If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Sun May 08, 2022 1:51 pm

Freeza is a ruthless bastard who slaughters his own people. That's hit villain material, no matter what gender.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by The Accountant » Sun May 08, 2022 8:03 pm

What really works for Freeza, in my opinion, is Ryusei Nakao's and Chris Ayres' performance as the character.

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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Cursed Lemon » Sun May 08, 2022 8:37 pm

I think I actually would've liked Freeza even better. Although I think the goofy played-for-laughs moments with Freeza later on in the franchise (i WiSh I wAs fIvE iNchEs TaLLeR) fit with a male Freeza better.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Thani » Mon May 09, 2022 7:55 am

Oh yeah, for sure.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by PurestEvil » Tue May 10, 2022 5:30 pm

I don't think anything substantial about Freeza themslef would be different if they were a woman (apart from the amount of fanart :wink: ). The whole character, appearance, and demeanor always came off as a bit androgynous to me, despite the distinguishably male voice (Ryuusei Nakao's, that is). If Freeza had a female voice, I suppose they would have had the extra edge of being the only female main antagonist in the series (if Cell and Buu were kept male), so there is a plausible argument that they could have been a bigger hit.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by JulieYBM » Tue May 10, 2022 9:05 pm

PurestEvil wrote: Tue May 10, 2022 5:30 pm I don't think anything substantial about Freeza themslef would be different if they were a woman (apart from the amount of fanart :wink: ). The whole character, appearance, and demeanor always came off as a bit androgynous to me, despite the distinguishably male voice (Ryuusei Nakao's, that is). If Freeza had a female voice, I suppose they would have had the extra edge of being the only female main antagonist in the series (if Cell and Buu were kept male), so there is a plausible argument that they could have been a bigger hit.
I'm not directly trying to single you out with the following, I'm just using your posts as a springboard to think out-loud some stuff:

Speaking as a woman whose has daily dealings with voice-related subjects:

What is a 'female voice' or a 'male voice'? I think those are misnomers and a product of a society that applies false importance to things like that. Why is Nakao Ryuusei's voice necessarily a 'male' voice? Other than the fact that he appears to play Freeza as such, I don't see why Nakao couldn't say "this is a woman's voice" without actually changing his voice? Or why anyone can't do that, actually. Bare in mind, I do come at this from a position of someone whose voice is often in violation of societal standards for a woman but because I am inarguably a woman that would mean my voice—should I decide to speak with my 'guy voice'—is still undoubtedly a woman's voice. I honestly don't see why we can't apply this logic to fictional characters.

In voice training stuff for trans feminine people it's often pointed out that to achieve a feminine voice it isn't enough to simply alter the pitch of one's voice. The so-called 'girl voice' is a result of changing how one speaks. Don't numerous male Freeza actors do this? There's certainly a degree of this 'melodious' speak pattern applied by Nakao and Ayres (albeit, I haven't listened to Ayres' work since 2010, so I'm going off memory here).

Anyway, uh, be trans throw hands and be gay, do crimes.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Anonymous Friend » Wed May 11, 2022 7:11 pm

The Accountant wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 8:03 pm What really works for Freeza, in my opinion, is Ryusei Nakao's and Chris Ayres' performance as the character.
I think, at least for me, was Freeza's upper classness in dealing with people. He'd talk all nice with you while mater-of-factly genociding. Freeza is also a villain that easily backed up all of the fear people had about him with multitudes to spare. I liken it to an adult playing with a toddler. The adlut is much, much stronger. The toddler my get a nutshot in ruffle the adult. Freeza got knocked around a bit fighting everyone, but even getting hit with that Spirit Bomb was not winning that fight. If super annoyed him that there was someone able to hit him with such an attack. The only anyone was still alive during that moment was because Freeza wanted to enjoy thier demises slowly. Then Super Saiyan happened.

