Was Freeza brought in too early?

[fadeddreams5]

Cell did not kill more people than Freeza.

Directly? Yeah he did. Heck, Freeza only killed a handful of people on-screen.

Frieza blew up a planet filled with people. Pretty sure he directed his death ball at them. =P

[RandomGuy96]

Cell did not kill more people than Freeza.

Directly? Yeah he did. Heck, Freeza only killed a handful of people on-screen.

Freeza blew up a planet filled with people. Pretty sure he directed his death ball at them. =P

There were only a few thousand saiyans, total, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of people in the cities Cell destroyed. Also, that was off-screen.

[Doctor.]

Cell did not kill more people than Freeza.

Directly? Yeah he did. Heck, Freeza only killed a handful of people on-screen.

He killed a bunch of humans in a few towns, Goku and #17 indirectly, #16, Trunks twice, and who else?

Freeza, in turn, killed Vegeta, Dende, Kuririn and every inhabitant of planet Vegeta, plus who knows how many other planets he blew up with his own hands. Cell killed just a few people on-screen too.

[fadeddreams5]

Did they ever even specify how many saiyans were on Planet Vegeta? Cell barely did anything. Even if he beat everyone, he likely would seek out the strongest in the universe to prove his perfection, rather than go on a mindless killing spree or conquer anything.

Buu is the GOAT in genocide. Beerus can go suck his candy-making tentacle.

[RandomGuy96]

Cell did not kill more people than Freeza.

Directly? Yeah he did. Heck, Freeza only killed a handful of people on-screen.

He killed a bunch of humans in a few towns, Goku and #17 indirectly, #16, Trunks twice, and who else?

Freeza, in turn, killed Vegeta, Dende, Kuririn and every inhabitant of planet Vegeta, plus who knows how many other planets he blew up with his own hands. Cell killed just a few people on-screen too.

"A bunch" meaning "hundreds of thousands of people", in this context. You also forgot Kaio.

Freeza was only confirmed to have blown up Planet Vegeta (which had what, a few thousand inhabitants?), and killed those three people.

Did they ever even specify how many saiyans were on Planet Vegeta?

In the manga, they just say that the saiyans were very few in number. But Minus explicitly states there's only a few thousand saiyans.

[Doctor.]

Did they ever even specify how many saiyans were on Planet Vegeta? Cell barely did anything. Even if he beat everyone, he likely would seek out the strongest in the universe to prove his perfection, rather than go on a mindless killing spree or conquer anything.

Buu is the GOAT in genocide. Beerus can go suck his candy-making tentacle.

Cell said his second objective, after testing his power, would be to see the humans' faces contorted in fear. So yea, he'd go on a mindless killing spree.

I still think it's far more believable to think Freeza has a higher murder count.

[fadeddreams5]

Did they ever even specify how many saiyans were on Planet Vegeta? Cell barely did anything. Even if he beat everyone, he likely would seek out the strongest in the universe to prove his perfection, rather than go on a mindless killing spree or conquer anything.

Buu is the GOAT in genocide. Beerus can go suck his candy-making tentacle.

Cell said his second objective, after testing his power, would be to see the humans' faces contorted in fear. So yea, he'd go on a mindless killing spree.

I still think it's far more believable to think Freeza has a higher murder count.

Well, I mean... yeah. But after he'd be done with the Earth, he'd likely prioritize on satisfying his battle thirst... and blowing up the planets that have no strong fighters. Okay, fine. -.-

[FoolsGil]

-That's the case for every villain in every arc before the heroes beat them. Remember when Piccolo Daimao was the greatest threat the world had ever seen, an ancient demon-god who easily defeated everybody and couldn't be matched even by Roshi's master?
-Again, this also applies to every other villain since Piccolo Daimao.
-Again, this applies to every other villain.

You're not quite getting it. Daimao was a standard shonen villain, as well as Vegeta. Daimao is similar to Freeza in the way that he too shifted Dragonball's tone, but that's it. Freeza however is end game, so obscenely powerful that in normal circumstances, the only reason the heroes stand a chance is because they have worked their way up the ladder like in most shonen, or videogames.

You can say that Daimao was like Freeza because he was insanely powerful for his time., but no he wasn't. Because 8 years later, the Z Fighter fighters would have utterly wrecked Daimao. And years later after the Saiyans attack Earth, all the human Z fighters are stronger than Vegeta was back then. But before BoG not a single person could kill Freeza without transformation or fusions.

