Favorite Villains

[TenshinFan]

Major, minor, filler, whatever. Who are your favorites??

Mine:

10. Piccolo Daimao
9. Nappa
8. Vegeta
7. Freeza
6. Tao Pai Pai
5. Raditz
4. Ma Junior
3. Tenshinhan
2. Artificial Human 13
1. Baby

In-depth explanations later!

[piccolo-san785]

3. Buu (fat)
2. Cell (final form)
1. Pilaf

[Cipher]

I had in-depth explanations for all of these, and then my browser closed unexpectedly. So here's a list, with explanations coming at a later point.

10. Hirudegarn
9. General Rilldo
8. General Blue
7. Androids 17 & 18
6. Assistant Black
5. Babidi
4. Tao Pai Pai
3. Freeza
2. Majin Buu (all forms, and as a hero too)
1. Appule

And if you count Vegeta on Namek as a villain, he's on there too. In one of the higher positions.

[Gotham22]

10. Garlic Jr.
9. Captain Gyinu
8. General Blue
7. Android 17
6. Cooler
5. Piccolo/ Ma Junior
4. Freeza
3. Cell
2. Gohan-Buu
1. Vegeta

[Silver Sinspawn]

10 ) Spice
9 ) Dodoria
8 ) Ozotto (If we count games, otherwise Mercenary Tao Pai Pai)
7 ) Cellin (If we count games, otherwise, Captain Ginyu)
6 ) Android 15
5 ) Nappa
4 ) Dabura
3 ) Raditz
2 ) Ninja Murasaki
1 ) Tullece

[Kid Buu]

Only doing the Z portion of the series as that is what I am most familiar with.

1. Vegeta
2. Majin Buu
3. Freeza
4. Garlic Jr
5. Zarbon
6. Perfect Cell
7. Raditz
8. Android #17/#18
9. Dabura
10. Ginyu -

[MCDaveG]

Piccolo Daimao and Freeza with no doubt.
From movies and filler, I like Coola but not in 6th movie, Shura from Dragon Ball and Dr. Wheelo as one of the most original villains in filler/movie.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Definately Piccolo Daimaoh, followed by Ii Shinron and Freeza.

[Rory]

I don't really have a top TEN, but I'll give you a top 3:

3.
Cell
2.
Piccolo Daimao
1.
Freeza

[Amigo Ten]

Ninja Murasaki, Freeza, and Boo (but only fat, evil (the gray one) and super).

[VegettoEX]

Let's all try to add some actual substance to our posts instead or just tossing up lists . It's all about conversations, here!

I waver on who my favorite villain is depending on what kind of mood I'm in. More often than not, I go with Freeza. I don't even particularly love the arc that he's a part of, but the character himself is perhaps the most nuanced and believable villain (other than those that join the group and become friends like Piccolo and Vegeta).

Also, Nakao. Seriously. C'mon.

[Ultimate_DB_Fan]

What about Linda Young?

[Cipher]

Let's all try to add some actual substance to our posts instead or just tossing up lists . It's all about conversations, here!

Like I said, I was trying. But my internet had other ideas. Anyway, my re-typed justifications:

Hirudegarn - An out-and-out kaiju villain was a great idea for a movie. Add a unique power and a strangely terrifying design for Dragon Ball, and you've got yourself a winner.

General Rilldo - I honestly love GT to bits, but it's villains were possibly the weakest part of the show. Rilldo stands out simply for having one of the best abilities ever given to a character: the power to basically become the entire M2 planet. That, and his fight with Goku was particularly well-animated the whole way through.

General Blue - One of the last completely gag villains, and also one of the best. Not a whole lot to say about him, except that every scene he's in is genuinely hilarious and entertaining.

Androids 17 and 18 - I prefer 18 in her "good-guy" role, but I love the disproportionately large-foreheaded misadventures these two had during the Cell arc. I'm always a fan of secondary villains doing their own thing, a la Namek arc Vegeta.

Assistant Black - You know what's great about Black? He's a fairly normal guy with a lot of common sense. In Dragon Ball, that's really refreshing in a villain.

Babidi - At this point in the series, it's kind of nice to see a non-fighting villain again. That, and every snarky interaction he has with the main cast members and the innocent people of Earth is priceless.

Tao Pai Pai - From this point on, I have a really hard time deciding which villains I like better. Tao is the perfect blend of comedy and threat. He's the first opponent to be able to go toe-to-toe with Goku, and everything he does is hilariously over-the-top. The flying pillar, the tongue kill, etc. The fact that he became a somewhat recurring villain was a major treat, and his moments with Goku before the Cell Games are probably the most pure and decent filler Toei ever created.

