Web Animation / HFIL

La-la-la-la-laaaa-la! Home for Infinite Losers!

"Janine, call Goz and Mez! And Mr. Cell? Enjoy the barbecue in Hell."

— King Yemma, both metaphorically and literally

HFIL is a CGI-animated webseries created and produced by Team Four Star, with animation provided by animator/Perfect Cell enthusiast DevilArtemis. It is a spinoff/sequel series to Dragon Ball Z Abridged, akin to their other DBZ-themed webseries, Dragon ShortZ.

Roughly a year after his demise at the hands of Gohan's Father-Son Kamehameha, Perfect Cell reaches the end of the line to King Yemma's office in the afterlife, is deemed immeasurably sinful, and is sent deep into the bowels of Hell... except it's not quite the Hell one would expect. Given the recent string of "morally-compromised malefactors" with power levels way, way higher than the usual evil souls that go to Hell, its overseers—the twin demonic bodybuilders Goz and Mez—had to make a special place for such people to (hopefully) rehabilitate... especially after a certain spiky, long-haired Saiyan broke their soul-scrubbing machine.

Welcome to HFIL! Short for the Home For Infinite Losers, this cul-de-sac deep in the bowels of Hell is home to the biggest baddies the world of DBZA has to offer... and also Raditz. Oh, and the former Namekian Grand Elder (Super Kami) Guru. Unable to utilize the full potential of his Perfect form due to a Ki-supressing ankle bracelet, and stuck sharing a house with the aforementioned Raditz and Guru, Cell must now adjust to his new suburban (after)life and deal with all the shenanigans that entails... and perhaps even be deemed good enough to leave.

The first episode, Cell in a Hell, was released on March 19, 2021 as a part of TeamFourStar's Spring Showcase that day.

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HFIL provides examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • In Episode 2 when Cell snarks at Freeza's current form ("This was the one [Freeza] landed on?") even Goz can't help but let out a muffled chuckle.
  • Even Freeza's amused by Cell's crack at Vegeta about being responsible for Cell looking like a "greased up bug man that smells like patchouli."
  • When Cell snarks that "death's a bitch, and so is (Freeza)" to King Cold, Cold chuckles and remarks "a little bit".
• Actor Allusion: Freeza and Cell find themselves locked inside of Guru's garage/room in Episode 9, with the two finding a keypad that can be used to unlock the door. Freeza trying to unlock it by brute forcing the combination might bring to mind a similar joke from LittleKuriboh's Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, where Yami Marik/Melvin has trouble trying to unlock a door.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The anime depicted Cell and Freeza having a Villainous Friendship during their time in Hell based off of their mutual loathing of Goku. Here, they hate each other's guts and are Sitcom Arch-Nemeses.
• Adaptational Badass: By the HFIL's own rules, Guru has gone from a presumably small power level (largely due to old age), to being at least as strong as Raditz.
• Adaptational Sexuality: In canon, Burter didn't have an established sexuality. While DBZA revealed that he was gay, it was through a flashback that Vegeta had of talking to Guldo, and the only other time Burter was seen in the show, the focus wasn't on him. Episode 2 of HFIL is the first time that the audience hears Burter admitting to everyone (quite proudly, in fact) that he's gay.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Super Kami Guru is in Hell for causing Namek's drought and the genocide of the Albino Namekians, events exclusive to the Abridged version of the character.
  • Implied for the frog that Ginyu swapped bodies with on Namek, assuming Jeice is correct that the only way Guldo could be right is if the frog itself was evil enough to be damned to HFIL. Subverted when it's revealed that the frog is perfectly innocent and was simply sent to Hell in Ginyu's place before King Yemma could verify the switch.
• Affably Evil: Goz and Mez are both upbeat and energetic. Cell, Dodoria, and Zarbon have a very amiable first meeting. The Ginyus were willing to do their favorite dance to make Cell feel welcome (much to Cell's dismay). Super Kami Guru even greets Cell in a friendly, jovial way. Freeza, on the other hand...
• Amusing Injuries: Due to the soul bodies' nigh-invulnerability, they can be subjected to insane amounts of abuse, like Goz and Mez clubbing Cell and Freeza when they argue with each other. All the physical punishment is, for the most part, Played for Laughs as a result.
• An Arm and a Leg: Cell tries to cut his leg off to get his monitor off, but souls are basically indestructible. (He could have regenerated it even if he'd succeeded.)
• Armor-Piercing Question: In Episode 2, Cell gives one after he hints to Freeza that he knows how he really died, which Freeza had been purposefully vague about during the Sharing Circle.
