AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHIT! Dragonball Z! Since the very youngest years of my life, Dragonball Z is one of my guiltiest and most beloved pleasures in entertainment. Yeah, the dialogue might be corny (though props to the Funimation cast for drastically upgrading the dialogue and voice acting in the uncut version of DBZ Kai), but when this show presents great fights they are some of the best that Japanese Animation have to offer.
So what are the best of the best, well there are far too many to count and it is extremely difficult to rank just 5, but I’ll do my best. Obviously, if you are unfamiliar with the DBZ story expect some SPOILERS. Also, you can definitely expect a lot of Vegeta because Vegeta is a bad-ass motherfucker! However, for those who may wonder later. No I did not forget about the first battle between Vegeta and Goku, but I find that fight to be exceedingly overrated and pales in comparison to another confrontation that will later be seen on this list.
5. Goku vs. Frieza: Now some of you fans may be saying “GOKU VS. FRIEZA? ONLY NUMBER 5 ON THE LIST? CRUCIFY HIM!” However, before you go all Super Saiyan on me and twist my neck off, please keep in mind that this fight is unbearably long even in the shortened Kai version. How many episodes did it take for Planet Namek to blow up? SERIOUSLY? I lost count. However, despite the battle overrunning its course, the impact of this fight was monumental to this series. The seemingly invincible master of most of the known galaxy, Frieza in his arrogance toys with Goku for half of this entire fight. Rightly so, because at the time Frieza’s power level was miles ahead of Goku’s, but that came back to bite Frieza’s ass. I’m getting ahead of myself though because this fight really brings out new sides of several characters, the first being Vegeta. This fight began with literally the saddest moment in the entire DBZ series, when Vegeta realizes that his rival, Goku, is becoming a Super Saiyan, he laughes and taunts Frieza telling him of the great day that he will see him fall to a Saiyan. In annoyance, Frieza kills Vegeta with one shot and out of grief and respect for the fallen Saiyan prince, Goku buries him. For a show where death has absolutely no consequence, when Vegeta dies while shedding tears of grief and misery for his fallen comrades it has a huge emotional impact on the story. This yields a huge leap in Goku’s character because it’s the first time he comes to understand the pride in his Saiyan heritage and asks Vegeta to lend him the strength and fiery will of a true Saiyan warrior. Though he fought hard and relentlessly, Frieza had the upper hand every time against the young Saiyan until Goku unleashes a massive Spirit Bomb attack upon an unsuspecting Frieza. Seemingly defeated Goku, Krillin, Gohan, and Piccolo prepare to leave Namek and celebrate their victory with their loved ones. Surprise though, Frieza’s not dead, not even close and realizing that he has to finish the fight now, Frieza starts to knock out the Z warriors one by one. First Piccolo, then Krillin. Unfortunately for Frieza, this threw Goku over the edge and thus the first Super Saiyan transformation seen in the series was performed. This also shows another side of Goku never seen before. New to his Super Saiyan powers, Goku’s fighting styles and feelings turn from calm and collected to cutthroat and ruthless, much like Frieza’s. Frieza realizes that he cannot defeat the Super Saiyan and out of desperation Frieza strikes the core of Namek leaving the planet only five minutes (or ten+ episodes) to live. Now at full-power, Frieza begins to fight on a level playing field with the Super Saiyan Goku. Through this Frieza starts to grow tired while Super Saiyan Goku remains at full strength. Goku sees that there’s no point in killing the already defeated (returning to his normal characteristics), but Frieza isn’t having it and throws two Destro-disc type attacks at Goku. Through overconfidence and failure to pay attention Frieza ends up slicing himself in half. This is most significant point made in the entire battle. In the end it would not be Goku to defeat Freiza, but instead it was Frieza’s own evil ambitions and arrogance to finish him. Still, through one act of mercy, Goku gives Frieza some energy in order to survive and tells Frieza to just float around in space for a little while and think about his defeat, by a “monkey.” Once again, Frieza’s not having that shit and throws one final massive attack at Goku and in a rage Goku delivers the final blow and seemingly destroys Frieza leading to one of the most epic scenes of the entire series.
4. Vegeta vs. Android 18 – After Vegeta effortlessly laid to waste Dr. Gero’s Android 19(please excuse the intro in the link), the Doctor runs to his secret laboratory to activate Androids 17 and 18. The overconfident Vegeta allows the Doctor to activate the Androids in order to test his might. Blinded by this overconfidence, Vegeta looks down upon the beautifully deadly No. 18 and dismisses her as just another pile of scrape metal for him to destroy. Though surprised by Vegeta’s impressive strength, No. 18 is not fazed and asks Vegeta if she can fight seriously now. Chalk one up for the ladies, because Android 18 soon begins to overwhelm Vegeta, but he refuses to give in. His pride and somewhat sexist views towards No. 18, blind him as she gives him every chance to leave and return to fight another day. Seeing that there is no reasoning with him, No. 18 swiftly finishes Vegeta by throwing him off balance and then while off guard snap kicks Vegeta’s arm, breaking it. This is the first great humiliation that Vegeta suffers as a Super Saiyan. Before, Vegeta’s arrogance and ego were on a power trip and this fight was extremely important to Vegeta’s development. He started to view fighting in a different manner. Brute strength is no longer the straight answer to everything in Vegeta’s way and in turn Vegeta becomes stronger after this little skirmish. The fight also, however, revealed the difference between the Androids in this timeline and the Androids in Trunks’ timeline. Instead of killing Vegeta and the other Z-Warriors they just off and leave. This shows that maybe these Androids are only interested in having fun and killing Goku, not necessarily the end of the world. See they are nice robot killing machines, sort of….
