Popp

Popp is one of two deuteragonists (alongside Princess Leona) of Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai. He is the son of the weapons merchant resides in the Lankirks Village who ran away from home to become one of Disciples of Avan. While he was initially a coward and a slacker, but his life change upon meeting Dai and they became best friends, thus making him the most skilled Mage as the series progresses. He also has feelings for Maam and managed to find a way to confess his feelings to her.
In the 1991 anime, he is voiced by Keiichi Nanba. In the 2020 anime, he is voiced by Toshiyuki Toyonaga in Japanese version and Cole Howard in English version.
==Biography==
Popp was born to a married couple who owns their weapon shop, Junk and Stein. When he was young, he later ran away from home in order to become one of Avan's disciples.
When they arrived at the Dermline Island, Avan casted a golden magical barrier to protect the island and its monsters from Hadlar's dark magic. While he and Dai are training at the island, they were later encountered by Avan's old archenemy Hadlar who wants to get revenge on him since his last defeat fifteen years ago. When Avan is almost getting killed, Dai jumps in and attack Hadlar, which almost got him and Popp killed because of this. After Avan almost sacrificed himself to death, Dai later managed to defeat him with Avan Strash, forcing the Dark Lord to retreat.
The next morning, Popp later joins with Dai on his journey to defeat the Dark Army. While they're getting lost in the forest at the Romos Kingdom, Dai and Popp went to save Mina from the monsters and met Maam for the first time. Believing Maam to be a "stuck up girl", Popp angrily storms off with Dai. As they're still lost at the woods, they were encountered with Beast King Crocodine, forcing Popp to cowardly ran away until he encounters with Maam again. After Maam saved Dai from being killed by Crocodine, Popp and Dai agreed to stay at Nayla Village for a while. Popp believed that Maam will join with them in their journey, causing Dai to tease him for having crush on her. By the next morning, Maam later joins with Dai and Popp in their journey.
When the trio finally reach to the Romos Kingdom, they were forced to stay at the inn for the night because the castle was closed due to recent monster attacks. The next morning, Dai went to fight Crocodine who leads an attack on the kingdom. Though Popp refused to come with Maam to help Dai, he was later encouraged to do so by the fake Mage Mesopho. When he got to the castle, Popp stands up to Crocodine for his horrific actions against Dai and Maam, which led him getting beaten up as result. By shattering a diamond on his magic rod, he used five shattered pieces to cast a Glimmer spell on Brass, freeing him from the Dark Army's influence and allowed Dai to finish off Crocodine with an Avan Strash, which Popp became one of the reasons why Crocodine has later redeemed himself. They were later hailed as heroes for this.
When the trio got to the Papnica Kingdom, Dai, Popp and Maam were horrified to discover the kingdom was in ruins after the Dark Army attacked here. They later first met Hyunckel who seemingly saved them from the skeletons, but Popp managed to see right through his facade as the "good guy". When Dai and Maam attempt to offer to join with them, Hyunckel refused and summoned a bunch of skeletons to attack them and revealing that he's the Undead Legion Commander, as well as his hatred towards his former master out of false belief of him killing his adopted father Bartos. However, Crocodine managed to stop Hyunckel and escort Dai and Popp away from him, while leaving Maam to be held prisoner. After they were rescued by Princess Leona's swordsman Baduck, Dai and Popp devised their plan to defeat Hyunckel by the latter casting Reclimatise to summon the coulds before the former summoned Zapple on him. When they later got to the Colosseum of the Underground Palace, Dai and Popp attempt to summon a lightning at Hyunckel, but to no avail. However, Maam later escaped from her cell and revealed the truth about the death of Hyunckel's adopted father. Despite Hyunckel angrily refused to believed it, he later had a change of heart after Dai defeats him with Lightning Strash and Maam forgives him. Flazzard attempt to drown them in lava, but only for Hyunckel to be left alone here after he escort the trio to escape.
