Why was he such an awful villain?

Why was he such an awful villain?

He's green

What? He's perfect

He's a DBZ villain, duh. They're all just "Mwahahaha! I want to destroy the world!"

That wasn't his deal
Cell is a great villain because he just wanted to have a great fight due to having the genetics of a bunch of fight autists

He was also a good preview of what Goku would eventually become in Super

>Cell is a great villain because he had shitty motivations!

Too perfect.

He had no personality, no goal, nothing.
He just had a cool design and people suck his dick for that.

he lost to gohan

No
At least Freeza wanted to be immortal

Cell really doesn't have a motivation. He just likes to show off how cool he is and shit which makes him pointless.

Is this a trick question? He's the best dbz villain.

How?

i liked him. He wasn't chimping out on innocent civilians like others DBZ villains did, he just wanted to host his tournament and fight strong people

His goals were self-preservation, becoming perfect, and testing out his capabilities.

He didn't even need to be a villain after he reached his perfect form.
He had no reason to destroy the earth.
He was just a really strong battle autist who wanted to fight other really strong battle autists, and they would've fought him even if the fate of the world wasn't at stake.
He could've hosted his tournament, fought the Z warriors, kicked all of their asses, said "Well, thanks anyway." and flown away in search of a stronger opponent.
The threat of him blowing up the earth was completely extraneous, and felt like it was only there because the fight with Freeza had the fate of the world at stake, so the fight with Cell needed even MORE stakes!

those don't count

>He wasn't chimping out on innocent civilians like others DBZ villains did
Did you forget all the hundreds of thousands he absorbed or something? C'mon son.

No retard he's a great villain because he's basically the same as the protagonists but taken to their extremes

Cellfags are stupid

Why because they disrupt your narrative of how Freiza the literal mustache twirling villian is the greatest villain of all time ever?

That doesn't count. He was just using them to get stronger. They could be wished back with the dragon balls.

Sure, although it isn't my narrative. It's the narrative that DBZ itself establishes.

Cell only became a threat because of the bad decisions made by the heroes. It's a toss up between Vegeta helping him reach perfect form to have a worthy opponent, to 17 and 18 not fleeing when told to run that allowed him to become dangerous.

>Vegeta
>hero

If Vegeta was the villain, then he would've brutally executed Cell, 18, and 16, then fought Goku at the end of the arc.

Vegeta used to be an antihero. However, he's quite the reformed individual now.

Vegeta doing that was Cell's own manipulation. It's like Golu tricking Frieza into letting him spirit bomb.

started the stupid REGNERATION bullishit for enemies because the powerlevels were fucked.

least it wasnt KI BLOCKERS

>Golu

I think the regeneration was already introduced with immortal people.

And Piccolo.

from microscopic cell level or whatever bullshit hack writing?

Yes. Immortal means immortal. Piccolo can regenerate completely, so long as his brain isn't destroyed.

> immortal people
And namekian regeneration only really happened with limbs, it wasn't just "infinite stamina and ki until every molecule gets fried"

All Dragon ball Z villains were fucking retarded and boring shit.

Pretty much all of them were "Fufufu, i'm so powerful and have multiple forms, i'm going to toy with my victims before going full power on their asses"

He wasn't. People who wank off imperfect Cell and say that Perfect Cell is boring don't get that the former wouldn't even be half as cool without the latter. Cell was great because he starts out relatively weak, to the point that he has to bail when Krillin and Trunks show up. He has no friends or henchmen, he's like an inverted Namek saga. He's flying by the seat of his pants trying to capitalize on fatigued opponents and scavenging on normalfags. He has to beg for his life in front of Vegeta, it's totally pathetic. This is what makes Perfect Cell so unique, he's actually a villainous underdog. When he finally becomes stupidly powerful, he's totally earned it.

>trash on ball character
There is your answer.

In the Buu Saga it's said he can regenerate as long as his head is intact. Although it's pretty clearly a retcon.

>he's totally earned it.

He didn't. He only became perfect because Vegeta allowed him to, any other sensible character would've destroyed him right there and then.

But he didn't work hard and semi-perfect Cell begged to vegeta only after finding himself overpowered by post-time chamber super saiyans, otherwise he was being a smug asshole against everybody else, and even before that, imperfect cell only ran away from the saiyans because I do remember he was more than happy to predate on Krillin and pre-fusion Piccolo as he wasn't outclassed by them

In addition to that, he didn't really need mooks because the androids were already a good enough distraction

He's not evil. he's just wanted to test his powers.

Cell is 21.11% goku, acceptable parameters of hate.

>perfection

>Vegeta
>much saiyan pride
>sensible

He had to absorb cities worth of people, hide from everyone until he was read & they were weak just to get 17

He can't forget if he's never actually watched/read the anime/manga.

Swear it feels like most people who shit on Z have a basic outline of what happens in their mind but haven't actually watched or read the material.

...

That's earning it. He played Vegeta like a damn fiddle.

That barely counts as hard working at all. It would be like saying that some dude going around stomping ants is working hard.

