Nappa (Dragon Ball Series)

Nappa (ナッパ, Nappa) was an elite Saiyan warrior from Planet Vegeta, and Vegeta's partner in combat. Prior to the destruction of Planet Vegeta, Nappa was the general of the Saiyan Army and aid/partner to the young prince, Vegeta. After his race's demise, he, along with Vegeta and Raditz, worked as soldiers directly under Frieza, which led him to Earth.

Appearance[]

Nappa is a tall and muscular man. Though his Saiyan genes give him the appearance of someone in their mid-30s, Nappa is approximately 50 years old when he is first shown in the series. At this time, he looks identical all the way to the time of his death; though his structure in his younger years shows him to be a bit slimmer. His thin mustache tends to change with each part in his life; as at middle age of 30's his mustache smaller in comparison than it is now; by the range of the Saiyan Saga, Nappa's mustache is larger, splits into two sections (noting he tends to shaved facial hair on occasion) and then grows back fully during the year one radius. In Dragon Ball GT, Nappa's mustache is split into two sections again, noting he shaved sometime while he was dead. He has hair in the TV special Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku (although it seems to be a small patch, lacking sideburns of any kind). He travels to Earth with Vegeta to gather the Dragon Balls, to wish for eternal life. He is the second most powerful Saiyan warrior in Frieza's army and reports his accomplishments to Frieza directly, alongside Raditz and Vegeta. Like most Saiyans, Nappa wears a scouter to detect the ki of his enemies.

Personality[]

Nappa has quite a destructive personality and loves demolition to an extreme level. When arriving on Earth, the first thing he asks Vegeta is if he can destroy a town. When taking time off to wait for Goku, Vegeta allows him to destroy as many things and places as he wants (in the anime only), as long as he does not waste enough energy to break a sweat. Nappa proceeds to demolish an entire Navy fleet division as well as an aerial raid, smashing through many jets and helicopters before leveling a slew of ships. Despite this, however, he usually congratulates his victims when they utilize attacks that come close to killing him, as evidenced when he congratulates Tien Shinhan on his use on a Spirit Tri-Beam that shattered his Battle Armor, citing that, had his aim been better, it would have severely injured him.

Nappa also has a very cocky personality, as he enjoys toying with his opponents. Nappa is rather sadistic, delighting in the suffering and pain he inflicts upon his opponents. His sadism is strongest by far towards Goku, and he repeatedly voices the intention to kill Goku's friends and son before his eyes as revenge for his treason towards his own race (by siding with Earthlings instead of the Saiyans). He tends to fight first and makes use of his brawn more so than his brain. However, his great ego would immediately vanish the second someone causes him a bruise or scar, and would decide to kill them slowly and painfully as a result. He is, in this instance, vain to the extent that he feels his appearance should remain unscathed (though in the Japanese dub, his rage against Krillin is fueled by the blow to his pride over being wounded by a much weaker opponent). However, he would still eliminate anyone as quickly as possible when losing patience with them.

Offentimes, he allows his anger to get the best of him, becoming extremely enraged and infuriated and unable to think properly, which results in Vegeta constantly reminding or, in some cases, ordering him to calm down. Whenever Vegeta tells off Nappa for acting asinine, or not listening, Nappa apologizes to Vegeta, usually in a slightly fearful state, and then proceeds to claim he was not thinking straight, showing his respect for Vegeta. In the Japanese dub, Nappa normally addresses Vegeta in a casual manner. In Bardock - The Father of Goku, this is alluded to be Vegeta's preference when he orders Nappa to "quit bootlicking". However, whenever chastised by Vegeta, he always addresses him with very polite language, as one would normally address a superior. It is only when Vegeta decides to kill him that Nappa abandons all respect for him, even calling Vegeta a "dirty rat" (though only in the Ocean dub) and challenging him in Dragon Ball GT. An anime-only flashback in the Frieza Saga, shows a more sympathetic side to Nappa. He appears to be shocked when Vegeta claims not to care about the death of his father and the rest of the Saiyan race, and his overall dialogue seems to imply that he does not kill when there is nothing in it for him. Also, when Nappa and Vegeta learn about the Dragon Balls and their wish-granting capability, Nappa's first suggestion is to bring Raditz back to life, demonstrating that despite his ruthlessness, he cares for his friends and comrades. Despite all his banter and intimidating/ferocious nature, Nappa is quite timid and becomes easily nervous when confronted by his superiors like Vegeta. It has been shown several times for when scolded by Vegeta he shows signs of fear and even in Dragon Ball GT, he (for a short time) becomes nervous and trembles to hear the sound of Vegeta's voice again. In a what-if of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, Nappa even shows great fear in trying to fight Frieza and tries to mask this in showing he is brave enough to fight the tyrant.

