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).
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Patrons currently get updates three times per week as well are are roughly one chapter ahead of the live, free version.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s his natural form. Watch or read Z instead of listening to Youtubers talk about it.
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? What I will do is find loopholes and ignore paratext if it serves the story.
Not much else to add here. Chalk it up to a headcanon if you prefer but if you’re struggling to reconcile this, maybe fan content just isn’t your thing?
No. Unguarded is written to stand on its own.
If you’ve never seen an episode of Dragon Ball Z, you might miss a few easter eggs or bits of subtext but the core story, characters, and worldbuilding are meant to be fully accessible.
My background is in literary analysis and composition so I’m very aware of how fan works can lean too heavily on assumed knowledge. I’ve made a deliberate effort to avoid that here.
At the same time, I’m not interested in over-explaining things to the point where longtime fans feel like they’re being talked down to. You know how characters in Dragon Ball will sometimes spell out the subtext mid-fight? None of that hand-holding here.
The goal is a balance: new readers can follow the story without homework, while canon fans can pick up on the extra layers.
If anything, prior knowledge changes how you read it—not whether you can.
My reasoning isn’t necessarily consistent but it’s usually a combination of phonetic preference and the anglicized version used on Japanese merchandise.
You’re right. He does. (shit-eating grin)
Great question!
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.
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.
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.
Nature Documentaries. Watch one. <.<
“Dark” is subjective but in this case, I’m less interested in shock value and more in actions having consequences.
This is a story where violence has weight, cruelty begets trauma, and death carries lasting consequences. Characters don’t always get the chance to fix damage they’ve caused. If that’s a departure from what you expect, it’s intentional.
Unguarded is an “adult” story but that’s not shorthand for excessive swearing, nudity, and sex scenes. The focus is on themes—power, isolation, control, communication—handled in a way that assumes a mature audience who can extrapolate ideologies that are not neatly categorized.
The tone shifts as the story goes on. Early chapters ease you in but the further we get, the more those elements come to the forefront.
If anything you’ve read so far made you uneasy, that’s a fair signal of where it’s headed. I don’t include content for gratuitous reasons but I’m also not interested in pulling my punches when it matters.
I understand why some readers look for them but I don’t provide detailed trigger warnings for Unguarded.
Part of this is practical: I feel that spelling out specific content is not worth showing spoilers. The other part is philosophical: this is a story that deals with difficult themes and I trust my readers to decide for themselves what they’re comfortable engaging with.
What I can say upfront is that the tone is consistent with what’s described in my other responses: violence has consequences, and the story doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable situations or subject matter.
If you find yourself crossing a line where you’re no longer enjoying the experience, I trust you to step away. That’s always a valid choice.
Have a question about something I didn’t cover? Contact me!