Besides, because dealing with regular humans was so easy and didn't require him to power up, most of the time the only way anyone had to find him was through the TV news or getting lucky in their search around the world.

At worst it was a boring and repetitive work, but by no means it was hard.

>it's not MY narrative it's just my OPINION of dbz's narrative

okay dude

.t training for years doing the same thing

>Piccolo can regenerate completely, so long as his brain isn't destroyed.
what about when nappa killed him

>hurr durr I want to test my power level

Garbage. Worst arc in the entire franchise. Jelly Vegeta is better.

Underrated

which is why I said

>ANY OTHER SENSIBLE CHARACTER

Nice reading comprehension, faggot.

Nobody ever said Cell had to work HARD for his power, just that he had to work for it. Compare that to Freeza (at the time) and Buu, who didn't have to put forth any effort to get stronger.

Seeing this shit makes me glad Toei is staying far away from him in Super, because I know they would just fuck it up. They would probably give him some shitty CG or have it like moving wallpaper similar to Gankutsuou or Chowder. With how bad Super is now I wouldn't mind if they used some stupid solid color new form to make him easier to animate so he can come back.

because at the end of the day his motivation is really boring

But that's a problem with every single dragonball villain. Fucking zamasu has the best personal motivation for his actions, that's how bad the villains are in that area.

Because, as convoluted as everything was in the Dragon Ball franchise, the Android arc was somehow able to make things more convoluted with time travel and main villains being switched around because Toriyama and his editors did know how the fuck to play this how fiasco.

The android arc was a series of everyone just being dumb or uselessly underpowered to repetitively prolong tension just like with that Namek arc.

Because Toriyama was not giving a fuck anymore at this point. He was already on the path of mental broken-ness.

^This (even though i like cell)

Freeza wanted to be immortal but barely even tried to reach his "goal". Even if he accomplished it he had no real goal besides "keep living like an asshole".
Cell wanted to be perfect and worked for it. Then he enjoyed it by trashing everyone not named Gohan.

the only villain that actually wanted to destroy anything was buu

Yeah, but Vegeta and Trunks were the only ones available, and he's got the merit of having easily played Vegeta like a damn fiddle.

>This is Frieza.
>He is the space emperor and has ties with the saiyans. He killed Goku and Vegeta´s fathers. He desires to be inmortal to continue his reign of terror for all eternity. He has lot of powerful henchmen and several transformations.

>This is Cell.
>He starts as a pretty shitty fighter but will improve. He is a creation designed to kill Goku, but he pretty much has overrun his original purpose and now thanks to the cells from which he is made he just wants to FIGHT Goku and probably piss off to take on stronger opponents. He has cool transformations and can knows all the heroes techniques.

>This is Kid Bu.
>He crazy as shit, blows up your planet 5 seconds after appearing.
>Goes to kill angels too.
>Created by some mage or some bullshit like that.
>Enjoy your final boss.

Wowie.

>Seeing this shit makes me glad Toei is staying far away from him in Super, because I know they would just fuck it up.
>With how bad Super is now I wouldn't mind if they used some stupid solid color new form to make him easier to animate so he can come back.
>I want them to fuck it up so Cell can return

???

what is this image

i thought gohan was an adult basically when he met videl

But Freezer did work for get where he is. A intergalactic crime organization isn't materialized out of thin air, one has to gather the funds, the manpower, the technology and obtain the loyalty of your second at command. He also had to develop his own techniques

Meanwhile, Cell was pretty much born knowing every single technique worth learning, all he did was to eat completely defenseless humans, and then becoming awfully powerful was as easy as surprise eating one android and get pitied by some fag and given a free ticket to eat the other

Imperfect Cell was better

I mean if Teoi are going to bother bringing Cell back they shouldn't try to ignore or hide their incompetence with every single scene he is in either being massively off model or using a shitty animation technique that doesn't fit. They should just accept that they are currently the absolute worst animation studio and give him a solid color redesign so they don't have to try too hard.
I hate Toei and what they did with Super but I still watch it to see where it goes. Nostalgia is the most I can hope for out of that and bringing back Cell with half-decent writing and hearing him again in the dub would fit that. Think of how cool it could have been to have Cell instead of Frieza in the free for all fighting alongside the others especially 17 and 18.

>Akira Toriyama introduces the antagonists of the arc: C19 and Dr. Gero
>Editor: I dont like them
>Toriyama introduces another set of antagonists: C16, C17 and C18
>Editor: I dont like them
>Toriyama introduces Cell as the real antagonist
>Editor: I don't like him
>Cell transforms
>Editor: I don't like him
>Cell transforms
>Editor: Ok

He wasn't a villain, he was just Goku without attachments.

>Why was he such an awfully good villain?
FTFY

>be born into a mutant family with retard strength and mutligenerational intergalactic empire
>threaten to kill your subordinates with a max power of 120k for disobeying you
>working hard

come on man

Disagree. Vegeta, Freeza, most DB villains motivations are fine. I'm not asking for deep and complex, I'm asking for not boring. Cell is boring, he was created in a lab to kill Goku and he's basically evil Goku. But evil Goku has been done before, and better, than Cell.

