Episode 122 of Dragon Ball, first broadcast in Japan on August 10, 1988 and known in the English dub as Final Showdown, closes the King Piccolo Saga. Wounded and with no ground left to stand on, Goku stakes everything on a single attack, just as the original title promises. The demon falls, but with his last breath he leaves the world a legacy that will shape the rest of the series.
Summary
Goku has survived even the last explosion, and King Piccolo is starting to feel fear. Unwilling to take chances, he resorts to a cowardly trick: he grabs the exhausted Tien and threatens to kill him if Goku takes a single step. Goku hesitates, then learns that the demon has killed Shenron: if Tien died, there would be no way to bring him back. So he chooses to take the punishment.
Piccolo takes his time. Using rocks, he breaks Goku's other leg and his left arm, and once the boy is lying on the ground, apparently helpless, he drops Tien and rises into the air to deliver the final blow. Meanwhile Yamcha lands with Bulma and Launch near the crater where the capital once stood, and the three continue on foot; Yajirobe has arrived too, but cannot make up his mind whether to help or run.
The demon, however, has overlooked one detail: Goku still has his right arm. The boy pours all his remaining energy into that hand, fires a Kamehameha at the ground and uses the thrust to hurl himself at Piccolo, tearing straight through the demon's body.
Before dying, King Piccolo gathers the last of his strength and spits out an egg, charging the son who will hatch from it with avenging him; then his body explodes. Goku plummets, but Yajirobe catches him in midair and recovers Tien as well, while the egg flies off into the distance toward a future still unwritten.
Our take
The saga's finale is built on sacrifice rather than raw power. Goku wins because he accepts being broken to protect a friend, and because his opponent, convinced the fight is already won, lets his guard down. It is a far more bitter ending than those of the earlier arcs: the boy comes out of the fight in pieces, and the demon's fall arrives with no triumphalism at all.
Minoru Okazaki's direction gives the final strike the weight it deserves, building through the wait, Goku's shout and the flash of the wave that launches him upward. The anime-original beats of Yajirobe coming and going and Launch causing trouble with a rocket launcher ease the tension without breaking it. And the egg flying away is one of the most important cliffhangers in Dragon Ball: it leads directly into the Piccolo Jr. story and, in the long run, into Dragon Ball Z.
Trivia
- The episode adapts chapter 159 from page 13, chapter 160 and the first twelve pages of chapter 161 of Akira Toriyama's manga. It drew a 16.1% ratings share in Japan.
- Yamcha, Bulma and Launch approaching the crater on foot, Yajirobe's dithering and the scene of Suno sensing the explosion from the hospital as the demon dies are all anime-only.
- When Yajirobe thinks back on the free meal Goku promised him, his speedometer reads 88 mph, possibly a nod to Back to the Future.
- In the English dub Piccolo claims to have fought all over the universe without ever meeting such an opponent; in the original Japanese he is simply shocked that a human can stand up to him.
Characters
- Goku
- Tien Shinhan
- King Piccolo
- Yajirobe
- Yamcha, Bulma, Launch
- Suno