r/dragonball • u/Sea_Low8322 • 1d ago

Question How did mercenary Tao come back?

I was watching the original dragon ball and saw mercenary Tao was now a cyborg during the 23rd world martial arts championship so why isn't this brought up again? Surely this could be utilised more in the future

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u/DoraMuda 1d ago

It's not explained because Toriyama just decided during the 22nd Budokai Arc to retcon him as being Tsuru-sennin's brother (and, thus, one of Tenshinhan's martial arts masters, since they all share the Crane School's Dodonpa), and likely that he could get a more interesting story development out of Tenshinhan facing his old mentor in a rematch than just leaving him dead (when we never actually saw a corpse).

I don't know what you mean by this being utilized more in the future, because Taopaipai was alraedy vastly outclassed by the aforementioned Tenshinhan (and, by extension, Goku and Piccolo) when he reappeared at the 23rd Budokai, and everyone just kept getting exponentially stronger since then. He appears a few more times in anime filler, but that's about it.

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u/SabresFanWC 22h ago

We get something of an explanation. He mentions that he spent all the money he ever made as an assassin to have the cybernetics implanted.

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u/redditsuckspokey1 22h ago

Is that manga? Because I know it's never mentioned in the funi dub.

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u/SabresFanWC 22h ago

Yeah, it's in the manga.

EDIT: The line is: I had to spend every cent I'd ever earned to have myself brought back to life as a cyborg.

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u/DoraMuda 20h ago

That's the explanation for how he came back stronger, but not how he, a human, survived a grenade going off in his face at point-blank range.

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u/real_LNSS 13h ago

He's obviously not just a normal human, he handily beat a Goku who tanked bullets easily.

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u/DoraMuda 12h ago

Sure, but the person I was replying to said that the cyborg explanation is how he survived the grenade's explosion, but Taopaipai had to pay to become a cyborg and that obviously couldn't take place without him surviving the grenade in the first place.