Due to the franchise having numerous Time Skips and self-contained storylines, pretty much every Big Bad in Dragon Ball qualifies. As a result they also tend to lend their names to the arcs they're featured in.
- For Dragon Ball:
- The first few arcs lacked any Arc Villain, instead having no villain last for more than a few chapters. The Pilaf gang come the closest in the first arc, but only in the anime, where they have many scenes sprinkled throughout the existing stories and thus have a larger role compared to the manga, where they're just Bit Part Bad Guys who show up at the end. The second arc is a tournament setting with No Antagonist, and the various opponents within it are at worst jerks, and in any case only get brief focus as opponents that the heroes must overcome to qualify for the next match.
- Red Ribbon Arc: This arc adds a major antagonist for the first time in the form of the Red Ribbon Army, led by Commander Red. Red is the source of all the woes in the arc, including enslaved villages, forest fires, cruel leaders, and even sending an assassin who cares not for collateral damage. That said the story makes no effort to build up to a final confrontation between the two on a personal level: it frequently goes 10+ episodes without even mentioning him, and Goku defeats the Red Ribbon Army as whole without even meeting the guy.
- That said, each mini-arc of this storyline does have its own Arc Villains, including Colonel Silver, General White, General Blue, Tao Pai-Pai, and Commander Red himself. Each of these are the focus when Goku is in their turf, and all are defeated on the way to acquiring the next Dragon Ball. Tao Pai-Pai in particular introduced many tropes that would be codified later on, such as being utterly insurmountable, outright evil, and forcing Goku to separate from his friends to acquire a power boost in order to defeat them, arriving just in the nick of time.
- 22nd Tournament Arc: This arc has the Crane Hermit, being the one who is attempting to lead Tenshinhan and Chaozu down the path of evil and who himself tries to cheat and murder his rivals, going a bit beyond the Opposing Sports Team of the 21st Tournament (in particular, Crane seeks Goku's death after learning he's the reason his brother, Tao Pai-Pai, is dead, even though Goku did so out of self-defense). Tenshinhan is the strongest antagonist power-wise, but his villainy is born from a rivalry incited by Crane, and while still intense his villainy disappears after his master crosses the line by forcing Chaozu to sabotage the fight, and both renounce Crane after he's disposed of. For the next arc, Tien seeks to atone for his actions, with filler pitting him against a former victim.
- Daimao Arc: Piccolo Daimao (the Great Demon King) is the first straight and unambiguous Arc Villain that would characterize the series, with the story notably building up to a grand confrontation with him the moment he's introduced. The conflict is incited by him being awakened to conquer the world, all the secondary antagonists are his minions, he plunges the planet into chaos, and the arc ends with his explosively climactic defeat. The Daimao Arc is Dragon Ball's very first Villain Arc, and this format would come to define Dragon Ball storylines: with the odd exception, every single Arc would follow this format, and Daimao is easily the most "Z-like" Arc in the original Dragon Ball run.
- 23rd Tournament Arc: Piccolo Jr., the son/reincarnation of Daimao out to kill Goku in the tournament. This is the only time both the Tournament and Villain Arc styles are mixed together, and is also the only time the same character has been used as the Arc Villain twice in a row.
- For Dragon Ball Z:
- Saiyan Arc: Vegeta, as the leader and strongest member of the Saiyan Trio made up of himself, Nappa, and Raditz, who come to Earth to conquer it and punish the "traitor" Kakarot/Goku. Raditz is introduced as a Starter Villain to set the scale for his compatriots, and while Vegeta is the scrawny one, the way Nappa backs down and respects him reveals that Vegeta is by far the best warrior of the three. These three are notable for being the first Arc Villains to have a personal connection to Goku, revealing that he's from a warrior race who pride themselves on barbaric acts of murder and savagery.
- Namek Arc: Frieza, a Galactic Conqueror land shark who raids Namek to obtain its Dragon Balls in hopes of gaining immortality to allow him to rule forever. Similar to Vegeta, Frieza has a personal connection to Goku by being the boss of the Saiyans who killed his father as he attempted to stop Frieza from destroying their homeworld, although it takes a long time for Frieza to even realize this. Vegeta acts as a secondary antagonist and third faction in his own right, but every other villain in this arc reports to Frieza. After this, Frieza appears in two more arcs and two more movies.
- Garlic Jr. Arc: Garlic Jr., in this filler arc exclusive to the original anime. He turns nearly all of Earth's population into vampires and seeks to wish his malevolent father Garlic back to life to rule over the people. 23rd Tournament aside, Garlic Jr. is the only Arc Villain and storyline that has a personal connection to Kami (just like the Dead Zone movie that this arc is a follow-up to), and thus he and Mr. Popo get a lot more screentime than usual.
- Android Arc: Initially Androids 19 and 20, before being replaced by 16, 17, and 18 thanks to Executive Meddling. 19 and 20 are pure evil, and 20 is Dr. Gero himself, then 17, 18, and 16, while far less sinister, are more powerful than even Super Saiyan Vegeta and seek to kill Goku. That and teenage rabblerousing aside, they aren't actually direct threats (unless you count the versions from Future Trunks' timeline), which plays into the...
- Cell Arc: After some more Executive Meddling, Cell replaces 16, 17, and 18 in the transition to this arc. Not only does he seek to absorb 17 and 18 to become complete, but unlike them, he massacres innocents to gain strength, and thus is much more of a threat, especially when he successfully absorbs 17 and 18, not only removing them from play for the remainder of his arc, but achieving his perfection. His arc lasts much longer than that of any of the other androids. Cell is a threat on an intergalactic level, but fortunately dies before he thinks of leaving Earth to flaunt his power.
