creating Vegeta, Toriyama originally intended for him to be a short-lived antagonist and second-tier character, with little influence on Dragon Ball's story. Toriyama intended for Goku to simply kill him at the climax of their first battle, and portrayed him as simply and one-dimensional as he should have been, considering this.

Despite this, the character became more popular than he had expected, and Toriyama became afraid of the backlash of killing him unceremoniously. Thus, Toriyama decided to keep Vegeta in the story for longer. Frieza,