Frieza and Cell are two of Dragon Ball’s most iconic and deadly villains as proven in their respective sagas, but as it turns out, they are complete opposites of each other–and each of their fights against Goku proves it.
Frieza was introduced as an established villain who was operating long before the events of Dragon Ball as an intergalactic tyrant who ruled over the Saiyan race with an iron fist. However, when Frieza had a vision about his death by the hands of a Super Saiyan, he preemptively annihilated the Saiyan home world of Planet Vegeta and effectively wiped out the vast majority of the Saiyan race. Unfortunately for Frieza, his act of planetary genocide wasn’t enough to save him as he was defeated on Planet Namek by Super Saiyan Goku and then finally killed by Super Saiyan Trunks a short time later. Cell, on the other hand, is a villain who traveled back in time from the future after being created by a man, Dr. Gero, with the DNA of existing fighters. While everything Frieza did was for the expansion of his empire, Cell committed acts of atrocity just for fun and to get more powerful–again, because he thought it would be fun to do so. While their origins and motivations are clearly opposites, there is actually a more specific reason that confirms this claim is true.
In Dragon Ball chapter 400 by Akira Toriyama, the Z-Fighters are well into the Cell Games with Goku currently facing off against the despicable villain. In this chapter, the fight between Cell and Goku is heating up, and Cell delivers a blast that is dangerously powerful. Since Cell had Goku’s DNA embedded within his own, he was able to immediately use Goku’s most iconic attack: the Kamehameha Wave. The thing about that particular move, however, is that one can’t use it after they have charged up their power to a certain level, or else they could quite literally blow up the planet. After Cell used the Kamehameha while powered up to a dangerous level, the planet remained un-exploded–but Goku wasn’t going to let Cell off that easily. Goku angrily asked Cell if he knew that that blast could have destroyed the world, and Cell replied by saying he knew it could have, but is glad that it didn’t because if the world had blown up, a lot of fun would be gone from his life–with the majority of that ‘fun’ being Cell’s current battle with Goku.
Dragon Ball’s Frieza and Cell Fought Goku in Completely Different Ways
The idea that Cell didn’t want to destroy a planet for fear that it would shorten his fight against Goku wouldn’t have made any sense to Frieza whatsoever. When Frieza fought Goku on Planet Namek, the villain deliberately destroyed Namek’s core so that it would explode after a short amount of time (as that ‘5 minutes’ claim still feels like a lie) in order to be done fighting Goku faster. When Frieza was battling the Super Saiyan, he just wanted it to end. Frieza wanted Goku to be dead and the planet they were fighting on to be destroyed, whereas Cell expressed the exact opposite sentiment while fighting Goku during the Cell Games on Earth–and that isn’t the only problem Frieza would have had with Cell’s mindset here.
Not only would Frieza disagree with Cell’s Goku-fighting methods, but also Cell’s overall mindset in regard to blowing up planets. Cell said blowing up Earth would have lessened his fun, whereas Frieza thinks destroying worlds is about as much fun as someone can have, having obliterated a number of planets including the aforementioned Vegeta and Namek–and even Planet Earth in Dragon Ball Super–just to name a few. All-in-all, from their origins and motivations to their feelings on blowing up planets while specifically fighting Goku, Frieza and Cell are two Dragon Ball villains who simply have nothing in common.