Nappa seems to be very knowledgeable about Saibamen; he knows how to grow them and seems to enjoy planting them. He even shows some slight compassion for them, as he is shocked when Vegeta kills one of their own after it failed to kill Tien. He is also shown coaching the Saibaman who fights Yamcha and is angry that its fight ends in a draw, saying that settling for a draw is pathetic. After Krillin and Piccolo kill the four remaining Saibamen, Nappa begs Vegeta to let him kill the five remaining Z Fighters.

Biography[]

Background[]

Nappa was born into a noble family, and thus has a high ranking and power level compared to other Saiyans. Soon, he became the direct subordinate to Prince Vegeta. At a young age he battled alongside his Saiyan comrades during the Saiyan-Tuffle War.

A few days before the destruction of Planet Vegeta, in Age 737, Nappa is seen watching the young Vegeta fight a group of Saibamen on monitor screens, and afterwards having a conversation about Frieza.

In an anime only flashback in the Frieza Saga, Nappa, along with Raditz and Vegeta return from their conquest on Planet Shikk. However, they are met with insult rather than congratulations by Dodoria, Zarbon, and Frieza. Nappa nearly loses control of himself and tries to attack Frieza, Zarbon and Dodoria, but Vegeta orders his comrade to calm and stand down, knowing that they would not stand a chance against them.

Eventually, the three Saiyans come across a planet which they wish to conquer in order to sell for a high price, but the inhabitants prove to be much stronger than they had anticipated, so they temporarily abort the mission. However, they soon discover the location of Raditz's long-lost younger brother, Kakarot, who has been raised on Earth as Goku. While Raditz heads for Earth to intercept Goku, Nappa goes on to conquer another planet with Vegeta. While sitting near a fire, they receive a distress call from Raditz, who has been defeated by Goku and Piccolo. Raditz relays Piccolo's explanation about Earth's Dragon Balls to Nappa and Vegeta in the hopes that they will come to use the balls to revive him. Nappa does briefly consider wishing Raditz back to life, but Vegeta instead decides to use the balls for them to wish for immortality, also adding that Raditz deserved to die for foolishly underestimating his opponents. They also take note of the high power level displayed by Goku's Human-Saiyan hybrid son, Gohan. Nappa briefly suggests merely taking over Earth so that they may mate with its inhabitants and produce a race of powerful half-breed Saiyans, who may eventually become Super Saiyans and re-establish Saiyan dominance in the universe, but Vegeta fears that they may become more powerful than the two of them, and merely settles on immortality (though the dialogue about producing an army of half-breed Saiyans is omitted in the FUNimation dub) as they depart for Earth.

In anime filler, Vegeta and Nappa stop by Arlia for a short time in February of Age 762 while they are traveling to Earth. While there, they make quick work of the planet's strongest warrior, Yetti, along with the planet's king, King Moai. After this, Vegeta destroys the whole planet.

Dragon Ball Z[]

Saiyan Saga[]

After arriving on Earth, Nappa does a power demonstration by blowing up an entire city just with his Volcano Explosion technique. After Vegeta warns him not to do so or he will kill him (because it could destroy any Dragon Ball nearby), they head off to seek out the Dragon Balls, heading directly to where Gohan, Piccolo and Krillin are, looking for the one who killed Raditz, arriving moments before Yamcha, Chiaotzu and Tien Shinhan.

