How Villains Are Represented in Dragon Ball Z

     While I've been reading Journey to The West lately, I regained my interest in Dragon Ball, more specifically it's better known sequel, Dragon Ball Z. My last blogs have gone into detail regarding my thoughts on the heroes of well known media but in this post I would like to discuss the villains of Dragon Ball Z.

    The first villain we encounter in Dragon Ball Z is Goku's (The main Character) long lost brother, Raditz. He tells Goku that he's not a human, but is in fact part of an alien warrior race called the Saiyans. He tells Goku that their race has a long standing tradition of conquering other planets but when Goku was sent to Earth, he hit his head and lost all his memories of being a Saiyan. Raditz is represented as a pure evil character that lies and cheats to get what he wants, even willing to kill his own brother just to conquer Earth.

    After Goku and his friends defeat Raditz, he tells them that Two more of his comrades even stronger than him are on their way to earth. This leads into the Saiyan Saga which is another name for this upcoming story arc. One year after Raditz is defeated, Vegeta and Nappa show up on earth. Vegeta is strongly motivated by his pride of being a Saiyan. While Nappa and Raditz are just lowly alien pirates that will stop at nothing to invade other planets, Vegeta is the son of the king of the Saiyans, making him the prince. His Pride of being a Saiyan pushed him to grow stronger to please and avenge his late father. 

    I find Vegeta's character very interesting because he's not just pure evil like other villains in the series. I think his motivations are something that I and other fans of the series can relate to more than just conquering planets for fun. While the "pure evil" villain can be interesting at times, I find a relatable antagonist is nine times out of ten a better antagonist because they have more depth. Vegeta later goes on to become an ally of Goku, using his pride of being a Saiyan to help save planets instead of destroying them.

    At the end of the day, I find that Dragon Ball Z's villains can be lacking at time because a lot of them are just evil for the sake of being evil. Considering how long the series is and how many more villains there are to come, this could change further into the story. There are still many more sagas for me to read so if you like this blog make sure to like and subscribe! Don't forget to turn on notifications for Gittity Goobers so you never miss another post! That's all for now

Best regards, 

Madden