Goku’s journey as the protagonist of Dragon Ball has brought him into direct confrontation with an unimaginable number of enemies who have attempted to prevent him from growing stronger. With every arc, these villains grow stronger and stronger, and Goku has to train hard to stop these villains from wreaking havoc all over the world.
However, the one group of villains that proved to be the biggest problem for Goku and his squad was the Frieza Force. Goku came across them on Planet Namek and within the force, the one squad that gave Goku the run for his money was the Ginyu Squad. The Ginyu squad consisted of Guldo, Recoome, Burter, Jeice, and Ginyu.
The squad is one of the most unique groups of characters Akira Toriyama has ever created. The manga creator once revealed that he got the idea for the Ginyu Squad from the popular TV series Power Rangers, also known as Super Sentai. His son was a big fan of Super Sentai, and this served as an inspiration for Toriyama.
The Most Iconic Squad in Dragon Ball
The Ginyu Force was introduced during the Frieza Saga, and it contained warriors that were hand-selected by Frieza. These warriors were the strongest contenders among the entire Frieza force, with their strength ranging from 30,000 all the way to 120,000. They were considered a “High-Level executive class” and gave a hard time to Goku and the team.
Their leader, Ginyu, was the strongest warrior among them, and he possessed a strength level of 120,000, which was pretty dangerous at the time. But his real power that became the biggest threat was his ability to swap bodies. Ginyu was able to trick Goku into swapping bodies, but he was not able to use the true power of the Saiyans.
The most iconic aspect of the Ginyu Force was the poses that they struck during their introduction and their battles. These poses were Akira Toriyama’s way of introducing something unique and comical in the Dragon Ball narrative, and it worked perfectly.
Akira Toriyama’s Inspiration for the Ginyu Force
Toriyama’s interview for Dragon Ball Daizenshuu 2: Story Guide was translated by Kazenshuu, and in this interview, the manga creator made some startling revelations. One of the revelations he made was about the chain of villains that he introduced one after another in Dragon Ball to test Goku’s abilities as a Saiyan.
Toriyama stated:
Having become the strongest on the Earth, Goku and co. had also beat the Saiyans who came from outside of Earth and then they went out into the universe. I came up with Freeza around the time of the Bubble2, and the land shark was the worst person of all.
While talking about the enemies, Toriyama revealed that he did not like the idea of Goku ravaging through every enemy he came across. Thus, he came up with the idea of the Ginyu Force that brought a balance to the story.
So I made him the #1 land shark in the universe. But merely escalating the enemies was a pain, so I brought out the Ginyu Special-Squad. My son really loved sentai stuff, and I always watched it with him. Well, I brought that in. It’s put out by Toei, same as the Dragon Ball Z anime.
Super Sentai (Power Rangers) were a big deal in Japan and also in North America. They had a lot of different adaptations, all of which had pretty decent reception from all over the world.
Toriyama wanted to implement the idea of Super Sentai in Dragon Ball, and the Ginyu Force was the perfect element of the story that could have captured the essence of the fictional superhero team.
You can watch Dragon Ball on Crunchyroll.
