Piccolo growing

[ahill1]

Wee know that Piccolo Junior was initially seen as an infant upon his first appearence but then he changed significantly in those 3 years... but then his development was decreasing significantly over time, to the point he didn't change in the 10 years after the Boo arc. Would he even age with time? Is this specific to Piccolo, since he's a reincarnation, or maybe all the Namekian warriors share this strange maturing?

 

[Captain Cadaver]

It's definitely due to him being Daimao's reincarnation that would bolster him up to adulthood far quicker, considering Dende is shown to have aged far, far slower.

 

[Papasmurf]

It's definitely due to him being Daimao's reincarnation that would bolster him up to adulthood far quicker, considering Dende is shown to have aged far, far slower.

It could be due to him being a fighter-type Namekian though. We're not shown how quickly Nail grew.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

That's possible, though we really have no way of knowing if that's the case when considering the only other Warrior Namekians are seen nearly two decades after the events of the Freeza Arc.

 

[Papasmurf]

It's also worth noting that while Piccolo did grow rapidly in the 3 years after Daimao's death, he still appeared about teenaged in the 23rd and was shown to be way taller and buffer by the time of the Freeza and Cell arcs. If Daimao literally programmed him to reach adulthood in 3 years because he was his reincarnation, I doubt he'd keep growing for years after the 23rd.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

There was a 5 year gap between the 23rd TB and Saiyan Arc though, which is more than enough time for someone to age drastically if they were already a teenager physically. It could also be that a teenage body was the most Daimao's essence could mature him into in just 3 years to still be in an ideal fighting condition.

 

[Papasmurf]

True, but I'm leaning slightly more toward Piccolo's fighter type constitution being at least part of the reason he matured so fast since he was far from finished with growing in those 3 years, and there's nothing that goes against it atm.

 

[Boo Brand Milk]

It's definitely due to him being Daimao's reincarnation that would bolster him up to adulthood far quicker, considering Dende is shown to have aged far, far slower.

Piccolo is a shower and Dende is a grower.

 

[Warmmedown]

There's nothing going against his being a reincarnation of Damaio being the reason he grew so fast either. Damaio wanted revenge on Goku and the best way to do that would be to accelerate his growth. Not being fully matured after 3 years has no bearing on whether or not his growth was accelerated compared to other Namekians.

We can't really know either way. It would make sense for Damaio to accelerate his growth so he can get revenge on Goku before Goku gets much stronger. But then Damaio showed he's capable of birthing what appear to be adults (Drum etc), so it could be that fighter types are generally birthed closer to physical maturity than magic types. Or those like Tambourine and Drum could just be another type altogether.

The only other things I can imagine would give us clues would be how quickly the Nameless Namek grew up. The Nameless Namek was sent from Namek to avoid the cataclysm, which took place in age 200-something (I'm assuming one "Age" year is the same as a DBZ Earth year). It probably took around one month to reach Earth (although there's always a possibility they deliberately programmed the ship to go slowly so he could mature enough to protect himself before reaching Earth) and then it took him around two hundred years to become guardian. There's no indication of how long he took to physically mature and leave the area around his ship (I think the anime shows him as an adult when he does finally leave his ship's vicinity). The only thing there is that he doesn't remember Namek or his parents, so he must have been incredibly young on Namek. He can't have been a reincarnate like Piccolo Jr because then he would probably remember who parents were/their intentions, as Piccolo Jr had knowledge of Damaio. Did he land on Earth and immediately leave his ship? If he did, then he probably matured quite quickly within one month (enough to explore and be somewhat consciously aware of his situation), which would somewhat support warrior types (he was a combined type I think?) naturally maturing more quickly than pure magic types.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

According to the official timeline, there was a 170 year gap between him fleeing Namek and training to become a Kami, so it's safe to say he spent at least a decade or maybe a few at Yunzabit Heights before wandering the world.

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

I think Piccolo's body matured by the time of 23rd Budokai. Him changing his appearance from then on was more into Toriyama's work similar to Vegeta's height being too short when he was introduced but that doesn't mean he grew up taller. :9000