You wouldn’t really include “Dragon Ball” in the same conversation with shows like “Game of Thrones” or “The Walking Dead.” After all, the groundbreaking, legendary anime show (whose reputation is only matched by its quality) is very much a show for kids and teens. There are plenty of poop jokes, the villains are ridiculously cartoony (seriously, Majin Buu mostly turns people into chocolate and eats them), Son Goku is as childish a protagonist as they come, and there’s also the fact that most of the character names are silly food puns.
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Yet, there is one aspect where “Dragon Ball” not only has a big similarity with “Game of Thrones,” it blows it out of the water — main character deaths. Remember when Sean Bean’s Ned Stark died and audiences everywhere were shocked? That was basically a weekly occurrence for the 10 years the original “Dragon Ball” and “Dragon Ball Z” aired. Virtually every single member of the main cast (not just the villains, but the heroes, too) died horrible deaths. Yes, deaths, plural. In addition to silly gags and fight scenes that went on for weeks at a time, “Dragon Ball” is notorious for having characters like Goku himself die over and over again. Some deaths are spectacular and thrilling, some are hilariously silly, and some are as emotionally devastating as anything in the prestige TV canon.
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With so many deaths in the “Dragon Ball” franchise, to even begin to narrow down any resemblance of a top 10 list is about as difficult as gaining the ability to summon the energy of every living being on Earth and gathering it to create a gigantic ball you use to blast away a demon that turns people into chocolate. Still, we’re going to do our best and rank the 10 best character deaths in the “Dragon Ball” franchise.
10. Frieza is sliced and diced by future Trunks
Frieza was the scariest and most formidable villain audiences had encountered in “Dragon Ball Z,” and his death was a huge sign of relief. So when Frieza comes back to life stronger than ever as a cyborg and he is accompanied by his father, everything seemed lost. Goku wasn’t around, there was no Super Saiyan that could protect the Earth, and Frieza was about to annihilate our heroes. That is, until a strange teenager with attitude showed up with a cool sword.
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Future Trunks’ first appearance is one of the most memorable anime character introductions in modern times. He shows up by dropping the sliced-up bodies of Frieza’s soldiers, then he quickly and effortlessly turns Super Saiyan at a time when it was still a huge deal (Goku needed a friend’s death as a motivator). Within minutes, this stranger turned into the coolest character in the series. Why does he need that sword if he can already go Super Saiyan? It’s cool, that’s why.
We spent several episodes with Goku and his friends desperately trying to defeat Frieza, yet it took Trunks just a few minutes to kill the alien conqueror. What’s more, Trunks killed Frieza with incredible disrespect, choosing not to blow him up with his Super Saiyan powers or beat him in one-to-one hand combat, but instead use his cool yet unnecessary sword to slice Frieza in half and end him forever.
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9. Great Demon King Piccolo gets a Goku-sized hole in his chest
Great Demon King Piccolo was the first world-ending threat in the “Dragon Ball” franchise, marking the moment it changed forever and went from a silly adventure story with plenty of comedy into an action epic focusing on increasingly higher stakes. Our first proper alien (or demonic, according to the latest retcon) threat, Piccolo was responsible for the death of Krillin, Master Roshi, and Shenron the dragon. He took over the planet and declared martial law, made all crime legal and the words “peace” and “justice” were banned under penalty of death. He also held a lottery to determine which region to destroy first.
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When Goku fought Piccolo, he got one arm and both of his legs broken by the Great Demon King. Feeling desperate and running out of options, the little ape child decides to pour all of his energy into one last attack while Piccolo looks on from the sky. With his remaining arm, Goku shoots a Kamehameha wave at the ground, propelling him to the air at extremely high speeds. Goku, having turned himself into a human bullet, quite literally punches a hole clean through King Piccolo’s chest and flies through it. That’s right, Goku kills his first supervillain by punching a Goku-sized hole in his chest. It was bold, it was delightfully bonkers, it was unexpectedly funny, and it was the start of “Dragon Ball” finding increasingly more spectacular ways to finish its villains.
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8. Vegeta suffers a humiliating defeat by Frieza
When we first meet Vegeta, he is not a good guy or even a cool rival you like even if he insults all of your friends. He’s essentially the General Zod to Goku’s Superman, the first person (well, almost) from his home planet that Goku meets and who turns out to be a genocidal maniac. Still, he’s a badass and a formidable warrior.
