Goku’s fight with Frieza in Dragon Ball Z is often cited as one of the longest fights in anime history. Lasting around 30 episodes and over four hours, Goku vs Frieza is an understandably memorable fight that has left its mark on the medium of anime forever. Even in the manga, though, the fight lasts around 20 chapters: a truly monumental achievement. Despite how long the fight is in terms of manga chapters and anime episodes, Goku’s fight with Frieza is actually very short in-Universe.
In fact, in an infamous line from the series, Frieza states that the planet Namek is set to blow up in five minutes, and that happens only about a quarter of the way through the fight. A fight that’s supposed to last 5 minutes but instead takes over four hours is sure to raise questions, but there are a number of sensible reasons — both in and out-of-Universe — why Goku and Frieza’s fight carried on for so long. In any case, there’s no denying that anime history wouldn’t be the same had the medium’s most influential shonen fight been even a second shorter.
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Dragon Ball Z’s Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta get tons of attention, but fans often forget that Tien has provided crucial support against major threats.
Frieza Was the Greatest Threat The Z Fighters Faced Up to That Point
The Fight Against Frieza Was a Multi-round Gauntlet That Spanned an Entire Arc
The fight against Frieza lasted throughout the entire Frieza Saga: an arc consisting of over 40 manga chapters and spanning over 30 anime episodes. This was truly a fight of epic proportions, but it wasn’t just Goku who struggled against Frieza. Gohan, Krillin, Vegeta and Piccolo all endured an excruciatingly long battle with Frieza that saw him undergo a total of three transformations before Frieza finally reached his fourth and most powerful form.
While fighting each of Frieza’s transformations, there would have always been at least one point when the group would finally feel they had a chance of winning. Unfortunately, they learned that Frieza still had more power that he was holding back. In Frieza’s first form, both Krillin and Gohan believed they could win, because they had each had their potential unlocked by Guru, and Vegeta himself was stronger than ever. After he transformed for the first time, Frieza was far too strong for Gohan, Krillin and Vegeta.
Piccolo, then, showed up as a Super Namek who could easily have overpowered Frieza and defeated him. Again, Frieza would go on to power-up to his third form, but Vegeta abused the saiyan power of the zenkai boost with the help of Krillin to once again make him strong enough to fight Frieza. It was within the context of this already painfully long struggle that the fight between Goku and Frieza got underway. While Goku was even stronger than any of the other Z Fighters at the start of the fight, he still wasn’t a Super Saiyan when he first arrived at the battlefield and challenged Final Form Frieza.
Unfortunately for Goku, it would definitely require the power of a Super Saiyan to defeat Frieza. It was nearly 10 episodes between the time when Goku first challenged Frieza until when Goku finally turned Super Saiyan, and that entire time was a completely uphill battle for Goku and his friends.The length of this early part of the fight was due entirely to the overwhelming power Frieza had. Frieza’s transformations gave him the feeling of a true RPG-style final boss, which makes sense considering Toriyama’s prior work on the iconic video game franchiseDragon Quest.
10 Best Frieza Fights in Dragon Ball Z & Dragon Ball Super, Ranked
As Dragon Ball’s greatest villain, it’s only right that Frieza took part in some of DBZ and Super’s best fight scenes.
Goku Didn’t Want to Kill Frieza At All
Goku Cluld Have Ended the Fight at Any Moment, but His Kind Hearted Nature Dragged Things on
“I can’t change who I am. Not on the battlefield. My feelings are my guide. Besides, everybody deserves a chance to change their ways…”
– Goku
After Goku finally became a Super Saiyan, it was quite clear that he was far superior in power to Frieza. At any point, he could have easily killed Frieza with just a few blows, ending the fight quickly and giving him plenty of time to escape the dying planet Namek. Baring that fact in mind, the biggest factor in drawing out the fight between Goku and Frieza and making it as long as it became was none other than Goku himself. Even though Frieza was an evil being who had committed countless atrocities, Goku still had hope that he could convince Frieza to change.
Just as he did with Piccolo and Vegeta, Goku believed that if he could humble Frieza, there might be a way to guide him to redemption. Throughout their fight, Goku pleaded with Frieza that the villain should just give up, because he stood no chance against Goku’s new Super Saiyan power. No matter what Goku said, though, Frieza refused to accept the fact that he could possibly lose to a saiyan monkey. Frieza’s constant insistence ongoing back and forth with Goku dragged the fight on for far longer than it would have been had he just accepted Goku as the superior warrior.
The Fight Against Frieza’s Length Added to the Drama
Goku Can’t Talk Quite as Fast as He Punches
“Your father. And mine. The whole planet. He blew it up. It’s true. No one survived but us.”
– Vegeta to Goku
How Did Vegeta Become a Super Saiyan in Dragon Ball Z?
Vegeta has had many transformations, but the explanation for him first becoming a Super Saiyan changes depending on the version of Dragon Ball Z.
