Piccolo Daimaou (Piccolo the Great Evil King) is introduced late in the pre-Z episodes of
DragonBall as Goku's arch-
nemesis. His first act was to kill some of Goku's friends in his quest for collecting
dragon balls, leaving only his signature "ma" in
Chinese characters (meaning "Evil") on pamphlets next to the bodies.
Mutenroshi, upon hearing this news, is
scared shitless, which is a tell-tale sign of a long story, and advises the young Goku not to get involved with him. (A similar thing happens in a future series when
Kaiou hears that
Freeza is at planet
Namek)
Goku goes after Piccolo, nevertheless. After all, his friends were murdered. He wants revenge. When he is able to catch up to Piccolo with his
Dragon ball detecting device, he sees Piccolo, a green-skinned, pointy ears dude with tentacles on his head, but is defeated after a fight.
He is barely alive when his life is saved by
Yajirobee (Yajirobee, by the way, is the name of a traditional Japanese doll/toy, and is also the main character in a novel called Toukaidouchuuhizakurige, 1802).
Mutenroshi reveals Piccolo's past as an evil menace that brought
fear and
despair to Earth. Together with then Mutenroshi's master Mutaito and colleagues they fought. Mutenroshi's master successfully traps Piccolo Daimaou's spirit into a
rice cooker with
mahuba, a great and difficult skill that takes away the life of whoever that uses it. This is how Mutenroshi's master dies. Piccolo is gone and peace is on Earth until
Pilaf, an old foe of
Goku, resurrects Piccolo by opening the old rice cooker, and hopes to use Piccolo's evil powers to conquer the world. His plan, obviously, fails miserably.
Upon hearing the resurrection of Piccolo, Mutenroshi meets him and also tries to send Piccolo's spirit into a rice cooker with mahuba, but misses, and dies. Of course, in the end Goku defeats Piccolo and his children; his children
were
spawned out of his mouth in the form of eggs whenever Piccolo chanted: "Pokopen Pokopen daarega tsuttsuita!". Their names were
Piano,
Drum,
Cymbal, and
tambourine. (The naming theme of the dragon tribe ("ryuzoku") here isn't too hard to figure out. Also, in general another theme in DragonBall is that
evil characters have Western names while friends of Goku have Eastern names.)
Later in
DragonBall Z (the name change is similar to how later episodes of the
anime/
manga Gundam were renamed
Gundam Z - to be trendy),
Piccolo re-emerges in the form of
Ma Jr., a.k.a. Piccolo Jr. with a
turban on his head to conceal his
tentacles. Ma Jr. is Piccolo Daimaou's last and most powerful child/replica. He is as powerful, if not stronger, than his father. His only mission since birth is to defeat Goku.
In Goku's trainings to become stronger, he meets
Kamisama. His first reaction is an unpleasant one, since Kamisama looks
exactly like an aged Piccolo.
Goku shortly finds out that Kamisama and Piccolo used to be one and the same being, called
Gatattsu, who is a Ryuzoku (dragon tribe). The former Kamisama disallowed Gatattsu from inheriting his position as Earth's god, since the he felt a strong evil presence inside Gatattsu. Upon training, Gatattsu sends the evil spirit outside of him, which in turn became Piccolo Daimaou.
Later in the story, some
Sayan aliens visit Earth, and from their conversations and after much deductive reasoning, pieces fall into places and it becomes apparent that Gatattsu came from another planet called Namek. Gatattsu didn't know this, since a shock to his head upon landing on Earth gave him
trauma-induced amnesia. Goku and pals end up going to planet Namek to collect
dragon balls there, to use its special powers. By this time, Piccolo Jr. is called, simply, Piccolo, and after fighting aliens with Goku's friends, Piccolo has turned into a good fellow, albeit still a hermit of a personality. Piccolo is resurrected with the power of
dragon balls to help
Goku out at planet
Namek, where he merges with a fighter Namek to become even more powerful.
Later on, they all go back to Earth, and Piccolo merges with Kamisama to become more powerful in order to fight the bad guys during another crisis.
The new Piccolo no longer lays eggs, but he occasionally practices special powers, such as
making things appear out of nowhere, being able to see anywhere on Earth from his god's palace,
regrowth of any body part except his head, and having extra keen ears. During his merge with Kamisama, the core of the new person was the fighter Piccolo, hence he lost most of his godly powers. He gave up his position as god to Dende, a skilled Namek.
Some translations/name origins:
- Gatattsu → katatsumuri ⇒ snail
- Dende → dendenmushi ⇒ snail, synonym.
- Namek → namekuji ⇒ slug
- Kamisama ("Kami" in US-released episodes) ⇒ god
- ryuzoku ⇒ dragon tribe
→ : derived from
⇒ : translation into English