Freeza - Everything in the series builds up to a confrontation with this guy. His presence makes the Namek arc by far the darkest portion of the series, and I don't think the heroes are every so hopelessly outmatched before or after. His descent into madness and paranoia is also well done. My only gripe is that he's not the most entertaining character on his own. (So, basically the opposite of Mike's opinion. I love what he does for the arc, but not necessarily the character himself.)

Majin Buu - Buu can't be on the screen/page long enough. His first appearence is terrific, with everyone from Dabura to Vegeta pounding on this gag-styled villain and slowly asking themselves just what the hell they're up against. There's no form of Buu that I don't find hugely entertaining, but Fat Buu's solo adventures after killing Babidi are a highlight.

Appule - There's just so much to say about him. There was that one time he took orders from Freeza and Zarbon; that was pretty great. Or that other time he discovered a ransacked village, but didn't in the anime. Or how about that other time Vegeta killed him in the healing room? Good times. Deep stuff.

Vegeta on Namek (The kind-of villain) - This is the only time in the series Vegeta manages to be an interesting character, and he does it in spades. I shouldn't need to explain this.

[Amigo Ten]

Murasaki is just impossible to hate. His little section is perhaps the funniest part of the whole series.

Freeza I like because he has the best characterisation of all the villains. Even though I don't find him to be that entertaining for the most part, he has enough personality to make up for it.

The Boos are pretty much the opposite of Freeza, in that there's not a lot of personality or substance to them, but I find them immensely entertaining. The ones I mentioned at least. Fat Boo, gray Boo, and super Boo I liked immediately from the moment they appeared because they're all just really expressive. Most of the villains are pretty reserved and calm to begin, but the Boos were just fun. Although I never liked kid Boo.

[Majin Buu]

1. Piccolo Daimao/Majin Buu (all forms).

I like both of these guys so much that I can't choose one over the other. Piccolo because he was the first major threat in the series and had the heroes on the ropes for most of the arc. He was generally in control of the situation, managed to accomplish his goals (restore his youth and take over the world ), and defeated Goku (and technically killed him as his heart stopped for a moment). In addition, he was the first villain to cause an impressive amount of death and destruction (one of my favorite panels/shots is him standing among the smoldering ruins of the city he just destroyed trying to kill Goku). Plus, he has cool looking henchmen.

Majin Buu because he's funny. He can make you laugh on one hand and commit acts of genocide on another. I also like that sort of carefree "I wanna have fun" aspect to him like Mike and them said on the podcast a while ago (even though fun for him is killing and destroying). Also, his nature as a magical/demonic being makes for all sorts of weird and unique abilities (turning people into candy, using parts of his body as a weapon, etc). Finally, he's the only Dragon Ball villain to cause tons of global scale death and destruction on Earth. While previous villains like Vegeta, Freeza, and Cell intended to destroy the Earth and kill everyone on it, Buu was the only one to actually do it (well, aside from the Jinzoningen in Future Trunks' timeline, but even they didn't wipe out the ENTIRE population, let alone completely obliterate the planet like Buu ended up doing. Plus there's the fact that this took place in an alternate timeline. The Earth in the regular timeline had not experienced this level of global catastrophe until Buu showed up).

2. Cell - I like Cell because two of his three forms had awesome designs and because he was such an arrogant, yet cool prick. He was (over) confident and high on himself like previous villains were, but there was something about him that made the way he came off about it seem so much cooler than Freeza and Vegeta. Maybe it's the combination of Norio Wakamoto's brilliant voice acting and the awesome designs for his first and perfect forms.

3. Babidi - I like Babidi mainly because he's such a delight to listen to in Japanese. Joji Yanami nailed it with the whiny old man voice he gave him. I also like how he has the demeanor of a child despite seeming like an old man (he whines when things go wrong and orders around and insults Buu the way a spoiled brat would). And like Cipher said, his interactions with the characters and the people of Earth are just amusing to watch because he's just such an evil jerk the entire time.

4. Freeza - He's not my favorite villain, but he's probably the most significant and evil one of the series. Plus I like how his polite yet condescending demeanor veils his more visceral emotions.

5. Dabra - I like Dabra because he has a cool design, and because despite just being a glorified henchman, he feels more like a main villain. I wish he had done a bit more though.