  Cell: You know, while we’re on the subject, what planet did you die on again? I don’t remember. Was it Namek, or Earth?
• Armor-Piercing Response: In Episode 3, Cell (again) gives one after Freeza tells him that no one else in HFIL would believe the former if he were to tell them who really killed the latter (the teenaged son of the much-maligned Vegeta). Cell's response which shuts Freeza up almost completely?
  Cell: Why not? You do.
• Art Shift: The Christmas Special "A Freeza Day in Hell" is animated and has models to invoke the feel of a Rankin/Bass production. It switches back to the regular style when it's revealed to just be a story King Cold made up while having a stroke.
• Ascended Extra:
  • While he was a rather minor character in the original Abridged series, Raditz is now a primary character in this series living as Cell's roommate alongside Guru.
  • King Cold becomes a major character after "Daddy's Home" after only appearing for one episode in the original Abridged series.
• Ascended Meme: Zarbon's "Mmmm~", previously limited to Abridged Kai, has not only made its way into the main continuity but is also his first line in HFIL. And the second line. And the third line.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: A Downplayed Trope but still notable. For all of King Cold's obvious doting Freeza simply acts like a spoiled child most of the time and almost never breaks their haughty streak. At the end of the holiday special King Cold appears to pass out from a stoke suddenly at which point Freeza is immediately distressed and concerned. Even if he never shows it he clearly cares as much about his father as his father does about him. He constantly worries that his father no longer cares about him in "Little Lord Freeza," upset that King Cold is spending more time with Cell than him.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Much like his son, King Cold is revealed to not have any visible genitals when he greets Freeza naked in Episode 8. Averted with Zarbon, whose (censored) penis can be seen in a later scene.
• Bilingual Bonus: Zig-zagged. In episode 8, King Cold says several things to Guldo in a foreign languages, but they're completely meaningless phrases. This does suggest that King Cold, despite the confidence he delivers them with, has not even reached My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels levels of fluency.
• Break the Haughty:
  • In the first episode alone, Cell is beaten, tossed around, forced to endure the Ginyu Force's twerking, and gets his neck snapped by Freeza, who he derided moments before as being much weaker than he is. After that, he finds that he doesn't have his own house- he's rooming with Raditz and Super Kami Guru. Even the episode's thumbnail shows him being manhandled by Goz and Mez.
  • Cell is able to turn it around on Freeza in the second episode by revealing he knows exactly how Freeza died during the sharing circle, which sends the warlord on the defensive in their argument. Then it becomes an Exaggerated Trope in the third episode when Cell tells Freeza exactly who his killer is...or more specifically, who his killer's father is. Episode 10 breaks Freeza further when, in telling Cell about Cooler's death, King Cold inadvertently reveals that Cell killed not only Goku, but Trunks.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 9 has the ogres tell the audience (and a very confused Cell and Freeza) about "a very special announcement after the credits". When Cell asks for elaboration, the ogres point out that there was a post-credit scene in every episode, looking directly into the "camera" while referencing the people who accidently skipped them.
• Brick Joke:
  • A double-dose in Episode 8. King Cold greets Freeza without wearing his armor or briefs, much to his son's vocal disgust, after having asked last episode if the ogres were fine with casual nudity. King Cold says that there's literally nothing to be ashamed of, and Freeza mutters about how he still has questions about how that can be before moving onto his reason for visiting.
  • Also in Episode 8, when asking Freeza to have Zarbon get wood, he asks that Freeza specify lumber. At the end of the episode, Zarbon enters Freeza's room with both the lumber and a lack of pants.
• Brought Down to Badass: Cell may have his ki suppressed, but he still has the accumulated fighting experience of all those that comprise his genetic makeup... and Vegeta. This allows him to easily trounce the four members of the Ginyu Force at once, despite them being otherwise even on a physical level.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Raditz returns to the Abridged universe after his arc in season 1 of the previous series, that of him roaming the afterlife after breaking out of hell, was dropped. HFIL reveals his efforts crashed and burned shortly after breaking out. Super Kami Guru as well, due to being condemned for drinking all of Namek's water and shifting the blame on the albino Namekians, causing the other Namekians to commit genocide.
  • All the main characters save for Cell count—the last time any of the core cast appeared in DBZA was very, very early season 3 (four days shy of eight years prior to the episode's release in real time, and four years in-universe), and that was just Freeza. It's been even longer for the rest of them, since the most recent additions before that was Super Kami Guru, sent there at the tail end of season 2.