Even though he has feelings for her, Popp comforted Maam by assured her that Hyunckel will survive no matter what when she's worried about him. When Dai and the others went to the ruined temple at the Papnica Kingdom, they found the entrance to the basement and Dai used the Fire Earth Slash to get passed the remains, ignoring Popp's warning. As result, the signal flares were accidentally exploded which attracts the Lady Amy's attention and taking them all to see Leona at Valge Tower. When he first met Amy, Popp was smitten by her beauty, much to Maam's annoyance. When they got to Valge Tower, Dai and his friends are confronted and encountered with their new enemy Flazzard, who casts Blizzblaze Shrapnel Detonation to prevent them all from casting spells. Flazzard also proceed to freeze Leona to prevent them from escaping. When they managed to escape from the Valge Tower, they were pursued by Flazzard's Dancing Flame Army until the Grand Sorcerer Matoriv saved them all and escort them into his cave.
While he initially refused to help Dai and his friends defeat Flazzard due to getting sick and tired of people who are selfish, but Matoriv later agrees after seeing Dai's resemblance to his mentor Avan, even if it means becoming Popp's mentor in teaching him to become a great Mage like him, but putting him in his harsh and serious training methods unlike Avan's. After a long training for a day, Popp managed to use Zoom to teleport back to Matoriv's cave where he and his friends were sent back to Valge Island by Matoriv. While Dai, Gome and Baduck went to destroy the Dark Flame Spire, Popp and Maam went to destroy the Dark Ice Spire where they were confronted by Hadlar who mocked over Avan's sacrifice to rub it on their faces. When they're no match against the Dark Lord, Hadlar attempt to threw Maam to the Dark Ice Spire to get her impaled to break Popp's spirit, but Hyunckel has arrived to saved her in no time, much to Popp's envy of seeing this.
When Popp and Maam managed to escape from Hadlar and reunited with Dai, they were confronted by Flazzard until Crocodine and Hyunckel arrived to help them. While he was on a verge to be defeated, Flazzard decide to take extreme measures by blow himself up with Rock Bullet Shrapnel Detonation, including almost freezing Popp to death. After Dai managed to destroy Flazzard's core with his inner eye, Mystvearn arrived and gave him the ultimate armour of the Shadow Legion so he could used it against Dai, but only to be destroyed before Myst killed Flazzard in a cold blood, much to Popp's disgust and pity as result. When they got back up to the Valge Tower, Dai and his friends tried many times to freeing Leona from being frozen but with no success. When Maam suggests that she could be using the Magic Bullet Gun to freeing Leona, Popp is initially against the idea but later agreed and charge the bullet until he ran out of Magic Power. However, Maam succeeds in freeing Leona from being frozen with the help of Dai's Sizzle.
Later that night, everyone were celebrating their victory against Flazzard as they return to Papnica Kingdom where Popp and Dai were dragged into hanging out with drunken Matoriv. The next morning, Popp was seen trained by Matoriv where he was beaten up. Back at Papnica Kingdom, Popp was shocked of hearing Maam's decision to train at Romos Kingdom to become a martial artist after she was encouraged by Matoriv. After helping her get to the Romos Kingdom by teleporting themselves to Dark Forest where they first met, Popp wished Maam good luck in her training and motivates himself into becoming stronger like her. He went to Matoriv's cave to show him the Dragon Crest before he was given Sorcerer Cape and Shining Staff as a parting gift. He later snuck into Papnica Balloon Ship and climb under there to accompanying Dai and Leona in their journey to Bengarna Kingdom.
While they're going on shopping at the large department store, Baran's dragons later arrived and terrorized the Bengarna Kingdom, forcing the trio to fight against them and save everyone. After the dragons are defeated, it was revealed that it's actually Killvearn's plot to manipulate the Bengarna people into fearing Dai because of his Dragon Knight heritage, so the heroes went to Teran Kingdom to discover the truth. Rather than going with him, they were forced to wait for Dai as he dive into the lake and went to the Dragon Temple where he and Baran met each other for the first time. Later, the heroes are fighting against Baran, causing the Dragon Knight to have no choice but to use resonance on his son Dai, resulting him in losing his memories which caused his friends to be devastated.
