"If you want the Dragon Balls, Piccolo, you'll have to come down here!" |
"Piccolo Closes In" (がんばれっ! 孫悟空!! Ganbare! Son Gokū!!, lit. "Hang in There! Son Goku!!") is the ninth episode of the King Piccolo Saga and the one hundred tenth episode in the Dragon Ball series. This episode first aired in Japan on May 4, 1988. Its original American airdate was September 15, 2003.
Summary[]
King Piccolo fires the Makosen to finish off Goku
It begins to rain at Yajirobe's Prairie. After a few more hits, King Piccolo critically wounds Goku with one of his most powerful beams. Believing him to be dead, he takes his Dragon Ball and boards his plane. King Piccolo makes his way to get the rest of the Dragon Balls. Yajirobe walks over to Goku also believing him to be dead only to find him still alive. He rushed him to the river where he has a drink and Goku requests Yajirobe to take him to Korin Tower.
King Piccolo faces Master Roshi
Meanwhile, Chiaotzu finds the fifth Dragon Ball. Master Roshi decides that they should head towards King Piccolo, to get the other two balls. While travelling to Korin Tower in a Hovercar, Yajirobe tells Goku the story of King Piccolo and his evil deeds. Roshi takes to the ground and hides the Dragon Balls he collected in the dirt with the plan of stealing the remaining two from Piccolo however Piccolo swallows his two Dragon Balls, thwarting Roshi's plan. Tien Shinhan is eager to fight the demon but in order to prevent him from fighting, Roshi paralyzes him with a spray from a gas canister and tells Chiaotzu to stay hidden behind the rock. King Piccolo jumps down Pilaf's Flying Base where Roshi is standing before him.
Major Events[]
- Goku is defeated and left for dead by King Piccolo.
- Yajirobe takes Goku to Korin Tower.
- Master Roshi and King Piccolo's groups head to the same location to retrieve the final Dragon Balls.
Battles[]
- Goku vs. King Piccolo
Appearances[]
Characters[]
Locations[]
Objects[]
Differences from the Manga[]
- Piccolo and his kind have five fingers in the anime but only four in the manga
- It was not raining during Goku and Piccolo's fight in the manga. This also applies to Roshi, Tien, and Chiaotzu's finding of the three-star ball in a field (in a filler scene from the last episode, it was stuck under a large rock until Roshi lost it when being crushed by the rock).
- Piccolo beating on Goku at the start of the episode did not occur in the manga.
- In the manga, when Yajirobe is asking Goku for directions, a man riding a bike can be seen looking shocked at the aircar veering off the road. The man is not present in the anime.
- The visual account that accompanies Yajirobe's explanation to Goku about King Piccolo's backstory isn't in the manga.
Trivia[]
- This episode had the lowest rating for the Dragon Ball anime series on Fuji TV, with 13.7% rating share.
- In the Japanese version and the manga, Yajirobe considered eating the supposedly dead Goku only to quickly write it off as being too disrespectful. This was excluded from the English versions.
- In the English version, Piccolo proclaims that with all seven Dragon Balls, his youth will be restored. Before, in "Enter King Piccolo", he had said his desire was for eternal youth. It's likely that the wording was a mistranslation by Funimation, as the English manga makes it consistently clear that the desired wish is eternal youth.
- Despite having met Roshi on his home island back in "The Nimbus Cloud of Roshi", Pilaf, Mai, and Shu do not appear to recognize him here (though the aforementioned scene was filler).
Gallery[]
     An enraged King Piccolo prepares to finish Goku off  King Piccolo's Masenko  King Piccolo fires a second Masenko  King Piccolo stands over a defeated Goku  Yajirobe checks if Goku is alive  Chiaotzu hides the Dragon Balls  Tien and Roshi waiting for King Piccolo to arrive |
[]
| ← Tien Shinhan Saga |  |
Piccolo Jr. Saga→ | |||||||
| Manga | |||||||||
| Chapters | 135 • 136 • 137 • 138 • 139 • 140 • 141 • 142 • 143 • 144 • 145 • 146 • 147 • 148 • 149 • 150 • 151 • 152 • 153 • 154 • 155 • 156 • 157 • 158 • 159 • 160 • 161 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volumes | 12 • 13 • 14 | ||||||||
| Anime | |||||||||
| Episodes | 102 • 103 • 104 • 105 • 106 • 107 • 108 • 109 • 110 • 111 • 112 • 113 • 114 • 115 • 116 • 117 • 118 • 119 • 120 • 121 • 122 | ||||||||