These are the first set of villains presented in the DB world. Palif is a small blue imp determined to rule the world. Shuu and Mai are his underlings. Shuu is an anthropomorphic animal in a ninja costume, (what IS he, anyway? A fox?) and Mei is a woman with long black hair. None of them pose any direct physical danger to the good guys, (although they once imprisoned them in a death trap and later released the old Piccolo) and are very comic characters in general.
The Red Ribbon Army is another populace-terrorising organisation, set on finding the Dragon Balls so that the leader can make himself taller. They played a major part in the first series, as Gokuu single-handedly opposed them. The important members of the Red Ribbon are:
Red Sosui (or Red Ribbon): The leader of the Red Ribbon army, Red Sosui is a very short man who is very hung up on his height. He secretly wants the Dragon Balls to become taller. He despises failure and executes any of his soldiers who fails on the spot.
Black Hosa: While Red is the leader of the Army, the true co-ordinator of everything is Black. Black is Red's top advisor and the trainer of the army forces. He is really idealistic and wants to see the Red Ribbon Army conquer the world.
Silver Taisa: Silver Taisa is one of the officers of the Red Ribbon in charge of searching for the Dragon Balls. He is fairly strong, but is no match for Gokuu.
White Shogun: The head of Muscle Tower, White Shogun terrorises the north section of the world, focusing his efforts on Jingle Village, a nearby town.
Metallic Gunso: A robotic man who mans one of the floors of Muscle tower. He is quite tough and can take a lot of punishment.
Murasaki Socho: A ninja who is very fast and has lots of tricks up his sleeve. He serves as one of the top commandants of Muscle Tower, second only to White.
Buyon: Well, not a real member of the Red Ribbon Army, Buyon is a rubber-like monster who lives in Muscle tower.
Blue Shogun: One of the strongest members of the Red Ribbon Army, Blue Shogun can fight and has psychic ability to back it up. Of all the officers of the Red Ribbon army, he was a threat for the longest period of time.
Violet Taisa: We never get to see much of this character. She's a woman with short hair. She appears in one panel, so there's not much to say about her.
Yellow Taisa: Yellow is an anthropomorphic tiger. He attempted an assault on Seichi Karin but was foiled by Gokuu and Bora.
Copper Shogun: We never get to see this character, he's only mentioned, but since he's a Shogun, he has to be important in some way to the Army.
Gokuu almost single-handedly defeats the Red Ribbon Army. One of the scientists of the Army, Doctor Gero, survived, however and caused lots of problems for Gokuu and company during DBZ.
TaoPiePie is a hired killer for the Red Ribbon Army, and the only one of them who could ever beat Gokuu in a one-on-one fight. Gokuu seemingly killed TaoPiePie, but he returned six years later as a half-cyborg to compete in the Tenkaichi-Budokai. After his subsequent defeat at the hands of Tenshinhan, he was never seen again in the manga, although he returned for an episode in the TV series right before the Cell Game.
Tsurusennin is an old man who trained together with Mutenroshi (Kamesennin) under Mutaito when they both were younger. He is also the older brother of TaoPiePie. He and TaoPiePie created their own school of martial arts, and together they trained Tenshinhan and Chao-zu. He is very angry at Gokuu for killing TaoPiePie and wants to get revenge against all of the Kamesennin school. Later he also gets a grudge against Tenshinhan and Chaozu for "defecting to Kamesennin's side."
Piccolo-Daimao (Kami-sama's evil side) was released by Palif during the second Tenkaichi-Budokai in the series, and attempted to conquer the world with his henchman, Tamborine, Cymbal, Piano and Drum. He used the Dragon Balls to restore his youth and strength, and afterwards held the entire world prisoner until he was killed by Gokuu. In the last moments before he died, he spat out an egg that hatched into the "new" Piccolo, the one that became a "good guy" in the second TV series.
Raditz is the first villain to appear in the second series. He is Gokuu's older brother, and travelled to Earth to see whether or not his brother Kakorat had conquered the planet. Upon learning of Gokuu's "reprogramming," Raditz demanded that Gokuu kill 100 Earthlings and show the bodies to him, or else he would kill Gohan, who was only 4 at the time. Gokuu and Piccolo chased after him, and after a battle, managed to kill him. However, Gokuu sacrificed himself by holding Raditz in place while Piccolo could attack, and was killed in the same blow.
Nappa is a large, bald Saiyan-jin who was Vejiita's caretaker as a child, and came to Earth the same time he did. The Saibaimen were seeds that Nappa brought with him to earth that could hatch into small fighting humanoids when planted in the ground. The Saibaimen killed Yamcha, but were then all the rest except for one were destroyed by Kuririn. Piccolo picked up the last one However, Nappa then managed to kill Tenshinhan, Chaozu and Piccolo before Gokuu could come to help. Gokuu defeated Nappa, who was promptly killed by Vejiita for his failure.