• Call-Back:
  • While discussing why HFIL was even made, Goz mentions that "that Radish guy" ruined their water feature, referencing Episode 4 of DBZA, where Raditz had evidently turned what was originally a fountain of water into a fountain of blood.
  • HFIL itself is an expansion to the idea of the "camps" that Goz sinisterly referred to in his Episode 29 cameo.
  • In DBZA episode 4, King Yemma said Raditz kicked him in the balls and escaped after arriving in the afterlife. Episode 2 of HFIL shows the immediate aftermath and how he ended up in hell.
  • Because nobody has any respect for Guldo, he finds himself Locked Out of the Loop on a lot of things; this includes the Dragon Balls in DBZA Episode 19 and patchouli in HFIL Episode 2.
  • Cell went out singing his own version of "My Way," implying he has no regrets with how he lived and died. He flat out tells Freeza that while he's not proud of his death, he sees no reason to be ashamed of it either.
  • Jeice and Burter are once again on commentary for the Dodgeball match in episode 3, just like back in DBZA episode 19. Burter even says the trope name itself.
  • In Episode 6, when King Yemma was going over "Ginyu's" crimes, one of the things that disgusted Yemma enough to send Ginyu to HFIL was the infamous "jockstrap incident" that was bought up a few times in DBZA.
  • Raditz' String Theory board in Episode 7 has a picture of Nappa with question marks, indicating that he was in the HFIL camp with everyone else after Vegeta killed him (as seen in the photo with the campsite in the Ginyu Force's home), but disappeared when he was indirectly wished back to life by the dragon balls at the end of Season 2.
  • When Freeza corrects Cell about Cooler being his brother instead of his ex-lover, Cell says "I don't judge," which is what he said when he first met Goz and Mez in the series, where he was confused about whether they were brothers, lovers, or both.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Freeza shows no remorse for the atrocities he committed in life, and outright revels in them.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • When discussing the ogres' accents, Freeza tells Cell that it grows on you, only to admit that he was lying. However, it actually does grow on Cell, and by episode 3, he thanks them in German himself.
  • Guldo figures out that "Ginyu" is really a frog their captain swapped bodies with, but the rest of the team don't believe him due the ridiculousness of a frog being evil enough to be damned to Hell. Episode 6 reveals that Guldo was right, but the frog was an innocent victim of an uncaring Celestial Bureaucracy, and the other Ginyus admit they were in denial about the captain not really being Ginyu.
• Celestial Bureaucracy:
  • When Raditz complains that Snake Way needs safety rails, he's told they're on back order. It's been six years.
  • The reason why Ginyu-in-the-frog wasn't able to be understood by King Yemma? Their translator apparently got laid off due to budget cuts.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Only Goz and Mez' Affably Evil attitude and Germanic accents remain. There's no trace of them originally being Hanz and Franz parodies nor is the idea that the place they put the Ginyus was a concentration camp in Goz's cameo in Episode 29.
  • Raditz's smug Proud Warrior Race Guy attitude and overinflated image of himself has been broken down by his time in HFIL to the point where he's now a jaded Deadpan Snarker who's painfully aware of his status as a small fish in a big pond. The beginning of his (literal) fall into the rut he's found himself in is shown in Episode 2.
  • Given the brevity of his appearances, King Cold has never been given much of a chance to become a fully explored character, in either Z or Abridged, despite by all rights being a Greater-Scope Villain as both Freeza's father and the original leader of the Freeza Force. In HFIL, King Cold gets more scenes, his relationship with Freeza is fleshed out, and there are repeated hints that he is the show's Big Bad.
• Chekhov's Gag: The whole premise of the show is built upon the abandoned news from all the way back in Season 1 of Dragon Ball Z Abridged that Raditz managed to escape from King Yemma; Hell needed a way to contain villains of Raditz's strength and higher and HFIL was established.
• Code Emergency: King Yemma declares Code Orange after reading just what Cell did in his first form. Code Orange stands for highly powered individuals that require special attention in the afterlife lest they cause a lot of trouble (like Raditz did).
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Raditz is getting ready to feed Guru, he's setting up a large hamster water tube. Guru, like all Namekians, only consumes water, not solid food (and is the primary reason he's in HFIL).
  • In that very same episode when Cell explains his origins and that his father was "a brilliant scientist" the camera quickly and briefly cuts to Raditz showing a sudden spike in interest, referencing the old Ocean dub of DBZ where Bardock was also a brilliant scientist.
• Conversation Cut: In Episode 10, after Cooler and Bojack reveal themselves, King Cold them notes everyone will likely have questions, which they can discuss over dinner, the scene cutting between them at the arena and the dinner table at the ogres' place. Except they're having dinner a few minutes after they left the arena, with Freeza confused at King Cold's sense of timing.
