Magnificent Bastard/Dragon Ball (2024)

Magnificent Bastard / Dragon Ball

The most fiendishly clever, ruthless, and stylish antagonists in the Dragon Ball franchise can be found here.

Manga & Anime[]

• King Piccolo was truly the original Magnificent Bastard of the entire series. His first course of action upon being reborn is to send out his henchmen to assassinate every great martial artist in order to prevent anyone from using the Mafuba technique against him ever again. And when he beats Goku down the first time they met, he checks for a pulse before assuming he's dead. Too bad for him that Goku's heart started again after he left, for some reason. Also, he was also Genre Savvy enough to realize the heroes would most likely attempt to stop him with the Dragon Balls either before or after he got the wish, so at first, he swallowed them. Then he threw them back up once there was sure there was no-one else around left to challenge him, and to finish it off, he killed Chiaotzu when he attempted to give his own wish and interfere with Piccolo's before he could finish, and after having his wish granted, he then proceeded to one-hit-kill Shenron with his breath blast just to ensure that none of the heroes attempt to use the Dragon Balls to defeat him. Continuing his dark reign over the Earth, King Piccolo all but wins. Even after his death, he spits out an egg that carries his reincarnation to finish where he left off. As cool as he was evil, King Piccolo was fondly remembered for being one of the first truly threatening adversaries.
• While Vegeta was more a stoic Smug Super in his debut saga, he did show shades of this that made viewers appreciate him. Notably when he told Nappa to stop fighting the good guys and wait three hours for Goku to arrive because he wanted to break Goku's spirits by crushing his son and remaining friends in front of him once he got there, when he avoided Goku's spirit bomb and Krillin's disc attack meant to cut off his tail while in Oozaru form, and when he immediately realized his false moon would still be in effect the moment he saw Gohan's tail had grown back, prompting him to attempt to remove it. In the Namek saga, however, he ascended to full Magnificent Bastardry. He successfully hides his true power from Frieza and his men so that not even their scouters detect it, revealing his secret of doing this to the unsuspecting Cui before killing him. He outmaneuvers Dodoria and kills him only after being told a secret about the Saiyans' destruction. Then he implements his strategy for obtaining the Dragon Balls that will allow him to wish for eternal life: he figures he'll take just one Dragon Ball from a Namekian village and hide it underwater, then lie in wait for Frieza to gather the remaining balls. And not only is this exactly what he does, but he ends up acquiring five balls from Frieza's ship when he's taken there after losing to Zarbon in order to have his health restored (Frieza had hoped he'd tell him where his hidden Dragon Ball was), meaning he took them right from under Frieza' nose! He takes the last ball from Krillin after he had made full use of a Saiyan's power growing stronger after a previous defeat by killing Zarbon. The only reason his plan falls apart is because Gohan finds the Dragon Ball hidden underwater using a Dragon Ball locator. Even after this failure and being forced into an Enemy Mine with the good guys, Vegeta continues to employ cunning plans and come dangerously close to having his way. He lost this magnificence after his first revival due to his characterization being altered significantly to being a Hot-Blooded, foul tempered Anti-Hero, but damn if he wasn't impressive as a bad guy.
• Captain Ginyu is the stylish, good humored, and Affably Evil leader of the Ginyu Force, who were called in to secure the Dragon Balls and kill the heroes, with Ginyu successfuly taking the Dragon Balls after showing off his comrades' special abilities, smug and collected the whole while. Swearing to avenge his troops upon hearing they were killed, Ginyu is able to deduce Goku is suppressing his power, but still wishes to fight fairly and disapproves of Jeice's interference. Realizing Goku is stronger, Ginyu swaps their bodies after wounding his original body to handicap Goku, and when beaten by Vegeta, comes close to stealing Vegeta's body and only failing due to Goku's luck on getting a frog in the way. Trapped in the body of a frog for years on Earth, Ginyu became aware of Frieza's return where he journeyed to the battlefield and tricked Tagoma into saying his incantation, stealing Tagoma's body and resumed serving his Frieza as his strongest warrior.
• In his imperfect form, Cell runs rings around the Z fighters as he masterfully evades their attempts to ambush him while draining countless cities of their population's bio extract. Upon finding himself sorely outclassed by Vegeta later in the series, Cell tricks the Saiyan prince into allowing him to absorb Android 18 and reach his perfect form by promising to provide him with an opportunity to test the full extent of his newfound power. In the ensuing rematch, he succeeds in reaping vengeance upon Vegeta by breaking him down physically and psychologically. When facing Trunks, he shows how savvy he is about how raising his strength and muscles only slow him down. He then more or less toys with the Z-Warriors by forcing them to play by his own rules in the Cell Games or face outright annihilation. In the Cell Games, however, is when he starts to get more overconfident and the reason he loses in the end ironically enough, is that his plan to push all Gohan's Berserk Buttons in order to make him a worthy challenge ends up working far too well. He regains his magnificence, however, when he comes back from the seeming dead, more powerful than ever, and almost defeating Gohan and destroying the planet.
