Frieza is currently the strongest villain in Dragon Ball

[RazorX]

Frieza is currently the strongest villain in the Dragon Ball series.

Let that sink in....

Before Resurrection F, probably nobody expected Frieza to be revived in the way he was. To me, Frieza is the greatest villain in Dragon Ball. I had that view when I watched the English dub, and after watching the accurate and far better portrayal in the Japanese version, my opinion was solidified.

No villain has commanded such presence and iconic prestige like Frieza has, so to have the greatest villain come back, was an amazing feeling.

Resurrection F is great. The Resurrection F saga in Dragon Ball Super is great. However, they could've done so much more with the RF saga. Aside from the obvious lack of training sessions to show how Frieza achieved the great power that goes beyond Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, pointed out by many fans, I was disappointed the writers didn't take this opportunity to really play with the paradox situation. To me, it would've been great to see Majin Buu fight Frieza. Frieza already acknowledged he was told to stay away from Buu (and Beerus). I can imagine a scenario where Buu shows up in the battle against Frieza, with Frieza being stunned by his presence, but when he actually fights Buu, Frieza easily dodges his attacks and beats Buu as easily as Beerus did. In his first form....or if you want to push it, second form at the latest. Toy with Buu, Gohan, Piccolo, Goten, Trunks and the others until Goku and Vegeta show up. And then have Goku and Vegeta teaming up to beat Frieza....who escapes to plan revenge for another day...after overcoming his mistake of failing to master energy utilisation in his Golden Form.

I find it more interesting when characters work as a team against an enemy, my hope is that the new saga of Super will compel Goku and Vegeta to fight as a team. We'll see.

I expect it'll be a while before we see a new proper villain who can match Frieza's strength.

[fadeddreams5]

They made Frieza the strongest villain the laziest way humanly possible. The RF saga is one, if not the, worst saga in the entire franchise.

[Bullza]

Nah it still shits all over anything from GT.

[Lord Beerus]

Golden Freeza is no more a lazy idea than every other convenient or unexpected power up or transformation that was pulled out of thin air to ensure a character stays relevant in the story for as long as he/she needs to be. Dragon Ball is built on suspending your disbelief. The moment you try to create absolute logic out of absolute fantasy, you will lose a huge chunk of enjoyment out of the story.

[nickzambuto]

I agree with OP. Freeza deserves to be a relevant power in Dragon Ball, for everything the character did and represents.

[Vijay]

Which doesnt mean anythin really

I've never liked Frieza. Its largely due to Anime's horrible portrayal of him (horrible drawings by Uchiyama Masayuki & Ebisawa Yukio) with atrocious pacing (20 episodes long filler) really killed his characterization

Though I must admit. Manga's portrayal of him was "dignified". Galactic war-lord with literally an empire under his feet. Majestic

But Golden Frieza was ugh! Also, I know the seiyuu is a legend, but I always felt his "acting" came-off rather insipid compared to Cooler's. His portrayal of Cooler was much more imposing

[Lionel]

Golden Freeza is no more a lazy idea than every other convenient or unexpected power up or transformation that was pulled out of thin air to ensure a character stays relevant in the story for as long as he/she needs to be. Dragon Ball is built on suspending your disbelief. The moment you try to create absolute logic out of absolute fantasy, you will lose a huge chunk of enjoyment out of the story.

So by that same token, you would have no qualms if Tenshinhan, Krillin and the other human fighters suddenly spiked up to comparable levels with Goku and Vegeta again for no reason other than they trained?

[precita]

Freeza's race is still mostly a mystery. Him being able to power up makes more sense than humans.

[CashmanX]

The more I think about it, the more I like the concept of Freeza in RoF. It kinda reminds me of how the nazi's warped the concept of the "Ubermensch". Like Golden Freeza wouldn't be out of place on a 1920's German expressionist poster like fritz lang's Metropolis. Just look at that cut from Super's opening animation to see what I'm talking about.

For years people have been hyping Broly up because he was born with a BP of 10,000. Yet here we have a being who was born as strong as a Super Saiyan who never trained a day in his life and it's suddenly too much for people? We're talking about a guy who was so strong he had no experience controlling his power(Why would he? He never trained!) and created lesser forms just so he wouldn't accidentally nuke the planet he was standing on. And even then he could still casually destroy planets! And to make matters worse he can breathe in space!

Freeza for all intents and purposes is the ultimate life form. Besides Gods, demons and a pink lovecraftian horror, what does he have to fear?