  King Cold: I'm sure everyone has plenty of queries, but you'll all have a chance to ask them over—
  (scene cuts and zooms-out to show the dinner table at Goz and Mez's house)
  King Cold: —Dinner!
  Freeza: …it's 10 A.M.
• Crazy-Prepared: The higher ups thought out everything when they came up with the HFIL idea. Malcontents have insane power levels? Use a Power Limiter to keep them from accessing the energy that makes them that strong. They try to break said limiter? It's indestructible. They get desperate enough to take off their leg so they can remove the bracelet? Won't work because the souls are indestructible. Somehow manage to escape? Bracelets have trackers so you won't be gone long. Goku used a seldom-explored cave to escape HFIL during his time in the afterlife? Block off the cave so nobody else gets out!
• Dark Secret:
  • Raditz becomes visibly terrified when he thinks Cell might recognize him, understandable considering that his position at HFIL's bottom rung would become even worse if it got out that he was Goku's brother. Especially if Freeza found out.
  • Freeza learns that he was killed by Vegeta's son, something he would never live down if it was revealed to the others.
• Delayed "Oh, Crap!": Freeza has this reaction two episodes in a row, both courtesy of Cell.
  • In "Sharing Circles of Hell", when Cell shares that he was killed by Gohan, this leads to him becoming quite the laughingstock, especially from Freeza… that is until Cell subtly reveals that he knows who really killed Freeza, which the latter had been purposely vague about.
    Freeza: Literally felled by a whelp. And Goku's, no less! Yet you seem so adorably proud of yourself.
    Cell: "Proud"? No. (chuckles) But I'm not gonna act all insecure about it. What kind of loser would that make me?
    Goz: An infinite one?
    Cell: (points at him) Mmhm!
    Freeza: I'm sorry, is that an insinuation?
    Cell: Oh, no, no, no, I'm not trying to cut you to pieces in front of anyone or anything.
    Freeza: Hmph. A wise decisi- (realizes what Cell just said with a horrified face)
  • Then in "DodgeBall Z", after the dodgeball game is over, Cell and Freeza have a private confrontation where the former nonchalantly reveals the true identity of Trunks, much to Freeza's growing horror once it fully sinks in.
    Freeza: If you're here to gloat, then just get it over with. And if you're going to tell them I wasn't killed by Goku, I frankly don't care! Whoever killed me couldn't possibly be more embarrassing than Goku's tween offspring.
    Cell: (With a haughty grin) Well, there's always Vegeta's teen offspring.
    Freeza: (Smiling) Well, yes, I do suppose that would be—(Realization hits)—...No.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: Raditz expresses mild disbelief that Cell thinks the Ogres would give them tools that they could potentially use to remove the ankle monitors.
• Dinner and a Show: In Episode 10, King Cold invites everyone for "dinner" at the ogres' place, despite it only being 10 A.M. in Hell. Cold wanted to have a "family dinner" as it were with the ambassadors of the other HFIL, which results in an immensely awkward and confrontational meal between Freeza, Cell, and Cooler. Also Bojack, but that's because he's oblivious to how no one likes him.
• Dodgeball Is Hell: Therefore it only makes sense that they play dodgeball in Hell. At the end of Episode 2, after Goz and Mez stop Cell and Freeza from coming to blows, they decide that everyone needs to "release some tension" and declares they will play dodgeball tomorrow. Episode 3 is that very match.
• Double Entendre: Zarbon keeps doing these by accident, but at least he's aware of it. Burter, on the other hand, does it on purpose.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Cell's arm cocks like a shotgun as he prepares a ki blast to kill Goz and Mez. Fortunately, the ankle bracelet made it so only a puff of smoke came out of the blast.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Freeza's insistence on remaining evil, thus ruining his chances of getting out of Hell, is quite ironic considering that in the original series, he was brought back to life - twice - and was alive when the first episode came out.
  • In "Frognapped", after the Ogres reveal to the Ginyu Force that their captain's body has a frog's soul in it, the members celebrate believing this means Ginyu himself is still alive. Unfortunately for them, Vegeta is "eight for eight" in the Abridged canon, and the stinger shows he was dumped in the soul scrubber because they didn't know about the swap until it was too late. Even worse, in the main canon Ginyu is still alive, living past Z and eventually getting a new body... shortly before dying.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Episode one has Freeza snap Cell's neck and him to revive later, seemingly setting up Resurrective Immortality to be in play as a source for jokes... only for it to be later revealed the next episode that the residents have bodies that are pretty much indestructible that they can't even break even if they tried.