Aside from the many in-universe explanations for the length of Goku and Frieza’s fight, there is another reason Akira Toriyama would have the fight drag on for so long. Simply put, it added to the drama. A lot happens in the fight against Frieza, which makes it a more emotional fight than most other classic Dragon Ball battles. Most of all, it is directly tied to who Goku is as a person.
Just as Goku arrives at the battlefield, he witnesses Vegeta’s death in one of the most emotional scenes in the series. With his dying breath, Vegeta reveals to Goku that it was Frieza who destroyed their home planet, which was the reason Goku was sent to Earth to begin with. This gives an entire added layer of emotion to the fight that needs to be addressed through dialogue. Goku’s iconic “I am the light” speech.
“I am the hope of the universe. I am the answer to all living things that cry out for peace. I am protector of the innocent. I am the light in the darkness. I am truth. Ally to good! Nightmare to you!”
– Goku
Frieza is a character whose entire ego is being dismantled in real time in front of the audience, and much of that nuance goes away if the fight is streamlined. If all the events that transpired in the final five minutes of the fight were done in real time, it would have taken much of the drama away from the fight. Each punch between Goku and Frieza truly felt to fans like a painful attack, making it all the more powerful.
Additionally, some of the greatest lines of dialogue in the entire Dragon Ball franchise were spoken between Goku and Frieza during their fight, and that slowed down the time frame considerably. As powerful and fast as Goku and Frieza both were, there’s only so fast they can talk without the other not understanding them. In reality, two normal individuals with only five minutes to escape a dying planet would likely not bother taking time to talk, but Goku and Frieza were anything but normal.
Goku vs Frieza Was Far Longer in the Anime Than in the Manga
Filler was Added to the Anime to Prevent it From Passing the Manga
7 Differences Between Dragon Ball Z and Kai (& 7 Things That Are The Same)
Dragon Ball Z and Kai may tell the same story, but the two anime have more than their share of differences that set them apart.
In the manga, the “five minutes” that Frieza suggested after Goku turned Super Saiyan lasted only 7 chapters. This doesn’t hurt the suspension of belief quite as much as the 10 full episodes of the fight that encompassed Frieza’s five minutes. Ultimately, the passage of time in manga is far more subjective than in anime, making it reasonable to believe that, when Frieza stated it would be five minutes, that’s really how long it took for their fight to conclude and the planet to explode. It’s clear just on this fact alone that the manga’s version of the fight was significantly shorter, but that’s not the only reason for that difference in length.
The fight between Goku and Frieza wasn’t the only thing that happened in the 30 anime episodes of Goku and Frieza’s fight. Of course, there were other important characters whose development was covered in the midst of the fight, such as Tien, Chiaotzu and Yamcha’s fight with the Ginyu Force in the Other World. However, those scenes were actually anime-only filler added to address another major reason why the fight between Goku and Frieza lasted so long in the anime.
A big reason for this disconnect between how long the manga fight was compared to the anime version was because the anime was quickly catching up to the manga. For comparison, the chapter where Goku fires his Genkai Dama was released on March 12, 1991, while the corresponding episode of the anime was released less than three months later, on June 5th. While two to three months may seem like a big gap, because each episode of the anime can cover multiple manga chapters, this gap can close extremely quickly.
The biggest indication of just how close the anime was getting to surpassing the manga is in the addition of the Garlic Jr Saga directly after the Frieza arc. Even though the fight with Garlic Jr was technically non-canon and is one of the most-hated arcs in DBZ, it was ultimately needed to give the manga time to pull ahead and provide more content for the anime to work with later down the line. This was ultimately the right decision, because the entire story would have been forced to stray from the source material if it passed the manga, and the Dragon Ball Z anime would have ended up looking very different as a result.
Goku’s Biggest Mistake Needs to Come Back to Haunt Him
Goku has repeatedly saved the day in Dragon Ball, but his poor judgment regarding Frieza needs to come back with consequences.
Goku and Frieza’s Five-Minute Fight Will Last Forever
Goku vs Frieza is a Timeless Fight and Major Moment in Anime History
Goku vs Frieza – Dragon Ball Z Kai (Clip)
“He was scared of us. Scared that a Super Saiyan would be born to rise up and overthrow him.”
– Vegeta
Goku’s fight with Frieza went on to become one of the longest and most celebrated anime fights of all time. It spawned a number of iconic scenes, and set the standard for what shonen anime fights could hope to be. Even despite its length, there isn’t a moment that fans would want to change, as each punch has purpose and each kick carries with it Goku’s history as a displaced alien child who has finally come to learn the truth of his story.
The reasons for the fight between Goku and Frieza being as long as it was are as numerous as the episodes and chapters that it lasted, because fans and critics will never be done talking about and theorizing over the greatest fight in shonen anime and manga history. The closeness of the manga’s release to the anime, coupled with a number of in-universe reasons, can explain the reason for the fight’s length, but that’s only part of it. In terms of its impact and importance for shonen anime, the length of the fight between Goku and Frieza can’t even be measured in any concrete number of minutes or hours, because it is truly timeless.
