What's your opinion of Saiyan Saga Vegeta?

[Kingdom Heartless]

Just pretend this was the only saga he was in. Kuririn killed him at the end. He never became a good guy or formed any of his redeeming qualities.

How do you feel about him as a villain?

I gave it some thought the other day, and I have to say I feel he pales in comparison to Freeza, Cell and possibly even Buu. See, all these characters had their features that set them apart from your average cartoon villains. Freeza had his patronizing attitude that was on the edge of a psychotic outburst whenever someone ticks him off. Cell favoured the thrill of battle over simply killing his enemies. He wanted to fight everyone at their very best. Buu had his comical side, and the fact that every transformation altered his personality greatly.

Vegeta was... kind of just some dude who happened to be the same race as Goku. There's not much that sets him apart from other '80s cartoon villains. Almost to the point where you could expect him to fly off in his pod yelling "I'll get you, Z Warriors, if it's the last thing I doooooo!" That's not to say he wasn't in a good saga. The battle against him was great. He was just a bit of a flat character at that stage. His personality was never really much more than "I'm superior to you!"

[Herms]

I agree that the battle against him is much more interesting than he is as a character. I don't think he becomes interesting until the Namek story line. I guess it's one way the later stuff biases how I see the earlier parts. He's good as a half-ally/half-enemy, so in comparison he seems a bit dull when he's just flat-out the villain.

[DBZnut]

Pretty poor in terms of Villains, he was mostly just extremely cocky

I am pretty sure Toriyama would have planned for him to come back though. Hopfully it thought ahead for this one!

[TrunksTrevelyan0064]

I find it laughable that he goes "YOU'VE MADE MY PRECIOUS PRINCELY FACE BLEED" when later on he gets completely wrecked by the likes of Zarbon and Recoome.

Other than that ... I don't really have an opinion - he'd just be another villain. With a minor twist of oh btw, he's a prince. Of a dead race. So... okay.

[Gaffer Tape]

Hmm. Not much love so far for Vegeta as a villain. While I agree his character became much more interesting in the Freeza arc (before bottoming out immediately afterwards), he's honestly considered a worse villain than no-personality Cell?! I think Vegeta was great in his first arc. The chemistry between Nappa and him was great. They seemed to have great fun running around the galaxy killing people. You could tell this was the kind of thing they did all the time and had developed quite a rapport. But at the same time, Vegeta was clearly in charge, and you didn't screw around with him.

As Herms said, the actual fight was one of the most interesting in the entire series, which certainly kicked up my estimation of its villain. I think even more so than Freeza, Vegeta has that wildly manic switch from calm to crazy when his dominance is questioned. The difference is that while Freeza goes from polite to enraged, Vegeta goes from smug rich kid to whiny rich kid. And while that certainly made him extremely annoying as a "hero," it was very satisfying to see as a villain. The guy who had earlier let the heroes plan a free shot on Nappa when he was convinced it wouldn't matter would later stomp on people's ribs when they're down just because they dared to piss him off. He's spoiled, egotistical, maniacal, and just so much fun to watch.

And, finally, there's a reason that the whole Goku/Vegeta has endured so much, and it's because of this arc. There's just so much going on here for Dragon Ball. Goku has only recently been confronted with his roots. Vegeta considers Goku a traitor to his race as well as scum due to their caste system. Goku has to confront the giant ape beast that he himself had become and realize his own (inadvertent) misdeeds and destruction caused by his own heritage. Vegeta, more so than Tullece even, is the personification of what Goku could have been, what he, at least at this point *grumble*, strives not to be. He could have happened to have been read as a high class warrior. We certainly know through the abilities he gains that he deserved to be one. And then he wouldn't have been shipped off as a baby, and he might have been a privileged little killer similar to Vegeta.

Goku is much more involved, has much more of a real connection, to Vegeta and this plot, than he does with any of the subsequent villains, which is something that's a big problem later in the series, which I think TripleRach summed up best: Toriyama just didn't know what to do with Goku. Sure, he could be written out to ratchet up the drama and then brought back in to save the day, but there's never anything deeper than that. He almost just becomes a plot device rather than a character. But even though this arc started the whole trend of Goku being absent, he still always felt connected, and a lot of that has to do with Vegeta. He even stops the fight just to try and let Goku get there because that's how much he wants to put him in his place.

