Here's Videl training in the dojo!

I've only painted Videl one other time. So, I am very happy to have been commissioned to make this for @kipke-art

Thank you so much again!❤️

the fucking line delivery of this

One Villainous Scene: The Way Things Were Before

Passover has begun, so what better scene to bring than this one?

At the point in Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt this scene occurs, Moses has made repeated requests for Pharaoh Ramses, the man he once knew as his brother, to set the enslaved Hebrews free and allow them to leave Egypt. Ramses has stubbornly refused at every turn, even as God has begun delivering plagues upon Egypt and its people as proof that He does exist, He is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful, and that Ramses should act in accordance with His will and release the chosen people from slavery. As Ramses' pride as the ruler of Egypt and his desire to not be "the weak link that breaks the chain" as his horrible father had drilled into his head was of such importance to the Pharaoh's legacy are too massive and holding too firm, to the point where not even literal acts of God will make him being to entertain the notion of doing anything that would display any semblence of weakness, Moses decides that maybe he shouldn't need to keep relying on God to get this work done for him, and that he needs to speak to Ramses himself, as a human. As a brother.

Ramses, sitting on the arm of a monumental statue of his father, is immediately dismissive of Moses' presence, throwing a goblet at him and snapping at him to leave him. Moses holds his ground and delivers a gentle plea to Ramses for the two of them to make peace with each other, reach an agreement, and bring this feud to an end before any more living beings in Egypt are made to suffer even greater hardships as a result of Ramses' refusal to act, appealing to him as the patient and supportive big brother he remembers. The continued silent treatment from Ramses gives Moses time to take in his surroundings and reminisce about the good ol' days, and all the mischief the brothers used to get into in this city. And this does not seem to invoke in Ramses what Moses would've liked to see, as the Pharaoh is angered at recalling these juvenile antics and the trouble they landed him in with his father, for which he blames Moses. However, he then gives a pause, a wistful look on his face and even a tiny laugh. "But then...you were always there to get me out of trouble again." His face is turned to Moses and suddenly there is no more anger. Only fondness, sorrow, regret and longing. Putting his hand on his brother's shoulders, Ramses solemnly asks "Why can't things be the way they were before?" In this moment, Moses and Ramses are their youthful senses once again, the stakes of what they'd been fighting over vanishing as they look each other in the eye, can fully recall and understand the brotherly love they share with each other, and both wish to stop being mad at each other. They want to hug, make up, and go back to being the family they were.

But when Ramses' young son arrives on the scene, the bubble pops and Ramses is a fully grown adult again, both a Pharaoh and a father, with the heavy responsibilities that both positions entail. "Why is he here? Isn't this the man who did all this?" asks the child. Ramses turns his head and faces the wall, his shoulders heave and sag, and he replies "Yes. But one must wonder...why?" At the question, he turns his gaze to Moses again, giving him an icy look that is in part accusatory and in part gravely serious about wanting to know why Moses would call plagues down upon Egypt and bring devastation to so many lives, to the place he'd once called home and the family that had once been his. Ramses, due to how he'd been brought up and what he was taught to believe, is adamantly refusing to believe that Moses could possibly be motivated to take these drastic, treacherous actions against him, his own foster brother and an actual person, by sincerely caring about the wellfare of some lowly slaves. However, Moses' response comes as "Because no kingdom should be built on the backs of slaves."

What Moses says next hits uncomfortably close to home in light of current events - "Ramses, your stubbornness is bringing this misery upon Egypt. It would cease if only you would let the Hebrews go." Ramses is spiralling to his breaking point now, angrily declaring he will not be threatened, for he is the morning and evening star over Egypt - he is Pharaoh! Moses' voice grows more desparate and concerned as he warns Ramses that a plague from above worse than all that have come before looms ahead, and Ramses can repel it from Egypt by letting go of his pride, his rage, his contempt for life, and freeing all his slaves before everything he holds dear is torn asunder. "Think of your son!", he pleads. And Ramses' response....is to threaten not just Moses, but all of the Hebrews, with genocidal retaliation for the offenses against him he lays at their feet. "My father had the right idea about how to deal with YOUR PEOPLE". This line and the rage on Ramses' face tells us and Moses that he's arrived at the point of barely percieving Moses as a human being equal to himself, let alone a brother. "And I think it's time I finish the job! And there shall be a great cry in all of Egypt, such as there never has been or ever will be again!" To Moses' visible horror, the mad Pharaoh makes this declaration standing right next to a wall painting of his father....the painting depicting him ordering a number of Hebrew infants to be condemned to a watery death in the Nile.

In the one remaining moment where Ramses could have returned to being Moses' brother, he instead fully becomes his father. "Ramses, you bring this upon yourself" Moses sadly laments. And indeed, just as Ramses proclaimed, there ends up being a great cry in all of Egypt, such as there never has been or ever would be again: the choral cry of all Egyptian mothers and fathers upon awakening to find their first born children laying dead. Dead because of a Pharaoh ruled by pride and hatred who would see droves of his own people, his only son included, lose their lives before he'd ever grant the right to a free life to others he believed to be innately lesser people.

BEST DRAGON BALL BIG BADS

1. Cell and Freeza - Eternally the greatest villains that the Dragon Ball franchise has ever had and will ever have. They both just work so well, as characters and as villains, but on different levels. Both are completely and utterly evil to their cores, both are uber powerful, both are superbly designed, both have iconic voices, both serves as ultimate enemies to a generation of Saiyan (Freeza to Goku and Vegeta, and Cell to their sons Gohan and Trunks), both have fun and hilarious TFS Abridged Series incarnations that do them justice, and both have the demeanor of charismatic, sophisticated gentleman whose faux affability is used to punctuate their horrible evilness and conceal even uglier evilness within, giving the reader/viewer a strong desire to see them get dealt a comeuppance, but it’s expressed somewhat differently - with Freeza, his superficial politeness is blatantly false, you can read in his tone that it’s a front he puts on to patronize everyone of lesser power than he, even his own minions, and his inner spoiled brat and brutish sadism seeps through with every line…but those lines are normally courteous and gentlemanly. With Cell, his affability seems much more sincere and there’s much less obvious fakeness and condescension to it, but the things he actually says even with that attitude are so cruel, demeaning and dickish (he’s not known as a Savage Roast King for nothing!) and he just excudes confidence in what he is and all that he is capable of achieving. Their places in the story and what they represent is also great. Freeza was literally the instigator of the entire series, the reason Goku was raised on Earth to start with - he is the dark past that must be conquered in the present day where his reign of terror still spreads. Whereas Cell is literally made up of the cells of the greatest fighters seen across the series, including the previous villains, Freeza among them, who traveled back in time from a future timeline - he is the series’ past amalgamated into a grand present day crescendo and is reflective of a dark future that must not come to pass. While Cell's my preference between the two of them in terms of villainy (character-wise, he’s not quite as developed as Freeza has been), Freeza’s easily my second favorite, and both of them are equally the best Big Bads with the best sagas in all of Dragon Ball.