Nappa reads the fighters power levels and mocks them, however Vegeta drops his scouter, claiming that the fighters can hide their true power levels, making the readings useless. Nappa plants six seeds into the earth's soil, and a group of Saibamen grow. Tien is the first to take on a Saibaman, defeating it without much effort, shocking Nappa, as each of the creatures' power levels were equal to Raditz. After Yamcha was killed by a Saibaman, and after Krillin and Piccolo destroyed the rest of them, Nappa charges up and demonstrates his sheer power over the Z Fighters, by brutally breaking Tien's arm in one clean punch. After Nappa uses his Blazing Storm attack on Krillin, Chiaotzu disappears, with everyone thinking he was caught in the blast. However, Chiaotzu flew on Nappa's back and self destructed, but it was in vain, as not even Nappa's Battle Armor was damaged much. Angry over his best friend's death, Tien uses the last of his energy to attack Nappa with a Spirit Tri-Beam, which proves to be in vain as well since he falls to the ground and dies immediately afterwards, while Nappa survives again with no serious injuries. After the demise of Chiaotzu and Tien, Piccolo develops a plan to destroy Nappa with a team attack, but Gohan becomes too afraid to attack during the part where he was supposed to blast him. Before the fight can continue, Vegeta decides to pause it for three hours to allow Goku to show up, finding it amusing that Krillin, Piccolo and Gohan have so much faith on such a low level Saiyan warrior as Kakarot. In filler, to keep himself occupied, Nappa destroys the news crew that had been reporting on the battle, and then easily decimates the military forces, consisting of battleships and aircraft carriers, that were en route to stop the Saiyans. After that, he destroys another city with his Exploding Wave technique.

After three hours have passed with Goku not appearing, Nappa takes off his armor so there is nothing holding back his power and the fight resumes. Piccolo devises a plan that involves him grabbing Nappa's tail to weaken him, but Nappa had already become immune to this and does not suffer any pain, unlike Raditz did. When Piccolo attempts this plan, Nappa elbows Piccolo on the head, knocking him out. Once again, the Saiyan demonstrates his might, clearly injuring Piccolo, torturing Krillin, and bullying Gohan. In a gamble, Krillin decided to throw a Destructo Disc at Nappa, which he barely dodged after Vegeta urged him to, getting out with just a scar on his left cheek.

This was enough to make Nappa stop making Krillin suffer, and just want to kill him. However, before Nappa can deliver the finishing blow, Piccolo launches a Ki Blast at him just in time, which makes Vegeta laugh at Nappa's incompetence on destroying these fighters. Nappa almost kills Piccolo, but decides to bully Gohan again, smacking him around, then deciding to take his time to relax by sitting on him while Gohan is laying face up. Nappa is eventually caught off guard for the first time during the fight when Gohan loses patience and kicks him in a rage, throwing him into a nearby rock formation. This only makes Nappa angrier. In the end, Nappa ultimately kills Piccolo when the Namekian uses his body to shield Gohan from a potentially fatal attack. Enraged by this, Gohan uses all his power in one last blast called the Masenko, an attack that Nappa parries almost easily, though he admits that it had made his arm numb.

Just as Nappa is about to finish off the exhausted Gohan by stepping on him, Goku arrives, with the Nimbus carrying Gohan. Nappa claims Goku would not have a chance of beating him, and even after Vegeta reads his power level, Nappa attacks Goku, but Goku easily dodges his punch. Their fight carries on, Goku obviously dominating the battle. At Vegeta's insistence, Nappa eventually calms down and begins to attack with much better technique, but he is still hopelessly outmatched. Desperate, he fires his ultimate attack, which Goku effortlessly counters, stunning Nappa. When Vegeta loses patience with Nappa and orders him to stand down, Nappa decides to take the humiliation out on Gohan and Krillin, charging at them with the intention of finishing them off with his Break Cannon mouth blast. Goku had to use his Kaio-ken to stop him and attacks Nappa with the Kaio-ken Finish to his back, breaking it.

Defeated, Nappa is tossed at Vegeta's feet by Goku. Nappa begs for Vegeta to help him get up, and Vegeta grabs his hand, pretending to help him but then as a punishment for his failure, Nappa is quickly thrown in the air by the Saiyan Prince, as a Saiyan who cannot move is "useless", according to Vegeta. After he begs Vegeta for his life, Nappa is ultimately destroyed by Vegeta's Galaxy Breaker energy blast. Upon entering the Afterlife, he joins Raditz after being sent to Hell by King Yemma. Daizenshuu 7 state that he was in his 50's when he died.