The next morning, Dai and his friends went to the Teran castle and asked the king for protection, by imprisoned the young Hero at the dungeon. Popp lied to his friends that he'll run away because Dai lose his memories, causing Leona to slap him in anger and Merle declared she hates him for this, but he didn't care as long as he got to protect his friends for living. While confronting Baran and the Dragon Riders, he was forced to deal with his minions while Baran went after Dai at the Teran Kingdom. While he was brutally tortured by Galdandy, Hyunckel later arrived to save him from being killed and help him defeat Galdandy. Later, Hyunckel was able to defeat Borahorn and finally Larhalt, but however Borahorn refused to admit defeat and held Popp hostage to threaten him into surrender despite Popp's warning not to do so. Larhalt, having a change of heart, killed Borahorn by threw a Dark Armour Spear at his mouth to save both heroes out of disgust. Before he passed away, Larhalt passed out his Dark Armour Spear to Hyunckel, finally show a respect for him.
Popp and Hyunckel later returned to Teran Kingdom to help Leona and Crocodine fight against Baran. Enraged with Hyunckel tried to be reasoned with him, Baran transformed himself into Dragonoid and attempt to slaughter all heroes until Dai escape from the castle. Baran attempt to influence Dai into his ways, but Popp prevents him from doing so and jumped on top of him to cast Megante at him, resulting in explosion later on. Despite Dai finally regained his memories back, Popp unfortunately dies from the explosion while Baran survives before he threw the corpse on the ground. While Dai and Baran are fighting, Leona attempt to revive Popp with Zing, which was responded in the afterlife because of Gome's wish-granting power. Through Gome, Popp's corpse is able to move and fired a spell at Baran to allow Dai to defeat him. Despite their victory, Popp remains dying until he was revived by some of Baran's blood.
Later that night, Popp and Gome went out patrol for the night while everyone else are sleeping at the wooden cottage, but only for them to be ambushed by both Hadlar and Zaboera who tried to slaughter them all. However, he was later saved by his mentor Matoriv before Dai finished them both. Back at the wooden cottage, Matoriv gave the heroes the Book of Avan for them to learn. The next morning, the heroes returned back to Papnica Kingdom where Popp feels better after Merle fixed his outfit but still oblivious of her feelings for him, much to Matoriv's dismay. Hearing about the Romos Martial Arts Tournament, Dai and Popp went to the Romos Kingdom to register here to get themselves a Sword of Champions, but were too late to register as it ends an hour. But luckily, their friend Maam was able to participate before and they first met her fellow senior pupil Chiu, since both are the students of Brokeena.
After Chiu lost the fight against Gomes, he was forced to sit along with Dai and Popp at the crowds seat where both rat and the Mage are arguing and bickering towards each other. When the eight fighters are chosen for the finals, Zamza trapped them inside his Bioprison to have the experimented for the Mystic Legion's Superior Beings Studies. During the fight, Zamza transformed himself into a Superior Being and devoured Dai alive. Popp later devised a plan with Chiu to release Dai from inside Zamza, which proven to be succeeds with a help of Maam. After Dai is healed with Chiu's Teardrop Acorn, Zamza was later destroyed by Dai's Avan Strash and pitifully revealed himself to be his father Zaboera's tool before fading away into dusts.
Dai and his friends were summoned to the Romos Kingdom castle where they're informed that Princess Leona held the world summit for everyone to fight against the Dark Army and they were praised for their heroism while Chiu was left alone with Brokeena. With Chiu joining the team, they allowed him to come with them to Papnica Kingdom where they're reunited with Leona and the Papnica Troika. They later went to Teran Kingdom where they asked the king for the sword that is more powerful than the Sword of the Championships before they visit the Lankirks Village where Popp reunite with his parents. Since there's no legendary sword at the weapons shop, they went to seek help from Lon Beruk to make a sword with to create a sword for Dai. When Beruk requested for an Orichalcum, Dai and Popp went to Dermline Island to get the Crown of Championships since it's made of that kind of material and then bring it to him.
