Dragon Ball: Frieza's Death Ray, Explained

Key points

• Frieza's Death Ray is iconic for its piercing power and lack of cooldown, making it a deadly and precise attack.
• Frieza often uses the Death Ray to eliminate characters in Dragon Ball, demonstrating his mastery of the attack.
• The Death Ray has variants such as Death Laser and Death Bullet, with Golden Frieza's Great Death Ray being the most powerful.

Almost every single hero and villain in the Dragon Ball the franchise has come with some amazing and powerful signature attacks that are synonymous with the characters themselves. From Goku's Kamehameha to Omega Shenron's Negative Karma Ball, both the canon and non-canon spaces of the series are filled to the brim with these iconic techniques.

However, for villains at least, no attack reaches the same level of infamy as Frieza's Death Ray. While it's not even his most powerful move, it's the one he's used the most over the course of his numerous appearances in Dragon Ball. So, let's examine the Death Ray and see why it is so iconic and an integral part of Frieza's arsenal.

What is the death ray?

Frieza's signature move

As Frieza's most iconic move, the Death Ray is a Ki attack that perfectly reflects its creator's cruel and sadistic nature. It is essentially a thin, highly concentrated Ki beam that emphasizes pure penetrating power, making it strong enough to penetrate anything, similar to Piccolo's Special Beam Canon. However, it is not as strong as the Namekian's signature ability, although it makes up for it with the lack of cooldown required.

Therefore, Frieza can fire the Death Ray at a moment's notice and even in quick succession, making it an incredibly dangerous attack. While it's not even his strongest technique, it's certainly his most iconic and most used, as many characters have met their deaths at the hands of Frieza's Death Ray!

How the Death Ray is performed

This attack is one of the simplest in the entire series as it requires virtually no recharging and can be performed instantly. To do so, Frieza simply raises his hand and points to his target with his index finger. The Ki is then concentrated at the fingertip and fired in a thin, straight line capable of effortlessly piercing armor. This also makes it one of the most accurate attacks ever Dragon Ball!

Notable uses of the death ray

The deadly success rate of the attack

As previously stated, the Death Ray appears to be Frieza's preferred method of directly eliminating an individual, as he has been shown to kill many characters using this attack. The first time it is used in the anime is shortly after the Galactic Tyrant's introduction, where he uses it to effortlessly dispatch a random Namekian warrior, demonstrating just how incredible his attack mastery is, even in his weakest form.

During the Namek Saga, Frieza also used the Death Ray to kill Dende, and once again, when he used it to kill Vegeta after losing his temper due to the Saiyan Prince's insults. This was the perfect moment to demonstrate how precise the attack was, as Frieza was able to aim exactly at Vegeta's heart despite being a good distance away from him. The Death Ray he used here also showed the deadly nature of this move, as it conveniently pierced Vegeta's armor.

Don't worry, it won't hurt too much. Really… death is my specialty!

Frieza used this attack again to injure Goku and Piccolo, though he was unable to kill them. However, whenever he uses it against Super Saiyan Goku, the Death Ray proves ineffective due to the gap in their power. Much later, the attack was seen again in the hands of Perfect Cell, who used it in his fight against Gohan.

After Frieza's resurrection in Dragon Ball Superthe Death Ray continued to be used frequently. After unlocking an even more powerful transformation with Golden Frieza, the attack has also seen a massive upgrade. Now, the color has changed from a pink-purple hue to a much more noticeable red, which has also increased its size and strength considerably. The move was used very frequently throughout Super and was now more of a traditional Ki wave due to the exponential increase in strength Frieza gained after unlocking his golden form.

Death Ray Variations:

• Death Laser: A slightly thicker and more powerful version of the attack used by Frieza and Cooler.
• Deadly Bullet: A version of the attack that fires a single high-velocity projectile instead of a beam. It was used by Frieza in his third and fourth forms.
• Crazy Finger Radius: A variation of Death Bullet used in Frieza's third form which sees him use both hands in rapid succession to fire many projectiles, one after the other.
• Deadly barrage radius: Similar to the Death Bullet but with a quick attack from one finger. Used by Frieza and Perfect Cell.
• Great Death Ray: The most powerful variant of the attack used by Golden Frieza, where he fires the beam from all fingers of both hands instead of one to create a network of Ki blasts.

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