2. Zamasu/Goku Black and Demon God Demigra - Or as I like to call them, the Lucifer-Satan Duo. As I’ve said before, they’re sort of like the Freeza and Cell of the franchise’s new age - not quite as good but still easily the best major villains we've seen since them. Demigra came first and while he’s not much to write home about in terms of characterization, he’s got an awesome design, an incredibly strong malevolent presence, a flamboyant personality and a particularly sick, cruel, creepy style of villainy that makes him unforgettable. He’s a former Shinjin who fell from grace and became a demon who then rose to such a high state of power that he’s deemed a Demon God, and as such he now possesses a proud, smarmy, mightier-than-thou attitude and believes the entire multiverse should revolve entirely around him and his whims, and that all of existence is his to play with in any way he pleases. At first his villainy seems rather typical of a Big Bad Satan figure, but by the time he puts Piccolo under demonic mind control to get him to kill the kids he’s looked after, it gets more personal and you really want to take the smug bastard down. My two quibbles with him would be his original final form was terrible, being just a recolored, redesigned version of Babidi’s henchman Yakon (thankfully, this got amended later on in Dragon Ball Heroes), and that his backstory comes off as a little too generic and JRPG-esque, which is a big no-no for Dragon Ball. Otherwise he’s a great villain, though unfortunately locked out from mainline DB canon beyond the game universes. Zamasu in Super is sort of like a substitution for Demigra, as he’s a similar character (a fallen Shinjin with a massive ego and divine Messiah Complex) with a similar set-up (a saga that heavily involves time travel, Future Trunks, and a threat to the entire multiverse), but he manages to be his own unique character despite this, more youthful than Demigra and even more insufferably pompous and self-important. And unlike the unashamedly evil Demigra, Zamasu is firmly convinced in his own righteousness and that every action he takes is in the name of divine justice and the creation of a pure universe, even though the actions themselves and his frequent behavior towards others, other deities included, show him as anything but - he’s a cruel, petty, and narcissistic sociopath with delusions of grandeur. Think Light Yagami if he actually had become a god! His other self, Goku Black, is even scarier given how he inhabits a god-tier Saiyan’s body and even melds his own divine power into it’s own to create new techniques and even a new Super Saiyan form, and is a complete badass throughout. And the voice actor performances (both Shinichiro Miki and Masako Nozawa in the original, and James Marsters and Sean Schemmel in the dub) are fantastic. My two quibbles with him would be the explanation for Black’s coming into being was a little convoluted and goofy, and that the Black Hole Eldrich Abomination that melds itself into the entire universe that his consciousness becomes after his defeat/death was just complete nonsense, pushing Zamasu firmly into Villain Sue territory and making him a living Diablos Ex Machina to instigate a horribly bleak end to his saga. Oh well. Can’t all be perfect like Cell.

3. Vegeta - Nowadays with Vegeta being a much better person and one of the most heroic characters in the series (which is great) and also the main deuteragonist/Lancer to Goku in all sagas (which is not so great), it could be easy to forget just what a truly, wonderfully evil bastard, and one of the top greatest villains, he used to be. As the surviving prince of the Saiyan race, even sharing the same name as his late father and now obliterated planet, Vegeta’s pride is monumental and he believes he has, from birth, deserved to be most powerful warrior of all time and space, and supreme ruler of the universe despite him being basically enslaved to serve under Freeza, who also has those ambitions. Before we found out that part about Freeza, though, Vegeta was the Big Bad for the prior saga and by being such a sinister, meticulous, cunning warrior who could back up his arrogance with sheer awesome might, he was more imposing a threat than even Piccolo, the so-called Demon King! Despite his short stature, his ability to keep his composure until he lets out his feral rage made him fearsome to his larger and more brutal partner, Nappa. Toriyama hadn’t initially intended to keep him alive past his saga, but he proved so popular with both readers and his editors that he had his life be spared and it cannot be overstated what a terrific move it was to keep him alive for the next saga, as he received some of the best parts of that saga with his magnificent bastardry, even ending up in an unexpected alliance with the good guys in its latter half that lay the seeds for his eventual redemption arc. In retrospect it’s rather odd that Vegeta got as far as he did since his character was originally written to be nothing but a completely evil prick. I think his success is owed to him being the greatest candidate for an archrival to Goku that Toriyama ever came up with, being of the same race as him and even sharing some similar characteristics, yet being his polar opposite based on how and where the two were raised and thus what they value most. Oddly enough, their development courses have gone in reverse too - Vegeta’s grown more human while Goku has grown more detached from humanity and more in touch with his Saiyan nature. I could go on about what an interesting and fun character Vegeta is, but I’ll spare you all and just mention one minor gripe I have with him (aside from his role in the franchise post-Buu Saga, which remains a major gripe): what the heck happened to his personality after he got revived on Namek by the wish on Earth’s Dragon Balls? Piccolo was one thing, but Vegeta’s more grouchy, aggressive, hot-tempered and bombastic characterization is almost downright irreconcilable with his earlier characterization. Did he come back wrong? Did Freeza’s brutal torture of him before his death do permanent mental and emotional damage? I love the character either way, but it's shaky writing.

4. King Piccolo / Piccolo Jr. - Here’s the guy who was the originally intended Ultimate Evil of the Dragon Ball universe. Oh how times have changed. This spot is both for the original King Piccolo, born of all the inner demons that the nameless Namekian who became Kami Sama exorcised from his consciousness, and Piccolo Jr., who was born from an egg like all Namekian offsprings but imbued with his father’s spirit, making him the Demon King reincarnated. With his appealingly alien design, intimidating voice acting, epic theme music and majestic presence whenever he shows up, Piccolo stands as one of Toriyama’s best villains even to this day. He’s also one of the smartest Dragon Ball villains, one of the few who never succumbed to Bond Villain Stupidity, thinking meticulously and acting with competence from start to finish, damn nearly defeating Goku and all his heroic allies who stand against his reign of terror. The guy even make a successful bid for world domination, holding all governments on the planet hostage with the threat of his power, even planning on making a national holiday in which he destroys one major location in the four corners of the Earth annually, just for kicks! Even after his death, his wickedness endured through Piccolo Jr., who went undercover at the 23rd Budokai just to take revenge on Goku and claim the title of world’s strongest warrior in order to assert his supremacy and put the world under his green thumb once again. Piccolo is very much the same case as Vegeta when it comes to how his character development progressed - for someone who was created and written to be nothing but pure evil, he ended up growing a conscience and caring about someone else, the son of his hated enemy no less, and from there he grew more noble and good-hearted until he was finally willing to re-merge with Kami in order to have the power needed to protect the things and people on Earth that he’d grown to cherish, which was unexpected but beautiful development for his character. Also like Vegeta his characterization had a slight shift before his redemption truly started, but this one was more believable since he’d gotten older and more mellow between the end of pre-Z DB and DBZ, having never been the pure evil beast his father had been and still showing signs in the early Vegeta Saga that the devilish, maniacal Piccolo hadn’t fully gone away yet. As a bad guy and as a good guy, Piccolo is just plain awesome, and one of the most endearing and respectable DB characters for that.