Cell Saga[]

During the Androids Saga and Imperfect Cell Saga, Goku's fight with Nappa is shown to be one of the times Dr. Gero has been tracking him. In the FUNimation dub, Cell claims that Nappa's cells had also been used during his creation.

Majin Buu Saga[]

In the Kid Buu Saga, Nappa makes an appearance in a flashback of when Vegeta and Goku first met.

Dragon Ball Super[]

"Future" Trunks Saga[]

When Goku and Krillin were sent into a forest to retrieve a special herb for Master Roshi, an illusion of Nappa and many other villains from the Z-Fighters' past show up to challenge the duo. Even though Nappa didn't kill Krillin, his appearance still terrified him, and Krillin ended up being surrounded by multiple illusions of Nappa. He tried to fight them by using the Solar Flare and Destructo Disc, but it didn't work. Krillin did see a specific energy from the bisected Nappa before it reformed, and Krillin made all of the illusions of Nappa freeze by conquering his fears. After beating one Nappa, they all disintergrated as Krillin had finally conquered his fear of the past.

Dragon Ball GT[]

Super 17 Saga[]

In Dragon Ball GT, Nappa escapes from Hell with the rest of the evil departed thanks to Dr. Gero and Dr. Myuu's dimensional hole. One of his first acts upon resurrection is to destroy an entire city (like he had done when he first landed on Earth in Dragon Ball Z). Although Vegeta gives him a chance to escape, Nappa furiously lunges at Vegeta in an attempt to avenge his own death. Vegeta easily kills Nappa once more with his Energy Palm wave. He is later seen in Hell alongside General Blue, Staff Officer Black, and Major Metallitron approaching Piccolo, who presumably defeats them.

Shadow Dragon Saga[]

Also, in the Shadow Dragon Saga, Rage Shenron has a flashback of when Vegeta and Nappa arrived on Earth, which indirectly caused his birth after the wish used to resurrect Goku.

Voice actors[]

Japanese: Shōzō Iizuka (Dragon Ball Z), Kiyoyuki Yanada (Dragon Ball GT), and Tetsu Inada (Dragon Ball Z Kai)
Ocean Group dub: Michael Dobson
FUNimation dub: Christopher R. Sabat (Original) and Phil Parsons (Remastered, Dragon Ball Z Kai and video games)
AB Group dub: Paul Bandey
Latin American Spanish dub: José Luis Castañeda (DBZ and DBGT) and Héctor Reynoso (DBZ Kai)
Spanish dub: Angel Corpa (Z); Rafa Cuevas (Z ep 104; TV Special 1); Jorge García Tomé (GT)
German dub: Gerald Paradies
Hebrew dub: Micha Morim
Italian dub: Riccardo Lombardo
Portuguese dub: Ricardo Spínola
Brazilian Portuguese dub: Guilherme Lopes
Croatian dub: Kruno Belko
Catalan dub: Amadeu Aguado
Thai dub: Ittipol Mameeked
Valencian dub: Salomo Sanjuan
French dub: Georges Atlas, Eric Peter
Serbian dub: Nenad Nenadovic (Old Serbian Dub), Sinisa Maksimovic (New Serbian Dub)
Greek dub: Yiannis Papaioannou, Manos Venieris
Tagalog dub: Montreal Repuyan
Galician Dub: Xoán Diéguez (Z); Matias Brea (DBZ Kai)
Basque Dub: Ramón Fernández de Castro (Z); Joseba Etxebarria (DBZ Kai)

Trivia[]

His name is a pun on a type of Chinese cabbage however, it's name is also a reference to the corruption of the British dialect name for turnip is neep.
Alternately colored versions of Nappa and Vegeta actually appear earlier in a brief cameo appearance in "Reunions" alongside Raditz.
Nappa's scouter is the only scouter, outside of filler, not known to be destroyed: he removed it before his fight at Vegeta's advice and was not seen picking it back up prior to his death.
- In the anime, Nappa destroys another city while waiting for Goku to arrive. During this, he is suddenly wearing his scouter again, despite taking it off hours earlier. This is because the parts of the footage from the scene was reused from when the first city was destroyed.
Nappa's Scouter model appears as an accessory in Dragon Ball: Xenoverse and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 under the name Scouter (Blue).
Like Vegeta, Nappa is insusceptible to the pain a typical Saiyan experiences when having their tail mistreated.^[12]

