For ‘Dragon Ball’, a very long carnival of villains of all kinds has passed, but without a doubt one of the best that manganime has given us is frieza. The great villain of the series has been around for decades, and has even returned to the manga with an improved form that is even more powerful and terrifying… Although the character’s real inspiration was not far behind either.
Nightmares as a child (and as an adult)
Akira Toriyama He has already spoken several times about his inspirations for creating Frieza, from the nightmares he had as a child to the colors on credit cards. But the most unexpected were Japan’s real estate speculators.
And it makes sense if we see what does frieza do: Conquer planets no matter what civilization or who lives there, many times locals are charged to make the planet a more “cool” and “profitable” place… And then resell it to the highest bidder. Extreme gentrification, but in galactic mode.
Frieza first appeared in the manga of ‘Dragon Ball’ back in 1989, at a time when Japan was going through an economic crisis and speculation was the order of the day. In the midst of a real estate bubble with speculators inflating house prices, Akira Toriyama even went so far as to refer to them as “the worst kind of people”, using them as the ultimate inspiration for Frieza and his planet-selling business.
So if you live on any planet from ‘Dragon Ball’ or rent it, it seems that Toriyama created the ultimate nightmare for adults who read his manga: running out of a house because someone wants to get a piece of it.
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