5. Beerus and Whis - After years of the DB franchise recycling ideas, characters and concepts usually from DBZ for all of its content, these two were such a breath of fresh air. Beerus, the God of Destruction for Universe 7, has an immediately appealing design, being clearly inspired by the Egyptian God of death, Anubis, having both canine and feline characteristics in his look and mannerisms. His concept is also great - he’s like a dark counterpart to a universe’s Supreme Kaioshin with destructive power so immense and seemingly limitless that they need a guardian angel to keep them in check, which is where Whis comes in. The personalities of these two and how they play off each other is the best part. Beerus is callous, egocentric, and apathetic to a fault, but also frequently lazy, childish, quirky and eccentric, possessing a strong appetite, and is subject to wild mood swings that effect the way his power is let out. He’s, to put it plainly, an immature psychopath, but being a deity who exists far above mortal beings, he lives by his own code and his thinking is far beyond the morality that mortals or other deities tend to possess, so it's hard to call him truly evil. He’s as great an ally to have on your side as he is as terrifying an enemy to have against you. His growing bond of friendship with Goku and the Z Warriors all while he still stays true to his character but slowly comes to soften up and learn to act in more reasonable ways has been one of the best parts of DBS. Oh, and Whis - he’s cool. And nice. And scary powerful. And both he and Beerus, together or apart, are super hilarious. Some of the best characters to be iconic fixtures of the franchise for years to come.

6. Android 21 - A secret 21st android created by Dr. Gero who got loaded with energy from a super computer that gave her more power than she knew how to handle, driving her batshit insane, spiteful, and destructive as a result, having a very attractive design and an equally sexy Majin form, being pretty much an android version of Launch who ends up going through a literal personality split similar to Majin Buu, is a glutton for delectable treats who has a tragic character arc, a personality like Zero Two from Darling in the Franxx, and the dub voice actress of Riko Sakarauchi from Love Live Sunshine!!? How could you not fall for this bitch? Easily one of the coolest, most creative and most enjoyable DB villains in recent years to be sure.

7. Fu - Another really fun villain to enter the franchise in recent years. The son of Mira and Towa, and the nephew of Demon Lord Dabura, Fu could care less about the ramifactions of his heritage or the dull politics of the demon realm, as he's set his sights on bigger things. Inquisitive and experimental by nature, he's made his M.O messing with the stream of time and intervening in different worlds branched off from different timelines so that he can create any wild and wacky scenario he wants to enjoy. Yeah, he's a DB fanboy surrogate, and it shows in the joyfully eccentric, geeky personality he expresses. Fu goes so meta with his canon-defiling, reality-bending passion projects and with his brand of humor, he's like DB's own Deadpool! But he is absolutely not one to be underestimated just for his silly behavior, for he's one of the most cunning, meticulous and unpredictable adversaries in the franchise. In the Xenoverse canon, he's become the recurring arch nemesis to the Time Patrol who's yet to be brought to justice, and in the Heroes canon, he steals from varying alternate timelines and uses what he attains to devastating effect, gaining more power for himself as he does to the point where he's eventually made the Dark King of the demon realm and seeks to create his own universe that'd play to his ideal rules. Wherever or wherever Fu shows up, disasters are always guaranteed to follow.

8. Emperor Pilaf - Putting this guy up so high seems ridiculous, especially since he wasn’t ever a Big Bad in the original manga, only getting that status from the anime adaptation beefing up his role and giving him more screen time in the series’ first saga. Three things score him this spot - he’s just plain hilarious, he was actually a legit danger to our heroes (and possibly the entire world had his wish been granted) in his earliest appearances despite having no power, and he’s been brought back to the franchise and received a good deal of character growth to the point of becoming a friend/ally to the heroes just as Tien, Piccolo, Vegeta, Buu, and Beerus have. His chemistry with his two agents, Mai and Shu, is always a delight to watch, and his VAs tend to make him immensely entertaining, especially Chuck Huber in the Funimation dub, whose voice and delivery for him has not changed in the slightest in all these years.

9. Tao Pai Pai - I'm kind of cheating here as well since he’s technically not a Big Bad in any saga he appeared in, but he was the source of the most tension and peril in the Red Ribbon Saga in how an act of evil committed by him changed the trajectory of Goku's quest for Dragon Balls, and he had a part in the entire drama of the 22nd Budokai Saga’s plot, so he deserves a spot here. Introduced as a mercenary killer hired by Commander Red to kill Goku, Tao became the Heavy for the saga during this period. Up to that point Goku had faced enemies who could nearly take him in a fight before (General Blue, who Tao kills with his tongue) but hadn’t ever seemed in any real danger from an enemy who could kill him. Tao changed that. He was very dangerous, very formidable at fighting, and very murderous, with there being a very real possibility of him actually killing Goku because he's the first character to kill others on-screen. His character was also a notable change of pace in how villains before him were all light-hearted and comical, or at the very least generic., but Tao, by contrast, was a stone cold professional killer with seemingly only two looks to give: serious poker face or psychotic evil smirk. He doesn’t just kill because it’s profitable, he relishes the hunt and the sensation of bringing other living creatures down before he takes their life. He’s a true villain played straight, which makes his eventual ass kicking at Goku’s hands and the comical reactions he starts giving all the more satisfying and hilarious. While he’s nowadays not as notable or cool as other villains and even seems rather dated, one thing to consider is that with his greed, sadism and fondness for killing, pink and purple color scheme, courtesy and formality when speaking and conducting business with others, attempting to kill Goku after being granted the mercy he’d pleaded for only to have Goku knock his attack right back at him so that it blows him up instead, and then coming back as a cyborg, working alongside an evil family member in the name of revenge…yes, Tao seems to have been Toriyama’s prototype for Freeza.

10. Majin Buu - While his saga was notoriously poorly done on the whole, his character and effectiveness got messed up in its last stretch, and he nowadays almost reads like a prototype for what would later be perfected by Beerus, Majin Buu was still a fine villain(s) for what he was, as well as a fairly unique and memorable one even if he didn’t make for the best Big Bad. Brought into Universe 7 by the dark wizard Bibidi to match and even surpass the Kaioshins, Buu got more powerful the more Kaioshins he slayed and devoured the energy of, and by the time he was sealed away he’d become the most powerful mortal being in existence. Which is an asset to him but also a fault: Freeza had declared himself the most powerful mortal being in the universe, but now we learn that there’d once been a being even more powerful (and later learn that Freeza knew that)? Cell being more powerful than Freeza was justifiable because his literal creation happened only after Freeza’s time and he was made to be the most powerful fighter ever from the cells of the most powerful fighters, Freeza included. Pulling out this random ancient demonic djinn as the next most powaful evul threat evah!!! just felt cheap. But back on his character, I like Fat Buu and the initial Super Buu the best out of all his forms, the former for being the most unexpectedly silly and endearing of all the Buus and the one who actually reforms and sticks around after the saga’s over, and the latter for impressively balancing being ridiculous and humorous with being sinister and menacing, and much smarter than his brutish demeanor suggests, plus he got some wicked awesome theme music in the original dub. Kid Buu’s in the middle, as he’s alright and a well done example of a Generic Doomsday Villain with no personality, goal, or motive for living other than to kill and destroy…but he’s still a Generic Doomsday Villain, so he lacks a character and can’t hold my interest for very long. I don’t care for the briefly seen Evil Buu that ate up Fat Buu to make Super Buu, and I completely abhor Super Buucalotenkshan or whatever we call that long headed abomination - yeah, Super Buu is one of my favorites AND my least favorites among the Buu forms! Go figure. All in all, Buu was a good idea for a worthy foe to be faced by Gohan and pals, but horribly marred by poor execution of his character, his powers, and his saga as a whole. So he’s pretty above average to me.

