Which DBZ antagonist do you like the most?
Boring opinion, I know, but I gotta give it up for the Obvious Choice.
And I'm not just saying that because I haven't had a chance to talk about him yet.
Frieza runs a real estate empire that carries out genocidal acts of gentrification, purging tracts of land of their native inhabitants so he can sell their land for profit. Commenting on this choice for his ultimate villain, Akira Toriyama stated that he made this decision because real estate speculators are the worst people there are.
Fucking based.
From the moment we meet Frieza, he is a monster. Toriyama likes this Big Guy Little Guy dynamic where the Little Guy is the one you really need to watch out for. Frieza is the Littlest Guy ever.
He's so tiny. And yet you know exactly who the most dangerous person in this group is. Zero question.
By the end of this altercation, Frieza reveals one of his signature attacks, giving us our first glimpse of the kind of person and the kind of fighter he is. This is such an important moment for his character and I'm kinda mad that the anime had Dodoria do it instead.
Muri destroys the Scouters and blinds Frieza. I've talked before at length about the devastating impact that this move and the Namekian warriors' attack has on Frieza's campaign.
But once it's done, he has to face the music. He's not getting out of this alive.
In one last desperation play, Muri tells Cargo and Dende to run while blocking them with his body. And that's when it happens.
This is Frieza.
Specifically, this is Frieza's Death Beam. It's never actually given a name, but is generally referred to as Death Beam. We've seen a move like this only once before.
The Dodonpa, signature technique of Tsuru-senryu, first introduced by the assassin Taopaipai, was built for extreme lethality. This is not a technique for fighting; It's a technique for killing.
What makes Frieza's Death Beam stand out from the Dodonpa, however, is its accuracy and its speed. He threads the needle around Muri to hit Cargo before anyone even has a chance to react.
We see its accuracy and speed again six days later, when it finally catches up to the other child fleeing from him here.
The panelwork here calling attention to everyone's reactions as Frieza's ki bullet shoots past them, as his shot threads the needle between all obstacles in his path to strike his target far behind them. Dende is dead before anyone can even process that Frieza fired.
This is the difference between the two techniques. The Dodonpa is a gun. The Death Beam is a sniper rifle. Faced with the physical hurdle of bodies impeding his path, Frieza point-clicked Cargo and Dende to death.
He later executes Vegeta this same way.
Done with you.
All of this context for Frieza's sniping shot serves to set up the stunning subversion when Goku arrives to fight.
Frieza's never seen this before. Goku shouldn't even be able to see the shots coming until they've perforated his lungs. That's how Death Beam works. It's this moment that lays it out: Frieza's about to be tested like he's never been tested before.
Speaking of cool techniques, I've always been partial to this move from his Third Form.
The anime gives Frieza little ki bullets coming out of his fingers but I want to note that we never see a physical projectile when he's doing this. Frieza jams his fingers back and forth in the air while something pulverizes Piccolo.
I've always imagined he's poking the air so fast that it's hitting Piccolo with pressurized air currents. Similar to Goku's Mazoku air current punch from the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai.
But that's just me.
In any case, Frieza's got some fun moves. He's something of a hobbyist martial artist. Which is to say, Frieza has an interest in martial arts. In addition to his Death Beam, Frieza's concocted a litany of other interesting techniques.
He even invented the Kienzan, independently of Krillin.
Though he can remote operate his Kienzan so it's strictly better than Krillin's. Frieza, in his spare time, has come up with a bunch of cool moves. Too bad he has no idea how to use them.
Frieza's greatest weakness is his inexperience. He practices martial arts the way a business CEO who bought a log splitter so he can cut some wood and feel woodsy practices agriculture. Frieza has never had a proper chance to truly experience martial arts, because he was born too powerful.
The only partner who's ever even dirtied his skin was his dad.
And even that isn't much. Frieza's too strong. He wants to pursue martial arts. He wants to hone his technique. But when you win every fight by blinking too hard in the opponent's direction, what even is there to practice?
Frieza created a transformation to seal away his immeasurable ki because he was born with so much ki flowing from him that he can't even contain it. At his peak, Frieza's ki bleeds out of him. He simply can't contain it.
Goku wonders aloud why Frieza took so long, even after the fight turned against him, to go to 100%. Frieza's been all "Oh I'm only using 10% power this is my 50% you made me go to 75%" and Goku's like, "Okay. My dude. What's this about, for real?
This, incidentally, is not a great translation. What Goku's saying here is supposed to be basically, "Perhaps when you use your full power, your body can't handle it."
He is correct.
Frieza's Full Power has a lot in common with Super Saiyan 3. His theoretical maximum ability is wildly different from the reality of what he's capable of, because he bleeds ki like it's going out of style.
So, while other characters wound up earning transformations that make them more powerful, Frieza created a transformation to seal away some of his incomprehensible ki.
Then he created a couple more because even though he could now control his strength and even manipulate the amount of ki he's releasing at a time, he was still too powerful for anyone to ever compete with and needed even more ki sealed away.
Again, not a fantastic translation from the people who brought us "bottom-tier boy", as Frieza's statement here could be interpreted as saying that he gets taken by a berserker rage or something.
What he's saying is more like, "My power is so great that I can't properly contain it."
