#freeza arc

[danthepest]

I think one rleationship that doesn’t get talked about a lot in the fandom is the one between Krillin and Piccolo. Now granted, most of it is a lot more subtle and in the background (and a majority confined to the anime) compared to Piccolo and Gohan’s bond or the Goku & Vegeta rivalry, but its there.

They have a unique friendship and understanding which fascinates me to no end. They started as hostile opponents in the 23rd tournaments, with Piccolo belittling Krillin constantly (likely due to his memories of Tambourine killing the guy). As the fight progresses, Piccolo even apologizes for calling Krillin a small fry and by the end of it its not Yamcha, or Tenshinhan or even Goku who makes Piccolo rethink on how easy the world is to conquer, but Krillin. And the little guy seemed to take to teaming up with the demon pretty well. They bantered and planned and worked well with each other during the Saiyan invasion. Krillin was specifically pointed out in both manga and anime to being shocked and surprised at Piccolo’s sacrifice for Gohan.

Then you have his general support of Piccolo on Namek and their perfect cohesion durin the Garlick Jr arc.

And of course the infamous “Come on, we’re friends, right?” moment during the Cell arc. It led to Piccolo exploding in rage and exclaiming he was still Piccolo Daimao and biding his time to take over the world and “RAWR GRR EVIL” before flying off.

And Krillin didn’t buy it for a second. He read the guy instantly. Then you had Piccolo taking charge of the situation when the Cell Juniors attacked. While the manga doesn’t show Piccolo at all during that segment, the anime ran with it and going out of his way to smack a Cell Jr. away from Krillin. Krillin screamed after Piccolo when he charged in to help Gohan during the Kamehameha struggle against Cell.

Then you had cute moments like Krillin praying he doesn’t get paired up against Goku or Vegeta during the tournament only for Piccolo to grin and remind him that he’s technically praying to Dende or Krillin cheering Piccolo on before his “fight” against Kaioshin (which I’m totally still not bitter over). Or when they both have to stop each other from going in to try and help Vegeta when he self destructs and Piccolo asking Krillin for assistance in showing the kids the fusion dance again.

I just...I dunno, I find their interactions and subtle friendship really endearing and fascinating, especially since you wouldn’t really expect them to have one.

[nessguts]

who wants to see something stupid i made

[amokslime]

Hey! It's me! I'm beyond excited to finally be able to show you my cover art for the @kamehamehamlet script.

Thank you so much, Daniel, for commissioning me to draw two of my favorite characters of all time, during my favorite arc of the series. And a massive thank you to whichever tumblr user/s reached out to ask him about it. Now I'll get to experience a play I never thought I'd get to see again. Seeing it all those years ago really did pull me out of the most difficult art slump of my life. Seeing the actors have so much fun, while being so emotionally sensitive, made me remember why I fell in love with making art in the first place. So I'm really looking forward to reading the script and seeing the staged reading! I hope we can all enjoy it together.

Here's the latest informational post about the script. Please take a look, and please reblog to make everybody look at my drawings of vegeta to make sure all the folks who are lamenting that they missed it get their chance.

[shannonsketches]

One of my favorite differences in the DBZ manga that makes Vegebul make More Sense To Me, is that because Vegeta never left Earth, he was living at Capsule Corp for over two years before Bulma got pregnant (assuming Trunks is like 3-6mos old when we see him as a baby), but she said she 'wouldn't live with that jerk' afterward, which implies (to me) that he'd been a chill enough housemate up until the pregnancy, which tracks with his generally private and professional behavior as a Lord in the Freeza Force (in the manga).

I like to think it became a compounding factor in learning that he was slated to be killed in a year, and led to him being uncharacteristically overzealous and performative (and so opposed to Trunks getting close to him) in the android saga as opposed to how strategic and cautious he was with serious threats in the Freeza saga.

I am also always thinking about how Something Happened between him losing to Cell and re-entering the time chamber in the manga, because he was back living at Capsule Corp and staying near Trunks and Bulma when the Cell Games were announced.