I kind of like his roll in Super with the tourney and movie. He realizes he can't beat Goku or Vegeta. He knows that as long as he doesn't bother earth, they won't bother him.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Saiya6Cit » Thu May 12, 2022 4:44 pm

Ah the freezer female topic, i guess sooner or later I had to find it here at kanzenshuu XD

in mexico the land of piracy and bootleg merchandise we got to have backpacks and tshirts, posters etc with SSJ VS Freezer before the anime would be even dubed to spanish, but the point is that since Freezer is... how to put it... flat, downthere, everyone used to think he was female. It was a big shock for us at elemetary school as the voice the chose for him in latino is deep/manly.

But to answer your question: I don't think there would be a difference on this villain just because of the gender. It would be funny to confirm "she" would have a crush on vegeta as some fans speculate anyways XD

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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Shorty GZ2 » Fri May 13, 2022 2:56 am

JulieYBM wrote: Tue May 10, 2022 9:05 pm
PurestEvil wrote: Tue May 10, 2022 5:30 pm I don't think anything substantial about Freeza themslef would be different if they were a woman (apart from the amount of fanart :wink: ). The whole character, appearance, and demeanor always came off as a bit androgynous to me, despite the distinguishably male voice (Ryuusei Nakao's, that is). If Freeza had a female voice, I suppose they would have had the extra edge of being the only female main antagonist in the series (if Cell and Buu were kept male), so there is a plausible argument that they could have been a bigger hit.
I'm not directly trying to single you out with the following, I'm just using your posts as a springboard to think out-loud some stuff:

Speaking as a woman whose has daily dealings with voice-related subjects:

What is a 'female voice' or a 'male voice'? I think those are misnomers and a product of a society that applies false importance to things like that. Why is Nakao Ryuusei's voice necessarily a 'male' voice? Other than the fact that he appears to play Freeza as such, I don't see why Nakao couldn't say "this is a woman's voice" without actually changing his voice? Or why anyone can't do that, actually. Bare in mind, I do come at this from a position of someone whose voice is often in violation of societal standards for a woman but because I am inarguably a woman that would mean my voice—should I decide to speak with my 'guy voice'—is still undoubtedly a woman's voice. I honestly don't see why we can't apply this logic to fictional characters.

In voice training stuff for trans feminine people it's often pointed out that to achieve a feminine voice it isn't enough to simply alter the pitch of one's voice. The so-called 'girl voice' is a result of changing how one speaks. Don't numerous male Freeza actors do this? There's certainly a degree of this 'melodious' speak pattern applied by Nakao and Ayres (albeit, I haven't listened to Ayres' work since 2010, so I'm going off memory here).

Anyway, uh, be trans throw hands and be gay, do crimes.
I'm guessing it has some stuff to do with brain psychology and perception science and decades of societal conditioning that are all too complicated to really fully unpack in a DB forum

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00023/full

Try this research study or something

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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by fleahop » Sat May 14, 2022 1:13 pm

If my aunt had balls...

Who knows, but personally my whole family thought Frieza was a chick back in the day because of the voice. Didn't make any difference when I found out he's a dude, or something.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by JulieYBM » Sat May 14, 2022 2:58 pm

fleahop wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 1:13 pm If my aunt had balls...
I'm sorry, may I ask you what you mean by this phrase?
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by fleahop » Sat May 14, 2022 7:45 pm

JulieYBM wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 2:58 pm
fleahop wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 1:13 pm If my aunt had balls...
I'm sorry, may I ask you what you mean by this phrase?
It's an old way of saying it's worthless to worry about counterfactuals. There's a lot of variations but that one seemed to fit best
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by JulieYBM » Sun May 15, 2022 10:00 am

Since we're on the subject of Female Freeza: https://twitter.com/kkkkkirrier/status/ ... xeVAw&s=19

My goodness, I am jealous of how cute she is in this fan art!
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Xeno Goku Black » Sun May 15, 2022 3:19 pm

JulieYBM wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 2:58 pm
fleahop wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 1:13 pm If my aunt had balls...
I'm sorry, may I ask you what you mean by this phrase?
Pretty common sense ain't it? If my aunt had balls she'd be a man. If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bike.


