By Mark Rodriguez
As the dub hits the final arc of Dragonball Super and the Broly movie wreaks havoc in movie theaters for a limited time, I look back and ask myself who the major villains of this series were. After all, it's no question that the main villains of DBZ were Vegeta, Freeza, the Androids, Cell and all the forms of Majin Buu. The final villains of Dragonball and Dragonball Z, and if you count GT were out to rule or destroy the world. But this isn't the case of the final boss of Super, that is really a challenge or an opponent but not an all out villain out to destroy the galaxy.
when you think of terms of true villainy, we only have two real ones. Let's check them out.
We started with Lord Beerus in the Battle of Gods arc where it's questionable of how evil Beerus is if at all. Lord Beerus is a necessary force, just as there are Gods of Creation, there must be Gods of Destruction to maintain balance. While Beerus destroys planets on a whim, he mostly came to Earth to challenge the Super Saiyan God. This wasn't a fight to the death either, but just a challenging fight. Of course pudding got involved and the fate of the Earth was at stake. Despite Beerus having the power to defeat Goku if he went all out and destroy the planet, he chose to spare them cause he enjoyed the fight and admired Goku's determination. Not exactly something Freeza or Cell would have done.
Speaking of Freeza, he returns in the following arc, the Resurrection F arc. I guess some can say he doesn't count cause it's the return of a former villain, but Freeza was evil through and through. He didn't come back to make friends, and while it's easy to not consider him a threat due to Goki and Vegeta having the Super Saiyan Blue forms, let's not forget that if they didn't, Freeza's new Golden form would have killed them all. I guess, unless Beerus decided to step in.
The Universe 6 Tournament arc brings in Champa, Beerus' brother with a similar threat level. They have a tournament and the winner between the fighters of Universe 7 (our main universe) against Champa's fighters from Universe 6. While the real antagonist is Champa all eyes are on the final opponent, Hit. Being the most dangerous assassin of Universe 6, Hit is not a nice guy, but he has no plans to suddenly attack Earth and kill Goku's friends for the hell of it. For this tournament he is, for all intents and purposes, another tournament contestant. Killing is against the tournament rules and he only used his killing techniques since Goku requested it (Goku never changes). Hit also gains some respect for Goku, and while he defeats him in the tournament match, he purposely loses the final match to allow Beerus' team to win.
Now we enter the Goku Black arc and we see possibly the true villain of the series. While at first Black is just an evil Goku in a new stylish gi, we discover that he is actually a corrupted Kaioshin-in-Training named Zamasu. Coming from Universe 10, Zamasu grew disgusted with the vulgar violent acts committed by mortals, and ironically his solution is to kill all mortals and thus restore the Universe to it's former beauty. After meeting an alternate version of Goku, Zamasu used the Super Dragonballs to switch bodies with Goku and then kill the original, along with his family. Then he used he Time Rings to meet another version of himself, and that Zamasu used the Super Dragonballs to wish for immortality.
Though in their sick minds, both Zamasus thought what they were doing for the greater good, they were indeed evil and insane. I personally liked this arc and the villain since it was different to see an actual twisted god that was following what he thought was his divine right. Not only that but in the end, Zamasu caused irreparable damage to Future Trunks' timeline that led to Zeno erasing the universe. I like the fact that in a way, Zamasu won and the things he did were not simply wished away with the Dragonballs. I mean, Freeza destroyed Namek... but they wished a new planet Namek and wished back most of the Namekians. Buu blew up the planet... but the Dragonballs brought it back and wished back everyone killed in the planet's destruction. Zamasu's machinations led to lasting consequences for Trunks and Mai. While out heroes live to fight another day, the story didn't quite have a happy ending for Trunks and Mai.
Finally for the Universe Survival Arc, we have the final obstacle, which is Jiren. Opinions on him are divided, mostly due to him being the super serious type, thus not showing a lot of character. The deal with Jiren however, is that he can just be a super strong fighter since he is another contestant in the Tournament of Power. He is not a bad guy, in fact he is a member of a heroic team called the Pride Troopers. Literally in his eyes, Goku is the villain, since it was his own aloofness that brought up the threat of multiversal extinction. Of course he is a tough obstacle, he is the most powerful warrior of Universe 11 and their main hope to survive, just like Goku is the main hope of Universe 7 to survive. Jiren is doing what he needs to do to survive, but that does not make him the villain. If Goku and the team can't take him down, their universe will be erased... but it's not done with the same intent as when Goku and his friends had to stop Majin Buu from doing practically the same thing.