While Dai waited for his sword to be finished being made, Popp and his friends went back to Papnica Kingdom to stop Mystvearn from attacking it. After defeating most of Myst's soldiers, they were trapped and tortured by his Dark Puppetry Aura Decimation Field until Dai arrives with his new sword and managed to stop him from killing them. After Dai finally destroy the Sovereign Rock Castle, Myst became enraged with guilt and attempt to annihilate Popp and his friends by unleashing all of his Dark Aura, almost revealing his true appearance without Vearn's permission until Killvearn arrived to stop him.
Enraged by their mockery, Popp went after Mystvearn and Killvearn but was actually lured into the Field of Death where he almost gotten himself killed by Kill until Dai arrived and saved him. However, Hadlar later appears after finished transformed himself into a Superior Being and managed to defeat Dai which causing him to be trapped in the iceberg. Feeling guilty for causing Dai to get defeated and realized that Kill still intends to kill him, Popp tries to run away from the assassin until he was saved by Crocodine who take him back to Papnica Kingdom. Popp remorsefully apologized for his actions and went to ask Marin for her Magic Water to to heal himself before joined with Crocodine and Chiu in helping them searching for Dai. While having troubled searching for the Hero, they discovered the pillar of light that comes from Dai's Dragon Crest and managed to succeed in found him. Zaboera attempt to incinerate him to death in order to receive a praise from Vearn, but only to be captured by Hym under Hadlar's orders before he warned them to be prepared. They later return back to Papnica Kingdom.
The next morning, Popp and Leona informed Dai and Hyunckel that the world leaders are being gathered at the ruins of the Carl Kingdom to be prepared for the fight against the Dark Army in five days. While training with Matoriv, he was taught on how to cast Medroa to defeat Hadlar's Elite Royal Guards while also visits Maam who also trained for the fight against the Dark Army. The next day, Dai and his friends are setting off to Carl Kingdom where they were gathered to the underground base and informed that the Elite Royal Guards are attacking Zababa. When Nova arrives and arrogantly claimed that he'll defeat them all and dismissed Dai and his friends as "amateurs", Popp attempt to pick a fight at him before Dai stopped him. He even shows no concern with Nova when he left to fight against the enemies by himself until he relents after Dai insists that Leona is right. Before he and Dai left to help Nova, he was given the clothes from the same material as Dai's.
He and Dai later arrived at Zababa and tried to convince Nova to back down from fighting against the Elite Royal Guards, but Nova refused out of pride with gotten themselves killed by them before Maam, Hyunckel and Crocodine arrives. Though they were outmatched by the Royal Guards at first, Dai and his friends later went to distract them until Popp could fire a Medroa at them, but they survived with the help of Block before they retreated. While the others are taking care of those who were injured, Popp, Hyunckel and Crocodine are setting off to Field of Death to bring Chiu back to Papnica. Returned back to Papnica Kingdom, he was terrified of seeing Baran again at first but later become surprised that he's actually teaming up with them to fight against Vearn and stop him from destroying the Surface World.
When Popp and his friends arrived at the Field of Death, they went to fought against the Elite Royal Guards with Hyunckel later joins with them before the Field of Death later explodes thanks to Mystvearn activating the Black Core inside of Hadlar under Vearn's orders. But fortunately, Popp and his friends managed to survive and he was later horrified of seeing the full view of Vearn Palace for the first time. When they got to the Dark Citadel Gate, they were relieved to see Dai survived and became horrified of seeing Baran dies from the Black Core's explosion. When the Dark King Vearn, Mystvearn and Killvearn arrived in front of the heroes, they went to fight against Vearn but only to lost against him until Hadlar arrived to take their place and get revenge on him. While Hyunckel and Crocodine are missing, Popp, Maam and Gome almost drowned at the ocean and witnessing Dai is taken away by the Holy Mother Dragon.