• Super Majin Buu was the most Dangerously Genre Savvy villain in the history of the series and he was only person in the history of the series that was able to Out Gambit Piccolo of all people by wiping out all of humanity in only a few minutes when Piccolo was expecting him to take hours to do it, so that Goten and Trunks got extra time to train, and on top of that, never even leaving Kami's lookout while doing it. He then masterfully pulled off a Xanatos Speed Chess, when he noticed Gohan's growing power, and so he fought against Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks and tested the limits of his strength and his weaknesses (e.g. fusion limit). After briefly fighting Gohan and finding himself overwhelmed, he goes through an intentional Superpower Meltdown, knowing he will regenerate and buys time (and getting Goten and Trunks to recuperate, to fuse again). When he returns he goads Goten and Trunks into fusing again at full power and absorbs Gotenks and Piccolo into his being, deciding 30 minutes is more than enough to handle Gohan, and he was right in that regard. Goku then arrives and the fusion breaks down. Goku says Gohan alone is strong enough to defeat Buu, but then Buu reveals that he planned for this eventuality as well, and had a piece of himself ready to absorb Gohan the whole time, who he goaded into standing still until it was too late. He was also the only villain that did not succumb to Bond Villain Stupidity, which is very atypical for this series.
• Hit, introduced in the Universe 6 Saga, is an assassin from Universe 6 with the power to "Time-Skip", famed for always fulfilling his contracts without leaving a trace. Despite his cold professionalism, Hit always abides by a code of honor and goes out of his way to avoid unnecessary casualties when performing his contracts. Initially joining Champa's tournament for personal gain, Hit finds an adversary providing him a challenge in Goku for the first time, a sentiment that causes him to fake his defeat to show that he is not Champa's pawn. Later hired by a client to assassinate Goku, Hit swiftly dispatches the Saiyan before he could attack, promising to pay his respects to his seemingly slain rival, who was only saved by his own quick thinking. In the Tournament of Power, Hit rarely loses his cool in the heat of battle and simply shifts tactics whenever his opponents find ways to counter his signature Time-Skip. Even when he's physically outmatched by the mighty Jiren, Hit nearly rings out the Pride Trooper by using a variety of tactics and techniques, a feat that was previously deemed impossible.
• In the Future Trunks Saga, we have the Alternate Future Zamasu - both of him. Particularly the one who's become Goku Black; he's a thorough No-Nonsense Nemesis with a Mysterious Past who wastes no time in divulging his identity, rather opting to fight his opponents head on without hesitation, and in the present, when discovering Trunk’s time machine, he destroys it in an attempt to leave Trunks there before being forced back into the future, and even when Trunks returns, with Goku and Vegeta no less, he is only amused and in fact excited to fight them both. He is keen on bringing his foes into his traps, such as when he stabbed Vegeta, and is such a Combat Pragmatist that he doesn’t allow a one-on-one fight between Goku and his partner. He was able to meld the Saiyan power of Goku's stolen body with his own divine energy to power up into a new transformation called Super Saiyan Rose, and kept making up new techniques on the fly to counter his foes. He keeps a sad*stic form of polite grace at all times, genuinely complimenting the heroes in their battles and never losing his temper or raising his voice even once in any of his appearances, completely averting major Villainous Breakdowns of any kind. And not only are they one of very few villains to actually gain immortality (and unlike anime Filler Villain Garlic Jr., they exploit the advantage of this rather than suffering a drawback of it), but after becoming Merged Zamasu and even after getting seemingly defeated they're one of the most successful villains in the history of the franchise, as they actually accomplish exactly what they set out to achieve, their spirit leaving their body and becoming an all-powerful divine existence that merges itself with the entire universe in Future Trunks' timeline, eradicating all mortals in said timeline and extending his power across Universe 7's entire multiverse, which can only be stopped by Future Lord Zen'o.
• As of the Universe Survival Saga, Freeza has managed to very nearly graduate to this level. While he remains an utterly sad*stic bastard, he's more level-headed, cunning, charismatic, and savvy this time around, as demonstrated with his bargaining with Goku and manipulation of Frost. To this end, he's even willing to help his mortal enemies for a long-term goal, and in contrast to the Saiyans, he is perfectly content to sit back and wait while the other strong contestants tire themselves out fighting each other before making his move, all while still acting his usual self. He has managed to terrify his foes, his teammates, and the spectating Gods of Destruction alike, long before exhibiting his full potential. The saga ends with him becoming instrumental to helping the Universe 7 team win the tournament, and while he doesn't get to wish for godhood on the Super Dragon Balls like he'd been planning on, his actions during his Enemy Mine with Goku are rewarded by Beerus and Whis bringing him back to life with no strings attached. The first thing he does with this new chance at life? Go back into space and call together the remnants of his empire or any newcomers willing to join him so that his Evil Overlord status is restored, only this time he's even stronger than before (with his Golden Freeza transformation) and now is patient enough to wait until he and his forces are even more powerful before he's to take any shots at revenge on Goku and his friends on Earth. As he puts it, "the emperor of the universe has returned!"
