All Fights in Dragon Ball Z
All fights from
Dragon Ball Z
Based on the manga by Akira Toriyama, the first episode of Dragon Ball Z aired in Japan on April 26, 1989. Even after more than 25 years, the anime is still extremely popular, with a filler-free refresh of the series that came out in 2009 and a follow-up series airing right now.
Dragon Ball Z follows Goku and his family & friends as they fight ever more powerful foes that want to rule the Universe / want to show they’re the best / destroy Earth. Being a fighting anime many battles take place during the 291 episodes. Characters get stronger through battles and training. A typical aspect of DBZ is that sudden increases of power can be unlocked through transformations, the different Super Saiyan levels being the most well known. The first person to unlock a new transformation often achieves this through an intense event, such as the death of a friend in battle. Although successive characters typically manage to achieve the same level with less effort.
By following characters from fight to fight you can recognize distinct moments from Dragon Ball Z. Goku, although appearing in most fights overall, is still missing in action for very large periods of time. The reasons are the fact that he’s dead during the start of the Vegeta saga, recovering from injuries (twice) during the Frieza arc, suffering from a heart disease at the start of the Cell arc, and, well, dead again during the start of the Buu arc.
And, if you’ve seen the show, were you aware of how often Krillin participates in a fight? Or that Gohan doesn’t actually fight a bad guy in between the end of the Frieza saga and when he snaps and turns Super Saiyan 2 at the end of the Cell arc? (that’s more than 50 episodes!) Browse through all ±200 fights below to investigate the path of your own favorite character or, if you’re new to the show, get an understanding of DBZ through its fights.
Each group of circles is a fight, where one circle represents one fighter | The main characters have been given their own color; Goku is the signature orange color of his tunic, whereas Vegeta is blue of course | Sometimes the circles have added strokes.
These indicate successively more advanced & powerful forms, such as the Super Saiyan base, 2 & 3 forms.
The fights below are horizontally ordered per saga, with the first saga on the far left and last saga on the far right | The colored swooshing lines follow a character from fight to fight | A character fighting for evil has its swooshing line on the right side, while the good guys’ lines are on the left | Hover over the fights & lines to see more information and discover who was fighting whom and in what other fights they appeared
— Performs & looks better in Chrome —
— See a fully interactive version on desktop —
Extra interactivity on desktop The visual above is just an image, but on a large screen you see the full interactive and get the option to hover over each of the fights and character paths to see extra information about the fight; who was fighting whom, what was special about the fight and in what other battles did these characters fight.
Check it out behind your laptop / desktop as well for an even more detailed look into all fights that happened in Dragon Ball Z.
The fight info was taken from the Dragon Ball Wikia pages for each saga. For relevance, a few fights were taken out of the above visual; the Garlic Jr. and Other World Tournament filler sagas were completely removed. Also the ±5 fights that happened in the anime only and didn’t feature any of the Z fighters, happened in a nightmare or flashback were taken out.
Created by Nadieh Bremer | Visual Cinnamon
Data from the very extensive Dragon Ball Wikia | Read about the design process in this blog
The 10 Best Dragon Ball Fights, According To Ranker
Fans won’t have long to wait until Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero finally makes its way to the cinema later in the summer. With returning favorites as well as new foes to fight, fans are excited to see the fights and what powerful forms will be revealed to save the day.
Looking back on the entire franchise while fans wait patiently for the further adventures of Goku and co, Ranker has decided which ones are the best. While these, often multi-episode, fights are brutal and push the heroes to the absolute brink in the endless search for the Dragon Balls, they have truly impressed the voters over at Ranker.
Note: Please note that due to the Ranker voting system, these positions are subject to change. At the time of publication, this is the most accurate Ranker listing.
Goku Vs. Broly
Before Broly was finally made an official character within the canon of the series, he was introduced as the main villain in the 1993 movie Dragon Ball Z: Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan. After awakening his powers, Broly is set to defeat the Z Warriors as a comet comes to destroy the New Planet Vegeta.
RELATED: The 10 Highest Ranked Dragonball Movies (According To MyAnimeList)
But with only Goku left standing, he faced a new and powerful Super Saiyan form that wasn’t seen at the time all by himself.
And what made the battle extra special was seeing Goku use the power of his friends and rival to overcome the odds and defeat Broly.