Freeza also returns to take part in the tournament since Majin Buu fell asleep, so this brings the villain back into the scene. Even though Freeza had the potential to backstab the others at any given time, he was actually quite the team player and was instrumental in Universe 7's survival. However, Freeza is still evil and promises to continue his evil ways as we will see in his appearance in the movie Dragonball Super- Broly
So in the end, I do believe the only true villains in Dragonball Super that weren't just contestants in a tournament without any personal grudges, were Zamasu and Freeza. Though with Freeza appearing in two arcs and also in the new movie, he sure seems like the MVP of the bad guys in this series.
Now there's one more persona that might be considered a villain.
Goku himself. One thing that Super goes into that DB and DBZ showed briefly, are the actual lives of the characters when not fighting, and in Goku's case... he is bored. While in Dragonball and Dragonball Z, Goku's life was full of fighting, training, and being dead. The downtime in those series were basically filled with training for upcoming tournament or upcoming villains. Here, the characters just have normal downtime, so Goku is both bored without any action, but also determined to keep training to stay in shape in case a new threat comes along.
After meeting Beerus and Whis, Goku would train with Whis and learn his Super Saiyan Blue form. He was more than excited to enter the Universe 6 Tournament. He goes around bugging Krillin or whoever else to train. He arranges to hire Hit to kill him just so he has the challenge of facing a powerful assassin on the actual job. He goes to remind Zeno of the Tournament of Power which ends up putting several universes in danger, since the ones that lose get erased.
I'm not saying Goku did this with malicious intent, he had no idea the tournament would involve universal erasure... but to the eye of everyone else, Goku is the villain. All the other universes hate him. And to top it off, rather than deny it when being called a villain to his face, he responds with 'so I'm a villain huh? Sounds interesting.' Since this will make everyone in the tournament fight him that much harder, it's exactly what Goku wants. A challenge. I feel that since there is so much down time in Super, Goku is desperate for more challenging fights, even if he has to go out and find them. Goku has been fight-crazy possibly since the days of training with Master Roshi in preparation for his first tournament... but there were always new bad guys or tournaments to keep him busy. Now that there's actual peace and downtime... Goku is bored out of his mind if he can't find some sort of new challenge.
Anyways, whether people think Goku is a villain or not, I feel the true bad guys of Dragonball Super at least in terms of downright evilness and cruelty, are Zamasu and Freeza.
Tomorrow I get set to watch the new movie as Goku and the gang face the next big villain after the Tournament of Power. Broly himself.
As the dub hits the final arc of Dragonball Super and the Broly movie wreaks havoc in movie theaters for a limited time, I look back and ask myself who the major villains of this series were. After all, it's no question that the main villains of DBZ were Vegeta, Freeza, the Androids, Cell and all the forms of Majin Buu. The final villains of Dragonball and Dragonball Z, and if you count GT were out to rule or destroy the world. But this isn't the case of the final boss of Super, that is really a challenge or an opponent but not an all out villain out to destroy the galaxy.
when you think of terms of true villainy, we only have two real ones. Let's check them out.
We started with Lord Beerus in the Battle of Gods arc where it's questionable of how evil Beerus is if at all. Lord Beerus is a necessary force, just as there are Gods of Creation, there must be Gods of Destruction to maintain balance. While Beerus destroys planets on a whim, he mostly came to Earth to challenge the Super Saiyan God. This wasn't a fight to the death either, but just a challenging fight. Of course pudding got involved and the fate of the Earth was at stake. Despite Beerus having the power to defeat Goku if he went all out and destroy the planet, he chose to spare them cause he enjoyed the fight and admired Goku's determination. Not exactly something Freeza or Cell would have done.
Speaking of Freeza, he returns in the following arc, the Resurrection F arc. I guess some can say he doesn't count cause it's the return of a former villain, but Freeza was evil through and through. He didn't come back to make friends, and while it's easy to not consider him a threat due to Goki and Vegeta having the Super Saiyan Blue forms, let's not forget that if they didn't, Freeza's new Golden form would have killed them all. I guess, unless Beerus decided to step in.
The Universe 6 Tournament arc brings in Champa, Beerus' brother with a similar threat level. They have a tournament and the winner between the fighters of Universe 7 (our main universe) against Champa's fighters from Universe 6. While the real antagonist is Champa all eyes are on the final opponent, Hit. Being the most dangerous assassin of Universe 6, Hit is not a nice guy, but he has no plans to suddenly attack Earth and kill Goku's friends for the hell of it. For this tournament he is, for all intents and purposes, another tournament contestant. Killing is against the tournament rules and he only used his killing techniques since Goku requested it (Goku never changes). Hit also gains some respect for Goku, and while he defeats him in the tournament match, he purposely loses the final match to allow Beerus' team to win.