• Also featuring in the Universal Survival Saga, Grand Minister is the attendant and advisor of the Zenos, who always maintains a polite and calm demeanor. When the Zenos desire to hold a tournament thanks to a talk with Goku, Grand Minister creates the Tournament of Power, a multiversal tournament where the penalty for losing is erasure of said universe. Grand Minister instructs and coordinates the universes, creates the arena via magic materialization, and serves as Tournament announcer. Seemingly apathetic to the destruction of losing universes, the Tournament is revealed to be a Secret Test of Character for the winner to make a selfless wish of restoring the erased universes, while making another wish would lead to the complete destruction of the multiverse, with Grand Minister content the selfless wish was made.
• Dragon Ball Super: Broly:
  • Bardock is a great deal more cunning and noble than his original counterpart, being in a loving marriage to his wife Gine. Upon receiving orders from Frieza for all Saiyans to return to Planet Vegeta, Bardock immediately suspects the tyrant is plotting something. Bardock decides to send his youngest son offworld, stealing a pod during the night, while choosing not to have him and Gine accompany him as to not risk being detected by scouters. After a month, Bardock's suspicions come to pass where Frieza eradicates the Saiyan race by destroying the planet, with Bardock performing a Last Stand by attempting to blast and then stand-in the way of the Frieza's attack.
  • Cheelai is a wanted criminal by the Galactic Patrol for stealing a one of their ships. She ends up joining the Frieza Empire to get the Galactic Patrol off her tail knowing they wouldn't dare oppose Frieza. Given the mission of recruiting strong warriors, Cheelai decides to bring Broly and Paragus back to Frieza and receives a huge monetary reward. Feeling sympathy towards Broly for his mistreatment by Paragus, she steals the remote for Broly's Shock Collar from Paragus and destroys it. Seeing Broly in a losing battle against Gogeta and at risk of being killed, Cheelai steals the Dragon Balls from under Frieza's nose and uses them to wish for Broly to be returned to the planet Vampa, before Cheelai escapes with her comrade Lemo, knowing Frieza would be furious and out to kill them.
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and Dragon Ball Heroes: Fu is a youthful mutant demon created from the cells of Towa and Mira, effectively making him their son by proxy. In the Xenoverse world, he is a curious, co*cky and mischievous trickster who wants to use his powers to mess with space and time in the DB multiverse and rewrite certain events in history to see all the different "What If...?" stories he can pull off. While he operates ruthlessly and is very nefarious in what he can do to people without them even knowing, Fu admits that he "doesn't really care for the gloomy paths" and only makes changes in history that he believes most people will be happy with, earning even a bit of respect from his sworn enemies, the Time Patrol. In the Heroes world, Fu is far more callous and more of a Mad Scientist always determining the value in what he pulls from history, capturing many individuals from different time periods for his twisted experiments in his demonic laboratory. He is extremely untrustworthy, having tricked or betrayed everyone he has feigned allegiance with, and while he has a practical aim to gather high battle powers for his own sinister purposes, he takes great pleasure and amusem*nt in observing the fights he sets up between powerful warriors, often messing with them directly just to get more out of them. Rising to power as the "Dark King of Fear" of the Demon Realm, Fu remains a Wild Card who doesn't actually care about helping his family; only to discover new ways to use the energy absorbed from the changes in history, and as such is one of the Z fighters' most cunning and unpredictable adversaries.
• Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Hearts is the leader of the Core Area Warrior, a group who have the shared goal of eliminating all the gods, especially Zeno, by using the Universe Seed which he charges with energy from battle. Hearts successfully coerces Zamasu for his cause, and then snatches Cumber right after his defeat at the hands of the heroes. Hearts then coordinates the attack of multiple universes, strategically sending in specific fighters so they will hold advantages, while at times stepping in to assist them. Hearts is able to extract information by reading the minds of his enemies, while also making sure they are never able to get near him, until he has enough power to fight them. Upon attaining enough energy for the Universe Seed, Hearts uses it to transform into his Ultimate God Slayer form, where he proceeds to kill Zamasu. Coming very close to killing the heroes, when he is finally defeated, Hearts dies gracefully expressing his desire was simply to free mortals from the gods, as well as his newfound respect towards mortals.