Looks like Vegeta’s been…..disarmed! (Shout out to Team Four Star)
3. Vegeta vs……. everyone……–
Warning! Excessive Vegeta badassery! Cui, Dodoria, Zarbon, Guldo, Burter and Recoome, and Jeice in the Frieza saga, Android 19 in the Android Saga, and Pui Pui in the Babadi saga are supposed to be some of the strongest warriors in the universe, but they are mere paper tigers in the presence of the Prince of All Saiyans. Vegeta killing Pui Pui is a personal favorite scene in the DBZ series. I could write about Vegeta’s awesome-ness, but I’m gonna let you enjoy the fatalities! Woah….. DBZ vs. Mortal Kombat? SOMEBODY MAKE THAT GAME!
2. Videl vs. Spopovich – This fight took place during the World Tournament story arc, so it is often overlooked and forgotten about, but if you are a fan of the series you might want to watch this fight again. It easy to understand why some people forget about this fight because the Great Saiyaman and World Tournament Sagas’ sole purpose was to re-introduce the seven year older versions of the main characters such as Gohan and Krillin, as well as new characters like Kid Trunks, Goten, and Videl. So what’s so damn the special about this fight that makes it the second best fight in Dragonball Z? It’s downright Brutal, terrifying almost. Videl seems to easily have the upper hand against the lethargic Spopovich, but the tides of battle turn quickly for Videl. She even snaps Spopovich’s neck seemingly killing him, but hey, no problem because the henchmen under the control of the wizard Babadi just puts it back into place. No big deal right? This is when things start to get excessively violent. In an act of nothing but pure torcher, the seemingly unstoppable Spopovich pummels Videl repeatedly. The most crinch worthy moment of the entire fight is when Spopovich picks up a defenseless Videl by her hair and knees her in the face, then stomps on her head and as the pain begins to be too much to bare, the proud and strong willed Videl fears for her life and cries. Videl’s screams are agonizing and this fight displayed some of the best voice acting in the series by a B level character. Most importantly its one of the most realistic fights in the entire series because other than the whole flying thing, these are pretty much very fit regular human beings fighting, not some super powered aliens from a warrior race. Some of you fans might disagree, but take another good watch at this fight and you’ll understand that this fight was extremely well done, realistic, and outright difficult to watch at times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEtMMF8eZFI
Goku vs. Majin Vegeta: Now, like I said. The first fight between Goku and Vegeta, yeah, it’s good. It’s an extremely important fight to the series, but its not better than any of these fights or some others. Goku vs. Cell and Android 17 vs. Piccolo are two other fights that come to mind that are better than this fight. And really when looking at the first fight between Goku and Vegeta, did Goku really beat Vegeta? Well….. not really. He had a lot of help. Goku threw everything he had at Vegeta. Even the Spirit Bomb didn’t work (but, lets face it the Spirit Bomb never works unless its against the villain a million times more powerful than everybody combined in this series. Seriously! Spirit Bomb can’t kill Vegeta or Frieza, but Majin Buu….. totally makes sense.) I mean when Yajirobe has to bail you out of getting killed, there is something wrong with saying that you legitimately beat Vegeta in a fight. However, when Babadi cast his spell and re-awakened the evil in Vegeta, it yielded the fight that fans were waiting for. Despite being under the spell, Vegeta never really fell under Babadi’s control. He wanted one thing and one thing only, a rematch with Goku, his archrival. And so the fight began and wait…. I’m sorry. FUCK LOOKING AT THIS FIGHT CRITICALLY! THIS FIGHT IS AMAZING!!! I’m just gonna gush and rant for this one! Okay? This fight is amazing! No fight in the entire Dragon Ball universe was pulled off more beautifully than this fight! THIS FIGHT IS FUCKING AMAZING! How many times am I going to say this fight is amazing?!?! I could say it a million times and it wouldn’t be enough. First of all, this fight loomed over DBZ fans’ heads for years. We all obviously wanted it! Whether through dialogue or just the very presence of Goku and Vegeta being in each other’s company the rematch to end all rematches was being held over heads through the entire Frieza saga and through the entire Andoirds and Cell story arcs. Hell even during The World Tournament saga they teased us yet again saying Vegeta and Goku were going to fight in first round of the Martial Arts Tournament only to be interrupted by Babadi’s plans to resurrect Majin Buu. The first match between Goku and Vegeta aired in America in 1997. The actual rematch between Goku and Vegeta aired in 2001. This fight was four years and 187 episodes in the making. That’s a lot of half hours! However, when it happened….. oh it was everything the fans could have hoped for and SO MUCH MORE! I can’t even name all the great parts of this fight. The Kamehameha vs. Galick Gun revisited, Vegeta bitch slapping Goku, Goku breaking boulders his size over Vegeta’s head, Vegeta blasting Goku in the middle of the World Martial Arts Torunament stadium and in turn killing thousands of innocent people. Did I mention that Vegeta BITCH SLAPS Goku? I did? Oh well, it bears repeating! It was Good vs. Evil in the most epic and violent nature. Fuck Majin Buu! This is the fight that should’ve ended the series! Don’t believe me? I really don’t care! It’s the best and that is a fact. This is no longer a matter of opinion, Goku vs. Majin Vegeta: Best fight in Dragonball Z, maybe in all of Japanese anime and cartoons in general! Care to prove me wrong? Fine! Watch Dragonball Z episodes 213 thru 219 and tell me otherwise! Although, the bulk of the fight takes place between 215 and 217. Go ahead and pirate them. I don’t care! This fight makes me feel feelings! If I can put Goku vs. Frieza at number 5 on this list and be like “Goku vs. Vegeta in the Saiyan Saga….. meh!” and then say this is the greatest fight of all time, you better fucking watch it!
Seriously!!!! So Hilarious/Awesome/Badass