Now we enter the Goku Black arc and we see possibly the true villain of the series. While at first Black is just an evil Goku in a new stylish gi, we discover that he is actually a corrupted Kaioshin-in-Training named Zamasu. Coming from Universe 10, Zamasu grew disgusted with the vulgar violent acts committed by mortals, and ironically his solution is to kill all mortals and thus restore the Universe to it's former beauty. After meeting an alternate version of Goku, Zamasu used the Super Dragonballs to switch bodies with Goku and then kill the original, along with his family. Then he used he Time Rings to meet another version of himself, and that Zamasu used the Super Dragonballs to wish for immortality.
Though in their sick minds, both Zamasus thought what they were doing for the greater good, they were indeed evil and insane. I personally liked this arc and the villain since it was different to see an actual twisted god that was following what he thought was his divine right. Not only that but in the end, Zamasu caused irreparable damage to Future Trunks' timeline that led to Zeno erasing the universe. I like the fact that in a way, Zamasu won and the things he did were not simply wished away with the Dragonballs. I mean, Freeza destroyed Namek... but they wished a new planet Namek and wished back most of the Namekians. Buu blew up the planet... but the Dragonballs brought it back and wished back everyone killed in the planet's destruction. Zamasu's machinations led to lasting consequences for Trunks and Mai. While out heroes live to fight another day, the story didn't quite have a happy ending for Trunks and Mai.
Finally for the Universe Survival Arc, we have the final obstacle, which is Jiren. Opinions on him are divided, mostly due to him being the super serious type, thus not showing a lot of character. The deal with Jiren however, is that he can just be a super strong fighter since he is another contestant in the Tournament of Power. He is not a bad guy, in fact he is a member of a heroic team called the Pride Troopers. Literally in his eyes, Goku is the villain, since it was his own aloofness that brought up the threat of multiversal extinction. Of course he is a tough obstacle, he is the most powerful warrior of Universe 11 and their main hope to survive, just like Goku is the main hope of Universe 7 to survive. Jiren is doing what he needs to do to survive, but that does not make him the villain. If Goku and the team can't take him down, their universe will be erased... but it's not done with the same intent as when Goku and his friends had to stop Majin Buu from doing practically the same thing.
Freeza also returns to take part in the tournament since Majin Buu fell asleep, so this brings the villain back into the scene. Even though Freeza had the potential to backstab the others at any given time, he was actually quite the team player and was instrumental in Universe 7's survival. However, Freeza is still evil and promises to continue his evil ways as we will see in his appearance in the movie Dragonball Super- Broly
So in the end, I do believe the only true villains in Dragonball Super that weren't just contestants in a tournament without any personal grudges, were Zamasu and Freeza. Though with Freeza appearing in two arcs and also in the new movie, he sure seems like the MVP of the bad guys in this series.
Now there's one more persona that might be considered a villain.
Goku himself. One thing that Super goes into that DB and DBZ showed briefly, are the actual lives of the characters when not fighting, and in Goku's case... he is bored. While in Dragonball and Dragonball Z, Goku's life was full of fighting, training, and being dead. The downtime in those series were basically filled with training for upcoming tournament or upcoming villains. Here, the characters just have normal downtime, so Goku is both bored without any action, but also determined to keep training to stay in shape in case a new threat comes along.
After meeting Beerus and Whis, Goku would train with Whis and learn his Super Saiyan Blue form. He was more than excited to enter the Universe 6 Tournament. He goes around bugging Krillin or whoever else to train. He arranges to hire Hit to kill him just so he has the challenge of facing a powerful assassin on the actual job. He goes to remind Zeno of the Tournament of Power which ends up putting several universes in danger, since the ones that lose get erased.
I'm not saying Goku did this with malicious intent, he had no idea the tournament would involve universal erasure... but to the eye of everyone else, Goku is the villain. All the other universes hate him. And to top it off, rather than deny it when being called a villain to his face, he responds with 'so I'm a villain huh? Sounds interesting.' Since this will make everyone in the tournament fight him that much harder, it's exactly what Goku wants. A challenge. I feel that since there is so much down time in Super, Goku is desperate for more challenging fights, even if he has to go out and find them. Goku has been fight-crazy possibly since the days of training with Master Roshi in preparation for his first tournament... but there were always new bad guys or tournaments to keep him busy. Now that there's actual peace and downtime... Goku is bored out of his mind if he can't find some sort of new challenge.
Anyways, whether people think Goku is a villain or not, I feel the true bad guys of Dragonball Super at least in terms of downright evilness and cruelty, are Zamasu and Freeza.
Tomorrow I get set to watch the new movie as Goku and the gang face the next big villain after the Tournament of Power. Broly himself.
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