Vegeta Vs. Buu
Following in the footsteps of Cell, audiences would meet the pink and childish Majin Buu and see Gohan and Supreme Kai being easily defeated by this new menace. But to protect his son and the planet, Vegeta stepped in to stop the new threat across some of his best episodes.
What made this fight memorable to this day was Vegeta finally atoning for his past actions and sacrificing himself to blow up Buu for good. While this saga would see the Prince of All Saiyans finally turn around and become a hero, this fight showed off just why this character had so many dedicated fans.
Piccolo Vs. Android 17
With the threat of Future Cell and Androids 17 and 18 now free, Piccolo must stop them before the time traveler absorbs their power. And with the fusion of Kami, the Namikian warrior certainly had a strong opponent to contend with to stop Cell’s plans.
RELATED: Reasons Piccolo Is The Hero In Dragon Ball Z
While Goku and Vegeta usually gain the spotlight for most of the fights throughout the series, Piccolo’s battle with Android 17 saw him finally as strong as the Super Saiyan forms that they both attained. This alien fighter may not have appeared in many great battles since, but his early life as a hero saw some great bouts in the early Dragon Ball Z sagas.
Goku Vs. Beerus
Released in 2013, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods would open up the universe and introduce everyone to Beerus, the God of Destruction within one of the best movies in the franchise. Despite Goku’s best efforts to touch him in his Super Saiyan 3 form, even that wasn’t enough to make him sweat.
But when Goku learns of the ancient form known as Super Saiyan God, he uses the energy of his Saiyan friends and family to reach this new power level. While Goku does ultimately lose to Beerus, the epic fight made such an impact that the series continued with Dragon Ball Super and would bring back the powerful god too.
Gohan Vs. Super Buu
After being defeated by Buu for the first time, Gohan finally managed to reawaken his hidden power and became Mystic Gohan. Now back on Earth to stop the new form of Super Buu, Gohan would be tested to its new limits.
RELATED: 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Gohan In Dragonball Z
After destroying the people of Earth, Gohan emerging as a true superhero rather than his tacky persona of Saiyanman was fitting as one of the other warriors took center stage once again from Goku. But his new confidence would see Gohan eventually be beaten by his cockiness as Super Buu absorbs more people.
Vegito Vs. Super Buu
With Super Buu now having additional powers from Gohan, Piccolo, and Gotenks, Vegeta and Goku were forced to combine their powers and fuse. Following in their sons’ footsteps, the two rivals become the new being known as Vegito.
No matter how hard Super Buu tries, he just gets overpowered by the fused being, even when they’ve turned into candy.
But much like Gohan, his overconfidence truly got the best of him as he got absorbed into Super Buu.
Goku and Vegeta Vs. Kid Buu
Despite starting as the hero and villain during the first saga of Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta and Goku finally teamed up as heroes to defeat Kid Buu. And as the final big bad of the series, he was no pushover despite his size.
While Goku has always accepted a hand of forgiveness and friendship towards Vegeta, this battle finally led to the Prince of All Saiyans accepting that Goku is the strongest out of the two of them. And seeing them save the entire universe against such an evil being was a fantastic way to end this show too.
Gohan Vs. Perfect Cell
After battling Perfect Cell, Goku let his son Gohan have the opportunity to defeat this powerful foe from the future. And after awakening his powers thanks to Android 16, Gohan turned the tide for his fight against his opponent, setting up the teenager as the main protagonist for this arc.
The arcs slowly opened up to this moment and the animators delivered the best fights around the young Saiyan-human character. And the fight ends with the two using a Kamahamema that could obliterate the solar system, the battle remains intense until the very end.
Goku Vs. Vegeta
In second place from Ranker is the first fight between Goku and Vegeta in the Saiyan saga. While his friends did their best to stop Nappa, Vegeta finally stepped onto the battlefield to fight Goku.
Despite his size, Vegeta proved to be no joke, doing everything in his power to beat Goku and be in the top spot. And this fight would also cement the start of a series-long feud between the two, even becoming rivals in Dragon Ball Super to top each other to the best of their abilities. This would even see the proud prince take on some of the strongest opponents any of the heroes faced in the series.
Goku Vs. Frieza
Despite their best efforts, the Z Warriors and the Nakemians just couldn’t stop the evil alien emperor among many moments that made fans miss the Frieza saga.