Point is, Frieza transformed to lock down his ki and seal parts of it away, so he could control the rest better. Then he kept going, locking away more and more and more of his ki. And even at his most nerfed, he's still five times more powerful than the Second Strongest Guy in the Universe.
Frieza has never in his life had the opportunity to be pushed. That's what makes Goku so enthralling to him.
Frieza plays with Goku because he's genuinely having the time of his life. This guy can fight him in his Final Form. Nobody can fight him in his Final Form. He's so happy, he straight-up forgets that he's trying to complete a genocide against Goku's entire race.
He said that five minutes ago. Gohan's hidden power freaked Frieza the fuck out. Saiyans are too strong now. They've gotten too strong. Frieza cannot permit them to keep existing because they're getting strong. Every last Saiyan, every last one, must die. Every single one. Scorched earth, no survivors.
But then he meets a Saiyan martial artist who's a technical master and pushes him more than he ever thought possible and suddenly:
He goes from "Saiyans are TOO STRONG and they all must die because they might threaten me" to "OH MY GOD I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN CAN I KEEP YOU!?"
It's this desire for a true rival, this opportunity to satisfy his amateur's curiosity about martial arts, that ultimately unravels him. Frieza has one ruthless and pragmatic option for ending this fight once it starts to be too much for him. He can technically stop the fight any time he wants.
But he can't bring himself to do it. He wants to fight. He wants to compete. Frieza's been on the outside looking in at martial arts for his entire life and even when his greatest fears are fulfilled and the Super Saiyan is in front of him, he wants to try.
So when he does attempt to pull his Lethal Ragequit, he pulls back at the last second. He can't bring himself to do it. Goku initially assesses that Frieza held back out of fear of hurting himself.
But later, as Frieza begins unlocking the final chains on his ki, Goku changes his assessment. Noting that if Frieza really held back simply out of a mistake, he could have shot the planet again at any point to finish the job. He's been letting this play out because he can't bring himself to end the greatest fight of his life that way.
This fight is still happening because Frieza wants to compete. I mean, he wants to win, of course, but he wants to win as a martial artist. He's never truly gotten to be a martial artist before.
He is not the guy winning the gold medal at the Tenkaichi Budokai. He has never been that guy. He's the guy who buys up the land the Tenkaichi Budokai is held on and then bulldozes all the people off of it. But in his heart of hearts, he wants to be that guy. That guy is so cool. Frieza wants to play too.
In a sense, by hosting the Cell Games, Cell got to live Frieza's greatest fantasy.
This is who Frieza is. He's the cruel and wicked heir to Genocide Realtors Inc., who is in love with the idea of being Tenshinhan - A desire that exists at odds with - and undermines - his pragmatic business sense, so to speak.
He is the most vile character in the history of Dragon Ball. The worst kind of person. He is also an overeager child whose wealth and privilege prevents him from ever truly enjoying his hobbies, to an extent that he'd be almost pitiable but for all the genocides.
And he is Dragon Ball's greatest villain.
978 notes
·
View notes
The Ghost and the Amazon:
Danny ends up in the world of gods and monsters and is having more fun than he should. But to his defense, he only knows these beings from books and the ghost zone. And, having been fascinated by this world for around ten years, he adored it! He was struck in his prime of 21 years, so he had in truth no idea how many years he really was here, but you could say after 5 he no longer cared much about it. (His father His height, as he had his growth spurt, was pretty muscular too, but not super massive. (Think of Thor, Steve Rogers, or Goku, yeah, Goku Piccolo Saga.)
After an attack by Circe, Wonder Woman too ended up in this new realm, seeing monsters wreaking havoc on the mortal realm. Being a hero, she will help them, and so she joined this Son of Hades?? in fighting against them. They had become fast friends over the years through adventure and fighting. Diana noticed he, just like her, didn't age.
+
It had been a shame that after a new portal opened, they could leave but were needed, but Diana would visit him and he would visit her.
+
Amity Park had changed not much; as he had fallen through the portal, the whole town thought he was Isekai'd and now could return.
And man, the whole town was surprised as they saw Danny, that massive and full-of-muscle Fenton man. Not sure what to do. But the Fentons were happy to see him back.
Danny, too, was happy to see his mom, dad, Tucker, Sam, Jazz, and Ellie.
Ellie told him how she protected the town while he was gone, and Tucker and Sam told him what he missed in school and similar.
Jazz was now his tiny, big sister, as he was taller than her by 1 head.
Mom and Dad learned about him being a phantom and were pretty accepting of it; they were just sad he was gone for so long.
He been missed 3 years, but the doctors said he was around the start of his 20s in body age but much older. And seem to be prime of his body; the isekai'd changed him. maybe Magic.
As Ellie learned by talking with Danny, whom he met in the realm! She wanted to really meet her her Wonder Woman!, but Danny thought first to wait more than a month. She told him about the Space Station.
Well, time to visit Diana! She never told him in all the years about the Space Station!
+
For Diana
True to his words, Danny came to visit her maybe to wait one month was much, but here he was in the Watch Tower. It turned out his adorable cutie pie baby clone (his words not her, but she is adorable), Ellie, was a fan. So while she talked to the tiny girl, Danny looked out the window at the stars.
She could spend later time with her Danny. Time to tell Ellie about their adventures in the last the last few years in the Realms with Danny.
439 notes
·
View notes