What is Unguarded?
Unguarded is a fan-created webcomic focusing on the character of Freeza from Dragon Ball Z. For more details, check
this out. My goal is that the comic can be enjoyed by anyone—not just those who are familiar with the actual series (though some familiarity with it will certainly help).
When do you update?
Mondays and Thursdays. Patrons currently get updates three times per week and are significantly ahead of site readers.
Which timeline is this?
While this won’t become apparent until later in the story, this universe is that of the original, i.e., Goku is the one to confront Freeza and his father on earth, not Trunks.
Are you a Dragon Ball Z fan?
YES! I was reluctantly introduced to anime through Dragon Ball Z as the show was first airing in the US. I have been a fan ever since. The release of Kai and Movies 14/15 really rekindled that love, not just for the show as a whole, but for the character of Freeza. I have one of the largest
collections devoted to the character around (I’m hesitant to say
the largest though I’m not aware of any other major contenders :P).
Did you watch Dragon Ball Super?
In addition to watching the series as it was released in Japan, I own Blu Ray copies of Dragon Ball Super. It's not something I would have watched if I wasn't already a fan of the franchise. I think it's important to remind people that Unguarded is a Z comic. In later parts of the comic, I'll tie in a little bit of Super but for the most part, I'm able to ignore it with no strange side effects in the story.
Dubbed or Subbed?
Both. I enjoyed DBZ: A as well though overzealous fans running their jokes into the ground for years has soured it a bit for me. The Big Green Dub and the Malaysian dub hold a special place in my heart as well.
Who is your favorite Freeza VA?
I don’t have a VA that I dislike. Of course, I like the original, Ryūsei Nakao—his Freeza is iconic. I liked both Pauline Newstone and Linda Young as they were the first voices I’d heard for the character.
It was a unique voice, and I associated this, along with some his other attributes, to being more alien (though I can certainly understand why some Western viewers may have been confused on his gender).
I love Chris Ayres as Freeza. His work on Kai definitely got me excited about falling in love with the series and its characters again.
I also like hearing LittleKuriboh as Freeza in DBZ Abridged.
Can I repost your comic?
Do not repost any of my art, even with credit. People are lazy and engage the upload they're looking at-- they almost never seek out the original. If you want to make a little avatar for yourself, that's fine.
When does the story take place?
This comic begins in Age 708, when Freeza is born. Currently the plan is to end the story in Age 785, rather than my initial plan to end it in Age 737 (when Planet Vegeta is destroyed). It is interesting that the Broly film depicts Freeza as a youth. It is coincidence only that this matches a creative choice on my part.
Why is Freeza born in his final form?
It's his natural form. Watch or read Z instead of listening to Youtubers talk about it.
Why did you change x from the canon you %^&$*ing &@$#!?
Why is it that those who tend to allege that I've deviated from canon tend to be the most belligerent as well as the most incorrect when it comes to citing said content accurately?
Why don’t you spell the character’s name as __________?
My reasoning isn't necessarily consistent but it's usually a combination of phonetic preference and the anglicized version used on Japanese merchandise.
Why did you give Frieza a Saiyan friend? He hates Saiyans.
You're right. He does. (shit-eating grin)
Why isn’t Tsukiryuu’s name a pun?
Great question!
What do you call Freeza’s race?
To avoid being catachrestic, I had to choose something. It would be completely unnatural to dance around what they're called in a story like this. When I first joined the fandom, there were two common choices for denoting Freeza’s race: icejins and changelings. Changleling connotes something else so I was never on board with that one. I typically used “Icejin” though I didn’t find that it sounded natural.
Frost Demon is typically used by fans who are newer to the fandom; it's exclusive to the dub version of Xenoverse. In the Japanese version of "Earth in Danger", Cell says "[your] clan": きさまらの一族.
I’ve never seriously considered Glaeris.
That leaves one and I know what you’re thinking dub haters, because I was thinking it too. Arcosian is exclusive to the Ocean dub and I don’t believe there’s enough evidence to definitively infer that the race shown giving the Saiyans the technology belongs to the same race as Freeza (though this certainly seems to have been more heavily implied since the 2018 Broly film). That said, I find Arcosian and subsequently Arcos, are easy on the ears, so that's why I chose this nomenclature.
What are your thoughts regarding Toriyama’s statement that Freeza was “born from his father alone”?
As has been noted by the translator of
this interview, the phrasing is ambiguous. The aforementioned phrase is modifying Freeza’s mutant traits rather than his parentage. If Toriyama intended to refer to Freeza's parentage rather than the inheritance of those traits, he didn't phrase his syntax correctly. The types of paratext-exclusive responses he gives tend to be pulled out of his ass (and forgotten just as quickly). If it's not in the manga or the Z anime (and even the show is iffy due to filler), I take it with a grain of salt.
Speaking of clarification regarding characters, I have also incorporated Toriyama's follow-up remark regarding power levels and written the rest of "Freeza's race" as being generally weak fighters.
Didn’t Freeza mention his “parents”?
This is something that is exclusive to certain Funimation and Viz translations. Some English translations change it to “father.” There are at least three ways to interpret his use of 親 but I took it to mean that it was his father who damaged his true form. His mother wasn’t involved, regardless of whether she exists in canon. Ignore the folks parroting misinformation that there is no plural form for "parent." He could have said 両親. He didn't. Cold beats his offspring solo.
So wait—how can he . . . he doesn't have--?
Nature Documentaries. Watch one. <.<
You mentioned the story is going to get "quite dark." Can you elaborate?
I know that "dark" is subjective to everyone but let me put it this way: I grew up loving authors who pulled no punches. When I was a little kid, I had watched films like
Plague Dogs and
Watership Down . (Click those at YOUR OWN RISK!) If you can stomach those, you'll be just fine with Unguarded. As of right now, we're about a third of the way into Chapter 5. If anything in the previous chapters made you squeamish, you might want to get off the ride now!
Have a question about something I didn’t cover? Contact me!