Dragon Ball Z's Strongest Movie Villain Returns After 31 Years
Article excerpt
DBZ's Janemba gets a new release that brings him one step closer to following Broly's footsteps in overcoming his status as a non-canon movie villain.
Brett joined CBR's team in 2022 as a contributor before quickly moving into a staff writer and flex-editor role covering anime, video games and movies. When he’s not ranting about Dragon Ball or The Legend of Zelda, he’s usually producing Lo-Fi beats or reading Wittgenstein. He’s currently in the early stages of developing a narratively-driven RPG for mobile, though he often procrastinates in favor of continuing his quest to reach Diamond Rank with his Zombie World/Eldlich deck in Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel.
Dragon Ball Z ’s most powerful movie-only villain, Janemba, just got one step closer to becoming canon in the main franchise.
On July 26, the final day of San Diego Comic-Con, Dragon Ball and Bandai Namco announced the results of a poll held to decide which DBZ movie villain fans would most like to see get a new SH Figurarts release. Winning out over iconic characters like Garlic Jr and Cooler was none other than Janemba, the villain of the 1995 film Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn .
Along with the new figure, Janemba also received brand-new key art to celebrate his victory, taking on a modernized look that appears more like the art style of Dragon Ball DAIMA than his classic DBZ look.
With Broly now being canon thanks to the Dragon Ball Super: Broly film, Janemba has solidified himself as the single most popular remaining anime-only villain in the franchise .
Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn takes place during an alternative timeline of the Buu Saga, when Goku is still in the Other World with Vegeta prior to the final fight against Kid Buu. Janemba is a powerful monster of pure evil energy from the Demon Realm who exists in Hell during the events of the movie. He incarnates after a young teenage ogre is possessed by the evil energy collected in the Soul Cleansing Machine is released, turning him into Janemba himself.
Janemba’s powers are unlike anything seen in DBZ prior, as he has the ability to complete control and alter reality at will. He can warp through dimensions and move through space by creating portals effortlessly. He’s basically unstoppable, only finally being brought to his knees by Gogeta, who was also first introduced in this film.
While Gogeta has since been brought into the mainline Dragon Ball series’ canon story with his appearance in Dragon Ball Super: Broly , Janemba has remained among the ranks of other popular movie villains like Cooler and Bojack as a non-canon movie-only character. Still, Janemba has appeared in various other aspects of the Dragon Ball franchise, including multiple video games and the S uper Dragon Ball Heroes spin-off series, where Dragon Ball Super mangaka Toyotarou famously got his start before drawing for DBS .
In fact, Toyotarou even made Janemba the subject of one of his earliest entries in the "Toyotarou Tries to Draw" series. Toyotarou Tries to Draw #7 feels like a lifetime ago considering Toyotarou just revealed #100 this past month, but it goes to show how Janemba has been at the forefront of the fandom's collection consciousness for quite some time.
It's Janemba! In advance of the latest movie opening in December, perhaps I'll go on drawing movie characters for the most part...
If Janemba were to ever follow Broly and Gogeta’s leads in eventually becoming an actual canonical character, proving his continued popularity through polls like this SHfiguarts question is the best way fans can help make that a reality. Janemba’s new SHfiguarts figure doesn’t have an official release window yet, but judging by some of their other recent figure releases , fans can expect the highest quality when it does get revealed.