11. Janemba - The Majin Buu substitute of Movie 12, Fusion Reborn, created when some slacker custodian of Hell got infected with the accidental leak of an unstable dark substance made from dark souls that began tearing at the fabric of life and death, letting the denizens of Hell loose onto Earth. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of him in his initial large, chubby yellow form, when he changed into that smaller, red Satan looking motherf**ker up there, he immediately caught my attention. He’s just so menacing, so psychotic, and so diabolically evil in even the way he fights that I think I like him better than Kid Buu, the canon villain he was emulating. He’s a pretty unique DBZ movie villain, and his big face-off with Gogeta is simply unforgettable.

12. Dr. Wheelo - The main villain of the second movie, The World's Strongest. Two things score him a spot here - his creepiness factor and his motivation. His mind was wished back into the world by his old associate, Dr. Kochin, but his body was not, meaning that the only physical part of him to be seen is his brain, which is placed in a special tube that just happens to connect with a large mechanical body, and he always speaks in a low, calm, sinister voice that’s slightly modulated by a robotic filter. That’s just nightmarish. And unlike many later DBZ movie villains, Wheelo actually has a clearly stated goal and motive - he wants to weed out the world’s strongest fighter so that his brain can be put inside of that fighter’s body, and he can then wield awesome power and test his new body’s fighting capabilities for science in order to become the greatest and the strongest scientist to ever live. It’s sick, weird, and a little bit B-Movie mad science plot, but it works and helps make Wheelo stand out as one of Goku’s most unsettling foes. In fact, it could be argued that he even beat Dr. Gero to it with the whole "mad scientist creating androids to go after Goku" thing. We later got to see Dr. Wheelo's original body when he partnered up with Fu in Dragon Ball Heroes, and he even gained a sleeker metallic form that he could control.

13. Coola - No, I refuse to call him Cooler. That only works if Freeza is named Freezer, but he’s not, so it’s just silly. Anyway, Coola is the older brother of Freeza and the villain of two movies in a row, Movies 5 and 6. If there’s any movie villain who seems like he could fit right into Toriyama’s canon, it’s Coola. He leads his own section of his clan’s Planet Trade business empire and while he’s a notably better boss than his brother, that doesn’t make him any better an individual. Coola is actually a lot more level headed, mature, and pragmatic than Freeza, which is why he’s always been envious of how far ahead Freeza got in terms of power since birth, and how their father blatantly favored Freeza despite all the errors he made that seemed obvious to Coola. But when Freeza seemingly died by Goku’s hand, Coola’s loyalty to the notion of clan supremacy meant that he had to seek vengeance for his brother’s death, which is when he also showed off that he mastered an additional transformation of his final form that makes him even more powerful than Freeza! So let’s see, older brother of the series’ most iconic villain who is smarter and more competent than he, a better boss who inspires the actual loyalty of his minions, and has mastery over a fifth, even more powerful transformation that not even Freeza, the “most powerful being in the universe”, had or knew of? If you’re getting “fanfiction OC Villain Sue” vibes, I wouldn’t blame you, but that actually brings up the most brilliant part of Coola’s character - he’s actually a deconstructive subversion of a Villain Sue. For all his dismissal of Freeza’s overconfidence and being blinded by hatred of his Saiyan enemies, he falls prey to the exact same things during his battle with Goku, and then as he’s dying he realizes that Goku only lived to get as strong as he is because he’d seen his space pod shooting off into space but made the colossally stupid mistake of just letting him go while at the same time he was chiding Freeza for making the stupid mistake of overlooking the escaping pod! Seeing this hit Coola as he burns up in the sun is an immensely satisfying payoff. He kinda-sorta makes a comeback for the following movie, and has appeared in The Plan To Eradicate The Saiyans and a handful of video games, but nothing beats the memorability of his big debut.

14. Turles - The main villain of the third DBZ movie, Tree of Might. If Turles' appearance looks familiar to you, it's because he's sort of the OG Goku Black years before Black was a thing. In the movie he's depicted as a surviving Saiyan who swayed a handful of Freeza forces to defect from the Empire with him and form a competitor business, the Turles Crusher Corps, and there's literally no reason for him to share a face and hairstyle with Goku other than for symoblic purposes, as he represents with Kakarot might've grown up to be like had he never landed on Earth, gotten adopted by Gohan, and got a concussion, as the movie spells out towards the end. This setup seems pretty lazy, but Turles somehow manages to be an interesting, enjoyably fiendish and clever villain with a unique plan for sucking the life out of Earth so that he can lay claim to it and all its resources. My only lament with him is that the thrilling fight between him and Goku is for whatever reason continously interrupted by shots of the Earth as it's being effected by the Tree of Might, which weighs down the pace of the movie. But at least he goes out with a bang!

15. Garlic Jr. - The first DBZ anime movie villain and one of the good ones. The reasons for this is twofold - how he actually succeeds at what both Vegeta and Freeza wanted to do, wishing on the Dragon Balls for eternal life. But rather than making him too broken, this actually became a drawback for him in the end, as he’s stuck with a fate worse than death that he’s unable to escape. And also just how freaking dark and devilishly wicked he is. Seriously, here’s a dialogue sample from him: “The people of the universe better hear my voice now! From this day forward, I, Garlic Jr., will rule over all. I command all evil spirits to come forward and take on their physical forms once again. You are free to walk! A new dark age has finally begun! Let this world be drenched in the blood of the righteous. Now that I’m immortal, I will rule the universe forever! All creatures will obey me or perish. With every power I posses, my reign of terror will be everlasting!” Gives me chills, especially Don Brown’s rendition. Unfortunately, he also has two serious drawbacks. Not only is his entire evil plot that gains him immortality founded upon a massive plot hole (he tries to have Kami and Piccolo killed even though that would erase the Dragon Balls too, and he has Gohan abducted for no reason rather than simply take his Dragon Ball), but he was also recycled as the Big Bad of a godawful filler saga between the Freeza and Cell sagas of the anime that sort of suffered the Return Of Jafar syndrome - he himself wasn’t awful, he just didn’t show us much that we didn’t already see before and done better in his movie, wasn’t well serviced by the plot, and in general it just wasn’t a smart move to bring him into the anime’s narrative, as he and the events of his movie are incompatible with the canon story. His saga’s not quite Noah Kaiba level bad, but it’s close. That might’ve forever tarnished his image with fans, but he was a great villain in his debut movie.

16. Broly and Paragus - The evil Saiyans of Movie 8, The Legendary Super Saiyan. While the concept of two other surviving Saiyans of Planet Vegeta’s destruction seemed hard to swallow at first, they’re given some backstory that actually makes it plausible and even damn interesting, so they’re not merely another Turles situation. Paragus is fascinating due to how you can sympathize with him and understand why he’s bitter and yearns for a world to claim as his own and start up a new Saiyan race. However, he’s not only evil, deceptive, and a cold-blooded bastard, he is wildly, theatrically villainous, always flailing around with excitement and energy that makes him fun to watch. But its his young son Broly who’s the true theat. While he seems timid and quiet at first, it’s revealed that he’s the first known Saiyan to transform into a Super Saiyan outside of legend…and he’s also completely off his rocker. Broly is a psychotic monster, a sadist and a bully who relishes the opportunity to flaunt his power and destroy the lives of others for his own sick pleasure and amusement, and once a rampage starts for him, it will not stop until everyone and everything in his path is dead. His power is also very out of control, which is why Paragus does his best efforts to control his son and contain that power, which proves to be in vain when Goku becomes a factor, as Broly is 100% single-mindedly obsessed with killing Goku, or “KAKAROOOOTT!” as he's known to call him. There’s actually a reason for Broly’s madness, and while it's notoriously petty, it's not entirely nonsensical - when he was a newborn infant, his power rose to an abnormal level, as did that of the baby born on the same day who was right next to him: Kakarott. When Kakarott started crying, Broly eventually started crying too, with both babies shut in tubes unable to budge anywhere….and then King Vegeta ordered for baby Broly to be killed for his abnormal power level. Both he and his father barely survived…and Planet Vegeta got blown up soon after. So Goku isn’t really a reason for any of Broly’s insanity, he’s a trigger for it. His warped mind forever associates Kakarott and his crying with that trauma, so naturally he wants to silence Kakarott for good. Which still doesn’t even begin to excuse the level of cruelty Broly displays, though - as Gohan put it, he’s pure evil. Even Broly himself proudly proclaims to be a freak, a monster, even a DEVIL! He really was a solid villain in his debut movie, who unfortunately became an utterly awful one in his two later comebacks and it turned him into an oversaturated mess of a character, which kills a lot of goodwill that some could have for him. Alas, another victim of his own popularity. Thank Kami for Super!