How are generic "I want to take over the world/universe" motivations not boring? If anything, Cell stands out more because his motivations are less mustache-twirly and standard than previous DB villains.

because they have agency and personality, not to mention in Freeza's case he's already taken over the universe. Cell's just a flying piece of green cardboard literally created to be someone the heroes can fight.

>implying becoming immortal is not a boring motivation
>implying "muh pride" isn't a boring motivation
>implying self-perfection and desire to test one's own capabilities is any worse than that

It's at the very least more effort than just go around lazily eating defenseless humans. At least those 120k aliens give freezer a small challenge and he has to personally go out sometimes to supress aliens and manga and make sure everybody is working.

>not on-the-nose evil = no personality lulz!11
Sure thing, user.

>implying

Cell was a little shit. He only talked big about perfection and testing his powers when he had power that he didn't work for, otherwise he shitted on his pants and begged for mercy when he was faced with an actual challenge

>because they have agency and personality

I don't see how the most generic and expected motivation in villains oozes personality.

but I love both cells user, imperfect cell and perfect are both perfect and my husbands

I'll make all those implications.
Cell is literally evil for the sake of being evil. I'm not sure how you define on-the-nose evil if Cell isn't it.

Dragon Ball doesn't have a high standard for anything to do with writing, there is nothing wrong with Cell especially compared to the other db villains. He was much more than a single-minded android that only existed to kill Goku. He was easily the smartest of the three or four main dbz villains, particularly in his first form when he had to play stealth. And Frieza's base form was something over 500k, he wouldn't even have to try to wipe out several Captain Ginyu's at once with one hand.

Again, doesn't have to be deep and complex. It just has to be not boring. Most DB villains aren't boring, Cell is. He's only there to make the fights happen, both from a meta perspective and not.

>villains are only great villains because they have good motivations

cell ain't evil, he was bored

saiyans are worse than her by far


also: reminder that Cell can give to birth, so she's a female, when she abosorbed 17, she became 50% male, but know with 18 she's back to 75% female

CELL IS A GIRL

>that triple spacing
calm down user

That's all fine and dandy, but I still don't see how villains with motivations that are nothing more than "I want to become immortal/take over the world" are given more of a personality. Again, at least Cell's motivations were, for the time anyway, unique for DB.

>power that he didn't work for
>implying manipulating Vegeta is "shitting pants and begging for mercy"
You didn't even try.
Perfect Cell simply wanted to have fun. Him being a dick is mostly a side effect of saiyans' natural fighting autism, while King Piccolo, Freeza and Buu were dicks just because.

because they flow from characters with personalities. Vegeta wants to rule over the galaxy at first but then you start to see that what he really wanted most of all was to avenge his race and kill Freeza. Freeza has already conquered most of the universe while barely trying, but his paranoia with the saiyans and his hubris lead to his downfall. Cell... was created in a lab and is just another evil Goku, like the 5th Evil Goku by that time.

Crying to your alcoholic dad to let you get your magical steroids barely counts as effort.

And if cell genuinely had saiyan on him, he would've kept his pride and go out to train instead of throwing away any resemblance of pride and honor and beg to be given a free upgrade

>lazily eating

Hardly lazy when Cell had to be stealthy or else the heroes would find and kill him.

And it sounds like Freeza's dad had set everything up, Freeza was just the face of the empire due to being stronger than his dad

Cell was anything except stealthy. When he's out of battles, like let's say absorbing humans, he doesn't have to flare up his ki at all and remains effectively invisible. Besides, it was stupid as fuck and highly noticeable that the retard devoured entire cities instead of selectively absorbing separate location to prevent being pursued. He was pretty much screaming his route with every city he left lifeless

...

Holy shit there's more

>Again, doesn't have to be deep and complex. It just has to be not boring.
>cell is boring for having a generic motivation
>frieze isn't boring for having a generic motivation

epic

>Buu was originally the creation of Bibidi that Babidi wanted to use for revenge
>inarguably the worst of the main z villains
>gets demoted to "an ancient evil awakens" existing long before Bibidi
>people still shit talking that Cell is poorly written

> Vegeta wants to rule over the galaxy at first but then you start to see that what he really wanted most of all was to avenge his race and kill Freeza.

Vegeta would want to become immortal and be a dick to everyone with or without Freeza in the picture. This is also ignoring how during the time Vegeta was the main villain, he made no mention of Freeza and his goal was simply immortality for the sake of immortality. He didn't get any other kind of motivation until his time as the main villain was over.

>Freeza has already conquered most of the universe while barely trying, but his paranoia with the saiyans and his hubris lead to his downfall.

So Freeza did something that would later come to bite him in the ass? You can say the exact same thing about Cell.

>Cell... was created in a lab and is just another evil Goku, like the 5th Evil Goku by that time.

Who were the 4 Evil Goku's before him?