Ah Vegeta

Where do we start?

I said in my last submission I was gonna write something about my thoughts on the man.

Lets start with the visible, the fact. Vegeta the character was made originally to be a (Bad guy reference here) sacrificial ally to Gokuh and crew. In doing so, Mr. Toriyama (weather he knew it or not) started a process which he failed to do with Gokuh, and Gohan. He Set Vegeta, the character that no one was supposed to like, up on the Hero’s journey. Vegeta’s path through his adventures made him a completely unwilling hero who wound up making the greatest sacrifice of all, and in turn cast his line to most of us, hook line and sinker. Toriyama was pissed that Vegeta was so well received and chances are he didn’t understand why. Dragonball Z fans across Japan were so distraught over the fact that Vegeta was dead that the publishers of jump made a deal with Toriyama to bring him back, and subsequently keep the Z series going. (Toriyama was seriously thinking of ending it after the Freeza saga)

As revenge against his fans he tried to make Vegeta hated. And in the end, it was this very thing that solidified his presence. Since Dragonball Began the big couple had always been Bulma and Yamcha, they were inseparable, and Yamcha was a typical dude. And Bulma was your typical girl, they fought, but they loved each other in their own way. People had been begging for Bulma and Yamcha to finally get married and settle down. When Trunks was introduced to the series, as Vegeta’s son there was a shock of silence, a minor call of outrage, and then an overwhelming support. Vegeta was there to stay.

Now, throughout the original manga, all of the characters were rather… bold to say the least. Toriyama never went through the effort to build the characters. There wasn’t a REASON why Bulma chose to be a scientist, she just was. Gokuh’s reasoning was never fleshed out for his air headedness and his dumb lovability and sudden seriousness in battle. That’s just the way he was, it was that way always (with only a little credit going towards that hit on the head, and the killing of his grandfather… there were no feelings that were presented truly that explained to us why Gokuh was the way he was).

However when Vegeta died in the manga a whole can of worms was opened because he died with feeling. Suddenly there was a character in the series that was truly whole. A Fucked up whole, but whole. He had thoughts, reasoning’s, wants, and even past that he had inner conflict. And it was around this time that this was revealed that the style of the manga changed, both in art, and in the way that Toriyama went writing things. Things began to change in the style, the character’s faces started having more emotion, subtle emotion. But he left enough to the imagination that each reader created their own version of the characters in their minds. Suddenly all the characters were more powerful then they had ever been emotionally, they were powerful, bold, pure, complex characters, and that leads to my thoughts on the subject.

These are my thoughts and feelings on Vegeta, I may share some with some of you, and others I may not share the same view with, but that’s ok, it was ment to be this way.

My previous submission had Vegeta in green. Green as a color symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, fertility, ambition, greed, and jealousy. Green Is Vegeta’s Primary color.

Vegtea, first and Foremost is a thinker. He thinks about allot, and this can be seen throughout the series. It’s his strongpoint, but at the same time it’s his weakness. He over thinks things to the point where he winds himself into knots. “What if Kakorot is stronger then me, what would my father think.” “What if I can’t reach super Sayia-jin.” “If I love am I weak?” He is a classic example of someone that has very very vast insecurities about himself and his person, and retaliates violently when someone hits even close to a nerve. He can’t shrug things off, because to him, shrugging something off would be admitting weakness, admitting failure. Vegeta’s fear of Failure runs him. And his fear of failure drives him to close up and ponder the world around him.

His need to figure out how things work drive him. And enigma’s drive him up the wall.

In my picture I have him staring at the viewer. This I did on purpose. I originally was going to call the piece “Mirror” but then I thought the better of it, mostly because of my past with the character. He is meant to be staring straight at you, looking at you, studying you. Not in that way of “HOW SHALL I DEFEATE THIS PERSON” but in that way of “How do they tick?” his gaze is the gaze I give when I am looking at him. Trying to figure him out, trying to rationalize the why behind him. It’s breaking the 4th wall in a way that is rarely done.

In this picture he is blue, and he is again, thinking but not in the same way as the green piece. Blue symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness.

He isn’t thinking about the viewer, or a subject in front of him, but rather drifting into and out of his thoughts. He is probably running over in his mind the rationalization he would have given his father for ending up the way he did. His father lived in a world of fears as well. Vegeta knows this now more then any other person, and he probably wonders if his father would accept him for who he has grown to be. Rationality would say yes, but there is always that lingering tick of anxiousness that he would be considered disloyal for abandoning the “Sayia-jin” way.

Vegeta has never been disloyal, he has only been misguided. Which happens, even to the best of people. The small smile on his face could be him imagining introducing his father to the earthlings and how his dad would react to seeing trunks for the first time as a baby.

Of course it also could be him imagining the BBQ sandwich he is gonna have for lunch. Sometimes pensive people are pensive about mundane things

And that ends the TLR

For those of you that skimmed to the bottom… VEGETA IS AWESOME THE END.

This will probably not be my last submission reminiscing on this either.