17. Mira and Towa - A demonic duo known as the Time Breakers. Mira is the muscle of the team, preferring to take on enemies with his special powers and enhanced physical capabilities, whereas Towa is both the brains and the true power behind things, possessing both powerful sorcery skills and advanced scientific knowledge that she uses for her sick little experiments. It turns out that Towa is actually the sister of Dabura himself, and Mira is a warrior that she created through alchemy. First appearing in the MMORPG, Dragon Ball Online, and reappearing in the Xenoverse games, Heroes, Fusions, Kakarot and more, these two fiends have been relentless, formidable, and devious in all of their appearances to date.

18. Sealas and Aeos - Two of the most notable exclusive villains to come out of Super Dragon Ball Heroes, owing a lot to their designs and how they're both fallen heroes connected to time and space. Sealas is the founding operative of the Time Patrol and a strict believer in cosmic justice and in the greater good of necessary evils, wishing to do what's righteous even if he has to break natural laws and alter history to do so. Taking "with great power there must come great responsibility" to its most extreme, unhealthy level, Sealas broke with the Time Patrol and concluded that evil itself must be eradicated, and that this can only be truly done if history is rewritten to exclude all evil. It's a bit familiar and akin to Zamasu's motives, but much more "puritan" and semi-heroic in style and substance. Aeos, meanwhile, is the former Supreme Kai of Time who predates the Time Patrol and she cares nothing for any moralistic ideals such as justice: she is concerned only with balance and natural order, believing the existence of multiple timelines to be a threat to that. Personality-wise, she's one of the most fascinating antagonists in the franchise, seeming haughty, cold, and disdainful towards mortal beings and dismissive of her successor, yet she also showcases softer, kinder qualities, does deeds that seem good and fair, and isn't always so above it all when it comes to tactful reactions and behavior. She's hard to peg down, but after joining up with Chronoa and the rest for the final battle with Demigra, she has a change of heart regarding the multiverse and makes peace with her successor.

19. Hearts - Also hailing from the Dragon Ball Heroes canon is this dude. Hearts is a pale elven man who leads the Core Area Warriors and is known as the God Hater for his acts of revolt against the cosmic divine pantheon of the multiverse, as he seeks to liberate all mortal beings from the gods' grip. In this sense, he's like a Reverse Zamasu, cursing the existence of deities and wanting to kill them all in order to achieve a truly "free" multiverse. While arrogant, brash, hypocritical and self-righteous, Hearts is one of the more principled and values-believing baddies. He believes strongly in the multiverse's "nourishment" but has no qualms with launching terrorist attacks on planets and killing countless people in order to free only the surviving remainers, and it's a hypocritical contradiction he openly admits to and welcomes with grace. He's a rare good boss for this franchise who values his mortal comrades, and he appreciates a good fight with strong opponents just as much as the likes of Goku. Fittingly, he makes a Heel Turn later on and becomes as cool an ally as he was an enemy. My one huge issue with him is in his design - I think the hair he had during his initial appearance as a villain is way too similar to that of Fu, which makes looking at him a bit confusing. Thankfully he got a longer, more spiked out, better hair style later on.

20. Jiren the Gray - In what’s almost a reverse of Majin Buu, I didn’t care for this guy at all when he first came on the scene but he had a fairly strong finish to his run. He was this cookie cutter big, strong, silent, uber powerful warrior whose character was flat, archetype was done to death, and he just there to be what you were made to think Hit was going to be back in the Universe 6 Saga. In fact, I wouldn’t have classified him as a villain and put him here at all had the final round of the Tournament of Power not gone the way it did. We gradually came to learn that Jiren did have a single belief he followed in addition to his conviction to being the strongest fighter for the sake of his universe - that trust in others only ends in pain and disappointment, and that friendship need not exist among allies and teammates. He’s here for alliances, never for bonds. We even get his dark and troubled backstory that informs why he thinks and acts the way he does, which made him a lot more interesting in retrospect. And finally there’s his show of power in the final battle of the tournament. Holy crap, this is like what Majin Buu should have been in terms of how his full power was expressed. Jiren just feels like a nigh unstoppable engine of raw power and destructive fury. He exudes pure stamina, and for fighters with the power that the likes of Goku, Vegeta, Freeza, and even Android 17 have, there could be no worthier opponent. And if his “villain” status was in doubt, he fucking throws an attack straight at Goku’s friends in a spiteful act that forces Goku to jump in the way and ultimately de-powers him, which does effectively ensure that it was then impossible to root for Jiren and we wanted to see him get his ass handed to him even more! But despite this, he also displayed some honor and displeasure in having to take Goku out in a dirty way as suggested by Belmond, making him hard to outright hate either. The final leg of the fight with him is nothing short of amazing and the way he goes down is incredibly satisfying to see. He even gets a very touching sendoff with his teammates and then when brought back into existence, shows signs of possibly rethinking things and starting to grow and change for the better, and his hope to have a rematch with Goku and the rest of Universe 7′s fighters might be a sign of more things in times yet to come.

21. Lord Slug - The main villain of Movie 4. While he's a flat character with little motivation beyond warfare and conquest of worlds, Slug mainly works for the twist that was pulled with his character, as well known as it is now. Him blatantly ripping off King Piccolo's shtick of being old and wishing for his youth restored should give it away, but the fact that Slug is Namekian is a big reveal in the film, because he actually went to lengths to hide that about himself, wearing a helmet that covers his antennaes and ears, and coverings around his arms and legs. This is what makes him stand out, the fact that he is an actual, genuinely, by choice evil Namekian, who in a brazen act of betrayal of his people has become an invading warlord who makes conflicts and kills others, going directly against the Namekian's peace-loving ways. He also happens to be a Super Namekian, one who can expand his size to even larger heights than even Piccolo could! His big fight with Goku was overall nothing to write home about save for that and the moment Goku becomes a False Super Saiyan, but how he gets defeated, I could never forget.

