Characters

Goku

 Goku is the primary hero of the Dragonball series.
The series started out with Goku as a child of age 12.
Once he grew up and his son was born, the TV series' name
changed from Dragonball to Dragonball Z. At the end of the
series, Goku was roughly 45 years old.
Goku is a Saiyan whose native world is the planet Vegeta.
He was sent to Earth in a space capsule right after he
was born so he could conquer the planet. However, he hit
his head and lost his "programming," thus becoming the
kinder, gentler Goku we see in the series. Goku was 
raised as a human on Earth, and did not learn of his true
nature until his brother Raditz came to Earth...

Later, when Goku's rage was awakened by witnessing the 
death of his friend Krillin by the evil Frieza, his Super 
Saiyan power were awakened. Using the ability to transform
into a super-saiyan, Goku has been able to defeat many evil
beings, but, he did not do this on his own as he has many 
friends in the world of Dragonball Z who help him defeat
his enemies.

Gohan

         
Gohan is Goku's first son. At the end of the series
he was 26 years old but in this picture he is 9. For a
short while after the second time Goku died in the series,
Gohan became the primary character. Gohan is the most
powerful non-fused character in the DBZ world, but lacks
the love of fighting his father has and thus rarely uses
his full strength.
Gohan is a very good-natured boy and unlike his father, hates 
fighting, although for a while he was more powerful. He is very 
polite towards just about everyone except to his enemies, and when 
he's pissed off. Gohan is very bright and studies very hard, although
this is somewhat due to the wishes of his very strict mother...

Gohan is the first character in the series to have gone Super 
Saiyan-2, during the Cell Game; the power of his anger was kindled 
by watching his friends get beaten up, and the death of Artificial 
Human #16 sent him over the edge. It was roughly at this time that 
the series switched main characters from Goku to Gohan.

Piccolo

Piccolo is Goku's old rival. He was born after Goku
killed his father when he was a kid; in his last breath
the old Piccolo spat out an egg, and the new Piccolo hatched.
Piccolo then went on to fight Goku in the final round of 
the Tenkaichi-Budokai, which he subsequently lost by a very 
close margin.
Piccolo is a native of the planet Namek, although he doesn't
learn this for quite some time after his first appearance.
As a Namek, he can regenerate almost any part of his body
lost. (usually the arms) He can also extend the range of his
arms till they're really long. Later, he goes to Namek to 
help Krillin, Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta fight Freezer.

After the Tenkaichi-Budokai, Piccolo becomes more and 
more of a "good guy." Eventually he becomes Goku's friend. 
Once one of the most powerful characters
in the series, he has sort of reached a "middle ground,"
neither weak nor strong among the Z fighters.

Vegeta

Vegeta is the "bad guy among the good guys." He first 
made his appearance back when Gohan was 4. Although he 
fights alongside the other Z fighters, he is still decidedly
evil. As the prince of the Saiyans, he is very proud,
has a huge ego, and is constantly trying to prove that 
he is the best fighter in the universe.
Vegeta has a continual rivalry with Goku, or "Kakarott," 
(Goku's Saiyan name) and is obsessed with beating him 
in combat just to show that he is the stronger. This obsession 
with trying to be stronger than Goku proves to be a fairly large 
weakness as well.

Despites his efforts to show otherwise, Vegeta has changed 
and has developed a conscience, and deep down cares about
his friends. Furthermore, he is also somewhat emotional at
heart. He demonstrates this when dealing with his son Trunks,
most notably just before he died trying to kill Majin-Buu. 
Although he pretends to hate Goku with a passion in reality
he respects his power and maybe even likes him a bit.

Trunks

Trunks is Vegeta's son. In his future, all of the Z 
fighters were killed by the Androids, except
for Goku, who died of heart disease. Trunks travels 
20 years back in time to give medicine to Goku so he 
can survive this disease and defeat the Androids. Trunks'
returning in time alters the past in other ways which can
be seen later.
After giving the medicine to Goku, Trunks goes back
to his own time, but returns again three years later 
to help the Z fighters battle the Androids.
During this time, he becomes extremely powerful and
surpasses every other one of the Z fighters except 
for Gohan and (maybe) Goku.

The Trunks here, "Future Trunks" and the "current
Trunks" are radically different characters. "Future 
Trunks" is very polite like Gohan and has very strong 
values, but the younger Trunks has a bad attitude
and is somewhat like his father. Trunks never truly
reaches the power level of his future counterpart; possibly
because he lived through mostly peaceful times, whereas 
Future Trunks did not.