You could say that this applies to every villain after Freeza, but it only proves my point further, which I will explain later down.

Nah, I don't think I agree with that. Buu is the best possible final villain, surpassing the previous villains in every way; it never really made sense to have any serious threat come after him (or, at least, anyone way stronger than his stronger forms). I think Freeza's importance is really overblown by fans. What makes Freeza any more worthy of "final boss" status than, say, Vegeta? Freeza's pretty much a blatant rehash of him.

Yes, Buu is the best possible villain. NOW. Now when Freeza was a mid series villain that upped the series to 31, compared to Vegeta at 11, and for the series to up themselves from Freeza, the Androids and Cell had to up things to 41, and Babidi and Buu has to up things to 51. Action series' live to top themselves, What happens when you go over to top to soon? Buu happens.

You say Freeza's importance is overblown, and you question what makes Freeza more worthy of the last boss compared to Vegeta? Well, Vegeta didn't cause an in story discrepancy where Goku had to power jump from over 9000 to 180,000 a few weeks after he was brought back to life. What makes Freeza a Final Boss? Because you need legends (And I don't care what Vegeta says is history, anything that starts with 'once every thousand years' is a bedtime story even for warrior princes) to stand up to him, instead of Goku having already been around his level because the last guy he wrecked was in the hundred thousands, and the guy before that in the tens of thousands. What makes Freeza so important is what happens next: Once again, action series' live to top themselves. You can't go back down after Freeza, you can only go up, and the ones who can make the gains necessary to keep up with the utterly powerful monsters that follow up were Saiyans, Nameks, and the odd special attack from Tenshinhan. And anyone else that came after Freeza, exist because the story needed to continue and Freeza was perfect as is to end the series or be the second to last villain. So you get a genetically altered bug man because science. And you get a bubblegum genie because magic. Because you have to top yourself, and Freeza came out way too soon.

-GT. Also, a significant portion of the Buu arc happens outside of Earth; Babidi's ship teleports everybody to three different planets, Gohan and Goku spend most of the arc chilling in the Kaioshin Realm, and the final battle takes place there.

The war that is Namek > the small skirmishes on 4 planets that you probably need to look up their exact names on DBwiki.

[RandomGuy96]

-That's the case for every villain in every arc before the heroes beat them. Remember when Piccolo Daimao was the greatest threat the world had ever seen, an ancient demon-god who easily defeated everybody and couldn't be matched even by Roshi's master?
-Again, this also applies to every other villain since Piccolo Daimao.
-Again, this applies to every other villain.

You're not quite getting it. Daimao was a standard shonen villain, as well as Vegeta. Daimao is similar to Freeza in the way that he too shifted Dragonball's tone, but that's it. Freeza however is end game, so obscenely powerful that in normal circumstances, the only reason the heroes stand a chance is because they have worked their way up the ladder like in most shonen, or videogames.

You can say that Daimao was like Freeza because he was insanely powerful for his time., but no he wasn't. Because 8 years later, the Z Fighter fighters would have utterly wrecked Daimao. And years later after the Saiyans attack Earth, all the human Z fighters are stronger than Vegeta was back then. But before BoG not a single person could kill Freeza without transformation or fusions.

You could say that this applies to every villain after Freeza, but it only proves my point further, which I will explain later down.

Nah, I don't think I agree with that. Buu is the best possible final villain, surpassing the previous villains in every way; it never really made sense to have any serious threat come after him (or, at least, anyone way stronger than his stronger forms). I think Freeza's importance is really overblown by fans. What makes Freeza any more worthy of "final boss" status than, say, Vegeta? Freeza's pretty much a blatant rehash of him.

Yes, Buu is the best possible villain. NOW. Now when Freeza was a mid series villain that upped the series to 31, compared to Vegeta at 11, and for the series to up themselves from Freeza, the Androids and Cell had to up things to 41, and Babidi and Buu has to up things to 51. Action series' live to top themselves, What happens when you go over to top to soon? Buu happens.