  • It’s minor, but Episode one is the only one in which Raditz is seen wearing a scouter.
• Eating Optional: No one in HFIL actually needs to eat or drink, but many do anyway for one reason or another.
• The Eeyore: Thus far, Raditz. He seems depressed and has been in HFIL the longest, and is the only one of the cast whose personality seems to have changed since his death. The only time he shows anything more than resignation is when he thinks Cell recognizes him. Episode 2 shows that he was more like his canon self in the past, but multiple failed escape attempts, plus the Freeza Force's goons using him as a chew toy even with the inhibitors, have made him the resigned, cynical, and bitter man he is today.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In the post-credits scene in Episode 4, Guldo mentions that he has a wife who he misses very much.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played for Laughs. After one of Guldo's pranks in episode 5 douses Cell with white and purple paint, Freeza bears witness to it and is legitimately offended, mistaking it for "whiteface". Considering one of his most notable traits is being a genocidal racist, however, pot calling the kettle black is very much applicable here.
  "Well that's just racially insensitive."
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The good is, admittedly, only relative because it's Freeza we're talking about, but he is absolutely floored when Cell tells him he's not going to tell the rest of the group that the Super Saiyan that killed him was Vegeta's son, despite knowing full well that it would completely destroy him.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: When Cell asks if he can sue someone in Hell, Raditz snarks that there are enough lawyers.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • Freeza chokes out Cell and informs him of his status as an unrepentant, child-murdering, population-enslaving galactic tyrant, before neck-snapping him.
    Freeza: Welcome to the Home For Infinite Losers, loser.
  • Cell manages to turn this entirely on Freeza in episode 3 by not playing his game. Stating in no uncertain terms that he'll be playing his own, while Freeza will, by Cell's own words, eventually be left with two German Ogres and a whole afterlife of shame.
• Exact Words: During the sharing circle, Freeza claims he was killed by "the Super Saiyan" to vaguely make it sound like he died to Goku. He's really talking about Trunks, but is too embarrassed to admit Vegeta's son did him in. The other MCMs buy it, but Cell actually knows the truth and happily alludes to it.
• Eye Take: King Yemma does this while going over Cell's sins...just from the first form alone.
• Fan Disservice: Episode 8 has this from King Cold and Zarbon, which is completely played for comedy. Early on, King Cold is seen walking around the Ogres' house and answering the door in the nude — complete with Barbie Doll Anatomy on his crotch, which he lampshades — and later on, we see Zarbon's naked ass and (thankfully blurred) erect penis when he misinterprets Freeza's earlier request for wood.
  Freeza: Oh my GOD! (averts his eyes) I-I SAID LUMBER!
  Zarbon: Hmm? (glances downward at his naked lower half) Oh, that's unrelated.
• Faux Affably Evil: Freeza, in contrast to the other residents of HFIL. He maintains his typical thin-veneer of politeness masking murderous insanity.
• First-Name Ultimatum: King Cold usually calls Freeza by several endearing nicknames, but scolds Freeza by addressing him with his name when Freeza was deliberately going to let Cell hit the ground in the Trust Fall exercise. Freeza doesn't catch on at first.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In the first episode, if you look carefully in scenes before he tries to fry Goz and Mez, Cell's already wearing the ankle monitor.
  • At the end of Episode 6, King Cold shows up at Freeza's house with the ogres as a cliffhanger. One detail is that he isn't wearing an ankle monitor, like the other MCM's. Episode 7 establishes that not only is he not an MCM, but he is effectively the ogres' boss.
  • Near the start of Episode 7, Cell visits Raditz's bedroom to look at his wall chart of who has been in HFIL. In the background you can see a display case containing his old Saiyan battle armor, including the hole through which Piccolo fired the Special Beam Cannon which killed him. Close by is a framed picture of Bardock.
    • The wall chart itself is an FFB, in that it details both the history of who has been in HFIL and Raditz's written observations about them. Dodoria's photo has "DORI" written on it along with a heart symbol. Freeza's photo has "ASSHOLE" written on it. A photo of Nappa bears several question marks, implying that he disappeared from HFIL when he was inadvertently wished back to life. Cell's has "RELATED?" across the picture. And King Yemma's has "MAHOGANY?".
  • In Episode 10, when Guldo freezes time to put out the appetizers, he sticks Cell's back with a piece of paper with "Asshole" written on it.
• Fun with Acronyms: HFIL, of course, stands for "Home For Infinite Losers". Furthermore, the term "Morally-Compromised Malefactors" is referred as "MCM".
