Rank the Series Main Antagonists

[jcogginsa]

Rank the series main villains.

This is the main villain of each arc, so don't rank every villain in the series. Also, please comment on why you put them where you did. Bare minimum, do so for your favorite and Least favorites. If you want, you can do so for GT and the movies as Well, your call.

Note: Characters who become good should be examined as they were when they were an antagonist. This means Tien is judged on the 22nd Budokai, Piccolo on the 23rd, and Vegeta on the Saiyan arc (He's not really an antagonist during the Frieza arc.)

These are my rankings, mostly done from memory and based on the dub

DB:
1. Jackie Chun: Had a great motivation and impeccable fight scenes.
2. Emperor Pilaf: Just an overall incredibly amusing character, even if he can't fight
Piccolo Jr.: Gets much more interesting later on, but in the 23rd budokai he was basically a clone of his dad. Which, if you think about it, is actually somewhat interesting. It's kinda like he was imitating his father because it was the only thing he knew, whilst later on he matured.
4. King Piccolo: Not very unique but he had a Swagger about him
5. Tien: He had an interesting fight but his tenure as a villain wasn't that memorable.
6. Commander Red: Never fought, didn't have a particularly interesting personality. His end was fairly interesting though


DBZ:
1. Beerus: The guy is just so friggin amusing, i can't put him any lower than number one. It was however a tough decision.
2. Cell: I find his character fascinating. He spent his formative period under a compulsion to become period, and by the time he was free of that, he'd become an enemy of the world.
3. Majin Buu: A very interesting an entertaining character. Each form brings something to the table. Fat Buu has his innocence, Super Buu has his absorbtions, and Kid Buu has a distinct lack of posturing. Overall i like the fat form the most and Kid Buu the least
4. Frieza: A very Good villain all around and definately has a King Piccolo Like Swagger about him. May rank up after the Frieza Movie
5. Vegeta: He suffers from Tien syndrome. Much more interesting in his non antagonist days. I liked Nappa more in the Saiyan arc

GT:
1. Baby: I find his powers, backstory, and Design the best of all the GT villains
2. Super 17: Breaking out of hell is a pretty neat concept all around, and his design is a pretty good power up for 17. The idea of the original 17 fighting from the inside is also pretty good too.
3. Omega Shenron: He's got swagger just like Frieza and King Piccolo.


Movies:
1. Janemba: He's got swagger, a great design, awesome powers
2. Cooler: He's got a very interesting personality and some depth to him, which sadly Janemba lacked. His backstory is somewhat interesting, and his design is where Janemba steals the lead. It's not bad, but it doesn't sell me on hims being Frieza's brother. There are shared elements but not enough. I do love Meta Cooler's design though
3. Broly: I like Broly for a lot of the same reasons i like Cell, the implications and potential of the character. His second movie really holds him down though, and removes a lot of his more interesting qualities.
4. Garlic Jr.: Has a decent design in both forms, a decent motivation, is the only character to successfully wish for immortality, and managed to snag himself a filler arc. Loses points for the stupidity of trapping himself TWICE
5. Android 13: Another character like Broly or Cell, better for the implications and potential than the actual reality. I think he'd make a fairly good character for 16 to bounce off of, honestly. Dislike his Superform though.
6. Hirudegarn: He's a freaking Kaiju. That's awesome
7. Bojack: He's another villain that relies a lot on Swagger. His impressively deep dub voice is also a boon
8. Dr. Wheelo: Over all not very memorable, although he does have a decent design and unique motivation
9. Tullece: His plan with the Tree is interesting, but for the most part he's a generic saiyan enemy. Gets points for using psychological torture though
10. Lord Slug: Just a King Piccolo rehash for the most part, and over all a lesser one
11. Bio Broly: Semi interesting backstory which is all that he's really got going for him

Overall ranking
1. Beerus
2. Cell
3. Janemba
4. Majin Buu
5. Cooler
6. Baby
7. Broly
8. Jackie Chun
9. Garlic Junior
10. Pilaf
11. Frieza
12. Android 13
13. Piccolo Junior
14. Hirudegarn
15. Super 17
16. Omega Shenron
17. King Piccolo
18. Vegeta
19. Tien
20. Bojack
21. Dr. Wheelo
22. Tullece
23. Lord Slug
24. Commander Red
25. Bio Broly