Krillin

Krillin is Goku's best friend, and has been around since
the first series. He is a fighting monk who leaves his
temple to find and train with Master Roshi. He is kind of
short, has no nose and throughout most of the series, has no
hair either. Krillin trained with Goku under Master Roshi 
and afterwards shared many adventures with him. Krillin has
died more times than anyone else in the series. He is one 
of the weaker fighters, but this is partially due to his low
self-confidence. Nevertheless, he has gotten fairly powerful
due to all his fights with the really powerful enemies, and
I think is the next strongest Z fighter after Piccolo.

Dende

Dende is Kami's successor as the god of Earth.
Like Piccolo and Kami, he is also a Namekian
and is even younger than Gohan. Gohan and Krillin first
met Dende on their trip to Namek to gather the
Namek Dragon Balls. He has the power to heal injuries
by laying his hands on the injured, and created more 
powerful Dragon Balls on Earth that can grant three wishes.

Frieza

Friezer is probably one of the three most important villains 
during all of the DBZ series; he was the 
major bad guy for nearly eight manga volumes and roughly 40 
TV episodes, and the actual fight against Friezer was
the longest, most drawn-out battle in the entire series. Friezer
is an alien bent on controlling the entire 
universe, and wanted to make himself immortal using the
Namek Dragon Balls. He is also the leader of a large
fighting squadron. Friezer has the ability to transform 
himself three times with each form more powerful than 
the last. After his final transformation, he killed Dende
and Vegeta before Goku could come and fight him. Goku 
almost killed him with a Spirit Bomb, but he survived
and killed Krillin, upon which Goku went Super Saiyan
for the first time. Again, Goku apparently killed Friezer,
but he managed to survive to come back to Earth as a 
half-cyborg one year later. However, when Friezer came
to Earth Trunks made his first appearance and finished 
him off for good.

Cell
           

Cell is Dr. Gero's "Ultimate Artificial Human." He is completely 
organic, made up of the cells of Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Friezer,
all collected during their various battles on Earth by a spy robot. 
He has a long tail with which he can absorb humans and take their energy. 
If he absorbs #17 or #18, then he changes his shape and gets a huge power 
up. If he manages to absorb both, then he goes "Kanzentai," his perfect 
form. He manages to do this and becomes so powerful that none of the Z 
fighters can come even close. Cell is in many ways very similar to Goku, 
in that he lives to fight strong opponents. Hoping to have a fun battle, 
he holds the "Cell Game," a tournament like the Tenkaichi-Budokai. He 
says that if nobody can beat him in a one-on-one fight, he will destroy 
the Earth. Goku tries to beat Cell but could not, so he makes Gohan fight 
him instead. Gohan manages to kill Cell, but not before Cell kills Goku.

Cell Juniors

During the Cell Game, in an attempt to make Gohan angry enough to show his 
true power, Cell creates the "Cell Juniors" to beat up Gohan's friends. Although
the Z fighters fight well to start with, the Cell Juniors have incredible
constitutions and start beating badly. Eventually Cell's plan works and 
Gohan gets so angry that he goes Super Saiyan 2, and kills every one of
the Cell Juniors without so much as a scratch.

Androids #19 and #20

As revenge for destroying the Red Ribbon Army, Dr. Gero
constructed #19 and #20 for the sole purpose of killing Goku.
#19 is a fat robot with holes in the palms of his hands with
which he can absorb energy, either by absorbing energy
blasts, or by grabbing someone and sucking out their
life energy directly. #20 is actually Dr. Gero's brain in 
a robot body, with powers similar to those of #19. Neither 
of them had the power to stand up to a Super Saiyan, though;
#19 was killed by Vegeta. After being beaten badly by Piccolo,
#20 (Dr. Gero) retreated to his lab where he activated #17
and #18, who killed him almost as soon as they were awake.

Shen-Long

Shen-Long is the Dragon God. When all 7 Dragon Balls are brought together
and the words "Ide yo, Doragon!" (Come out Dragon) are said, he comes out
and grants the first wish asked of him. Shen-long can never grant the same 
wish twice; this became a big deal in the second series, as hero deaths were
fairly common and nobody could be revived twice. For the most part, bringing
back dead people is the usual wish, too. After Dende becomes the Earth's Kami,
he powers up the Dragonball's so they can grant more wishes.

Porunga

This is the Namek equivalent of Shen-long. He looks much different than 
Shen-long. He is much bigger and is sort of like the upper torso of a dragon-like 
humanoid, rather than a long Eastern Dragon. Porunga's powers differ slightly than 
Shen-long' s; he cannot bring large numbers of people back from the dead at once,
but he can grant three wishes and can grant the same wish more than once. Later 
Porunga gains a power-up so that he can bring large numbers of people back to life 
in one wish.

Back