  • King Cold's official title in his managerial position is "Honorable Atonement Director and Enrichment Specialist", or HADES. Cell lampshades the trend by this point.
    "And that acronym is more tortured than we are."
• Graceful Loser: Cell takes his death at Gohan's hands (and the others subsequent mocking of it) quite well, at least compared to Freeza, who's noticeably embarrassed and vague when asked to re-state how he died.
• Gratuitous German: Goz and Mez alternate between German words/exclamations and English seemingly by whim. At first, Cell was irritated and pointed out that they could just say it in English instead of translating after the fact. By DodgeBall Z, he's starting to get into it himself.
  "Danke!"^Translation Thanks!
• Groin Attack: Poor Zarbon suffers one in DodgeBall Z when Dodoria lures him into making an innuendo before shooting the ball with a ki blast from her mouth. There's an audible cracking sound as Zarbon is knocked out of his monstrous form and falls to his side while holding his abused groin with Blank White Eyes. He receives no sympathy from Burter:
  Burter: That means Zarbon is eliminated! And both teams are down a member! Or in Zarbon's case, two members.
  Zarbon: (In a wheezy whine) F**k you, Burter...
• Handshake Refusal: Cell refuses to shake Raditz's hand when introduced to him as one would expect from a villain freshly introduced to HFIL.
• Hated by All: Nobody in HFIL likes Vegeta. This is due to him killing most of them (the Ginyus, Dodoria, Zarbon) and/or just finding him an insufferable Jerkass who has (against all odds) managed to not stay dead.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: During "Sharing Circles of Hell", Burter describes himself as "gay as sunshine".
• Heel–Face Turn: King Cold not only "graduated" from HFIL but he did so impressively there that he was offered a high ranking managerial position.
• A Hell of a Time: Downplayed. While HFIL is still presented as unfavorable compared to being alive, it is more of a rehabilitation center than the celestial torture chamber that Hell is usually presented as. All of its residents are provided with room, board, entertainment (albeit only in the form of bad movie sequels), and even food and drink (which they don't even need in the afterlife, mind you), they don't face any harsh punishment as long as they follow the rules, and they get to participate in extracurricular activities.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Given the setting's location, anytime the word "hell" comes up in a metaphorical sense it's often swapped out with "here".
• Home Nudist: King Cold is revealed to be one of these in Episode 8, when he casually answers the Ogres' door to Freeza in the nude. Not that there's anything to be seen, though, which Cold promptly lampshades:
  Freeza: Ah, there you are- (recoils in horror) OH GOD, DADDY! Where's your decency?!
  King Cold: Oh, come on, Freeza. There's nothing to be ashamed about! (gestures to his crotch) Literally, there's nothing there.
  Freeza: I still have so many questions about that.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Mez reprimands Goz for saying "villain" because it implies it's forever, yet the cul-de-sac is known as the Home for Infinite Losers.
  • A meta one, but in ep 2 when Freeza and Cell start arguing. Freeza claim Cell owes his Perfect form to him. But then you remember that, at the time at his death, Freeza was a cyborg and barely holding himself together when his sample was taken. Even moreso in the Abridged version where he kept glitching out on occasion.
  • More direct, in episode 8. Freeza calls out King Cold for answering the door naked, but Freeza never wears any clothing.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Jeice is very aggravated that Goz and Mez won't let anyone have beer, leaving the Ginyu Force to use Shasta soda for their beer games.
  Burter: I prefer Sprite.
  Jeice: And I prefer beer!
  • In Episode 10, when Cooler is offered a bottle of wine by Dodoria, he snatches the bottle out of her hands and downs it. Cell similarly asks Zarbon to top him off after burying his face in the table in annoyance.
• Immortality Hurts: The residents of HFIL being unable to die (since they're already dead) doesn't mean they cannot be hurt. Cell finds out about this by being whacked in the head and strangled by Freeza in the first episode.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: HFIL is apparently so dull when people aren't at each other's throats that eating is done to pass the time.
  Cell: Hold on. Are you eating? Do we need to eat?
  Raditz: No, but it helps pass the time.
  Cell: F**k it. I'm down. Where the bowls at?
• Insistent Terminology: Mez objects to Goz calling Cell and the other residents as "villains", since HFIL is partially meant to be a rehabilitation area.
  Goz: Oh, right. I meant "morally-compromised malefactors".
• Insult Backfire: Freeza tries to rattle Cell by mocking the fact that he was killed by Gohan, a young boy. Cell is surprisingly humble about it, preferring not to get worked up about it. He then starts subtly mocking Freeza for his defeat by Trunks, which does land on insulting the latter.