You say Freeza's importance is overblown, and you question what makes Freeza more worthy of the last boss compared to Vegeta? Well, Vegeta didn't cause an in story discrepancy where Goku had to power jump from over 9000 to 180,000 a few weeks after he was brought back to life. What makes Freeza a Final Boss? Because you need legends (And I don't care what Vegeta says is history, anything that starts with 'once every thousand years' is a bedtime story even for warrior princes) to stand up to him, instead of Goku having already been around his level because the last guy he wrecked was in the hundred thousands, and the guy before that in the tens of thousands. What makes Freeza so important is what happens next: Once again, action series' live to top themselves. You can't go back down after Freeza, you can only go up, and the ones who can make the gains necessary to keep up with the utterly powerful monsters that follow up were Saiyans, Nameks, and the odd special attack from Tenshinhan. And anyone else that came after Freeza, exist because the story needed to continue and Freeza was perfect as is to end the series or be the second to last villain. So you get a genetically altered bug man because science. And you get a bubblegum genie because magic. Because you have to top yourself, and Freeza came out way too soon.

-GT. Also, a significant portion of the Buu arc happens outside of Earth; Babidi's ship teleports everybody to three different planets, Gohan and Goku spend most of the arc chilling in the Kaioshin Realm, and the final battle takes place there.

The war that is Namek > the small skirmishes on 4 planets that you probably need to look up their exact names on DBwiki.

-Again, why? You haven't actually said what makes him different from Daimao, Vegeta, or really any other villain in that respect. What does it matter if most characters (you forgot Kaioshin, Buu, the androids, etc.) need to transform or fuse to kill Freeza? He's still fodder to any of them heroes the second he's beaten. Trunks kills him in one hit to illustrate this.

-I'm not quite getting what you're saying here. What are those numbers supposed to represent? How is Freeza a bigger deal than Vegeta?

-Vegeta caused Goku to jump from 416 to 32,000 in a year, even though the ENTIRE first half of the series (a little over a decade) just brought Goku from 10 to 416. Not that this really matters, since again, Freeza didn't need to be that high on the number scale, and it really makes no difference to the story that he is (you could adjust everyone's battle powers on Namek to be lower and nothing would change, as long as Freeza is still above Oozaru Vegeta's 180,000).

-To stand up to Piccolo, Goku needed to enter the heavens and train with the gods of the Earth. Then he needed to do the same with the god of the galaxy to stand up to Vegeta. I think that's a much bigger deal than a "legend" that consists solely of "1,000 years ago, there was this guy who was really strong". I don't get what you mean when you say that Freeza's final boss material because "a legend" was needed to top him, nor do I understand what you mean by saying his appearance caused the series to constantly go up. In what? Scale? Threat level? Because that's been the case since the very first arc. Heck, Freeza himself was just a very lazy attempt to top Vegeta: the destroyer of worlds, the slayer of civilizations, the ultimate evil who even gods fear, the strongest warrior of the strongest warrior race, the cruelest bastard to ever ravage the galaxy (even Nappa and Raditz were surprised by his brutality), and the most powerful being in the universe. What, exactly, did Freeza bring to the table that Vegeta didn't?

-You're shifting the goal posts ("-Finally, it was the only arc done in space and the series never went back to the stars since"). Also, the final battle of the arc was a small skirmish? Also also, please don't look up anything on the DB wiki.

[FoolsGil]

I don't shift. I said one thing and then I broke it down Barney style for you, still saying the exact same thing I said the first time.

-You're shifting the goal posts ("-Finally, it was the only arc done in space and the series never went back to the stars since"). Also, the final battle of the arc was a small skirmish? Also also, please don't look up anything on the DB wiki.

That was directed at you actually. I don't need to look up the planets, they are insignificant compared to Namek. You take time to say that our heroes are going out to space and doing things beyond Earth. No, it's 4 battles on 4 planets that you, or I can't even name without looking it up. You can't compare that to Namek.

[RandomGuy96]

I don't shift. I said one thing and then I broke it down Barney style for you, still saying the exact same thing I said the first time.

-You're shifting the goal posts ("-Finally, it was the only arc done in space and the series never went back to the stars since"). Also, the final battle of the arc was a small skirmish? Also also, please don't look up anything on the DB wiki.

That was directed at you actually. I don't need to look up the planets, they are insignificant compared to Namek. You take time to say that our heroes are going out to space and doing things beyond Earth. No, it's 4 battles on 4 planets that you, or I can't even name without looking it up. You can't compare that to Namek.

That's a lie. You said the series never went back into the stars, when it did.

I can name all of them without looking them up actually. Not that it matters. How can we not compare that to Namek? A huge chunk of the arc happens outside of Earth. Also, GT.

So how is Freeza such a big deal when Vegeta isn't, again?

[Puto]

I'm not sure I understand. Most of GT's new antagonists, even at the beginning of the series, are at least at Cell and Boo's level, let alone Freeza.

