Accepting that losing is a natural part of life is one of the earliest lessons Goku learns in Dragon Ball. Despite the common fan interpretation that Goku always wins, the franchise has never shied away from putting him in his place, and that goes for the rest of Dragon Ball’s supporting cast as well.
While the heroes will always save the day in Dragon Ball, there have been multiple instances where villains have essentially won. Either by defeating a main hero themselves or getting everything they wanted before death, some Dragon Ball villains have been able to achieve their goals and more.
10 King Piccolo’s Conquest
While King Piccolo isn’t the first villain Goku loses to, he’s the first antagonist in Dragon Ball to achieve everything he desires. Not only does Piccolo succeed in wiping out most of Earth’s martial artists, he manages to wish for his youth back, kill Shenlong, and take over the planet with little to no effort.
Goku is ultimately able to defeat King Piccolo in the end, but not without putting up a serious fight. The power boost Goku gets from the Super Holy Water only puts him on par with the Demon King, pushing him to his absolute limits just to survive. Even then, Goku’s victory only results in Piccolo birthing out one final reincarnation.
9 Raditz’s Defeat
Raditz’s arrival on Earth is a major turning point for Dragon Ball. Before the Saiyan arc, Goku was just an odd Earthling with a monkey tail. After Raditz’s introduction, he’s recontextualized into a member of an uber-violent alien race where he’s actually considered one of the weaker members, all things considered.
Where Goku has always managed to secure a victory in his major fights up to this point, he’s forced to give up his life just to take Raditz out. The Saiyan proves to be too powerful for Goku and Piccolo working together. While Raditz is killed, Goku has to go with him. In typical Dragon Ball fashion, however, this ends up working in Goku’s favor in the long run.
8 Vegeta’s Escape
Vegeta leaves Earth deeply wounded – both physically and in terms of his pride. Vegeta considers his fight against the Earthlings anything but a victory, but he more or less had the fight won. Goku was out of stamina following their beam struggle. If Vegeta took a breath instead of immediately transforming, he would have realized Goku couldn’t fight back.
From there, Gohan and Krillin would need to feel the Ki off of Vegeta’s artificial moon, allowing the Elite Saiyan to kill Goku. Even then, Vegeta leaves Earth having bested Goku and Gohan in terms of pure combat, with Krillin and Yajirobe the only surviving Earthlings. He may not have found the Dragon Balls he was looking for, but Vegeta basically wins the war.
7 Frieza’s Genocide On Namek
Frieza is arguably the most vile villain in Dragon Ball, time and time again indulging in a level of violence that’s a bit too morbidly realistic. Despite being one of the strongest characters in the franchise, Frieza lets his army do the dirty work – wiping out and enslaving entire races on a whim.
By the time the Namek arc begins, Frieza is almost done committing mass genocide on the entire race. Come the end of the arc, Piccolo is the only Namekian alive before the Dragon Balls set everything right. Even this isn’t without its caveats, though, as Frieza’s destruction of Namek proves permanent and the Namekians are forced to relocate to a brand new planet.
6 The Android Invasion
Dragon Ball never shied away from serious subject matter, but Trunks’ timeline adds a layer of darkness to the series’ storytelling no one could have possibly expected. Following the events of the Namek arc, Goku returns to Earth and dies from a Heart Virus. A few months later, Artificial Humans start wreaking havoc on Earth, killing virtually every member of the Dragon Team.
It’s not that the Androids basically won in Trunks’ future, they did win. By the time Trunks is strong enough to fight back, Androids 17 and 18 have already wiped out most of humanity and Cell is on his way. Trunks is able to clear out all three threats (and even Majin Buu later), but the damage is already done.
5 Dr. Gero Gets What He Wanted
Even though the Androids don’t wipe out humanity in the main timeline, Dr. Gero still gets what he wants: Goku’s death. Goku is forced to sacrifice his life at the end of the Cell Games to stop Cell, but the Artificial Human manages to survive the blast. Gohan defeats Cell himself (with some encouragement from dear old dad), but Goku opts to stay dead for the time being. The Cell arc begins with news of Dr. Gero’s revenge and ends with Goku giving his old nemesis exactly what he wanted.
4 Majin Buu Awakens
The Majin Buu arc could have easily been prevented if Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan just took Kaioshin’s warnings seriously. To be fair, there’s a lot of drama that ends up complicating things – the fact Goku can only be back for a day and Vegeta’s mid-life crisis most prominently – but that doesn’t mean the heroes aren’t directly responsible for waking up Buu.
Goku’s fight with Majin Vegeta is what ends up triggering Buu’s awakening, which eventually ends with the human race and Planet Earth obliterated. Goku realizes that it’s his and Vegeta’s responsibility to save the day by the time they’re fighting Pure Buu, but everyone in the main cast is already dead by that point.
3 Golden Frieza Destroys Earth
Resurrection F is a story all about failure, with the core cast ending up victims of their fatal flaws. For Goku, it’s the fact he lets his guard down. For Vegeta, it’s that he thinks too much in combat. For Frieza, it’s simply his impatience and overconfidence. Despite this, Frieza actually succeeds in destroying the Earth by taking advantage of Goku and Vegeta’s flaws.
The only reason the Earth is saved is because Whis happens to be around and resets time as a courtesy – something he specifies he shouldn’t be doing to begin with. From there, Goku gets an opportunity to kill Golden Frieza, but he and Vegeta would have legitimately lost the fight if Whis weren’t around.
2 Universe 6 Tournament
Few Shonen protagonists give up as much as Goku. For what it’s worth, Goku only quits when he realizes he can’t get anything more out of a fight (like against Frieza and Cell). This trait rears its head again in the Universe 6 Tournament arc, where Goku gives up his fight against Hit once he realizes that his opponent can’t fight at full power.
Hit returns the favor by letting Monaka win the tournament, but Beerus eventually has a change of heart and uses the Super Dragon Balls to restore Universe 6’s Earth – more or less giving Champa what he wanted out of the tournament in the first place.
1 Goku Black Arc
He might get erased at the end of it all, but Zamasu gets everything he wanted – in one multiverse at least. Zamasu’s plan involves wiping out all mortals, a plan that begins with him taking over Goku’s body. Zamasu then travels throughout time as Goku Black to punish Future Trunks before wiping out his entire multiverse.
There’s no real victory to the Goku Black arc. Trunks’ entire multiverse is erased and he’s sent to another timeline to live out the rest of his days. Zamasu is defeated in the end, but only at the expense of countless lives and an entire plane of reality. Most timelines were left unaccounted for, but Zamasu did manage to wipe out all the mortals in one branch.