As I was watching DBZ Revival Fusion (because I wanted to enjoy Dragon Ball Z in its prime), I was thinking to my self how different the Hells are between Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super. For Dragon Ball Z, Toei Animation decided to fashion a Hell for the series despite it not being shown in the manga. It was used for some anime filler scenes while Goku was traveling on Snake Way and the Other World's Best Martial Arts Meet Arc. It is also shown in Revival Fusion when Goku is facing against Janenba and later Gogeta against Janenba. Another version of Hell was first shown in 2015's Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F, as we see Freeza in a cocoon being surrounded by angels and stuffed animals. Later in the movie, Freeza describes his containment as Earth's Hell and later referred to in the Dragon Ball Super manga as Freeza's Hell.
At face value, you cannot reconcile these two versions of Hell. In the DBZ anime, we see the likes of Freeza, King Cold, Cell, and even Babidi in their bodies instead of spirits. In Resurrection F and Dragon Ball Super, we also see Freeza in his mechanical body (later his final form) instead of as a spirit. However, we know in Dragon Ball that one is a spirit after death but it is later explained that one must allow their self to be purified which is why Freeza is never seen purified but stuck in his cocoon. However, in the DBZ anime, we don't see this sort of torture as these villains are seen roaming around freely. However, we can still reconcile these two versions of Hell.
In Revival Fusion, when Vegeta was given his body back and challenges Janenba, he stated to Goku "You have no way of knowing how much pain I've gone through in Hell!" In this scene, Vegeta already acknowledged he was a spirit and afterwards was thrown down in Hell. What pain could he have gone through in Hell? Maybe he experienced something similar to Freeza in Dragon Ball Super because in Resurrection F, Freeza expressed his suffering in Hell and it was similar to Vegeta's wording. If one needs to allow their self to be purified, maybe Vegeta was surrounded by angels and stuffed animals but decided to be purified because of his "pain", unlike Freeza, who never allowed himself to be purified. Maybe Freeza's Hell was in a sector of Hell that is not close to where the Bloody Pond is or the other locations we have seen throughout the Dragon Ball Z anime. I would love for the two Hells to be reconciled instead of one being thrown away in favor of another, similar to Toyotarou's dilemma between the anime's version of the Yardratians and Toriyama's verison which was created for Dragon Ball Online.
How One Can Reconcile DBZ Hell and DBS Hell
Re: How One Can Reconcile DBZ Hell and DBS Hell
Hell is a place for the mean soul that shows up physically as a wisp in the Otherworld, but a mental projection of a place that the soul occupies with its former body, because Heaven is the same when a wisp gets there. You can see this in Dragon Ball Z filler when Chi-Chi, Videl, Bulma and Dabra have a ghostly body. They occupy a place for the soul that is not the same as a physically existing one in the Otherworld where Goku gets to keep his body. You can look at Freeza, Cell and the Ginyu Force as bodies that Enma collects for dire situations like Vegeta's license to fight Boo. His body had to be reconstructed since the original one turned to stone and broke. This is how I reconcile things.