I don't believe base Goku is substantially stronger than he is at the end of Z. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That means Lood and Rilld are the first two antagonists to necessarily be stronger than Freeza, with Redict being like ... somewhere kind of in his range. Everything fits a lot better that way, eye-em-oh.

I know a lot of viewers have other interpretations, but I've always thought they make everything way more of a clusterfuck than it needs to be.

Just a completely off-topic nitpick here: for the record, there isn't a single character in レジック/rejikku that could conceivably be adapted as a t. The wordplay is on クレジット/kurejitto (credit), yes, but it removes the character ト/to which represents the 't' in 'credit'. It's essentially an anagram of 'credi'.

[TheUltimateVegito]

-Just to give the heroes a chance, legends had to be created and zenkai had to become a thing, altering the cast dynamic forever and contradicting an important conversation Goku and Vegeta had before they fought.

To be fair, the Android arc further backed up that point by having Goku come up with the MSSJ form wheres Vegeta couldn't. This wouldn't have been possible if Super Saiyan wasn't a thing.

[Analytical Delusion]

I don't know if he was brought in too early. I do agree with RG96 that Freeza is a bit redundant when compared to Vegeta in terms of backstory. I don't take the Daizenshuu literally, but in terms of sheer power, the jump to Freeza is nearly unprecedented (I say nearly because if one takes Post-RoSaT Base Gotenks > Pre-RoSaT Gotenks at face value, things blow up very quickly). Realistically, even taking into account that these are aliens with superhuman traits, catching up to and surpassing Freeza is insane.

The thing about Freeza is though, unlike the other end game villains following him in Buu and Cell, he doesn't have any broken physics traits. Terrific durability in surviving the genki dama and Namek's explosion, but the other two have completely insane regeneration (and both learn advanced techniques without training, in addition to their absorption techniques). I enjoy the Cell arc but it requires a suspension of disbelief for me to come to terms with the fact that the three most brilliant relevant minds in the series (Dr. Briefs, Bulma, Dr. Gero) are on Earth. I would think (in-universe) that alien technology from a galactic empire would be able to create a threat greater than that of the androids. Maybe if the RoF arc in Super is fleshed out we can get a better idea of where aliens stand technologically. Maybe it would've made sense to have this arc before Freeza, though I like Cell's character design and the fact that he has Freeza's cells.

The Buu arc is weird to me. I really don't care for everything that happens after Vegeta self destructs, and prior to the Kid Buu fight. Tons of power inconsistencies for me, Gohan powering up is rendered useless, and I don't think Goten or the either of the fusions were necessary (would have been awesome IMO if Kid Trunks became the Cell Games Gohan of this arc). That being said, I love the new Buu mythos. Namely that he existed since "time immemorial" and is a force of nature that was merely summoned or awoken. I think that's pretty awesome world-building, and I can buy him as a final villain. More than Freeza probably, since he's beyond mortal (I'm not convinced that Vegetto could have killed him; probably inaccurate, but I think the genki dama because of its pure nature was the *only* way to do him in).

Piccolo (father or son) and to a lesser degree the Saiyans (since they could have taken a Freeza angle) don't work for me since they're not universal threats. Cell and Buu were, and Freeza/Beerus are galactic presences.

[Cipher]

The Buu arc is weird to me. I really don't care for everything that happens after Vegeta self destructs, and prior to the Kid Buu fight. Tons of power inconsistencies for me, Gohan powering up is rendered useless, and I don't think Goten or the either of the fusions were necessary (would have been awesome IMO if Kid Trunks became the Cell Games Gohan of this arc). That being said, I love the new Buu mythos. Namely that he existed since "time immemorial" and is a force of nature that was merely summoned or awoken. I think that's pretty awesome world-building, and I can buy him as a final villain. More than Freeza probably, since he's beyond mortal (I'm not convinced that Vegetto could have killed him; probably inaccurate, but I think the genki dama because of its pure nature was the *only* way to do him in).

Boo was always a suitably final villain for me as (other than really fitting the series' tone) a creature built to kill the highest gods. It creates a steady ramping up in terms of scope from Piccolo to Boo (Cell aside), and it's hard to imagine where to go from there (Universe 6 and becoming literal gods work well with that, actually).

Apparently now he's some sort of ancient Lovecraftian monstrosity if you go by background material, which is fine, though I think I actually prefer Bibidi creating him to use against the Kaioshin.