And some Miscellaneous awards
Best Villainous Henchmen
1. Nappa
2. Salza
3. General Blue
4. Nikki
5. Misokatsun

Best Designs
1. Cell
2. Janemba
3 Fat Buu
4. Piccolo Junior
5. Jackie Chun

Best deaths
1. Hirudegarn: The Dragon Fist is awesome and i will here no debate on that
2. King Piccolo: Kamehameha power ape fist is less awesome but still great
3. Broly: Best part of the second Broly movie. Krillin's intro is close second
4. Super 17: I'm sensing a theme here.
5. Bio Broly: Points for creativity here

Worst Design: Bojack
Worst Death/Defeat: Garlic Junior
Worst Henchman: Appule

[ZazamPow]

I think I might put Freeza at my number 1, actually. It's hard to choose between him and Beerus, but I believe that once I get up to his arc in Kai and get to experience the character in a more proper manner, I'll enjoy him even more. It all comes down to his relationship with Goku, how he is the complete and utter anti-Goku in every conceivable way, they seriously have Batman-Joker levels of contrasts to each other, and that's why I LOVE that image of them glaring at each other while Goku bends down to meet him at eye level. They are just utter opposites. Freeza is polite, well-mannered, and sophisticated, but absolutely pure evil and selfish at his core. Goku is a hick, naive and ignorant and even rude at times, but completely pure at his core. Freeza seeks to expand his empire and burns to rule everything in the universe, whereas Goku is satisfied living in isolation in the forest and only seeks to better himself, for the sake of being the best he can be. "He fights not to defeat his enemies, but to defeat himself."

[Kakacarrottop]

Not going to bother doing DB.
DBZ:
1. Freeza - Feels the most like a 'final boss' and his transformations were cool
2. Buu - Liked all the absorptions and the chocolate beam thing was cool
3. Cell - Boring, boring villain with no personality. The only thing i like about him is his designs and concept
GT:
1. Omega Shenron: A very appropriate final villain
2. Super 17
3. Bebi - The Body possession thing was neat although that makes him really unlikable to me for some reason
Movies:
1. Tullece - Find him very mysterious and fascinating
2. Dr. Wheelo - A refreshing change of pace in terms of design and concept
3. Lord Slug - Sort of like the Namekian equivalent to Turles i guess. I don't think he deserves all the hate he gets.
4. Hirudegarn
5. Cooler - Very generic personality although i like the concept of Freeza having a brother and his second form looks great
6. Janemba
7. Garlic jr - Murderous Emperor Pilaf rehash basically
8. Bojack - meh
9. Super 13 - The concept of the 3 Androids, who were all soundly beaten, transforming to create an unbeatable blue monster thing seemed very lazy and random to me
10. Broly - ugh

Best henchmen
1. Cacao
2. Sansho
3. Anguilla
4. Medamatcha
5. Kishime

Best designs
1. Cooler (second form)
2. Super 17
3. Cell (second & third forms)
4. Freeza (third form)
5. Janemba

Best deaths:
1. Super 17
2. Tullece (it looked really painful)
3. Bebi
4. Janemba
5. Freeza (when Trunks kills him)

Worst design: Bojack
Worst defeat: Garlic jr
Worst henchman: Zangya

[Zephyr]

Pilaf, Red, Fat Buu, and Beerus are very enjoyable for me, as they have a very distinct comic element to them that I can't help but be entertained by when they're onscreen. Pilaf is just such a fucking amateur that it's endearing. Red's goals are incredibly misplaced, and he seems amusingly confident in his abilities to conquer the world. Buu is just naive and misguided. Beerus just does what he pleases and goes with the flow; if he wants to learn about something, he'll pursue it to the end, and if he's angry, he won't make the slightest effort to try and control the situation, he just follows his instinctive reaction.

Piccolo Daimao, Ma jr., Vegeta, and Freeza are also very enjoyable to me, but for a more dramatic flavor of reason. Daimao is the first time get a truly ruthless, evil, and deadly villain, so he really stands out. Ma jr. is an extension of that, and he's the first villain Goku actually spent a large portion of time training with the purpose of defeating him in mind. Vegeta was the first big bad who just absolutely refused to die; it took a wholly combined effort, even from the entirely reluctant Yajirobe for them to pull through. On the Namek arc I liked him even more, because while he was a huge threat to our protagonists, he was also actively opposing Freeza as well. This made him a huge variable that could shift the tides in certain situations. Freeza was a villain who had a deep-rooted history with a prior antagonist (Vegeta) and our protagonist (Goku) via the same relation; he truly felt like a big bad for the story proper, not to mention his personality was incredibly sadistic.