While Popp, Maam and Gome are washed up at the shore, they were taken to the Forest Fort where they first met Queen Flora. He and Maam almost gave up at first, but was later encouraged by Flora with her history with Avan. After Dai is revived and taken to Forest Fort, the heroes were horrified to discover that Hyunckel and Crocodine will be unfairly executed but later became confident that Dai is the one who can take down the Dark Army, only for him to became traumatized even more and ran away. However, Popp managed to found Dai alone at the Dragon Temple, encouraging him to fight back and saying he's what he is, didn't cared if he's the Hero or the Dragon Knight. The next morning, Dai returns back to the Forest Fort and Popp tries to volunteer in accompanied Maam and the ladies to the Cave of Trials, but is rejected. While following the girls to the dressing room, Popp overheard of how the Insignia of Avan works and decide to make it glow, but his self-conciousness prevents it from doing so. While he was meditating to discover the fifth type of soul power for Kaglimmer, he was found by Maam and is given the staff that Beruk made for him. Overheard her feelings for Hyunckel, he angrily took out his problems and frustrations on her face out of jealousy instead of being okay and accepts it, but became guilty of what he says. He then later testing out his new weapon and became impressed with its abilities.
The next morning, Dai and his friends are setting off to the Loroi Valley. While the Disciples of Avan are doing the ritual to cast the Kaglimmer on the Vearn Palace from above, Dai and his friends are glowing in the pillar of light with an exception of Popp who is the only one whose insignia hasn't glowing yet. This caused Popp to grew depressed and having self-doubt about his worth as a disciple and almost leave the circle no matter how much his friends attempt to comfort and encouraged him to tray again. Zaboera almost used the advantage to kill him by throwing a Venom Chain at him, but only for Merle to take the hit to protect him. Despite realized that Merle has a genuine feelings for him, Popp starts to feel bad about it and has no choice but to admits his feelings for Maam, which allowed his insignia to glow and unleashed his full power that repelled the dark energy and fully healed Merle. Now feeling confident, this enabled the disciples to cast the Kaglimmer.
After they arrived at the Vearn Palace, the disciples are encountered by Hadlar and the Elite Guards, where Popp and Sigma fought at each other at the tail section. Despite struggling at fighting him, Popp managed to outsmart Sigma by separating the Mirror of Shahal from him and finally destroying him with Medroa, shattering him into pieces. Sigma even commended him for their satisfying match and entrusts the Mirror of Shahal to him. After reunite with Maam and confess his love to her, Popp started to mess with her by pretending he was about to kiss her before poking her in a nose, which resulted in him received a humiliating beating from her. When he and Maam joins with Leona and Hyunckel in watching the fight between Dai and Hadlar, Popp wanted to help him out of concern for his well-being but only for him to stay out of it as he insists to trust him. After Dai finally defeated Hadlar, Killvearn began to took the opportunity by activating the Kill-Trap to have them incinerated to death, but Popp already saw this coming and used the Crackle to hold it off, but he cannot hold it much longer. Hadlar managed to shield himself to protect them from being incinerated and help them escape, but Popp decide to stay behind out of pity for Hadlar while Dai escaped with Zoom. However, both Popp and Hadlar were later rescued by now survived Avan who used the feather to disable the trap. Popp is survived from being burned alive, but Hadlar later dies as he disintegrates away into dusts.
After Dai and his friends reunited with their old masters Avan, they went up to the central palace before they meet up with him after dealing with Killvearn before. While Hyunckel stays behind to fight the monsters, Dai and his friends went inside the Vearn Palace where they're having a picnic together at the White Garden. The trio were later confronted by Mystvearn until Leona and Avan were later returns from deactivating all Kill-Traps around the Vearn Palace. After Killvearn dragged Avan into dueling with him, Mystvearn attempt to use the advantage to lured the main trio to his trap to defeat them all, but Leona warned them not to fall for it and convinced them to move forward instead of relying on Avan. This later motivates Popp and Maam into fighting against Myst by themselves while Dai and Popp move forward to face Vearn. However, both Popp and Maam were later tortured by Myst which almost lured Dai into falling for his trap until Larhalt arrived to save them.