6. Bebi - He was by far GT's best villain. He had a kind of sympathetic motive (wanting to avenge the extinction of his people) and went about accomplishing it in such a grand way (I mean come on, implanting everyone on Earth with eggs that turn them into mindless Tsufurus that worship him and taking over the body of the prince of the race that eradicated his people, that's just awesome). I like how the longer he stays in Vegeta's body, the more Vegeta begins to look like him. Though I wish we had seen more of adult Bebi because I really liked his design.

7. Janenba - I like him mainly because of his awesome abilities and because he's basically Toei's version of Majin Buu.

8. Dr. Wheelo - I've always liked him because of his design.

[yummypixels]

Vegeta, as a villain, was top-notch. He was ruthless, powerful, and arrogant. Seeing him toss aside and kill Nappa without even a second thought was spectacular for a villain in DragonBall. I liked that when he arrived he was the exact opposite of Goku in every way. Both were full saiyans and both were powerful, but one was purely good and the other purely evil. Of course, I also loved watching Vegeta transform internally throughout the series. Either way, I will have to go with Vegeta as my favorite villain. I think Freeza would come in at number two.

[penguintruth]

My favorite villain is probably Freeza. I mean, you have this sort of courteous gentleman on the surface with this bemused casual attitude towards horrible atrocities he and his men are committing. He has a very scary personality, that he can be so calm and dignified one moment and a raging beast you don't want to mess with the next makes him a very interesting character. And of course, few villains have caused the amount of fear Freeza has in the cast. At one point, Vegeta is practically shitting himself with fear at the very prospect of having to take Freeza on.

My only gripe with Freeza are the time-wasting different forms and the likewise time-wasting fight with him. A fight that has its moments but then gets weighed down by how long it is. But that's more of a gripe with the story itself, and not the character.

As for other villains, as much as I love the Cell arc, I always saw him as more of an obstacle, a force in the way, than a real character villain. Any traits he had came from others, not from him, and it was more about Goku and Gohan overcoming this overwhelming force than it was defeating this great villain. Buu was just sort of a throwback to the silliness of the early DB antagonists, but with a twist. He wasn't such a great villain, more of a force of nature.

I would give honorable mentions to Piccolo Daimao and Vegeta, though. Piccolo Daimao managed to take over the world and the battle with Vegeta became one of total desperation that was just barely won by a hair (or rather, a tail).

[Gaffer Tape]

I have to say Freeza as well, although I agree with what penguintruth said. The character itself is just so refined, so enjoyably evil, so calculatingly intelligent that it's hard not to both like him and be afraid of him. And while Namek itself is a boring place, I enjoy the game of subterfuge going on for the first half of the Freeza arc, which contributes to my enjoyment of the character. He's an enemy our characters have to work around, to avoid, in order to get anywhere. Unfortunately, once the fight itself actually starts, it just goes on for far too long and sets the precedent for the bloated, uninspired gigantic ki-beam fights that will follow it. Not that all these fights don't have good things going for it, but I never feel the same kind of grueling, life or death struggle that the Saiya-jin fights brought to the table.

After that, I'd have to say Pilaf. I love that little guy in all of his canonical appearances as well as every time filler brought him back. He never ceases to be funny and charming, as well as being one of those few recurring villains. We almost want him to win just because he's so downtrodden, so delusional, and just tries so hard. And like with Freeza, the voice acting contributes quite a bit to his likeability in the anime. Chiba Shigeru is awesome!

Vegeta. While he is a villain, he is great. Compared to the tiny Nappa, he is cold and ruthless and totally cocky. He is an arrogant ass who can't take Kakarrotto having an edge against him. And in the Freeza arc, he is truly at his best, using his intelligence and sneaking around. He's still a horrible, horrible person, but as "the enemy of my enemy" you can't help but admire him. Once he became a good guy, though, he was just whiny and annoying (for the most part--he still had his good moments).

As for Piccolo, I say the exact opposite. I much enjoyed his development into a good guy, which is why I don't list him as one of my favorite villains, even though he was a damned good one.

[Kid Buu]

You know, I like Freeza. He was definitely one of the more brutal villains, the parts where he ripped of Nail's arm or impaled Krillin in the heart are some of the most memorable scenes in the series. However I wish he had more of a background story, it'd be interesting to see how he got where he was.

My vote goes for Vegeta, the prince of Saiyans just oozed coolness during the Saiyan and Freeza arc. His character went downhill around the time Cell went perfect, but as a villain Vegeta truly shined.

[Ringworm128]

3 Nappa
2 Tullece
1 Garlic jr