Preliminary Peril (Piccolo Jr. Saga episode)

is the twelfth episode of the Piccolo Jr. Saga and the one hundred thirty-fourth episode in the Dragon Ball series. This episode first aired in Japan on November 16, 1988. Its original American airdate was October 27, 2003.
==Summary==
Goku and Tien Shinhan agree to keep it a secret that King Piccolo's spawn is at the World Martial Arts Tournament. A young beautiful woman, who also entered the tournament, tapped on Goku's shoulder with a smile but Goku does not recognize her at first, enraging her. She walks away without telling Goku who she is. Her appearance also distresses Krillin, who is now under the impression that Goku did no training in the past three years and was instead hanging around with women. A masked guy, is also at the tournament, sneaking around, trying to avoid Goku. Chiaotzu rigs the numbers, so that none of the friends have to fight each other in the preliminaries.
Goku is up first, which attracts the attention of all his friends, the mysterious girl (Chi-Chi) and Piccolo, to see his increased strength. He is fighting King Chappa again, just like the last tournament. Chappa prepares to fight, but Goku simply stands, seemingly unprepared, intimidating Chappa. The boys notice that Goku's mind is completely cleared. Even Chappa feels Goku to be in control and charges forward, but Goku moves so fast that Chappa can't see him and defeats Chappa with only one tiny chop. This does not surprise Goku's friends and Piccolo.
Mysterious girl (Chi-Chi) is a very strong fighter, as is masked guy (Yajirobe). All of the protagonists win their fights except Chiaotzu. He appears to have been beaten by Mercenary Tao who was presumed to be dead, shocking both Tien, Goku and also Chiaotzu before he was defeated. Goku explain his encounter with Tao to the others while Tao explains his resurrection. Over the years Tao has become the first functioning cyborg assassin, with a great expenditure in order to live, and he seeks vengeance against Goku and Tien.
==Major Events==
*Goku reunites with Chi-Chi but doesn't recognise her.
*Goku defeats King Chappa again in the preliminaries.
*Chiaotzu is beaten by Mercenary Tao who has now returned as a cyborg.
==Battles==
*Goku vs. King Chappa
*Chi-Chi vs. Karate Man
*Yajirobe vs. Boxer
*Krillin vs. Muscular Man
*Yamcha vs. Bear
*Tien Shinhan vs. Karate Man
*Chiaotzu vs. Mercenary Tao (Off Screen)
==Appearances==
===Characters===
*Goku
*Krillin
*Tien Shinhan
*Chiaotzu
*Yamcha
*Chi-Chi
*Yajirobe
*Master Roshi	
*Bulma
*Launch
*Oolong
*Puar
*King Chappa
*Mercenary Tao
*Piccolo
===Locations===
*Papaya Island
**World Martial Arts Tournament
==Differences from the Manga==
*Chiaotzu telepathically voicing concern to Tien about Junior's resemblance to King Piccolo, only for the latter Z-Warrior to silence his friend, is not in the manga.
*The scene of the crowds outside the tournament pushing and shoving and soon after Puar and Oolong transforming into birds where they fly into the main hall and converse with Goku and the others is exclusive to the anime.
*Oolong and Puar telling Master Roshi about Goku defeating King Chappa is exclusive to the anime.
*Yajirobe as the masked man is already shown taking part in the preliminaries at this point. In the manga, he wasn't shown to be there until he was having his fight with Hero.
==Trivia==
*The Japanese promo for this episode (depicted in the previous two installments) showed Piccolo Jr.'s turban having pointed dangly ends on the lower back. Aside from one shot when Tien is observing Piccolo on why he (a demon clansman) would come to the tournament, the ends are now removed from this episode. The turban also had these pointed ends in the manga for Piccolo's adult debut, but it was also likewise phased out of his design, hence the corrections done here.
*King Chappa said that he fought Tambourine and survived, when he was really killed by Tambourine and was brought back by the Dragon Balls. It is possible that he just assumed that he had survived the fight.
*This is the second episode to have the title "Preliminary Peril", the first being in the Tien Shinhan Saga. It is also notable that King Chappa appears in both of these episodes.
*Chiaotzu breaks the fourth wall when all the heroes are saying "This is great! None of us have to fight each other!" (which was because Chiaotzu changed it to be that way), as he gives the "V" of the "Victory Sign" to the audience.
*This is the second time the draw numbers are rigged in the preliminary match and also the second time done by Chiaotzu.
*This is the first episode where Chi-Chi is now older and has a different outfit.
*For the FUNimation dub, Cynthia Cranz replaces Laura Bailey as the voice of Chi-Chi, who is now all-grown up.
**For the Blue Water English dub, Carol-Anne Day replaces Katie Rowan as the voice of Chi-Chi for the remainder of the episodes.
*In the Blue Water dub this episode is titled The Tournament Begins.
*In the original Japanese version of the anime and manga, after Goku disappeared and stand behind King Chappa, Chappa looked up in the sky, believe Goku is using the same trick he did during their last fight, only to be knocked out. In the English dub, Chappa looked upwards and called Goku a coward.
==Gallery==
==Site Navigation==
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Category:Dragon Ball episodes
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