- In Xenoverse 2, while training the Future Warrior he will mention that Raditz always skipped Tail training day and criticizes Raditz's decision to not train his tail in order to overcome his weakness, like Nappa and Vegeta did.
In the manga, an instance of a minor inconsistency is when Nappa's light wounds and injuries from his fight against Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu disappear after three hours of waiting for Goku.
- However given that his injuries were light and relatively minor its possible that they may have healed during those three hours (as Saiyans being a warrior race may be able to heal naturally at a faster rate than humans).
Unlike Vegeta, Nappa's color scheme was not corrected in his pre-Earth appearances in Dragon Ball Kai; though he may own more than one suit of body armor.
The only Z Fighter Nappa technically kills is Piccolo; Yamcha is killed by a Saibaman, Chiaotzu destroyed himself in a sacrificial explosion, and Tien used every ounce of his energy in an attack, draining him of his life.
Nappa is the very first villain injured by Goku's Kaio-ken.
Nappa is the second villain to be killed by Vegeta, with the first being the Saibaman that failed to defeat Tien Shinhan. He is also the first villain to be killed by Vegeta after being defeated by Goku (as Vegeta would later kill Recoome and Burter after they were defeated by Goku in the Captain Ginyu Saga).
The Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game card "Nappa Restored" implies that Nappa was resurrected by the wish on the Dragon Balls to revive those killed by Frieza's men, receiving a zenkai in the process. This is somewhat technically true since at the time of the Saiyan Saga, Vegeta was still under Frieza's command, not having betrayed him until the Namek Saga.

In Budokai Tenkaichi 3, in the versus mode screen, Nappa thinks about what he would look like as a Super Saiyan and says "Think if I went Super Saiyan, my goatee would grow?".
- In the Xenoverse series it is revealed that a bald Saiyan's head hair does not grow and any facial hair turns golden blonde (thus Nappa's facial hair and aura would be the only thing that would change if he transformed into a Super Saiyan). In Xenoverse 2, it is revealed that bald Saiyans will grow golden Super Saiyan 3 style blonde hair during the Super Saiyan 3 transformation.
- However in Super Dragon Ball Heroes, Nappa remains bald upon transforming into his Super Saiyan 3 form and humorously his goatee does indeed grow out, ironically conforming to Nappa's musings from Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (it is possible that the developers may have designed his SSJ3 form in such a manner as a reference/homage to his humorous comment about the nature of his Super Saiyan form from BT3).
  - Presumably, one possible explanation why Nappa remains bald as an SSJ3, yet Bald Saiyans in Xenoverse 2 do not is due to Nappa's baldness apparently being the result of aging which may prevent him from growing hair as an SSJ3, while bald Saiyans in Xenoverse 2 may simply have shaved heads.
As of Super Dragon Ball Heroes, Nappa and Raditz are the only Saiyans known to have jumped past both the first two levels of Super Saiyan and straight to Super Saiyan 3.
In Burst Limit, when Nappa is fighting against Vegeta in multiple rounds and Vegeta wins two, Nappa will say "That's Vegeta for ya!"
In Raging Blast, Nappa has special dialogue with the Ginyu Force, despite never actually meeting them in the series (however like its possible that he may have met them previously while working under Frieza as Vegeta is known to have met Guldo before their encounter on Namek).
- Ironically, Nappa becomes leader of the Neo Ginyu Force in Dragon Ball Xenoverse.
The human character Rock heavily resembles Nappa.
- However, there are a number of human and a few such villain characters that heavily resemble, Nappa's appearance (i.g in facial appearance), these being a such as Maloja and Syn Shenron. It is also a note that half of Dragon Ball's villains take some tribute into Nappa's appearance.
In the french dub, Nappa states that the Saiyans exist for over 1.000.000 years http://www.cda.pl/video/2557614f