Greatest Dragon Ball Villains:

Dragon Ball is one of the most well-known anime series in the world. It taught us that if you train, toil and scream hard enough, you too can become a God. Goku and the other Z fighters are already behemoths of the arena. But Dragon Ball Z is not just about the heroes. It is also about the greatest Dragon Ball villains, with some villains being a class apart from the rest of the folks.

 10. King Piccolo

King Piccolo belongs to an age of Dragon Ball which was purely primal in nature. Back then Dragon Ball was not just about guts and glory. It actually had villains that were way stronger than Goku and the other good guys. King Piccolo was one such villain. In some ways, that made Dragon Ball a really good anime to watch for a generation that was used to fights where the protagonist uses his wits and brains to out-smart a stronger enemy rather than just training and buffing up.

King Piccolo has fought Goku so many times in the series that we have lost count. He also made enemies with other characters like Yamcha and Oolong, who eventually turned to the good side. King Piccolo hails from a breed of villains that will never be seen in Dragon Ball again.

 9. Cooler

The anime industry in general and the Dragon Ball series, in particular, tend to show a lot of sibling rivalry. It is a core element of their plot lines. Cooler is the brother of Frieza, one of the most popular Dragon Ball Villains of all time. Cooler’s rivalry with his brother goes so deep that he once claimed that he would have probably gone for the kill to eliminate Frieza if Goku did not.

The cooler was a supervillain who kept coming back, again and again, no matter how many times he was defeated. He is also a core movie villain, appearing in multiple Dragon Ball original movies. The cooler was once drifting through space after being defeated by Goku when he merged himself with an alien microchip and became a planet-hunting entity and thus became even stronger. Yeah, that’s how cool Cooler’s backstory is.

 8. Vegeta

This short guy had the balls to go up against Frieza, whom the entire universe feared at one point in time. Vegeta was the Saiyan Prince and he was said to be the strongest Saiyan warrior of his time (a position he had to forfeit after meeting Goku). Dragon Ball Z has many villains that Goku fought but the Saiyans were the first that came into the scene and out of those, Vegeta is the one that has had the most memorable fight of them all.

Vegeta’s no-nonsense attitude made the viewer fall in love with him. In the Planet Namek saga, we realize that Vegeta is more of a mercenary than a bad guy and he is doing what he is doing because he is a victim of circumstances. Vegeta has only grown as an anti-hero in the series.

 7. Goku Black

Dragon Ball Super drew a lot of criticism from the fans. The animation style was different and the new villains that came to challenge the Z fighters were so easily pushed back that the audience started losing interest in the new series. There was also the issue of all the other characters becoming supporting characters with the series only focusing on the character development of Goku and Vegeta. Then Goku Black entered the scene.

The loyal viewers who stuck around saw that Goku Black was a supervillain who was worth the wait. He was the clone of Goku and came from the future. The saga also saw the return of Future Trunks, a fan-favorite character. After Cell, Android 17, and Android 18 were defeated, Goku Black swooped in to show the future world that he was the greatest threat of them all with his new Super Saiyan Rose transformation. Goku Black’s true identity remained a mystery throughout the story which only ended up spicing and thickening the plot.

 6. Super Buu

Super Buu was a massive upgrade in Kid Buu who was just a pinkish fat kid with an attitude problem. Super Buu was the eviler side of Majin Buu who took over after Kid Buu failed to deliver results. Super Buu was a rational character and he was a rare supervillain in the series that actually had a good enough character development. Super Buu was also cruel and approached everything in a logical and calculated manner.

He performed probably the most brutal kill in the Dragon Ball series’ history. After liquefying his body, he entered a man’s body and made him explode from the inside. He also turned Chi-Chi into an egg because she got on his nerves and then smashed it, effectively killing her.

 5. Broly

Broly is a supervillain that the fans have always wished jumps from the movies into the series. Broly is the true Legendary Super Saiyan that the Saiyan mythology speaks of. True all Saiyans with proper training become Super Saiyans but Broly was born with the Super Saiyan gene and the mantle is rightfully his to bear.

All in all, Broly has appeared in three movies but one of the movies Bio-Broly is considered to be the worst addition to the Dragon Ball saga. Broly does not like playing around like the other villains. He cuts to the chase and takes out his enemies with minimal but swift strikes. He once singlehandedly took out the entire Z fighter squad in a matter of minutes.

 4. Beerus

It is hard to take a villain seriously that looks like a hairless cat. But Dragon Ball pulled it off with Beerus, the God of Destruction. After so many sagas and power upgrades, Goku and the rest of the Z Fighters seemed invincible and the Dragon Ball series was running out of ideas for villains who could stand up to them. Abo and Cado were hilariously outmatched against Goku and Vegeta. Battle of Gods movie changed that.

Beerus was the Universe’s God of Destruction and he had come to Earth to destroy it as part of his job. Even Goku’s Super Saiyan God was no match for this guy, who shrugged his attacks off like it was nothing. In the end, Beerus spared Earth not because he was defeated but because he fell in love with Earth’s food and did not want it to go to waste.

 3. Jiren

Jiren’s power is so vast that he was considered a legend in not just his universe but also in the rest of the universes. Jiren once unleashed his Ki that shook the World of Void, took multiple blasts of Kame-Hame which did not even give him a scratch, and fought and defeated Goku’s Ultra Instinct form, something not even the Gods of Destruction could do. Jiren will probably remain the most powerful villain in the series. A guy who can swipe away Goku’s Universe 7 Spirit Bomb and get out of a time prison like it was a piece of cake needs to be acknowledged.

 2. Cell

The cell was the first villain that truly revolutionized the Dragon Ball series for the coming years. After Goku achieved Super Saiyan status, everybody thought that the series was done for. Then Gohan achieved Super Saiyan 2 in the Cell saga and it was an entirely different ball game altogether. The cell was created by Dr. Gero who also created the Android 16, 17, and 18. The cell was not just a threat to Earth but the entire universe. He was strong enough to destroy an entire solar system if he wished it so. His original plan was to jump from one world to another and judge them, which is just a fancy term for saying ‘destroy them’.

 1. Frieza

And at the top, we have the greatest Dragon Ball Villain of all time – Frieza, the one who started it all. The Dragon Ball series’ most important saga was probably the Frieza saga. Goku trained hard to fight Frieza, a being who could easily destroy an entire planet. And he still fell short.

The Frieza saga eventually leads Goku to push him-self beyond Saiyan boundaries to achieve his legendary Super Saiyan transformation. Frieza as a villain was deadly and memorable. No other villain before him was able to achieve a level of popularity that he did. He was, is, and probably always will be the greatest Dragon Ball Villain of all time.