[Khin]

I'm glad Freeza returned and become relevant again.Before,i was getting tired of people shitting on Freeza because how he was weak as hell.And become a complete joke on Movie 12,GT and DBZ fillers.

[trick007z]

Golden Freeza is no more a lazy idea than every other convenient or unexpected power up or transformation that was pulled out of thin air to ensure a character stays relevant in the story for as long as he/she needs to be. Dragon Ball is built on suspending your disbelief. The moment you try to create absolute logic out of absolute fantasy, you will lose a huge chunk of enjoyment out of the story.

So by that same token, you would have no qualms if Tenshinhan, Krillin and the other human fighters suddenly spiked up to comparable levels with Goku and Vegeta again for no reason other than they trained?

To be fair Freeza was a character we saw in a very limited period of time that just happened to exist as the strongest tyrant in the universe. The idea that he was just this naturally strong guy was sort of the prevalent thought. So you take a guy that is already near SSJ level with the conceit the film has of him having no training, then you give him training, well then there is a modicum of logic in this naturally strong prodigy improving leaps and bounds beyond what we ever saw in the series.

We know where the humans stand because we saw their progression over the years. It's a different situation, at least from my perspective. Golden Freeza was just applying a different standard to Freeza's race the way a different standard was applied to the Saiyans, compared to humans.

It's a little different when it's the most naturally strong character in the series (the Saiyans and humans trained, Cell was an artificial human who needed to combine with two other artificial humans to get the way he did, Buu was a creation of a some wizard). Then you have Freeza who was this guy that just existed in the universe and even the gods feared him.

[buutenks]

Its good that freeza became this strong.

Before ROF most of the z fighters far surpassed freeza.

[Polyphase Avatron]

What about Champa and Vados?

[rereboy]

Golden Freeza is no more a lazy idea than every other convenient or unexpected power up or transformation that was pulled out of thin air to ensure a character stays relevant in the story for as long as he/she needs to be. Dragon Ball is built on suspending your disbelief. The moment you try to create absolute logic out of absolute fantasy, you will lose a huge chunk of enjoyment out of the story.

There is such a thing as exaggerating the bending of logic. And making Freeza look absolutely stupid by not ever training, especially after his defeat on Namek, is an exaggeration.

[Lord Beerus]

Golden Freeza is no more a lazy idea than every other convenient or unexpected power up or transformation that was pulled out of thin air to ensure a character stays relevant in the story for as long as he/she needs to be. Dragon Ball is built on suspending your disbelief. The moment you try to create absolute logic out of absolute fantasy, you will lose a huge chunk of enjoyment out of the story.

There is such a thing as exaggerating the bending of logic. And making Freeza look absolutely stupid by not ever training, especially after his defeat on Namek, is an exaggeration.

Freeza was desperate for revenge as it was the first time is God knows how many years that someone had challenged him and humbled him. Knowing how vain Freeza is, it fits into his character that he would his desperation for revenge getter the better of common sense. Besides, didn't Freeza state that cybernetic enhancements make him stronger than how he was on Namek? I wouldn't suprise that Freeza took that as an assumption to being strong enough to handle SSJ Goku.

[trick007z]

Golden Freeza is no more a lazy idea than every other convenient or unexpected power up or transformation that was pulled out of thin air to ensure a character stays relevant in the story for as long as he/she needs to be. Dragon Ball is built on suspending your disbelief. The moment you try to create absolute logic out of absolute fantasy, you will lose a huge chunk of enjoyment out of the story.

There is such a thing as exaggerating the bending of logic. And making Freeza look absolutely stupid by not ever training, especially after his defeat on Namek, is an exaggeration.

When would he have trained?

Prior to Namek the closest fighter to his level was probably Captain Ginyu, who he could probably defeat in the same fashion Beerus beat SSJ3 Goku, if he was in his final form. There is literally no reason to train when you are that far above everybody. Put this in perspective, Goku at his absolute peak in base form couldn't even touch Freeza at a fraction of his full strength. It took going to some mythic legendary stage that nobody was even sure existed for someone to finally surpass Freeza. And without that transformation, Freeza can just toy with everyone.

After Namek, we don't know enough. Could he even train with a cyborg body? If he could, how long did it take him to even become functional? Too many questions there.

Then there is no way in hell he actually got a body post death, so he couldn't train like Goku.

[Muffin Man]

Golden Freeza is no more a lazy idea than every other convenient or unexpected power up or transformation that was pulled out of thin air to ensure a character stays relevant in the story for as long as he/she needs to be. Dragon Ball is built on suspending your disbelief. The moment you try to create absolute logic out of absolute fantasy, you will lose a huge chunk of enjoyment out of the story.