• Just a Machine: Discussed when Freeza begins escalating the argument in response to Cell bringing up his death. This is what manages to get Cell legitimately angry instead of arrogantly mocking or annoyed by his surroundings:
  Freeza: (Jumping to his feet and knocking over his chair) At least I'm my own person who made my own choices! You're just a test tube robot dutifully following the orders of its creator!
  Mez: Okay! I zink we should sit back down and-
  Cell: (Stands up) You want to see me make a choice right now, Freeza? Because I'm about to make one all over your face!
  • Another angle is brought up when Cell brings up how Freeza only has power and controls the galactic empire - or did, rather - because King Cold allowed it. Freeza sharply retorts that Cell wouldn't know anything about parental relationships, since despite having "more DNA than a space college shower drain" Cell doesn't have a real father.
    Cell: ...I'm going to sleep.
• Kavorka Man: Dodoria, despite her traditionally Gonk-like appearance, once described herself as "the most beautiful and fertile woman on [her] home planet." And her "experience" is further alluded to in DodgeBall Z when she shoves the whole ball in her mouth and can still talk semi-clearly.
  Jeice: How is she still so articulate?
  Burter: Maddeningly skilled tongue.
• Karmic Reform Hell: The eponymous Home is one, being a cul-de-sac meant to help the "morally-compromised malefactors" with high power levels of TFS' Dragon Ball Z Abridged rehabilitate after Raditz broke the soul scrubber.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • After all the evil things that the cast have done, they've certainly earned all the injuries and humiliation they receive in HFIL. Mainly from one another.
  • Case in point, Cell constantly getting harassed, stalked, bitten and creeped on by Captain Ginyu is exactly how he treated Android 17 and especially 18. He even lampshades it.
    Cell: I do NOT like being on the receiving end of this!
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At the end of the Christmas special, where it was revealed the entire thing was a story told by King Cold, Cell asks if King Cold just wrote fanfiction about their deaths. King Cold turns to his left, away from the group, and asked if this whole thing wasn't just fanfiction. Freeza asks if King Cold is having a stroke (as the moment is seen as Cold blankly staring out into nothing), only for said king to lose the ability to speak before passing out, meaning yes, he was having a brief bout of intense confusion in-universe.
• Left the Background Music On: Cell can be heard humming along to the BGM^note Namely, the Perfect Cell theme at the beginning of Episode 2 with increasing intensity as he tries to cut off his leg to remove his ankle monitor.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: Cell tries to get rid of his ki-blocking ankle monitor in Episode 2 by attempting to cut off his leg with a pair of garden shears, only for them to break. Raditz says that's one of the first things he tried.
• List of Transgressions: King Yemma takes a look at Cell's, and quickly realizes that it is quite a Long List. He doesn't even get past the sins from his First Form alone.
• Literal Metaphor: King Yemma tells Cell to enjoy the barbeque in hell before sending him to HFIL. Normally, this would mean burning in hell, but there is a literal barbeque going on in HFIL.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Downplayed, but Cell is the only character in the series to have not been to space before in life, but he does have knowledge of the cosmos, his genetic donors and their races. He acts with bewilderment when Raditz fails to find familiarity in a cow, asking if it's anything like a space cow.
• Malicious Misnaming:
  Freeza: Listen, Bell...
  Cell: It's "Cell" and you know that.
• Mood Whiplash: Up until Freeza and Cell talk for the first time, the whole series and concept of Cell in Hell with other DBZA villains was mostly played for laughs. Then Freeza shows exactly why he's in hell.
• Mugging the Monster: Cell dismisses Freeza because his power level is substantially greater than Freeza's. Unfortunately, the Ki-inhibitors place them on an even playing field and Freeza happily takes advantage of that to put Cell in his place.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The name "HFIL" and its acronym "Home For Infinite Losers" come from the original Bowdlerised dub of Dragon Ball Z (they had to change it due to standards and practices not allowing Hell in a show aired on a Cartoon Network block).
  • Freeza notes he has no idea how his species reproduces and that he never met his mother. This is a reference to how Freeza's race seems to be a One-Gender Race and there is never any explanation of how they reproduce.
  • Raditz perks up when Cell mentions that his father was a brilliant scientist. This is a reference to how the Ocean dub claimed that Bardock, Goku and Raditz's father, was a brilliant scientist.
  • At the start of episode 2, the song Cell is humming to himself is his canon version's Leitmotif from DBZ's Faulconer score from the original dub.
