King Piccolo Saga

Chapters 135-161 are where Dragon Ball stops being a comedy and starts being a tragedy. Piccolo Daimao — an ancient demon king of pure malevolence — is freed, kills Krillin, kills Master Roshi, and seizes global power. This is the arc that made Dragon Ball matter.

If you want to understand why Dragon Ball earns its reputation as one of manga's greatest works — not just most popular, but greatest — the King Piccolo arc is where to look. Piccolo Daimao, the Demon King, is freed after centuries of imprisonment and immediately demonstrates that he is unlike anything the series has shown before: not incompetent (Pilaf), not mercenary (Tao), not ideologically petty (Commander Red), but genuinely, philosophically evil. He kills for pleasure, seizes political power with strategic intelligence, and spawns a biological heir from his own body to ensure his will survives even if his form doesn't. The arc kills Krillin — Dragon Ball's most beloved supporting character, Goku's closest friend, the human heart of the series — in a scene of deliberate, shocking brutality. Then it kills Master Roshi, who attempts to reseal Piccolo using the technique that previously worked but costs the user their life. Roshi fails and dies anyway. Then Chiaotzu. Three characters readers had come to love, gone, without the comfort of Dragon Ball wishes bringing them back immediately. The series had always hinted it could go dark; now it followed through. Goku's response to Krillin's death is the emotional axis of the entire arc: raw, furious grief unlike anything he has experienced before. He pursues Piccolo's minion alone, is defeated, and must climb Korin's tower again — this time to drink the Ultra Divine Water, a substance that may enhance power or may simply kill him; no one knows for certain. The ambiguity is the point. Above Korin's tower, the Guardian of Earth Kami watches but cannot intervene directly — his existence is linked to Piccolo Daimao, the evil half separated from himself generations ago. Goku must find his own path upward. He drinks the water because he is desperate and because the alternative is letting Piccolo win. This is no longer a boy having adventures. This is someone learning that strength without the willingness to suffer for it is insufficient. Piccolo's defeat comes through Goku exceeding previously established limits through sheer determination and grief-driven resolve — a pattern the series will use again, but never with more emotional foundation than here. The arc establishes that Dragon Ball's world contains genuine, permanent loss, that evil can win if heroes are not absolutely committed, and that the series is willing to follow its themes wherever they lead, regardless of how dark that destination becomes.