22. Bojack - The main villain of Movie 9, Bojack Unbound. As hard as it is to hear his name and not think of a certain Horse Man, Bojack was quite the credible threat with a slick design and a charismatic presence. The strongest, most ruthless and fearsome space pirate in the universe, he rought havock across all four galaxies before getting imprisoned by the Kais. He's also a flat character who just exists to provide this movie with a villain, and how he and his crew come into the plot is absolutely ludicrous - turns out he was imprisoned inside of King Kai's planet, somehow even surviving what Beerus did to it, but got released when it got blown up by self-destructing Cell. And then they go on to partake in a beat by beat repeat of the Cell Games. In a movie where the Cell Games were established to have occurred. That's the one thing that takes me out about him, but otherwise he gets the job done well enough and was badass enough to make repeat appearances in Fusion Reborn and games, most notably Dragon Ball Heroes, which fleshed out his character better.

23. Dr. Lychee/Hatchiyack - Technically Dr. Lychee is an old alien scientist and Hatchiyack is his creation that carries on his hateful mind and spirit after he's passed away, but they’re connected in that way so they’ve both got this spot here. Originating from The Plan To Erradicate The Saiyans, the first DBZ video game to actually have a plot and two different OVA adaptations to accompany it, Lychee actually has understandable reason to hate the Saiyans and want them wiped out because, well, the Saiyans when working under the Freeza Planet Trade Empire were horrible and he’s one of their many victims. Thus Hatchiyack was created to be the ultimate anti-Saiyan weapon. And clearly the idea behind this caught on with fans and creators alike, as both Dr. Myuu with Baby in GT and Dr. Paparoni with Aniraza in Super were clearly inspired by Dr. Lychee and Hatchiyack. In that way, this mad space doctor’s spirit still lives on.

24. Dr. Myuu - Speaking of ol’ Dr. Myuu, he’s one of the beter villains from the poorly done turd pile that was Dragon Ball GT. Being one part alien and one part machine, possessing a keen scientific mind and a feverish passion for his experiments, and having ambitions to control the universe and convert all of its denizens into his machines, Myuu was a cruel and treacherous villain who raised the stakes and darkened up the scene in a show that had begun as a stupid wacky throwback to DB’s roots but Recycled IN SPACE! From his very design, you can tell he's essentially Dr. Gero Recycled IN SPACE! He masterminded much of what went on in that initial saga by directing the Cult of Ludd from behind the curtian, had many intimidating robotic and cyborg henchman like General Rilldo (himself a decent antagonist too), even had Giru working with Goku, Pan and Trunks as a spy for him (or so he’d hoped), and the set of episodes on Planet M-2 where the heroes faced him down really was the high point of the GT series, especially when it reached it’s downright terrifying finale. Myuu himself was also the best part of the otherwise abysmal Super 17 saga, where he got to work with his counterpart Dr. Gero, and stab him in the back to try and rule Hell and Earth,

25. Baby - OK, his character is uninspired and derived from other, better villains, his arrival on Earth marked when GT took a turn for the increasingly worse and more boring, and his name is Baby: there is no fucking way I can take that as a serious villain. Yet despite all that, he's objectively the strongest GT-exclusive Big Bad. The idea behind his character arc is actually brimming with potential, how he's a living conduit of wrath against the Saiyans for all the victims they'd claimed as well as seeking a new planet to settle and populate, but in his fervor to achieve his goals he ends up becoming every bit as cruel, self-interested and power-mad as the Saiyans. He's also the source of some genuine horror and Paranoia Fuel with how he can extend his mind and possess anyone he chooses. The execution just fails him like it failed many others, including a needless extended takeover of Vegeta's body, a transformation into a giant golden gorilla, and getting killed while trying to flee rather than engaging in one final fight. Good for him that he's not the worst, but he still could've been much better than a weird pale Hatchiyack imitation.

Honorable Mentions:

Dr. Gero - This guy played Greater Scope Villain for the Red Ribbon Saga, the Androids/Cell Saga, and Dragon Ball Super: Superhero, not to mention had a part in other stuff like (ugh) the Super 17 Saga in GT and the storyline of FighterZ. Gero is unique in that he never really got to play the Big Bad role at any point despite having been the originally intended Big Bad for the Androids Saga, yet stands responsible for as much widespread damage as any Big Bad all due to the bitterness, hatred, malice and stubborn pride within him that refused to die even as he aged and lost all the family he had. While he thus couldn't make the list, it is commendable all the same.

Tienshinhan - Tien played the role of Big Bad for the 22nd Budokai Saga, fighting in the tournament under the guidance of his mentor, Master Shen the Hermit Crane. A good old fashioned martial arts antagonist in the vein of the Cobra Kai jerks in The Karate Kid, Tien played the role with exquisite disdain, cockiness, and cold blooded cruelty while also being the most interesting character who recieves great character development before his explosive bout with Goku and embarking on a compelling redemption arc for the next Sagas. Far from the franchise's best baddie, but servicable for what he was.

Babidi - Initially the primary antagonist of the Majin Buu arc before Buu himself killed him and went rouge to do his own shit, the dark wizard Babidi is completely vile and reprehensible, not to mention absolutely hideous, but managed to retain a certain charm and whimsy about him that is typical in Toriyama antagonists. The terror of Buu would not have been possible without him and his deceased father Bibidi, nor would the good stuff that came with it like the sacrificial redemption of Vegeta, the fusions of Goten and Trunks, and the character development of Mr. Satan! Oh, and the debut of...

Dabura - While introduced to the franchise as a cultist working with Babidi to revive Majin Buu, Dabura was also stated to be among the most powerful of lords from the demon realm, someone who even the Supreme Kai feared, and carried about him quite the fiendish, sinister presence, making how he got done in by Buu to feel like quite a waste. Thankfully, he's made a resurgance in video game canons like Xenoverse and Heroes, expanding upon him as a Big Bad devil!

Black Smoke Shenron - I actually don’t like this one - I just like the idea behind him. The concept that the great dragon diety of the Dragon Balls turns into a dark, evil creature as consequence of the Dragon Balls being overused for selfish wishes was a very inspired one, and that’s…actually an even better idea for a franchise final boss than Freeza, Cell, Buu, or Beerus, as it hearkens back to the very start of the story. So it's a damn shame that this concept had to be utterly wasted with the underwhelming, unitelligable usage of the 7 Shadow Dragons, even the cool looking Omega Shenron! Just give me the initial cigar chomping evil smoke dragon and I’m good!

Called it. And shame on everyone who actually voted for Super 17!

And of course, the villain who out-Buu'd Majin Buu emerges on top.

Surprised Broly got as much votes as he did. I guess that first movie of his is still popular.

LOL, nobody voted for King Gurumes and Android 13. Totally understandable.

This is the best result, since those two really are the finest alt. canon villains.

(No offense to Towa and her family, who put up a good fight here as well.)

If you're only going by the original publication of Dragon Ball (so excluding those last five villains who were introduced in its revival), I will always maintain that Cell is the greatest; being the most dynamic Big Bad as well as the most threatening, with the story arc around him and the final battle against him being the best ones in the series. However, if you're talking about villains across the entire franchise? It has to be Freeza. From his own story arc, the Freeza Saga, to the start of the following Cell Saga, to anime filler in Hell during the Buu Saga, to Resurrection F, to the Tournament of Power, to Broly and to the end of the Granolah Saga, not to mention side material such as Bardock: The Father of Goku and countless video games, he's the villain with the most exposure and development, all while maintaining his wonderfully despicable personality. He is, was and always will be the most iconic DB villain.