Kyui is a henchman of Freezer, the evil mastermind of the Namek-sei storyline, and an old rival of Vejiita. (Vejiita, Nappa, and Raditz were also henchmen of Freezer as well.) He informed Vejiita that Freezer was going to Namek-sei to find the Dragon Balls and make himself immortal. Vejiita then went to Namek-sei himself to use the Balls himself. Kyui followed in an attempt to stop him, but Vejiita killed him.
Zarbon and Dodoria are Freezer's two top henchman. Dodoria is a large, bloated alien with a spiky head, and Zarbon is an alien that looks like a human but has the ability to transform into a powerful reptilian-like creature. They had travelled to Namek-sei to assist Freezer in his search for the Dragon Balls. While chasing Gohan, Dodoria ran into Vejiita and was killed by him. Zarbon likewise ran into Vejiita in a search for a Dragon Ball, but when Vejiita attacked him, transformed into his reptilian form and won. However, at their second confrontation, Vejiita killed Zarbon.
When Vejiita, Gohan, and Kuririn started causing trouble on Namek-sei, Freezer called the Ginyuu-tokusentai, a five-man elite fighting force. They are fairly famous throughout the galaxy and often show off in (ridiculous) battle formations. The members of the Ginyuu-tokusentai are: Gurudo, a small, four-eyed creature with the ability to stop time, Jiisu, a human-like being with long hair, Baata, a reptilian humanoid, Rikuum, a very large humanoid who can take a LOT of punishment, and the leader Ginyuu, who has the power to change bodies with his target. Guld and Jiisu were killed by Vejiita, Rikuum and Baata were beaten by Gokuu, (and then immediately killed by Vejiita) and Ginyuu was effectively stopped when Gokuu threw a frog into his body-changing beam, thus turning him into a frog.
Freezer 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 Freezer was the longest, most drawn-out battle in t he entire series. Freezer 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. Freezer has the ability to transform himself three times with each form more powerful than the last. After his final transformation, he killed Dende and Vejiita before Gokuu could come and fight him. Gokuu apparently killed him with a Genki-Dama, but he survived and killed Kuririn, upon which Gokuu went Super Saiyan-jin for the first time. Again, Gokuu apparently killed Freezer, but he managed to survive to come back to Earth as a half-cyborg one year later. However, when Freezer came to Earth Trunks made his first appearance and finished him off for good.
Cold is Freezer's father, who played a minimal role in the series. He came to Earth with Freezer, but was killed by Trunks very quickly. We don't learn very much about him.
As revenge for destroying the Red Ribbon Army, Dr. Gero constructed #19 and #20 for the sole purpose of killing Gokuu. #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-jin, though; #19 was killed by Vejiita. 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.
Cell is Dr. Gero's "Ultimate Artificial Human." He is completely organic, made up of the cells of Goku, Vejiita, Piccolo, and Freezer, 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 Gokuu, 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. Gokuu tries to beat Cell but could not, so he makes Gohan fight him instead. Gohan manages to kill Cell, but not before Cell kills Gokuu.
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-jin 2, and kills every one of the Cell Juniors without so much as a scratch.
Madoshi Babidi is an old wizard, son of Bibidi who created Majin-Buu. He intends to revive Buu and sends two of his henchman, Supopobitchi and Yamu to the Tenkaichi-budokai to get energy to help, and they take Gohan's. Babidi also has two other minor hen chmen, Puipui and Yakon. Puipui and Yakon are killed by Vejiita and Gokuu respectively, and Babidi and Puipui kill Supopobitchi and Yamu when their usefulness runs out. Eventually Babidi revives Buu and controls him for a while, but Buu eventually tires of taking orders and kills him.
Dabura is the King of the Demon World, who is Babidi's right-hand man. Babidi has the power to control those with evil hearts so he controlled Dabura, the most powerful evil being. (except for Vejiita) Dabura is fairly powerful, his spit can turn people to stone and he did turn Piccolo and Kuririn to stone. However, once Buu was revived Dabura made the mistake of insulting him. He was promptly beaten to a pulp, and then changed into a cookie and eaten .
Super Buu is the most powerful bad guy in all of DBZ. He looks like Fat Buu without the cape and the fat, and stops using kid's Japanese. He also is very evil. He kills every person on the planet except for Trunks, Goten, Piccolo, Dende, Satan, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu. He can change his form by absorbing people and can adopt their powers. He absorbes Gotenks, Piccolo, and Gohan this way. Eventually he gets all the people he ever absorbed pulled out of him and turns into Original Buu, who looks like a child version of Super Buu.
Original Buu is the final form of Majin-Buu we get to see. The first form of Majin-Buu without anybody absorbed, he possesses merely animal intelligence being unable to speak outside of growls, but is still extremely dangerous. Original Buu is slightly weaker than default-unfused Super Buu, which allowed Goku, Vejiita, and Fat Buu to stand a chance against him, Gotenks and Gohan being "incapacitated" at the moment. With some help from Satan, everybody on Earth, and the Dragon Balls, Gokuu was able to make a Genki-dama strong enough to defeat him.
