Why Does Daimao Explode?

[Gyt Kaliba]

So as I posted in the purchases thread, I just got in some more VizBigs, and I was flipping through one a bit ago and saw the always awesome defeat of Daimao...but for some reason, something occurred to me that's never before occurred to me when watching it in anime form. After Goku plows right through him, leaving that gaping hole in his chest and Piccolo barfs out his final egg...why in the heck does he explode? I mean, I get that in a real world perspective, it's for dramatic effect, but for an in-universe reason...just...why? I would normally make a guess that he self destructed in the hopes the explosion would be big enough to take out Goku, but that makes no sense with what he wants his final kid to do.

So...yeah. What's the deal here?

[Angelus]

Yeah, he's supposed to be able to regenerate that hole. But I'm assuming that when he spit out that egg, all of the power he had left was put in the egg, so he wouldn't have enough ki to regenerate that hole. You need ki to regenerate. When Nail regenerated his arm, because Frieza ripped it off, Frieza said that Nail's power decreased. Apparently, regenerating a limb, for Namekians, use up ki. The same way firing ki blasts uses up ki. The way I see it, it was for dramatic effect. King Piccolo wouldn't have enough energy to do a self-destruct technique if he put all of his remaining ki into that egg. Self-destructing takes up ki too, the same way Saiyan Saga Vegeta attempted a non-fatal self-destruct technique but didn't have enough ki for the attack to have enough "punch" to it.

If he did have enough ki to spare, and didn't put all of it in the egg, then him exploding could be his self-destruct technique.

[JulieYBM]

Toriyama felt like it.

I suppose one could say he blew up so that any remnants of his spirit or ki or whathaveyou could fill the egg. It would be as if his body was no devoid of his essence so it turned to sand or some such?

[FoolsGil]

Because Toriyama unintentionally channeled Michael Bay. Plus he's always been big about bad guys being exploded, though usually the good guys have the power to cause the explosion to happen.

[rereboy]

Since he put his soul/essence in the egg he spat out, his previous body basically self-destructed.

[Dorexx]

I assume it was a demon thing, rather than a namekian thing.

t was for dramatic effect

Toriyama felt like it.

Because Toriyama

Does literally no one understand the meaning of "in-universe" here anymore?

[FoolsGil]

It's really hard to stay 'in universe' when things are inconsistent.

[Cetra]

Because Goku's Chi was ultimately leaving Piccolo's body, destroying it in the process?

Other than that of course because of style.

And you cannot regenerate without enough energy as Piccolo shows against Nappa and Freezer. Those attacks did cost him too much. Of course that was also mainly dramatic but at least that regeneration thing can be reasonably concluded.

[dbgtFO]

Because laying eggs expands Namekians' waistlines(how do you think the Eldest got so fat?) and Piccolo was laying his ultimate egg, so he expanded so much, he blew up.

[Herms]

I always assumed it has something to do with him being in his "full-power" mode, since that was supposed to crank his power up so much that it shortened his life-span. You punch a hole in someone whose ki is so charged up, it throws things off-balance and they go "bang". Maybe. Then again, Freeza's 100% full power form was described in similar "it'll shorten my life-span" terms, and obviously he didn't blow-up when cut in half. But maybe Piccolo had charged himself up that much further past the natural safety point. Or maybe Freeza's body is just naturally better at managing ki, so super-charging himself like that will shorten his life-span but not make him so unstable that he'll actually blow up if damaged enough.

In general, DB firmly establishes that ki is a) the natural life-force found in all living things, plus rocks and the sun and whatnot, and b) really good at making huge explosions. So the answer to any "why did X explode?"-type question in DB is ultimately going to boil down to ki somehow or another. Really, it's a wonder there aren't more random explosions throughout DB, what with all the ki flowing all over the place. Even mowing the lawn should be a little bit dangerous.

[hleV]

Perhaps when a Demon King transfers his "essence" to their offspring, they blow up? Or it's simply the way Demon Kings die, haha.

Regarding the hole in his stomack and regeneration, I've always had the impression that Piccolo's regeneration technique improved over time. At first it was just limbs, then Cell displayed an advanced mastery of Piccolo's regeneration ability, and finally Piccolo too could regenerate as long as his head is fine (though it's unclear whether his torso has to there too).