: To use a giant cannon to destroy the sun and plunge the Earth into eternal darkness that demons can use to run amuck undeterred.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Even while using his gentlemanly face, Lucifer's cords have that slight tinge of a rasp.
• Expy: Of King Piccolo, being a demon king who intended to take over the world and allow demon-kind to run rampant across the Earth.
• Game Face: That Bishōnen face of his is not his real face. He uses it to disguise his true intent.
• Horror Hunger: He's a vampire; they suck blood. It comes with the territory. The only reason he "needs" Bulma's blood is for refreshments for his demon army.
• The Igor: His assistant, a hunchback named... Igor.
• Informed Ability: Daizenshuu 6 claims him to be an expert in hand-to-hand combat on par with Goku. He spends no time in the film demonstrating such and instead mainly relies on his army to get things done. Possibly handwaved with him being busy working on the ceremony that will destroy the sun.
• Legions of Hell: He has an army of weird-looking demons and monsters at his command.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Comes across like a rich gentleman with refined taste.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Bulma should have taken his name "Lucifer" as the first inkling not to trust him,
• Our Vampires Are Different: Lucifer is pretty blatantly inspired by Dracula as portrayed by Bela Lugosi.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes glow when he's angry.
• Satan: His name, though he doesn't bear much resemblance to the Christian Lucifer other than being a demon.
• Sinister Shades: Wears shades to protect himself from the sun's glare.
• Vampires Are Sex Gods: Easily manages to charm Bulma with his handsome face.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Again, like his fellow vampire Dracula Man, though he is very much a villain playing for keeps.
• Wicked Cultured: Paints himself as a sophisticated gentleman who invites Bulma to a grand feast...only to reveal upon arrival that her blood is the main refreshment for the reception.

The Mifan Empire

Mifan (ミーファン, Mīfan)

A nation in the distant east in the third Dragon Ball movie, Mystical Adventure. In the Alternate Continuity of the first three Dragon Ball films, Mifan is the home of different versions of various characters:

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• Emperor Chiaotzu: The naive but kindhearted child ruler.
• Tien: Chiaotzu's best friend, torn between his loyalty to the emperor and the treacherous Tsurusen'nin.
• Tsurusen'nin: Chiaotzu's prime minister and Tien teacher in the martial arts, plotting to usurp the throne.
• Tao Pai Pai: This world's version is acting as Tsurusen'nin's assassin and enforcer.
• Lieutenant Blue: An alternate General Blue, captain of the palace guard and a loyal servant of Emperor Chiaotzu. Still executed by Tao.
• Sergeant Metallic: Same as the Red Ribbon android, only working for Tsurusen'nin now.
• Pilaf, Mai, and Shu: Not villains, but engineers who create a working Dragon Radar for Shen—who then has Tao kill them.

In a very loose retelling of the Red Ribbon and Tien Shinhan Sagas, The Crane Hermit has Tao collect the Dragon Balls, planning to use them to conquer the world after killing Chiaotzu. However, Tao is killed once again by Goku, Tien rebels against his villainous master, and the day is saved.

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• Alternate Continuity: A 'what if' story to the original Dragon Ball.
• Death by Adaptation: Pilaf, Mai, and Shu, as opposed to the mainstream series. Also, while Tao Pai Pai and Tsurusen'nin both survive their defeats in canon, here there's a very likely chance that they are dead since there's no indication that they survived and the Dragon Ball movies don't continue after Mystical Adventure.
• The Empire: When under Tao and the Crane Elder's command.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of Qing Dynasty China.

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