[freeza-emperor-of-the-universe]

[kattailjump]

My partner finally finished the Granolah arc in the Dragon Ball Super manga and we can finally talk about That Scene at the end. I delight in this development so much. We stan our evil overlord.

[s735]

8/15/23

[pleasantspark]

The Frieza Race Overhaul DOC is out!

[unkownknowledge]

I wish there was a Saiyaman spin off.

I wanna see Gohan dealing with threats to earth that show up in the city, but he figures noone else is available and just deals with it himself.

Cell crawls back out of hell more powerful than before and he still only accepts Piccolo's help because he was helping him and Videl shop at the time and "hey might as well get a Saiyathree!"

And yes Piccolo must wear the fit and do the pose this is mandatory.

[jermuniverse]

dragon ball was so easy to watch but dragon ball z is so difficult to watch during freeza's arc because it takes so fucking long and im SICK and TIRED of it.

[textfromthelookout]

oh shit, you're right

uh, character things, i guess

idk, I just like seeing your big essays and want to know your thoughts on the funny racism lizard, character wise

Character things about Freeza, huh?

Now, Freeza’s my personal favorite villain in Dragon Ball as a whole, has been for a long time. It’s that he bothers with the professionalism, I think—that veneer of civility that’s almost insulting in how thinly it hides his true nature. But like, what’re you gonna do, tell him off? You can sense that he’s almost daring them to sometimes, just so he has an excuse to kill them. Take that together with his other attributes—charismatic, arrogant, opportunistic (in how he tries to recruit Goku to his side before throwing down with him), to name a few—and you have a great villain on your hands.

I’ve always thought the ‘genocide planets so they can sell them to other species’ mission statement of his whole operation was a little far-fetched. How can that be profitable in any way? How many species really need rehoming? Why would they even need to, aside from imminent planetary destruction or uninhabitability, and how often does that happen? How often do the endangered races even have time to broker a deal for that kind of thing? Or is it like, a money sink for the wealthy, having your own private planet?

I suppose the issue of why he needs money in the first place can be explained by him being royalty and acting like it too—someone with his pedigree doesn’t go anywhere in anything second-rate, and it better always be running in tip-top form. In more than a few ways he’s like Vegeta, actually—the never-before-toppled purebred genius humbled by some hick from nowhere. Unlike Vegeta though, he’s evil without repent—I’m inclined to believe that the real reason for this supposed occupation of his is simply that he enjoys sadism and slaughter for its own sake.

I digress. Like I said, he gets much more interesting to start dissecting after he dies two and a half times, and it becomes clear that there have been changes in him. They’re very subtle, but they’re there! The turning point for him is the Tournament of Power.

You see, Freeza learned to trust there, even if it was against his will. When he demands to know if Goku hasn’t forgotten his promise to bring him back to life, he’s asking ‘Can I trust you? Can I trust you to keep your word on that?’ And Goku flat out tells him ‘I’ll keep my word—you know that better than anyone.’ And Freeza does know that, loathe though he is to admit it. Goku didn’t go through with killing him after beating him on Namek—he fully intended to leave. Maybe, in addition to the humiliation and rage over his defeat, there was some mistrust in that final attack that forces Goku's hand.

It can’t be coincidence, can it? That when Jiren is ruminating on his realization of how powerful trust is, it’s over an image of Freeza and Goku—in the forms they were in during Namek—working together. The fascinating thing about Goku and Freeza’s relationship, to me, is that… well, they’re each the only person that the other seems to truly hate. Goku is never more hostile—even in Super, though I admit it’s a much more masked hostility—than when he’s around Freeza. Freeza, for his part, isn’t typically invested enough in anybody to bother to hate them. People are playthings to him, they’re beneath anything more than mild interest. Does an elephant hate the ant that bites it? Does it even notice it’s there? The only exception to this is Goku. I mean, how are you meant to interpret ‘I spend every tortured hour in this hellscape dreaming of fighting you again’ as anything other than obsessively invested?