Anime Only[]

• In the Dragon Ball anime, Colonel Violet is a high ranking Red Ribbon Army soldier, being an opportunist she is not too devoted to their cause and demands payment for her services. Using the dragon radar she finds a Dragonball, coming into conflict with a crocodile she uses two of her men as bait to distance herself from it but protects the life of an injured monkey showing a cold disdain, yet soft side for innocent creatures. Anticipating the Red Ribbon Army's downfall, Violet takes advantage of Goku's assault to blow their vault open and loot their riches, making a successful escape afterwards.
• Turles of Movie 3, The Tree of Might, is a Saiyan survivor who leads the Turles Crusher Corps. and resembles an Evil Twin of Son Goku himself. He intends to plant the Tree of Might, which absorbs the planet's energy then grows special fruit, which Turles hopes can make him strong enough to challenge Frieza for control of the universe. After planting the Tree on Earth and met with resistance from the Z Fighters, Turles offers to let Gohan join him and upon the boy's refusal he generates an Artificial Moon to turn Gohan into a Great Ape and pits him against Goku, before destroying said moon so Turles himself won't transform and lose control. While evenly matched against Goku, Turles manages to eat one of the Tree's fruit and dominates the fight. A cunning Combat Pragmatist and an Affably Evil Benevolent Boss who even revived two of his men, Turles is one of the most memorable and near successful movie villains.
• Cooler of Movie 5,Cooler's Revenge,is not consumed by his ego and is less likely to underestimate his opponents, as seen when he acknowledged that Goku was still alive despite taking a direct hit from his attack, and thus ordered his subordinates to search for and kill him.

Even when they had demolished a large portion of the surrounding environment with continuous barrages of energy blasts, he did insist that they continued their pursuit. Cooler is also apparently more positively inclined and respectful towards his subordinates than his brother and father, as he has never once been seen abusing, ridiculing, executing them or anything of the sort; and even offer to take on opponents whom outmatch them personally, which likely contributes to their undivided loyalty and respect to him.

• The version of Paragus, father of Broly from Movie 8, Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan, is also a qualifier by virtue of being a persuasive manipulator and a Large Ham on top of it. After being stabbed and Left for Dead along with his infant son by King Vegeta out of fear for the latter's power, Paragus desired to take revenge through the King's son. To do this, he recruits the Shamosians to build an infrastructure on a planet on a collision course with a comet before arriving on Earth and offer Prince Vegeta a planet to rule over, purposely taking advantage of his egotistical personality. When his plans are inevitably exposed, Paragus does not descend into a Villainous Breakdown but rather freely confesses his plans and backstory to the Z-Fighters. Even though he did not intend to trigger Broly's transformation due to previously having wiped out the South Galaxy before, Paragus nevertheless showed pride in his son's strength while letting him kill the Z-Fighters for him. Paragus attempts to eliminate Vegeta not through brute strength but by knowledge and manipulations of the arrogant prince, managing this without having much power at all.