There is such a thing as exaggerating the bending of logic. And making Freeza look absolutely stupid by not ever training, especially after his defeat on Namek, is an exaggeration.

I don't get this logic. I mean, how much does the average person train? Training is fucking hard. It makes far more sense for a guy born as powerful as Freeza to be a lazy, untrained asshole. He has never had a reason to train and has never been put in a circumstance where he felt anything close to motivation to exert himself.

Even after his defeat on Namek, he had no motivation to train since his cyborg enhancements had made him stronger than ever, so he obviously believed he could win without training.

It's perfectly realistic (which isn't a common occurrence in DB) that a guy like Freeza would need to have literally every other option exhausted before finally being pushed to train. Just because training comes easily to the typical shonen hero doesn't mean it's actually easy. It requires hours upon hours upon hours of rigorous, boring, repetitive dedication to a specific task. Very few people actually have a disciplined enough mindset to train effectively.

[rereboy]

Freeza was desperate for revenge as it was the first time is God knows how many years that someone had challenged him and humbled him. Knowing how vain Freeza is, it fits into his character that he would his desperation for revenge getter the better of common sense. Besides, didn't Freeza state that cybernetic enhancements make him stronger than how he was on Namek? I wouldn't suprise that Freeza took that as an assumption to being strong enough to handle SSJ Goku.

Freeza was also depicted as a calculating and careful villain that took no big unnecessary chances, which is why he eliminated the saiyans before they caused trouble and why he called for the Ginyu force to come to Namek when even Zarbon said there was simply no need for that, to which Freeza responded that he felt that the future might be dangerous.

Freeza wasn't just a stupid spoiled brat that detested being inferior to anyone. He also had those qualities and even though his arrogance might make him do stupid actions in the heat of battle (like attacking Goku while he was leaving Namek), to think that when he had all of the time in the world and was nowhere near the heat of battle, Freeza wouldn't be even a little bit calculating and careful like he had been previously portrayed to be, even when that had cost him half his body, is simply too much.

When would he have trained?

Prior to Namek the closest fighter to his level was probably Captain Ginyu, who he could probably defeat in the same fashion Beerus beat SSJ3 Goku, if he was in his final form. There is literally no reason to train when you are that far above everybody. Put this in perspective, Goku at his absolute peak in base form couldn't even touch Freeza at a fraction of his full strength. It took going to some mythic legendary stage that nobody was even sure existed for someone to finally surpass Freeza. And without that transformation, Freeza can just toy with everyone.

After Namek, we don't know enough. Could he even train with a cyborg body? If he could, how long did it take him to even become functional? Too many questions there.

Then there is no way in hell he actually got a body post death, so he couldn't train like Goku.

After Namek he had all the time in the world. He could have spent years developing his power, there was nothing stopping him. And there is absolutely nothing to suggest that he couldn't become stronger. He still had a natural Ki that, even with half his body missing, was as strong or stronger than before. And according to Toriyama, even androids like #18, that don't even have a natural Ki to be sensed, can become stronger by training.

I don't get this logic. I mean, how much does the average person train? Training is fucking hard. It makes far more sense for a guy born as powerful as Freeza to be a lazy, untrained asshole. He has never had a reason to train and has never been put in a circumstance where he felt anything close to motivation to exert himself.

Even after his defeat on Namek, he had no motivation to train since his cyborg enhancements had made him stronger than ever, so he obviously believed he could win without training.

It's perfectly realistic (which isn't a common occurrence in DB) that a guy like Freeza would need to have literally every other option exhausted before finally being pushed to train. Just because training comes easily to the typical shonen hero doesn't mean it's actually easy. It requires hours upon hours upon hours of rigorous, boring, repetitive dedication to a specific task. Very few people actually have a disciplined enough mindset to train effectively.

Read above.

Freeza had been depicted as a careful and calculating villain, not just a stupid spoiled brat. He had all of these qualities in him, which made him more complex and interesting.

What happens in Super completely erases any traces of that careful and calculating qualities that he had, and makes him a 100% stupid spoiled brat.

[Draconic]

And also the first villain to ever kill Mr Satan.

[nickzambuto]

And also the first villain to ever kill Mr Satan.

Wow. I never even thought of it that way. Even though Freeza will inevitably be surpassed again, at least he will always have that accomplishment to his name!

Spoiler:

Even if he obviously caught the Champ off guard and would have been ripped in half otherwise...