You can see, perhaps, some evidence of this change in how he acts during the Broly movie. He’s less hair-trigger. Kikono blanches when Berryblue teases Freeza about his wish to grow taller, which implies that it’s commonly known that talking about his height is a surefire way to get yourself killed, and that he expects something to happen. But rather than immediately atomizing her, or at least threatening to, Freeza just kinda… takes it. Yes, yes, you’re very perceptive, Berryblue. Oh and Kikono, I trust you’re not going to tell anyone about this? Rather than just killing everyone in the room. Yeah, maybe it’s just that he’s short on personnel, but. He justifies it as wanting a way to balance the scales since he has to contend with both Vegeta and Goku, but he wants someone else—Broly, specifically—by his side.

Freeza trusted Goku in the Tournament of Power, and even if they’ll never, ever be on the same side again, Freeza can trust now. That’s going to be fucking terrifying if he finds someone who trusts him too.

[danthepest]

I don't care how much you love it, what your headcanons are or how you interpret it. The Vegeta/Bulma pairing is one of the absolute worst writing fumbles in Toriyama's entire career.

It paints Bulma in a bad light for banging a remorseless, murderous space pirate who was responsible for the deaths and near-deaths of most of her friends. It paints Yamcha in a bad light because of Toriyama's "oh um, he totally cheated... offscreen... sometime... maybe... yeah" excuse, regardless of how out of character that is for manga/anime Yamcha. It paints the entire Dragon Team in a bad light because they just accept this malicious gremlin into their group despite doing absolutely nothing to truly earn it. And it clumsily tries to start some sort of character arc for Vegeta's actual redemption, poorly done as it is.

Nothing about this is organic or feels natural. Even when I first saw it, it felt forced because dammit we needed another Super Saiyan, even though the concept is trivialised by old fart Gero making cyborgs and droids who could wipe the floor with them and the genocidal, intergalactic tyrant that was considered the most powerful being in existence at the time.

I just...ugh...I hate...HATE this entire mess. Whenever I'm reading, rewatching, replaying anything from the Cell arc I always groan at this nonsense.

In the later arcs and media, you just accept it and move on because Vegeta isn't the remorseless ass hat he was when the relationship started, but man...

[scalproie]

vegeta is genuinely a great character but if you encounter a vegeta fan its your moral duty to kill them as quickly as possible

[dragonsballsz]

#ACTUALLY I think he should... like it's only fair!!#yamcha#frieza#dragon ball z#yamza#laugh track tag

u know what ur right i'm sorry yamcha. go get that war criminal tushy i believe in u

…yamcha just bc bulma banged a space terrorist doesn’t mean you should too.

[shannonsketches]

like why did they change where Vegeta was when Cell announced the cell games in the anime

why did they make this vegeta starting shit with yamcha instead of chillin in the lab with his family? why did they take Bulma out of the lab? Why'd they say she was Out while Dr Brief was repairing 16? Why did they change Bulma working on advanced robotics to running in late with her baby?

it's the same scene except: - Bulma's actively at work being a scientist - Vegeta's not being rude to her (or anyone else!) - Vegeta waits for Trunks instead of leaving the room - Cell interrupted the airwaves, which means Trunks and Vegeta were just hanging out with Bulma and Dr B while they were working

Those are all Great Character Details!! That the anime rails against!!

[the-official-ceo]

Another detail in Dragon Ball that I adore that Super ruined is Vegeta's design reflecting his slow progress from villain to antihero to hero. He first shows up in the full Freeza Force regalia, but every arc that passes he loses another piece of it. Slowly, bit by bit, he abandons the bloodthirsty warlord lifestyle he defined himself by, another piece of the uniform that symbolizes the tyranny he fought for falling away, until the Peaceful World saga where he's wearing ordinary earthling clothes. Always a sucker for when a character's growth is reflected on their design and Vegeta is an A+ example.