So... yeah, I think Vegeta was wonderful in his introductory arc.

Other than that ... I don't really have an opinion - he'd just be another villain. With a minor twist of oh btw, he's a prince. Of a dead race. So... okay.

Well, if it was just the Saiyan arc, possibly not, since he was never mentioned to be the prince until the Freeza arc...

[songohan619]

I find it laughable that he goes "YOU'VE MADE MY PRECIOUS PRINCELY FACE BLEED" when later on he gets completely wrecked by the likes of Zarbon and Recoome.

Well, he was like that because Goku was a low class Saiyan.

[Hellspawn28]

^And that he is not used to having people being stronger then him.

[Saiga]

He wasn't the best villain, and his character would improve a lot during the Freeza arc, but he was still a better villain that Perfect Cell or Freeza.

The problem was that so many other things in that arc were better than him as a character, like the actual battle with him.

[Kingdom Heartless]

But even though this arc started the whole trend of Goku being absent, he still always felt connected, and a lot of that has to do with Vegeta.

I'd say the Piccolo Daimao arc is more responsible for starting that trend.

[Gaffer Tape]

In a prototypical way perhaps, but not in the same way or same extent as the others. It's true, he was separated from his friends, and they assumed he was dead, and he did have to jump in at just the perfect moment to keep Tenshinhan from dying. But, for the most part, he wasn't removed from the story. He fought Piccolo's henchmen, and he fought Piccolo himself early on. He met and brought Yajirobe into the fray, and led him to Karin's, so he was very much involved in the story in his own way, despite having some downtime. So, yeah, I can definitely see why you would say that. Still, It's certainly a fair amount different from the Freeza arc, where Goku spends half of it in a spacepod doing nothing but traveling and another huge chunk in a medical machine, and has absolutely no connection to the plot other than having to show up in time to fight. Or the Cell arc, where he shows up just long enough to get sick and be bedridden for the first part of the arc, in training for the second part of the arc, and only really becomes actively involved in the Cell Games, the final battle of the arc.

In a nutshell, the Piccolo Daimao arc did start the trend of moving Goku around so the other characters could flail about ineffectually until he managed to get there. But it didn't start the trend of pulling him out so forcefully that he didn't feel connected to the story anymore.

[Rocketman]

Saiyan Arc Vegeta is a badass motherfucker.

Know why? Because he breaks Goku. And you say "so what, other villains beat goku to a pulp". Well, you're mistaking me. Vegeta doesn't just beat Goku, he breaks him.

There is no super shonen bullshit. No "everything i've got!" last-ditch ultimate move, no "~share your energy~" everybody-contributes malarkey, no suddenly-relevant legends, no self-sacrificing heroism, no miracles. Hell, most of those come up and Vegeta just beats the shit out them.

The main character spends half the fight in a crumpled heap with Vegeta occasionally jumping over and kicking him in the ribs. Mr. Hidden Powaaaaahhhh gets his shit wrecked no matter how mad he gets. All their Super Special Mystical Twaining is useless. The Everybody Helps technique fails completely. Even Oozaru doesn't work - Vegeta cuts off his tail before the beast really damages him. It's only the pure dumb luck that Gohan happened to land on Vegeta that finally brings him down.

It's a beautifully brutal fight that outdoes everything before and after, and it's completely dependent on who Vegeta is: the complete opposite of everything "shonen".

[Gaffer Tape]

Wow. I never thought I'd agree with Rocketman so fully and totally, but I couldn't describe that fight better myself, but that's why it's always been my favorite fight in the entire series.

[Michsi]

I suppose knowing that Vegeta is actually an underling of the next big bad kinda mitigates his role as a big villain for me, the same way his existance made Radditz seem less important( I also guess that's why so many see the Saiyan Saga as part of the Freeza/Namek Saga)
Other than that , his villain persona seems to follow the same trend as the majority of Toriyama's villains. Calm, overconfident and cocky in the beginning, a raging wreck once things get difficult.
So yeah, my oppinion is that if you take away his role in the Namek arc, you take away the most intriguing thing about his character

[Kingdom Heartless]

As I said, he was in a great saga, and the fight against him was great, but being brutal doesn't make him a good villain.

Hell, I think the fight against him is probably the most believable and possibly even the best.