At the bottom though? I'd have to say Cell. I enjoyed him in his first form, but after absorbing 17 and 18, his personality went down the drain for me. So much of his abilities felt so contrived, and his bland personality did little to help mitigate that. Of all of the major villains, I think he was in the most need of being spared and allowed some real positive development. I guess it would also be fair to place Tenshinhan here. I have nothing against his character like I do with Cell, but he just seems so unmemorable as a villain to me in hindsight; as I was trying to place him somewhere, nothing stood out one way or another. I mean, I enjoy him as a fighter, and I love his match vs. Goku, but as a villain, nothing much comes to mind one way or another. I can't help but consider this a negative, as most other villains stand out to me with memorable traits or quirks. I suppose there is his morality shifting from one school, philosophy, and martial arts master to another, and that was somewhat interesting, but it doesn't seem to hold a handle in my mind as compared to the others (though I would certainly place him above Perfect Cell).

So I have three tiers here:

Top Tier:
Pilaf, Red, Fat Buu, and Beerus

Mid Tier:
Daimao, Ma jr., Vegeta, and Freeza

Bottom Tier:
Tenshinhan and Perfect Cell

I didn't really include Jackie Chun, because we knew he was Muten Roshi (a good guy) the whole time, so I had huge difficulties remembering him as much of a villain. Perhaps the next time this thread comes around I'll have more solid feelings for him in this context.

[Vijay]

Series-wise

1. Buu
2 Cell
3. Frieza

Movie-wise

1. Broly
2. Janemba

I like Super Buu & Kid Buu cuz they give the creepy demonic feel, along with thr haunting theme music by Shunsuke Kikuchi. Fat Buu just "killed" dbz with his garbage characterization, while Good Buu was meh.

Cell was just brilliant. Wished his SPC was shown a lot more such as his prowess in Hand-to-Hand Combat etc.

Frieza really impressed me in his 1st & 2nd Forms. Turned into garbage with his final form & over 30+ episodes of trash talk abt Namek exploding & whatnot.

Broly & Janemba are special in their own ways.

Broly (M10) was cool, while in M8 he was a lot more restrained. His wrestling-esque fight is also great & his transformation scenes gives an eerie, yet overwhelming moments

Janemba is just top-notch. I prefer him to be the "final boss" villain compared to Hirudergarn.

[tx3]

cell infront of freeza ..u guys are funny

[Bullza]

Too many to list and I can't be bothered so I'll just rank the actual main villains of the series.

1. Frieza
2. Cell
3. Buu
4. Vegeta (as he was as an actual villain in the Saiyan saga)
5. King Piccolo
6. Baby
7. Syn/Omega Shenron

Other than that Beerus was a fantastic character. As far as the other movie villains and Super 17 go I don't particularly care for any of them that much but I suppose Broly is the best one. Pilaf and Commander Red, well they just suck outright.

[jcogginsa]

I didn't really include Jackie Chun, because we knew he was Muten Roshi (a good guy) the whole time, so I had huge difficulties remembering him as much of a villain. Perhaps the next time this thread comes around I'll have more solid feelings for him in this context.

Well, that's why this is about antagonists XD. Jackie Chun wasn't a villain (Nor was Beerus) but was an antagonist

[Lord Beerus]

There are so many antagonists in the series, so many are so forgettable, many of them handled quite well. So I'll only rank the top ten, and every other antagonist can be pretty ranked in any other position.

1. Freeza
2. Beerus
3. Vegeta
4. Majin Boo
5. King Piccolo
6. Cell
7. The Ginyu Force
8. Piccolo Jr
9. Bardock
10. Broly

Honorable mentions: Baby, The Shadow Dragons, Commander Red and Tien

[LuckyCat]

I'm not even sure you can characterize Jackie Chun as an antagonist as his goal was to train Goku and Krillin to be better fighters. Is Mr. Popo an antagonist because he tried to prevent Goku from speaking to Kami to revive his friends?

But listing wise:

1. Dr. Gero (Actually defeats Goku)
2. Freeza
3. Vegeta
4. Demon King Piccolo
5. Mr. Satan (Credit Hog)
6. Tao-pai-pai
7. Master Crane
8. Pilaf
9. Babidi

[jcogginsa]

I'm not even sure you can characterize Jackie Chun as an antagonist as his goal was to train Goku and Krillin to be better fighters. Is Mr. Popo an antagonist because he tried to prevent Goku from speaking to Kami to revive his friends?

