With Dragon Ball DAIMA on the horizon, the Dragon Ball franchise is showing no signs of slowing down. Is it exactly what fans want? No, but let’s trust that this isn’t going to be GT all over again!
Akira Toriyama has turned out some of the most compelling villains in shonen anime history, and hopefully that trend continues with DAIMA. In the meantime, we’re looking back at some really cool facts about villains from the entire franchise that have the potential to catch even super fans off guard. For example, do you know who the inspiration for Majin Buu is? Let’s just say we hope Toriyama’s coworkers have a good sense of humor!
Read on to learn about the man who inspired Majin Buu and 8 other really cool villain facts from the Dragon Ball franchise.
9. Buu Wasn’t Actually Created By Bibidi
A lot of DBZ fans think that Buu was created by Bibidi about 5 million years ago, but that’s a misconception. Actually, Buu has been around since before the advent of recorded time. Since then, he’s been alternating between destroying everything around him and hibernating. Rather than creating him, Bibidi just woke up up during a period of hibernation. After Buu absorbed Supreme King Kai, Bibidi took advantage of his newly docile personality to seal him away. Several million years ago, Bibidi’s clone Babidi released him from the seal.
8. Cell Wasn’t Supposed To Be The Main Villain Of His Arc
Despite being the main villain of his self-titled arc, Cell wasn’t originally intended to be the main villain. At first, the idea was that Android 19 and 20 would play that role, but Toriyama nixed the idea on the grounds that they weren’t especially intimidating, they were just an “old man” and a “fat china doll.” Android 17 and 18 were next up, but Toriyama’s editor dismissed them as punk kids.
7. No One Actually Knows What Ginyu’s Real Body Looks Like
You might think that you know what Captain Ginyuu looks like, but you actually don’t. That’s because even when he’s first introduced, he isn’t inhabiting his original body – instead, he’s using a body that he swapped into at some point during the past. The only person who actually knows what his original body is like is the leader of Cooler’s Armored Squadron, Salza. His original appearance could have been similar, but it could have been completely different – he might have been a different gender, or even a different species.
6. Majin Buu May Have Been Based On Toriyama’s Editor
Akira Toriyama has claimed on multiple occasions that Majin Buu is based on his editor, Fuyuto Takeda. However, when he was asked about this in Dragon Ball Forever, he said that he didn’t intentionally do this, but may have done so without meaning to.
It’s not clear what the truth is, but it’s an interesting claim to fame for Takeda. Of course, he has other claims too – he gave Mr. Satan the spotlight more than once in DBZ, and he also worked on another popular series, One Piece.
5. Frieza Has A Son
Frieza doesn’t exactly seem like the fatherly type, but he actually has a son named Kuriza. Kuriza appeared in a Dragon Ball parody called Nekomajin that Toriyama published from 1999 to 2005.
Because he’s part of a parody series, Kuriza isn’t strictly canon, but it’s still interesting to think about what one of the most evil villains in anime history would be like as as dad.
4. Frieza Is A Frost Demon
There are aliens with all kinds of different traits in the world of Dragon Ball Z, but very few of them resemble Frieza. It turns out that Frieza is a Frost Demon, a species that hails from Planet Geyser of the South Galaxy. The planet is freezing cold and low on food, so only the strongest are able to survive to adulthood. Not only can Frost Demons survive harsh conditions with few resources, they can also breathe in space without assistance. No wonder Frieza is so powerful.
3. Frieza Is Censored For Confusing Reasons
When anime from the 90s and early 2000s was imported to the USA and dubbed for television, it usually underwent some kind of censorship. Some of these changes were predictable enough, involving things like excessive blood, nudity, and profanity. Other changes weren’t nearly as straightforward.
For some reason, why Frieza launches Vegeta into a lake, then dragged him out of it by the neck. He notices a crab skittering across Vegeta’s back, and devours it. This scene is removed. The reason for this was never confirmed, but it’s probably because of concerns about animal rights. It’s still weird as heck – generally, eating crab is a far more acceptable activity than strangling is.
2. Frieza Was Inspired By The Japanese Housing Crisis
One of the reasons why Frieza seems so much eviler than many of the other villains is that he’s an exaggeration of a real phenomenon – the Japanese housing crisis. Thanks to real estate sales that drove the prices of housing to unattainable levels, and the recession that followed, many Japanese people found it difficult to afford housing in the late 80s.
This is around when Toriyama was creating Frieza, a villain who buys and sells planets without the slightest amount of empathy for the lives he destroys in the process. Toriyama says that this resemblance was intentional.
1. Cell’s Extra Forms Were Created Thanks To Negative Feedback
Akira Toriyama’s editor hasn’t exactly gone easy on him when it comes to his designs – especially those involving Cell. Originally, Imperfect Cell was going to be the villain’s only form, but Toriyama’s editor felt that the insect theme didn’t work. He also didn’t like Semi-Perfect Cell, and wanted Toriyama to have him transform into Perfect Cell as quickly as possible. Toriyama has stated that he found Cell enormously complicated to write and create, so it’s possible that the negative feedback had something to do with that.