@danthepest: I believe the shift in Piccolo's characterization in regards to his temper during the Namek Saga was due to Vegeta. Toriyama was likely worried that they would be too similar if Piccolo maintained that edginess, so he became more of the stoic, serious warrior type in order to better contrast with the more hotheaded Vegeta. So, I can excuse that. Him barely doing anything in battle except serving as a brief distraction after getting bodied by Freeza's third form is less excusable. I feel like Piccolo became more interesting and active in the Androids Saga, but then he fused with Kami which was soon after followed by....this.

He may as well have died at that point, especially in the original manga, as nothing more of substance was done with him and the whole "merged with Kami" factor wasn't explored beyond being the impetus to bring in Dende as Earth's new guardian. The most he did was call Goku out on his stupidity in regards to sending Gohan in to fight Cell. The anime at least had him do better against the Cell Jrs. and the aforementioned moment assisting Gohan.

@ultraericthered: Yes, Super Hero was fantastic for Piccolo, weird orange form and all.

You know what, no, I'm gonna ramble about this some more. Piccolo is my favourite character in Dragon Ball. Always has been since I first watched Dragon Ball as a kid and saw the fight between him and Goku.

When I found out he becomes one of the good guys in Z, I was really expecting him to be Goku's equal, not just another guy in the background twidling his thumbs waiting for Goku to arrive and save the day. I was expecting him to go full beast mode on the villains, even if he doesn't finish them off. This guy was evil incarnate at the time. He and Goku brutalized each other to the point where neither could stand anymore. Goku won on a technicality.

Like, imagine when Freeza was brutalizing Gohan and Piccolo showed up, instead of doing the whole I'm-the-stoic-warrior-here-to-stall-for-time, he went berserk like he did during his fight with Goku.

Imagine him going like this at Freeza for hurting Gohan

Scaring him and reminding the audience that he's Piccolo fucking Daimao. You can still have Freeza get his dumb transformations out of the way and have Piccolo put up a good fight before Goku shows up to take over because Piccolo is tired or injured or whatever. Have Freeza worry about the two teaming up like they did against Raditz. Have Piccolo's presence mean something beyond just another shocked and worried face in the crowd. That kind of temper he had doesn't just go away without going out of your way to work on it.

Piccolo had so much potential in Z. His relationship with Gohan is such a great part of his character, but really underutilized in the grand scheme of thing, both in and out of battles. Him charging at Cell during his and Gohan's Kamehameha struggle was such a great moment that I wish we saw more of that stuff throughout. The fact that Toriyama didn't think to write something like that in the manga is a crime.

Bleh. I'm in a mood about my green alien demon boy.

Reblogging 20 days later because I need to say one more thing:

Something about the saga that is sometimes regarded as a flaw (including by Toriyama since he was the one who had to suffer the stress from it) was the editorial interference shuffling around who the villains are. And to be blunt, I disagree entirely - this ended up being one of the saga's strengths. Every prior saga had made it clear who the Big Bad was from the very beginning - the Red Ribbon Army, the Crane Hermit School, Demon King Piccolo, Piccolo Jr., the three Saiyans with Vegeta as their leader, and of course Freeza. It had become a predictable formula, and having Androids 19 and 20 be the main villains as Toriyama originally planned would have just been more of the same. Having it so that they aren't the two androids that Future Trunks had been warning about, then introducing a third android alongside those two, and then throwing in Cell with his creepy-as-fuck horror movie-style intro? That's one of the things that made the saga so exciting: suddenly you weren't sure where it was going when it came to what the biggest threat was. It kept you guessing even when Cell was around, since 16, 17 and 18 were still on the board with their own agenda, and later there was a moment it looked like Cell might not reach perfection after all since Vegeta was so effortlessly dominating him in battle. And what made it really work, IMO, was that Dr. Gero, the originally intended Big Bad, remained the connective tissue between them all. It was his madness, his sheer hatred that was ultimately the greatest evil that had to be overcome; Perfect Cell was merely the embodiment of it. The thread was tied so tightly that you could swear that it was pre-planned even when it wasn't. Toriyama may have been frustrated and burned out by it, but that push and pull between him and his editors ultimately worked out for the best and gave us quite possibly the greatest arc in all of Dragon Ball.

Unpopular(?) Opinion Re:Dragon Ball

The Android / Cell Saga is the best story arc in Dragon Ball Z, if not all of Dragon Ball.

Having been revisiting the series lately due to Akira Toriyama's shocking and untimely death, and comparing the story arcs of DBZ in their manga, original anime and Kai forms, I feel like despite the Saiyan / Vegeta and Namek / Freeza Sagas being far more iconic worldwide, it's the Android / Cell Saga that came out best in all incarnations. First off, there's the pacing:

Saiyan / Vegeta: 48 Chapters Namek / Freeza: 87 Chapters Android / Cell: 91 Chapters

Saiyan / Vegeta: 35 Episodes Namek / Freeza: 72 Episodes Android / Cell: 77 Episodes

Saiyan / Vegeta: 16 Episodes Namek / Freeza: 38 Episodes Android / Cell: 44 Episodes

In all versions, this is the longest arc, and yet it's paced much better than the previous two.

The Saiyan / Vegeta Saga spent 30 of its 48 manga chapters dealing with Nappa and Vegeta on Earth; Raditz lasted just 10 and then only 8 were spent in preparation for Nappa and Vegeta's arrival. The original anime gave Raditz 5 episodes, 16 episodes for preparation, and 14 episodes for the big battle. For the former, it felt like the middle portion ran far too short which caused the end to drag on, whereas in the latter it's the reverse: the middle lasted far longer than it needed to as several episodes were spent on filler bullshit like a bug planet, a second Oozaru transformation for Gohan, fighting phony Saiyans inside a simulation room, or a backstory for the Saiyans and the destruction of their planet that ends up at complete odds with actual canon. Only Kai got it down right, with the first half (Raditz + preparation) and the second half (Nappa and Vegeta) both lasting 8 episodes, making it the ideal version.

The Namek / Freeza Saga has 27 chapters at the beginning where everyone goes to Namek and hunts for the Dragon Balls, 22 chapters at the middle where the Ginyu Force is the focal point, and finally 38 chapters at the end where we get the battle with Freeza. So yeah, the end section dragged on longer than it probably needed to. The anime is much worse: 23 episodes beginning, 16 episodes middle, and 33 episodes end, with a fair amount in each section being pure filler such as Fake Namek, zany Bulma shenanigans, or diversion after diversion during Goku's fight with Freeza. Once again, Kai is the most preferable version, as it again combines the beginning and middle into a first half and the end into a second half, both lasting 19 episodes, dividing the arc into pre-Porunga and post-Porunga sections.

Then we have the Android / Cell Saga. 30 chapters at the beginning where Dr. Gero and his androids are the central threat, 30 chapters at the middle where Cell emerges as the true villain and goes through his transformations, and 31 chapters at the end centered around the Cell Games....and the last of those two can essentially be considered one elongated epilogue chapter starring Future Trunks, meaning it's more like 30/30/30. The original anime's equivalent is 23 episodes, 25 episodes, and 29 episodes respectively - it's almost perfect, with the only flaw being the end section needlessly being dragged out by two episodes more than is needed (one where Hercule and two anime-exclusive students of his hog the spotlight even when the ultimate outcome of their antics is obvious and one where Cell inexplicably spends the entire length charging up his final Kamehameha). Kai makes the pace perfect again, with 14 episodes at the beginning, 14 at the middle, and 16 at the end, with the last two being the wrap-up and epilogue respectively following the main action against Cell.