With Larhalt's help, Popp and Maam teams up with him to fight against Mystvearn, but not until Hyunckel, Crococodine, Brokeena, Chiu and lastly Hym joins the fight. After Hym successfully almost defeated Myst, Hyunckel asked him to unveil his Shadow Raiment until Crocodine warned them about what happened if someone unveiled it. After hearing Dai seemingly defeated Vearn, Maam decides that it's not worth of killing Myst because it'll be worthless if Dai has won for nothing, but Popp disagree with this and still wanted him to be destroyed. However, Myst later regained his conciousness and has no other choice but to revealed his true appearance in front of the heroes to use the full power against them. Brokeena later discover the secret behind Myst's immortality was Secret Spell of Frozen Time before challenging him for a fight to distract him so Popp could fire a Medroa at him. After firing a Medroa, Popp went to rescue Brokeena from being held hostage quickly before Myst deflects his Medroa towards them which almost killing them both as result.
But luckily, both Popp and Brokeena were rescued by Avan who has survived from being killed by Killvearn after defeating him. Following Myst's death, Maam became immediately shocked of seeing this before brutally beating up and stomping on Popp out of anger. The heroes later went up to the Tower of Supremacy to joins with Dai to help him fight against Vearn. While the others are getting trapped in the Eye Jewels until it was Avan, Larhalt and Hym's turns later on after they're defeated, Dai and Popp were the only ones left alone to fight against Vearn. Even if they were able to stand against Vearn, the Dark King decide to pull out his last resort against them by releasing and dropping the last pillar onto the Loroi Valley which almost annihilate all of their allies, causing Dai and Popp to fell into despair as there's nothing they could do to stop him and his plans. However, all of their allies were revealed to have survived from the explosion which encouraged both Dai and Popp to fight back. Out of desperation, he attempt to detonate all of Black Cores to ensure his victory, but only to be interrupted by the others who were trapped inside Eye Jewels moving by their will due to Leona's wish.
Realized that Gome was inside of Leona, Vearn released her from her imprisonment and tore her dress apart before revealing Gome in his own hands and that he's an item called the Tear of Gods. Despite the trio's pleas of not hurting him, Vearn refused to reconsiders his ways and still willing to destroy him out of fear and spite, which he did. However, Dai managed to wished Gome for having everyone's hearts to be united in the entire world, which they were later encouraged to stand up against Vearn and foiled his plans of destroy the entire Surface World. Instead of accepting his loss, Vearn decide to slaughter Dai and his allies so they wouldn't get in his way of his plans to destroy the entire Surface World. This caused Dai to have no choice but to fight with Vearn one-on-one and fused his Twin Dragon Crest into one on his forehead to become Dragonoid while Popp and Leona escape with their friends trapped inside an Eye Jewels. Despite worried about what might happened to him, Popp and Leona still sees him as their friend instead of a monster before they got trapped inside the Heart of Vearn Palace along with their friends who were released from their imprisonment. Despite none of them were being able to get out of here alive, Popp reveals that the Grand Cross is the only way for them to escape, which was later used by Hym to do so. After they finally escaped, Popp rescued Hym from his impending death and told him he's dismissed from the Beast King Commandos, much to the latter's dismay. The heroes later reunited with their allies.
Following Vearn's death and defeat, Popp went towards Dai who is falling down towards the Earth and managed to saved him from dying. Hearing about what happened to Vearn, everyone are cheering for Dai over their victory against the Dark King. When they're about to go home and celebrate, the heroes are encountered with Killvearn who revealed his true identity and using the Black Core on the puppet's head to destroy the entire Surface World along with Vearn's six Black Cores on the tower. He and Dai went to drags the puppet to the sky together so everyone will be safe from the explosion, but only for him to be pushed back down to the ground by Dai to keep him from getting involved in an explosion, causing him to angrily called him an idiot as the explosion detonates and Dai was caught on it. Following Dai's sacrifice, he and the others were searching for him for weeks, but couldn't find him anywhere. While mourning for him as they stared at the Sword of Dai, he claims that it was his so-called grave, but Leona denies this and stated that's the marker for Dai just in case if he's returned. The epilogue shows him going adventures with Maam and Merle joins with them as their companion.
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