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This makes his death at the hands of Frieza all the more shocking. Frieza is one of the best villains of the franchise, a sadistic, powerful and stylish baddie who felt like nothing we’d seen up to that point. When Vegeta teams up with Gohan and Krillin to fight Frieza, Vegeta is immediately defeated and humiliated by Frieza. He’s beaten to a pulp, then shot with a deadly energy beam that mortally wounds the Saiyan. What makes this one of the best deaths in the series is how Vegeta takes his last moments alive to plead with Goku to avenge his fallen race, telling him about Saiyans and acknowledging him as a brother. It’s a poignant death that’s kind of Vegeta’s own Boromir moment from “The Lord of the Rings.”
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7. Goku makes the ultimate sacrifice against Cell
Goku is Earth’s greatest hero of all time. He’s arguably the most powerful character in fiction (other than his sons, Gohan and Goten), and he’s always willing to fight to the last moment to save people (and then abandon his family to go train with his buds). Goku’s second (of many) deaths is without a doubt the ultimate sacrifice anyone could make. When fighting Cell, the super-powerful android activates a self-destruct switch that can obliterate all living beings on the planet. In that moment, Goku uses his teleporting ability to take himself and Cell to another planet, dying in the explosion.
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Goku had already died at that point, but even without the stakes, this death has a big emotional impact. That’s because, rather than using the Dragon Balls to come back to life, Goku decides to stay dead and go to the afterlife after his sacrifice. It’s a cool, noble end to a hero … even if he eventually did come back to life again.
6. Cell suffers the coolest Kamehameka
Unfortunately, Goku’s big sacrifice was not enough, and Cell survived to continue his reign of terror. (Big sacrifices that ultimately do nothing to stop the villain are a staple of “Dragon Ball.”) After Cell came back from the explosion that killed Goku, all seemed lost, and it was seemingly only up to Gohan to stop the android.
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Except Gohan was not alone. In a moment that is still regarded as one of the greatest moments in the history of anime, Gohan defeats Cell once and for all with the help of his father. Yep, Goku momentarily returns to the physical realm from the great beyond to do a father/son Kamehameha with Gohan. It’s incredibly awesome to see the ghost of Goku help his son, and emotional to watch the complicated relationship between them get some closure. This is the second best attack in the entire show (behind Goku’s final Genki Dama against Majin Buu), and seeing Cell get disintegrated is extremely satisfying.
5. Goku and Raditz die together as brothers (who hate each other)
“Dragon Ball Z” changed everything in its opening moments when it revealed that Goku not only had a brother, but he was an alien from a warrior race that conquered worlds. Goku’s brother Raditz was not just stronger than him, he was a formidable villain that immediately defeated both Goku and Piccolo, a taste of the increase in stakes this show would introduce.
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In a last-ditch effort to stop Raditz, Goku decided to make a sacrifice and hold his brother in place, allowing Piccolo to shoot a Special Beam Cannon and kill the two of them together. Imagine you’re Raditz, an effective killer and a conqueror of planets. You just discover your long-lost brother is still alive and go enthusiastically to visit him, only to discover that he lost his memory of you after bumping his head on his ship and he’s now way weaker than you. Then, he starts fighting you, so you put him in his place as the younger brother. Suddenly, the brother you were just reunited with holds you in place while his former archenemy shoots the both of you with a laser beam.
That’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Raditz. It’s also one of the most shocking moments in “Dragon Ball” history, as it was the first (but obviously not the last) time Goku met his demise.
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4. Krillin’s first death changes the game
The Pilaf-Red Ribbon sagas were comedic action-adventure fantasies, and even the serious moments still managed to maintain that early “Dragon Ball” lovable charm.
Then Krillin dies. Imagine being a kid in 1988 Japan watching this. It shocked so many people.
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This is an historic moment, as it marked a turning point in the franchise’s history. This was the transition away from the innocence of the earlier sagas into something where it’s not just about going on adventures, but now the stakes have been raised dramatically. The villains are not just goofy, but genocidal with no F’s to give. And the sweet, adorable, naive Goku we know has seen the evils of the world affect him personally through the death of his best friend, and he’s forced to grow up quickly in order to avenge him. The King Piccolo saga is one of anime’s all-time great arcs because it established the new tone of this entire franchise for the next several years.
