Dragon Ball Z’s Worst Main Villain Is Actually the Perfect Opponent

If you’re a fan of Dragon Ball Z, you know that the series has an incredible history of power-ups and high-tension villains who face our heroes with fervor and even high battle intelligence. However, Kid Buu and the rest of his iterations are often looked upon with a much less favorable light than villains like Frieza and Cell, with people particularly annoyed by the Buu Saga’s pacing. Buu, especially the Innocent Buu and Kid Buu forms, are incredibly simple-minded and are mainly just unstoppable powerhouses. This presents the series with something relatively unprecedented: Frieza was a tyrant who aimed to rule the universe, Cell was an android created to defeat Goku and his friends, but Buu was an ancient being made of pure mindless evil. As the Buu Saga marched on, fans got to see this being that was functionally a force of nature had no rival amongst the Earth’s available fighters.

Buu, from the moment of his unsealing to the moment of his erasure, is an absolute menace to the denizens of the Earth. As Buu evolves through his forms, we see as an audience a myriad of characteristics and personality traits that exist as exact mirrors and foils of our Saiyan heroes. The Majin shows the Z-Fighters a look into the more reckless behaviors they all exhibit, and amidst the complaints of oversimplicity and character flaws, it seems fans tend to miss the fact that Buu has the very character traits that we admire in our protagonists.

The Evolution of Majin Buu

When we are first introduced to Majin Buu, he is a childlike, chubby version of the monster we will see as the series continues forward. However, being childlike and lacking substantial features usually attributed to a fighter were of no consequence as Buu quickly showed his superiority to every fighter there. Buu made quick work of Gohan and eventually forced Vegeta to use the self-sacrificing Final Explosion attack in an attempt to put an end to Buu’s constant regeneration. This final gambit made by Vegeta obviously failed, and this was the first instance where we as fans got to see that even a beloved character losing his life wouldn’t be enough to put an end to this antagonist.

After this, the audience is treated to multiple iterations of Buu as he splits into his evil form and fights and absorbs himself, leading to him becoming Super Buu. Again, up to this point, no enemy has been capable of rivaling Buu, but our protagonists are working on their best techniques to hopefully hold a candle to the pink menace. Super Buu goes through many forms as he defeats the Z-Fighters and takes on different aspects of them as he absorbs them. This version of Super Buu is shown to be very aware of his personality and personhood and is incredibly smug and excitable regarding battles and his battle prowess. The final iteration of Buu we get is after Vegeta and Goku remove everyone he had absorbed from within his body, leading us to his pure form, known as Kid Buu. Kid Buu was an aspect of pure evil and destruction, and quickly stood apart from his other versions as something completely different.

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Buu Was a Twisted Reflection of Dragon Ball Z’s Mightiest Heroes

The reason all of these forms of the Majin work so well is that they are representative of the worst traits we have seen in our heroes as the series has gone on. When first introduced, Buu is childlike and refuses to take anything seriously, especially if it isn’t fun for him. This childlike demeanor is incredibly reminiscent of a young Goku in early Dragon Ball before he had truly begun to face loss. After this, the next meaningful version of Buu we get is Super Buu, who is fervently battle hungry and even willing to wait for his opponents to face off. This Buu is almost an identical reflection of every Saiyan we’ve seen who has gotten a new power-up. Further driving this point home for Super Buu are his fights against Gohan and Vegito, respectively. Eventually, final form, Kid Buu, acts mindless and animalistic, even pounding his chest at one point like a gorilla. Kid Buu’s outright brutality reflects the destructive capacity of the Saiyans when they become Great Apes.

All of these points have been made and further supported by narrative hints. The audience has been made aware that the Saiyans were sent as children to grow up and conquer said planets. As much as Buu may seem like a mindless or boring villain compared to other Z villains we had seen up to this point, in reality, Buu was the perfect final villain. Buu existed as the antithesis to all of the character growth the Saiyans had gone through to get to this point.

Not only were the Saiyans mirrored and outmatched, but the final two points the Buu conflict landed on were that, unlike Buu, the protagonists would need the support of all of the living beings they were defending. On top of needing the help of everyone else, Goku and Vegeta needed to accept the help of Hercule and the remaining portion of Good Buu; the victory never would have been pulled off if the Saiyans had approached this face-off like their previous fights. After his defeat, our villain would be much like the Saiyans rebirthed and end up as Uub, who quickly entered the fast track to becoming a Z Fighter.