[Lord Beerus]

The serial escalation of the show began for me when Roshi went a casually destroyed the moon like it was nothing. When then got introduced to mystical fortune tellers, the literal God of Earth, alien warriors who were effectively walking persons of mass destruction... I feel as though a villain like Freeza was bound to be brought in after the Saiyan arc. It just felt right given how much the stakes were dramatically rising with each arc and given how much stronger the enemies and how much more dangerous the settings were becoming.

[Analytical Delusion]

The Buu arc is weird to me. I really don't care for everything that happens after Vegeta self destructs, and prior to the Kid Buu fight. Tons of power inconsistencies for me, Gohan powering up is rendered useless, and I don't think Goten or the either of the fusions were necessary (would have been awesome IMO if Kid Trunks became the Cell Games Gohan of this arc). That being said, I love the new Buu mythos. Namely that he existed since "time immemorial" and is a force of nature that was merely summoned or awoken. I think that's pretty awesome world-building, and I can buy him as a final villain. More than Freeza probably, since he's beyond mortal (I'm not convinced that Vegetto could have killed him; probably inaccurate, but I think the genki dama because of its pure nature was the *only* way to do him in).

Boo was always a suitably final villain for me as (other than really fitting the series' tone) a creature built to kill the highest gods. It creates a steady ramping up in terms of scope from Piccolo to Boo (Cell aside), and it's hard to imagine where to go from there (Universe 6 and becoming literal gods work well with that, actually).

Apparently now he's some sort of ancient Lovecraftian monstrosity if you go by background material, which is fine, though I think I actually prefer Bibidi creating him to use against the Kaioshin.

I don't mind Bibidi creating him either. The God killing angle works very well. I feel that angle had to be touched upon, because you can't introduce the after-life and its hierarchy without some suitable threat to its balance. Not directly related, but magic was touched upon in a positive sense by the Namekians. Having magic used as a concept for malice is terrific world-building as well.

How would you have treated Cell differently to make him a larger threat? The time-traveling aspect is fun to tie in, but I think it would have made for a more interesting character if he completely ruined the universe in his timeline (with Trunks dead, would have been nobody to stop him). His motivation to become complete (which I think is an interesting concept) would preclude him from doing that though, so he'd be an entirely different character.

[Cipher]

How would you have treated Cell differently to make him a larger threat? The time-traveling aspect is fun to tie in, but I think it would have made for a more interesting character if he completely ruined the universe in his timeline (with Trunks dead, would have been nobody to stop him). His motivation to become complete (which I think is an interesting concept) would preclude him from doing that though, so he'd be an entirely different character.

I don't think anything could be done without radically changing the arc to increase the sense of scale from the Namek arc, though I also don't think that steady increase in scale was something Toriyama was intentionally pushing -- it seems like a kind of happy accident.

I do like the shake-up Cell represents from the standard supervillain motivations the series has seen up to that point, though. From the time he absorbs #18 on, he's basically nega-Goku, looking to fight strong opponents and test his strength with no sense of morality. The way he describes his motivations to Trunks after defeating him is a reminder that, in addition to all the reminders we've gotten that he has Freeza's cells, Piccolo's, Vegeta's, Goku's in there too. If anything, I'd have liked to have seen that played up more.

[Analytical Delusion]

How would you have treated Cell differently to make him a larger threat? The time-traveling aspect is fun to tie in, but I think it would have made for a more interesting character if he completely ruined the universe in his timeline (with Trunks dead, would have been nobody to stop him). His motivation to become complete (which I think is an interesting concept) would preclude him from doing that though, so he'd be an entirely different character.

I don't think anything could be done without radically changing the arc to increase the sense of scale from the Namek arc, though I also don't think that steady increase in scale was something Toriyama was intentionally pushing -- it seems like a kind of happy accident.

I do like the shake-up Cell represents from the standard supervillain motivations the series has seen up to that point, though. From the time he absorbs #18 on, he's basically nega-Goku, looking to fight strong opponents and test his strength with no sense of morality. The way he describes his motivations to Trunks after defeating him is a reminder that, in addition to all the reminder's we've gotten that he has Freeza's cells, Piccolo's, Vegeta's, Goku's in there too. If anything, I'd have liked to have seen that played up more.

Good point, haven't thought about it that way as much as I should. Makes the son surpassing the father element more poignant in a sense if viewed through that lens.

EDIT: typo

[zcherub]

Cell did not kill more people than Freeza.

Directly? Yeah he did. Heck, Freeza only killed a handful of people on-screen.

Give or take an entire race/planet's population...