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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Yuli Ban » Wed May 18, 2022 6:02 pm

goku the krump dancer wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 10:57 pm You do realize that for a long time most American fans thought Freeza was either a woman or gay and people still liked him, can we lock this thread now before it gets stupid.
This. Here in America thanks to Linda Young being "the" voice of Freeza for a good decade, there were plenty of my friends who actually thought it was a case of reverse censorship, where Freeza was actually female but referred to as male because "men aren't supposed to hit girls so they had to cover it up." That was an actual schoolyard headcanon around my parts circa 2003-2004.

Of friggin' course we would have no idea of Chinese eunuch archetypes, trans archetypes, etc. Say "Dongfang Bubai" to us and we'd say "Bless you." It was the early 2000s dirty South, the age of Jackass, nü metal, Xbox, and dumbass testosterone on a schoolyard playground and DBZ was the manliest action cartoon we'd ever seen. What else were we supposed to think?
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Anonymous Friend » Wed May 18, 2022 8:01 pm

Isn't this a series where the protag had so little contact with people, he could not tell male from female.

Sounding male or sounding female is completely based off your own life experience. Plenty of people out there get mis-gender based solely off their voice. But, no one's going to hear "quack, quack " and start looking for a kitten. Plenty of us heard Linda Young, and were quite fine with having a female villain.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by Zillamon51 » Sun May 22, 2022 10:04 pm

When I first discovered DBZ (Ocean dub in syndication), I thought he was female based on the voice and design (lots of pink, prominent lips, etc.). A lot of others here made the same assumption, so I don't think it would have changed much in the long run.

P.S. Back in the day, my GF thought Frieza's name was "Freesia," like the flower.
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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by nineko » Mon May 23, 2022 4:16 am

FoolsGil wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 6:02 pm Considering there are few female characters who are fighters, and just about all of them are regulated to becoming a standard wife if they become an ally, it would be fresh and exciting, even if a non humanoid, that Freeza was in fact female.
Lionel wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 8:17 pmThe issue has to do moreso with the fact that there were scarcely any female fighters in the original manga, let alone female villains of capable worth in the strength department.
You know, I was thinking about this just the other day. Now, I don't want to derail this topic, so a moderator can split this if they deem it appropriate.

DBS introduced new universes and new classes of deities, but females are still scarce:

Kaioshin: 0* out of 12
Hakaishin: 1 out of 12
Angels: 3 out of 12-14**

* at least in universe 7 there was a female kaioshin, but she was killed by Majin Buu. Other universes seem to only have one kaioshin each, though.
** 12 if you don't count Merus and the Grand Priest, 14 otherwise. They're both male anyway.

Not much is known about Kais of other universes, except for the obvious Zamasu, but even in universe 7, there only is one female, and only in anime.

Basically, the only one strong female designed by Toriyama is Arale.

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Re: If Freeza were a female would he still be a hit as a villain?

Post by DestructoDisc » Tue May 24, 2022 3:44 pm

nineko wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 4:16 am
FoolsGil wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 6:02 pm Considering there are few female characters who are fighters, and just about all of them are regulated to becoming a standard wife if they become an ally, it would be fresh and exciting, even if a non humanoid, that Freeza was in fact female.
Lionel wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 8:17 pmThe issue has to do moreso with the fact that there were scarcely any female fighters in the original manga, let alone female villains of capable worth in the strength department.
You know, I was thinking about this just the other day. Now, I don't want to derail this topic, so a moderator can split this if they deem it appropriate.

DBS introduced new universes and new classes of deities, but females are still scarce:

Kaioshin: 0* out of 12
Hakaishin: 1 out of 12
Angels: 3 out of 12-14**

* at least in universe 7 there was a female kaioshin, but she was killed by Majin Buu. Other universes seem to only have one kaioshin each, though.
** 12 if you don't count Merus and the Grand Priest, 14 otherwise. They're both male anyway.

Not much is known about Kais of other universes, except for the obvious Zamasu, but even in universe 7, there only is one female, and only in anime.

Basically, the only one strong female designed by Toriyama is Arale.
Universe 5's Kai is more than likely a female. Looks like a female and she's voiced by a female too in most countries except in Italy for some reason. Her name is Ogma.

There are also 4 female angels, not just 3. Vados, Marcartica, Martinu and Kusu

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