Beyond the pacing, there's the content. Not only does this arc hold some of the most interesting and influential ideas (the existence of alternate timelines, Dr. Gero's scientific genius, Vegeta's character development, Piccolo and Kami becoming one again, the depths of Gohan's power, etc.) and not only did Toriyama and his editors fluke their way into a remarkable degree of consistency despite nothing having been pre-planned, but almost every character gets something important to do. In the previous arcs, you could count the important heroes on one hand: Goku, Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo, and the helpful comic relief (Yajirobe in the former, Bulma in the latter). They and the villains carried the arcs while everyone else were either a plot device (hi, King Kai!), sidelined, or made into cannon fodder. But here, in addition to now also having Vegeta and Future Trunks among the heroes, you get important and useful roles for not just those aforementioned characters but also Tien, Yamcha, Roshi, Dr. Brief, Kami, Dende, and even newcomer Hercule (poor Chi Chi and Chiaotzu, though).

And while the villains collectively don't quite measure up to the Freeza Empire in iconic status, they are still superbly designed and characterized, making them highly memorable. Cell himself has got to be the standout, being as good if not better a foe than Freeza. Let's just put it this way: once Goku went Super Saiyan, Freeza was done for, and his destructive tantrum that blew up Namek ultimately claimed no victims. With Cell, it looks like things are going the same way once Gohan goes Super Saiyan 2, but then his destructive tantrum that risks blowing up Earth actually does come at the cost of Goku's life! And then, Cell comes back, now as powerful as Super Saiyan 2 Gohan as he insta-kills Trunks, curb-stomps Vegeta, and breaks Gohan's arm before preparing to blow up Earth again, this time at no cost to himself! This was hands-down the biggest "Oh my God; holy shit; Game Over, man; there's no way out of this" situation in all of Dragon Ball, making the ensuing Kamehameha beam struggle where Gohan is guided by Goku's spirit all the more epic and satisfying. The anime and Kai made it even better, allowing Piccolo, Krillin, Tien and Yamcha to keep on trying to help against Cell despite how futile it was, inspiring a despondent Vegeta to get back into the fray and providing his crucial assist blast. It takes all of the Z-Fighters to save the world.

So that's my take. This story arc is just....well, perfect.

The DB Wiki really puts it into perspective: paragraphs upon paragraphs upon paragraphs for Gotenks during the Buu Saga...and then about one paragraph for everything else. And I get why that happened; even I was annoyed by him as the Buu Saga went on! But it seems like going to the opposite extreme and just makes the Buu Saga even weaker in retrospect.

Okay as much as I loved Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, I was actually so mad when Trunks and Goten screwed up the fusion. Like y’all had the perfect opportunity for some badass older Gotenks moments but nooooo, you decided to waste it

Don't worry, it gets better!

I said it gets better!

There! (Whatever his other faults, Toyotaro should be commended for actually making Gohan Beast work, making it more of a proper fusion between SS2 Gohan and Mystic Gohan than just a SS2 retread, not to mention actually naming it and making it truly mean something.)

obsessing over them.

Hot take: this game isn't so bad.........in two-player mode, anyway.

How Toriyama/Toyotaro salvaged "End of Z"

Let me start this post with a personal confession that may or may not be unpopular: I have very little interest in Dragon Ball DAIMA. I have slightly more than I used to after Akira Toriyama's death since I am naturally curious to see what the last Dragon Ball related material he ever produced is like, but otherwise it still looks like just a different take on Dragon Ball GT, my least favorite Dragon Ball series, except that more characters than just Goku turn young and it's the Demon Realm that's being explored instead of space. It also doesn't help that the head writer, Yuko Kakihara, makes me nervous - she's done fine work as an episodic script writer on anime such as Fresh Pretty Cure, My Bride is a Mermaid, and Pokémon Journeys, and she was fantastic as the head writer of IRODUKU: The World in Color. But in terms of shows closer to what Dragon Ball DAIMA seems like, she was head writer on that god-awful Stitch anime that Disney stupidly allowed to be made. Worse still, she was the writer of Digimon Adventure Tri. So you can understand why I have reservations.

Point is, I consider Dragon Ball DAIMA to be a sideshow, regardless of what its merits may end up being. For me personally, it's the manga/anime trilogy of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super that really counts the most. And as tragic as the circumstances behind the end of Toriyama's involvement on the latter are, I am highly impressed what he and his mangaka protégée Toyotaro were able to accomplish. With three major steps, they have substantially retconned the notoriously underwhelming ending of the original manga series and DBZ anime, known as "End of Z" among fans, in a way that makes a satisfying closure.

The first step was way back in Dragon Ball Online. Toriyama was involved back then in canonically mapping out the future of the Dragon Ball world, long after Goku, his friends and his family have passed away. And a major part of that was how Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Pan affected that world for the better in their adult lives. Gohan in particular has a masterful end to his long struggle between being a fighter and being a scholar by becoming a scholar on ki fighting techniques, publishing a study that makes it widely possible for humans around the world to master ki control and gain flight and energy blasts. It's a perfect outcome for him.

The second step was through Toriyama's involvement in the new movies and Super series. End of Z now cannot happen the way it was presented in the original manga and anime. There are way too many discrepancies, from character appearances, the lack of certain characters who it would make little sense not to be there, and details like "none of Goku's friends saw him for 5 years before then" which have now been completely contradicted. Obviously the 28th Budokai where Goku meets Uub and takes him under his wing for training is still canon, but that event is now free to transpire in a far more plausible and satisfactory way than the famously rushed, haphazard and OOC way in which it was depicted before.

The third and final step was the last collaboration between Toriyama and Toyotaro in the Super manga. The final three chapters they worked on together were an epilogue to the story of the Super Hero film, actually tying its plot together with the side plot featuring Goku and Vegeta on Beerus' planet. Perhaps responding to prevalent criticisms, the movie had already made a major point of showing how the world can still be successfully defended by the Z Fighters even without Goku and Vegeta being there. And in these three chapters, the point is carried even further by having Goku test what the new generation is capable of, a theme that's even reflected in the final chapter's title, "Passing On To The Future". This completely recontextualizes End of Z. Originally made as a laughable attempt to salvage the "Goku passing the torch" direction with Uub in place of Gohan after Toriyama botched it so badly with him, now it makes Uub only the latest in a large field of fighters that includes Gohan. Now it's Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Pan, even Broly of all people, who are being gathered as Earth's next line of defense once Goku and Vegeta finally expire. Uub will join that group. (Oh, and being Namekian, both Piccolo and Dende will still be around to assist, of course.)

So while the narrative of Dragon Ball may have peaked with the Cell Saga, now the Majin Buu Saga -> Battle of Gods Saga -> Resurrection F Saga -> Universe 6 Saga -> Future Trunks / Goku Black Saga -> Universe Survival Saga -> Broly Saga -> Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga -> Granolah the Survivor Saga -> Super Hero Saga -> End of Z together create a worthier follow-up than just the Majin Buu Saga -> End of Z was back in the day. Certainly not perfect, even when leaving the loose ends out of it (so Freeza's just gonna stay loose out there with a new ultimate form?), but feeling much closer to a fully realized ending.

Thank you, Toriyama. You made it up as you went along right to the very end, but as usual, your remarkable creative talent managed to make it all fit together. You are deeply missed.