Broly is seen as a rather docile and seemingly harmless Saiyan (which is largely uncharacteristic of the majority of the Saiyan race); however, it is heavily implied that Broly suffers from split personality disorder, as seen in a flashback of his father attempting to place a customized "crown" (that he had specially-made to control, and subdue, his erratic and temperamental behavior) on his forehead while he sleeps, Broly briefly wakes up and calmy asks his father what he's doing, but suddenly attacks his father in an aggressive frenzy. Once in this aggressive and violent state of mind, Broly demonstrates a "typical" Saiyan's love of fighting and brutality, but on a much more extreme level. This maniacal and sad*stic personality most likely stemmed from three major traumatic factors during his infancy: 1) When he was born, he possessed an incredible amount of power that the doctors recorded at an inordinate 10,000. This anomaly meant that, at the time of his birth, Broly was (to put it bluntly) essentially born as a Super Saiyan and his power was close to the power possessed by adult Saiyans like Bardock (a "low-class" Saiyan whom was the biological father of Goku) and King Vegeta (a "Saiyan Elite" whom was the father Vegeta, and the King of Saiyans) at the time of their deaths, but never properly learned how to control his power. 2) Upon his birth, the doctors quickly informed King Vegeta of Broly's immense power, to which he ordered the immediate execution of the infant. Though Paragus arrived at the last minute and desperately begged the king to spare his son, saying that he would be a useful ally to the prince, he was quickly restrained by two guards as his pleas fell on deaf ears; King Vegeta reveals to Paragus that he fears Broly would grow too strong and would eventually become more of a threat than an ally (a fear that was not entirely unfounded), before blasting Paragus in the stomach with an energy blast and declaring that he would die alongside his son. Afterwards, King Vegeta personally went to the "nursery" where Broly was, grabbed him by one leg, and proceeded to stab him in the abdomen with a knife before leaving the infant and his father to die. 3) Almost immediately after father and son were "thrown out like trash" and left to die, Frieza proceeded to destroy Planet Vegeta; surprisingly enough, Broly summoned his power and shielded himself and his father from certain death. These major factors contributed to Broly's fractured psyche and led to his frenzies to happen more frequently and last longer the older he grew. Broly also seems to have trouble controlling his rage, meaning he could very well end up destroying himself.

• In Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, Dr. Lychee is a Tuffle who perished during the genocide of his race at the hands of the Saiyans. Before his death he created Hatchiyack a supercomputer that could harness The Power of Hate and had the power to create Ghost Warriors, phantom constructs of deceased enemies of the Saiyans, including himself. As a Ghost Warrior, Lychee released Destron Gas all over the Earth with the intention of poisoning the and disabling the ki of the Saiyans that lived there. Ghost Warriors of past enemies prevent the heroes from destroying the Destron Gas machines. When finally confronting Lychee himself, Lychee anticipates his defeat and instead has his hatred be collected by Hatchiyack to complete its transformation into the ultimate warrior.
• Zangya,from Movie 8,"Bojack Unbound"characterized as "a deadly beauty" (such as her battle with Krillin, who was too awestruck by her beauty to fight),worked as a fighter under Bojack, alongsideBido,Bujin, andKogu. After Bojack was freed from the seal placed upon him by the Kais, she and her comrades accompanied Bojack to Earth were they took over a tournament hosted by a billionaire named X.S. Cash. She and the rest of Bojack's henchmen took the place of four ofHercule Satan's students to serve as opponents for the finalists.

Zangya fought against Krillin and managed to beat him rather easily. Later when Gohan and the rest of the Z Fighters found out what was going on, they fought Zangya, along with the rest of Bojack's henchmen.

• Janemba from Movie 12 - Fusion Reborn,is a vigorous, destructive, temperamental and aggressive monster who seems to have little motivation other than sad*stic pleasure and lust for anarchy. In his first form, he appears more childlike and innocent, but becomes much less so in his second one.

He is capable of using magic to alter the environment to his liking, with little regard for how it affects others, showing an obsessive need to control. If someone insults his magic it becomes slightly weaker for a while, proving that his powers are deeply connected with his emotional state and that he's easily offended.