But listing wise:

1. Dr. Gero (Actually defeats Goku)
2. Freeza
3. Vegeta
4. Demon King Piccolo
5. Mr. Satan (Credit Hog)
6. Tao-pai-pai
7. Master Crane
8. Pilaf
9. Babidi

Dr. Gero and Mr. Satan aren't the main antagonists of their arcs. Nor is Tao pai pai. Crane is arguable.

Antagonist doesn't mean evil. Chun is an antagonist because he stands in the way of Goku's goal in his arc

There are so many antagonists in the series, so many are so forgettable, many of them handled quite well. So I'll only rank the top ten, and every other antagonist can be pretty ranked in any other position.

1. Freeza
2. Beerus
3. Vegeta
4. Majin Boo
5. King Piccolo
6. Cell
7. The Ginyu Force
8. Piccolo Jr
9. Bardock
10. Broly

Honorable mentions: Baby, The Shadow Dragons, Commander Red and Tenshinhan

How is Bardock an antagonist?

[LuckyCat]

Dr. Gero and Mr. Satan aren't the main antagonists of their arcs. Nor is Tao pai pai. Crane is arguable.

Antagonist doesn't mean evil. Chun is an antagonist because he stands in the way of Goku's goal in his arc

I see what you're saying but I just can't see Chun being characterized that way. Also Dr. Gero is the main antagonist of the Android and Cell arc since he designed the monsters which led to both a hell future and Cell's ability to defeat Goku.

[Lord Beerus]

How is Bardock an antagonist?

Because if we take into consideration the TV special and Episode of Bardock, he's more of an Anti-Villain with shades of Anti-Heroism.

[jcogginsa]

How is Bardock an antagonist?

Because if we take into consideration the TV special and Episode of Bardock, he's more of an Anti-Villain with shades of Anti-Heroism.

Not gonna argue with that. But he's not the antagonist of the story. He's the protagonist. Antagonist simply means "Someone who opposes the protagonist." It has nothing to do with morality

[Dyno]

Bardock an antagonist...

I have lived for nearly two decades and this is the first time I ever seen something like this. Totally new for me.


Well, my rank would be:

1- Bills
2- Janemba
3- Mira and Towa
4- Chilled
5- Buu

I think those are the antagonists I like the most. For all the rest, I don't know if I could rank them, probably would be very inconsistent as my view over them changes constantly.

[Lord Beerus]

How is Bardock an antagonist?

Because if we take into consideration the TV special and Episode of Bardock, he's more of an Anti-Villain with shades of Anti-Heroism.

Not gonna argue with that. But he's not the antagonist of the story. He's the protagonist. Antagonist simply means "Someone who opposes the protagonist." It has nothing to do with morality

Well, I guess you could classify him as a Villain Protagonist.

[jjgp1112]

1. Perfect Cell. Smart, somewhat sportsmanlike and charming, and damn good at what he does. Plus, he has an awesome design!
2. Frieza. Need I say more.
3. King Piccolo. Wonderfully evil and shameless, and the first "true" bad guy in Dragon Ball. Well, after Tao, but he was more the "Dragon" to Commander Red.
4. Buu. Too much of a generic "monster of the week" for my tastes. He was amusing and I did enjoy him once he absorbed people as Super Buu and actually becoming an interesting character, but he was better suited as a movie villain

Unranked: Commander Red since he was just a leader and was never directly involved until the end, at which point he became comic relief, Pilaf because...well, Pilaf, and Vegeta since he became a good guy.

[Vegitofaxx]

Vegeta. Just love his arrogance and how evil he is in the Saiyan and some of the Freeza arc.

[Monkey King Vegeta]

Obviously Bio-Broly is the best villain

jk

1. Pilaf: Nostalgic

2. Freza: Memorable

3. Kid Buu: Scary and could feel the danger

4. Imperfect Cell: Scary nice design

5. Broly (Restricted Saiyan): I love that form and the concept was nice.

[SSJ God Gogeta]

1. Cell
2. Beerus
3. Freeza
4. Majin Boo
5. King Piccolo
6. Vegeta
7. Piccolo Jr
8. Janemba
9. Cooler
10. Broly