I don't even think Vegeta was a bad villain... I just think he pales in comparison to the more creative later ones.

[DBZAOTA482]

Saiyan Arc Vegeta is a badass motherfucker.

Know why? Because he breaks Goku. And you say "so what, other villains beat goku to a pulp". Well, you're mistaking me. Vegeta doesn't just beat Goku, he breaks him.

There is no super shonen bullshit. No "everything i've got!" last-ditch ultimate move, no "~share your energy~" everybody-contributes malarkey, no suddenly-relevant legends, no self-sacrificing heroism, no miracles. Hell, most of those come up and Vegeta just beats the shit out them.

The main character spends half the fight in a crumpled heap with Vegeta occasionally jumping over and kicking him in the ribs. Mr. Hidden Powaaaaahhhh gets his shit wrecked no matter how mad he gets. All their Super Special Mystical Twaining is useless. The Everybody Helps technique fails completely. Even Oozaru doesn't work - Vegeta cuts off his tail before the beast really damages him. It's only the pure dumb luck that Gohan happened to land on Vegeta that finally brings him down.

It's a beautifully brutal fight that outdoes everything before and after, and it's completely dependent on who Vegeta is: the complete opposite of everything "shonen".

QFT.

[DarkPrince_92]

Rocketman on point. Vegeta won that fight on earth.... aside from Nappa, he beat the heroes basically BY HIMSELF. That was the best struggle I've seen in the series.

[Gozar]

Saiyan Arc Vegeta is a badass motherfucker.

Know why? Because he breaks Goku. And you say "so what, other villains beat goku to a pulp". Well, you're mistaking me. Vegeta doesn't just beat Goku, he breaks him.

There is no super shonen bullshit. No "everything i've got!" last-ditch ultimate move, no "~share your energy~" everybody-contributes malarkey, no suddenly-relevant legends, no self-sacrificing heroism, no miracles. Hell, most of those come up and Vegeta just beats the shit out them.

The main character spends half the fight in a crumpled heap with Vegeta occasionally jumping over and kicking him in the ribs. Mr. Hidden Powaaaaahhhh gets his shit wrecked no matter how mad he gets. All their Super Special Mystical Twaining is useless. The Everybody Helps technique fails completely. Even Oozaru doesn't work - Vegeta cuts off his tail before the beast really damages him. It's only the pure dumb luck that Gohan happened to land on Vegeta that finally brings him down.

It's a beautifully brutal fight that outdoes everything before and after, and it's completely dependent on who Vegeta is: the complete opposite of everything "shonen".

This is a phenomenal post. I was unsure how to put what I was feeling into words, but you got it perfectly. For me, now that I'm watching through Z in Japanese, I feel a lot different about Vegeta as a villain. Horikawa's voice really helps to make Vegeta seem like a different kind of character. Different than his cliche villain voice that Sabat gives him. I feel like we really get to grow with Vegeta's rage through Horikawa, similar to the way we do with Freeza.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Well, looks like Rocketman wins the game.

[Fionordequester]

Horikawa's voice really helps to make Vegeta seem like a different kind of character. Different than his cliche villain voice that Sabat gives him. I feel like we really get to grow with Vegeta's rage through Horikawa, similar to the way we do with Freeza.

Honestly, I feel the same way about Chris Sabat as you do about Horikawa. For me, what really makes Chris Sabat stand out is how much he throws himself into the character, making him seem almost crazy at certain points, such as when Vegeta was ranting about Blutz Waves to Goku, especially in the Remastered Version.

[Super Sonic]

Vegeta was... kind of just some dude who happened to be the same race as Goku. There's not much that sets him apart from other '80s cartoon villains. Almost to the point where you could expect him to fly off in his pod yelling "I'll get you, Z Warriors, if it's the last thing I doooooo!" That's not to say he wasn't in a good saga. The battle against him was great. He was just a bit of a flat character at that stage. His personality was never really much more than "I'm superior to you!"

With what you mentioned about him being like 80s cartoon villains, I always thought Brian Drummond's Vegeta voice was one of those great villain voices that really stand out like Megatron, Skeletor and Cobra Commander. I was rather memorable. Know some guys might say he's not like them, but they're also power-hungry murderers so I could say so, except Skeletor partially. Seen him torture, but not kill anyone.