- Buu Arc: Initially has none due to the focus on Gohan at high school as the Great Saiyaman... until Babidi shows up, who is then usurped by Buu, who is then usurped by his evil, pure form. Babidi's grand scheme is to release Majin Buu, and initially commands him to kill innocents and destroy cities until Buu kills him when Goku points out that he's under no obligation to follow his orders. Buu then causes destruction on his own for fun (not actually realizing that it's bad), but after he grapples with his inherent evil he casts it out... only to be absorbed by it and becoming Super Buu, a much more malevolent threat, who eliminates Earth's population in seconds. Then his good side is removed, entirely and he becomes Pure Buu/Kid Buu, who is an utterly uncontrollable psychopath who proceeds to blow up the Earth. Neither Babidi or Buu have connections to previous villains, but Buu serves as the final villain of both the classic manga storyline and Dragon Ball Z, marking the end of an era.
- For Dragon Ball GT:
- Initially, the opening arc has no established villain in an attempt to evoke the very first arc in the series, but the lack of a defined antagonist and extremely little focus on the character interactions sucked a lot of the charm away. So, like Cell and Buu before it, the story pivoted to...
- Baby Arc: Baby, the final villain of the arc in what winds up being an extreme Villain pile-up, as the villain in one episode turns out to be serving another one. Baby's pink appearance and ability to take over other beings draws comparisons to Buu, however he's closer to More than Mind Control, able to implant eggs inside other beings to align their perspectives with his, including every single one of Goku's closest friends (the lone exception is Vegeta, who he possesses personally). He's also one of the biggest hypocrites in the franchise, chastising Saiyan savagery over destroying the Tsufruian race and yet has no qualms with mind-jacking their Prince and enslaving the entire population of Earth.
- Super 17 Arc: Despite the name the initial antagonists of the arc are Dr. Gero and Dr. Myuu who combine their geniuses in hell to create a second Android 17 who connects with the 17 on Earth, creating a portal to Hell that allows various villains from throughout the series to invade Earth. After the two 17's fuse and become Super 17 however he proves to be too powerful to be controlled by the good doctors and proceeds to kill Gero and Myuu, becoming the true villain and Final Boss of the arc, who merely seeks to tests his power against strong opponents, and doesn't care who he kills in order to achieve said goal. While this is the shortest arc of the series the consequences of this arc directedly lead to the next arc when the heroes search for the Dragon Balls to undo the damage and find them cracked, leading too...
- Shadow Dragons Arc: The titular Shadow Dragons serve this role for the story arc, being malevolent manifestations of the Dragon Balls created by the heroes' constant abuse of the orbs to solve all of their problems. Each of the Dragons is born from one of the wishes made throughout the series and proceed to run roughshod over the Earth, forcing Goku and Pan to go out and destroy them one-by-one. Eventually Syn Shenron, the manifestation of the One Star Dragon Ball, becomes the Final Boss of the arc especially after he absorbs the other six balls and becomes Omega Shenron who requires Goku to use a Spirit Bomb made from the energy of every sentient person throughout the galaxy to take him down for good. Omega Shenron served as the Final Boss not only for GT but, until the series was revived with Super, but the Final Boss of the Dragon Ball franchise itself.
- For Dragon Ball Super:
- Battle of Gods Saga: Beerus is the first primary antagonist in the series. He is far more powerful then the entire cast and not even Super Saiyan God Goku can beat him. However, he's not really villainous, just sinister and short-tempered, and ends up becoming an erstwhile ally to Goku and friends.
- Resurrection of 'F' Saga: Frieza (again), resurrected by his own men in order to bring back the glory days of his empire. Rather than doing that however, Frieza concentrates on killing Goku.
- Champa Saga: Champa, though rather than fighting directly he instigates a tournament that would see Earth being transported to Universe 6 if the heroes lose.
- Future Trunks Saga: Zamasu. While the arc has multiple antagonists, all of them are Alternate Timeline versions of Zamasu himself.
- Universe Survival Saga: another tournament arc with effectively No Antagonist, but Jiren the Grey is the closest to this trope since he's the single most powerful character in the tournament (and potentially the most powerful character in Dragon Ball canon besides Zeno) and he stands in the way of Universe 7's survival. However, he's not villainous at all and doesn't have any specific grudge against Goku or his friends, he's just fighting because the alternative is his universe and everyone from it being erased from existence.
- Also for Universe Survival Saga: Zeno can be considered this as he's the cause for the conflict in the first place and is feared by almost everyone for his universe-altering abilities when displeased. Although Zeno is later revealed to be causing the tournament to test the character of the multiverse and fully expected them to be revived.
- The manga version of Dragon Ball Super has additional exclusive arcs with their own villains each:
- The Galactic Prisoner Saga has Moro, an eons-old wizard that is unleashed from his prison and resumes his rampage across the universe by absorbing the energy of countless lifeforms to empower himself while freeing all the Galactic Patrol's prisoners to serve as his army.
- The Granolah the Survivor Arc initially has the titular Granolah, the last member of the humanoid aliens, Cerealians, who were wiped out by the Saiyans; wishing to overcome them and Frieza he wishes on a newly introduced set of Dragon Balls to become Universe 7's strongest mortal and comes into conflict with Goku and Vegeta as a result. However he is then usurped by Elec, leader of the intergalactic gang and Frieza's former minions, the Heeters, who uses the wish to empower his youngest brother Gas into the new Universe's strongest so they can overthrow Frieza.