3. Piccolo becomes the dad that stepped up and saves Gohan
After Goku laid down his life to defeat Raditz, the rest of the Z Fighters wasted no time training before the rest of the Saiyans arrived on Earth. Piccolo takes the opportunity to plot his revenge against Goku for the death of his father, the Great Demon King. With Goku dead, Piccolo decides to take Goku’s son, Gohan, under his wing and train him to eventually conquer the world as his own apprentice.
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Except what started as an evil plot turned into the first healthy relationship in all of “Dragon Ball,” with Piccolo essentially becoming Gohan’s stepdad. Sure, he started off basically torturing the little guy via rigorous and cruel training, but he grew to genuinely care for him — and Gohan came to treat Piccolo as his one trusted father figure, even when Goku came back to life.
Sadly, when Nappa and Vegeta arrive on Earth, they prove too powerful to handle, and Piccolo ended up sacrificing his life and taking a blast meant for Gohan. It’s a spectacular death, with the animation changing art styles and transitioning to black-and-white to show the power of the attack. It was also quite emotional, as Piccolo gave his life so Gohan could be reunited with Goku (even if they wanted nothing to do with each other), and he used his final words to thank Gohan for his trust and friendship. His time with Gohan turned Piccolo into one of the best characters in “Dragon Ball,” and ultimately one of its biggest heroes.
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2. Vegeta finally becomes a hero against Buu
Vegeta is one of the best characters in “Dragon Ball,” and became an archetype in anime for decades to come. His rivalry with Goku became the inspiration for countless character dynamics, from Naruto and Sasuke to Midoriya and Bakugo, and even inspiring live-action movies like “Creed III.” He had gone from an enemy to an ally to a hero. But during the Majin Buu Saga at the end of “Dragon Ball Z,” Vegeta succumbed to his evil ways after being tempted with gaining the power to defeat his rival Goku once and for all. The problem was, this also unleashed the incredible threat of Majin Buu and doomed the entire planet Earth.
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Realizing his mistake and the evil he unleashed, Vegeta pulls a last-ditch effort to eradicate Buu and save the world. He releases all of the power he has within himself, and creates a massive explosion that would kill Majin Buu and himself. What makes this not just one of the best deaths in the franchise but one of its best moments is how selfless Vegeta’s last moments are. He is, after all, an immigrant to Earth. He has no allegiance to it or care for it. He even tried to destroy the planet at one point, but he grew to care for at least some people on it, and in his final moments, he decides to make sure his loved ones (yes, including Goku) are safe. It’s the culmination of Vegeta’s redemption arc and his character development, a moment that cements him, as the narration in the episode says, as “one of the Earth’s greatest warriors” and “a proud Saiyan prince.”
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1. Krillin made death felt permanent for the last time
Krillin is the most underrated fighter in “Dragon Ball.” He was Goku’s very first rival, and his first ally. He’s quite strong and powerful, but when the show started introducing aliens, demons, and gods as villains, Krillin quickly got overpowered by the antagonists. Still, he did not cave in to fear, but fought alongside Goku and the other Z Fighters. Even if it eventually became a bit of a running gag to kill Krillin off, his deaths tend to be the most dramatic of the entire show.
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Take Krillin’s second death, the single best one in “Dragon Ball.” It was not just tragic and dramatic, but it led to a pivotal moment in the show: Goku turning Super Saiyan. When Goku’s Genki Dama fails to kill Frieza in his final form, the alien conqueror decides to mock Goku. He grabs Krillin with his telekinetic abilities, throws him way up in the air, and uses his powers to detonate a psychic bomb from inside Krillin. At this point, Krillin had already died and come back to life thanks to the Dragon Balls once, and as far as the characters and the audience knew, they could only revive someone once. This meant Krillin was gone for good, the oldest non-Goku Z Fighter dead forever. The scene itself is also effective in breaking your heart, as we hear voice actor Mayumi Tanaka’s voice screaming in pain and desperation for Goku, right before Krillin blows up. Brutal.
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