Dragon Ball is one of the most popular anime in the industry, as well as one of the longest-running. It’s a franchise that’s been around since late 1984, and has 4 main series. With such a long history comes many beloved iconic characters.
This includes villains, which are always an important part of storylines. A story arc will fall flat if the antagonists are uninteresting. Thankfully, Dragon Ball is filled with many wonderful villains. This list will highlight the best throughout the franchise.
10 Vegeta
One of Goku’s strongest allies may be a fan favorite now, but he was initially a major antagonist near the beginning of Z. While his reign as the central villain was brief, he did manage to leave a very strong first impression. Nappa was capable of single-handedly defeating most of the main cast, yet dwarfed in power compared to Vegeta. After Nappa lost, Vegeta showed him no mercy. This was a sign that he meant business.
Both of Goku’s fights against Vegeta are fan favorites, but Vegeta doesn’t have much to offer outside these battles. He is an ally for almost all the series after Namek, leaving him with only a small handful of episodes where he was actually a villain. Even on Namek Vegeta did more to help the main heroes than he did to harm them.
9 Piccolo
Piccolo is in a very similar situation to Vegeta. He is far more well-known as one of Goku’s allies, rather than for his role as a main antagonist. That doesn’t, however, take away from how great of a villain he was. Goku’s fights against both of Piccolo’s incarnations are among the best fights in the original series.
Many early Dragon Ball villains like Pilaf weren’t super serious threats. While the Red Ribbon Army and some other villains were serious, the writing and goals behind them were often lackluster. Piccolo is where this tone really started to change. Demon King Piccolo was extremely powerful and wanted to rule the world with an iron fist.
8 Omega Shenron
GT’s concept of the Dragon Balls forming evil entities due to too many wishes being made was a brilliant concept. The writing for the first four was odd, but Nuova, Eis, and Syn lived up to the hype. Syn becoming Omega by absorbing all the negative energy-filled Dragon Balls served as the final antagonist in GT.
GT was the final major piece of Dragon Ball media for over a decade, so Omega was essentially the strongest antagonist the series had for a very long time. It was also quite fitting to end Dragon Ball with an enemy that was made of the Dragon Balls.
7 Buu
Supreme Kai, Babidi, and other character built up Buu as a scary demonic entity. Majin Buu’s cheerful personality was a surprise and is the reason that the character is still loved today. Having such an innocent and happy villain as the main antagonist created a massive shift in tone, yet it never felt like there was a lack of threat.
Buu would eventually transform into Super Buu and Kid Buu which were much more cataclysmic in nature. Both Potara Fusion and the Spirit Bomb used to defeat these variations of Buu are some of the most iconic moments in the entire franchise.
6 Frieza
Frieza is undoubtedly the most well-known villain in the series, and for good reason. The entire first half of Z was building him up as the evilest being in the universe. Frieza has proven time and time again that his cruelty lives up to all the build-up. Unfortunately, Frieza has become a victim of overexposure. He was brought back in Resurrection of F simply for shock value, and not to actually further the narrative.
He returned again in the Tournament of Power, Super’s Broly movie, and the manga’s Granolah arc. He was actually used quite well in the Tournament of Power, but the constant focus on Frieza has made him feel stale compared to other villains. It also doesn’t help that Frieza’s motivation is very straightforward each time.
5 Broly
The legendary Super Saiyan became one of the first movie original characters to become as popular as, if not even more popular than, a good deal of canon storyline. He’s also the only character with four entire movies themed around him. Despite Broly’s Second Coming and Bio-Broly being some of the most disliked movies, they didn’t stop Broly’s popularity from climbing as time went on.
Super’s Broly movie has rewritten his backstory and personality in a way that not only makes him canon but also greatly improved the quality of his writing. Z Broly’s biggest weakness was having a bland personality, and his goal was to get revenge on a person that cried loud as a baby. Super’s version of Broly is a legendary improvement that earns the character a high placement on this list.
4 Moro
Most Dragon Ball Super antagonists fall into two categories. Most likely Beerus, Champa, Hit, and Jiren aren’t truly evil, but rather just antagonistic due to specific circumstances. The other category multiple fall into is the returning characters like Frieza and Broly. Moro is one of the few exceptions among the major antagonists.
He is a serious threat to the entire universe. In fact, he has one of the highest kill counts in the franchise. Moro is seen draining all life from multiple planets throughout his story arc. His overwhelming strength after doing so was even a match for mastered Ultra Instinct.
3 Zamasu / Goku Black
Zamasu is Dragon Ball Super’s other truly threatening villain. What makes Zamasu special is his motivation behind being evil. Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza, and nearly all the major antagonists throughout the franchise were just power-hungry, but Zamasu has a genuine motivation.
He’s a god that witnessed how sinful mortals can be and wants to rid them of the cosmos. This scheme even involved traveling through multiple timelines to steal Goku’s body.
2 Baby
Dragon Ball has attempted a story arc where the lone survivor of an alien race destroyed by the Saiyan’s seeks revenge. This is a brilliant concept and gives the villain a genuinely good reason to be an adversary. The first of these villains was Hachiyak, although his presence in the franchise is very minimal.
The other two are Baby from GT and Granolah from Super. Granolah isn’t quite as menacing as Baby, and isn’t even the main antagonist of his story arc. That leaves Baby as the best of the three characters with this kind of plot line. Baby’s ability to take over people’s bodies has given fans many fights that otherwise would be unlikely to happen, such as Gohan and Goten teaming up to fight Vegeta.
1 Cell
Cell’s desire to absorb the Androids to reach his perfect form is fairly straightforward, but it was executed excellently. It’s not very often that a villain’s motivation is to hunt down what was previously thought to be the main antagonists, and his time travel shenanigans have resulted in multiple fan-favorite storylines.
Cell contains the DNA of nearly every important character throughout the series. This means he has Goku’s Kamehameha, Tien’s Solar Flare, an amplified version of Piccolo’s regeneration, and many other abilities. These combined with his own ability to absorb energy from other living beings created a terrifyingly perfect villain that even Goku was unable to defeat.