  • The entirety of Cell and Freeza's argument, including the latter's tirade against the former's supposed perfection, is funny when one remembers that Cell owes a lot of his existence to the Executive Meddling of Toriyama's editor Yu Kondo, particularly his railroading of the Android Saga, and of Cell in particular into being more similar to Freeza, with multiple forms ending in a clean human-looking final form.
  • When Guldo and Recoome perform a tag-team dodgeball dunk, Cell's reaction is a near-perfect recreation of the German dub's take on Cell staring down Vegeta's Final Flash, complete with him merely yelling "Oh shit".
  • The above mentioned episode also has Freeza charging his dodgeball final attack at Cell, which, again is a near-perfect recreation of the scene where Freeza started charging an attack to destroy Planet Namek, moments before he realised Goku has a Spirit Bomb ready.
  • It's quite possible Cell's clean victory against the Ginyus in episode 6 is a reference to a certain video game. In FighterZ the plot not only restricts everyone's power levels, much like the anklets, so everyone is roughly even but as characters Cell is a single fighter while the Ginyu force has all 5 members as a single character. Without Ginyu himself there, they would technically be an incomplete character against a whole one.
• Neck Snap: Freeza breaks Cell's neck at the end of his rant in Episode 1, with his tail. Since they're already in HFIL, Cell revives no worse for wear.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The souls of the dead are basically indestructible, meaning they can't just cut off their leg to get rid of their ankle bracelets that way. Raditz found out the hard way due to Freeza having the Ginyu force try to pull him apart. Notably this doesn't mean they Feel No Pain or they can't be hurt at all. Goz and Mez can overpower and knock out anyone who acts up too much, because of this trait.
• Noodle Incident: The "jockstrap incident" brought up a few times in DBZA is alluded to a few times, and we learn it involved a red ball and was so disgusting King Yemma retched after reading of it, also holding it against Ginyu as his worst sin.
• No OSHA Compliance: Raditz complains about a lack of guard rails along Snake Way, which caused him to fall back into HFIL after he escaped the first time. Goz claims that they're on back order.
• Non-Action Guy: Despite having a power level of 18,000, thus being much stronger than Freeza's average Mook and being powerful enough to break the Soul Scrubber like Raditz, Cui is mentioned as not being in HFIL because his greatest sin was hating Vegeta. Meaning that he likely never even exterminated a single planet while working for the PTO since Cell was admitted for absorbing several cities' worth of people on Earth.
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Cell after taking Goz's club to the head:
  Cell: I miss my mommy! She was a computer! S-sh-she went "beep"!
  • From the holiday special, King Cold utters one of these when Freeza believes he's having a stroke:
    King Cold: Happy Hurbal-blurb! (very suddenly falls over)
• Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: Cell can't tell if Goz and Mez are brothers, gay lovers, or both, and doesn't judge them for it, and that his intent to kill them is primarily because they're in his way and they have really terrible accents.
• Overly Long Gag: Once the Ginyus start twerking, they don't stop at all for the rest of the episode. Lampshaded by Cell.
• Paper Tiger: In Episode 6, Cell manages to transform into his self-destruct form despite his ki being sealed, threatening to blow up the whole cul-de-sac if the Ginyus blow up his house. Not only does he revert back with no issues once Goz and Mez catch them being out after curfew, but he later reveals that his threat was a bluff. More than likely, while swelling up to giant size is a biological function he can access without ki, he still needs the energy to have any power behind his self-destruct explosion.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Subverted when Freeza assumes that the password of a security system apparently installed by King Cold is his birthday—0001. It triggers the alarm and locks him and Cell in the garage with Guru. Double subverted with the implication that Dr. Gero installed it, the code (4386) spelling out the name of his deceased son, Gevo.
• The Place: The series takes place in the titular HFIL.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Dodoria and Zarbon are housemates in HFIL, close friends while not romantically involved. Goz calls them "[his] favorite platonic power couple".
• Positive Friend Influence: Raditz has been one to Cell, albeit mostly unwittingly, by letting him know how things in HFIL roll, calling out on Cell's shitty behavior and refusing to partake in any schemes that would enable Cell's toxicity.
• Power Limiter: All the villains kept in HFIL are required to wear nigh-indestructible Ki-blocking ankle bracelets. It's why Freeza is able to kick Cell's ass despite Cell being many times more powerful than him normally, and why Goz and Mez are in control despite, well, all the worst, most powerful Dragon Ball villains being under their care even though they got humiliated by Raditz. Curiously, it doesn't affect Guldo's time stop power, which is speculated to be either psychic or magic in nature and thus isn't blocked by the bracelet.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Episode two has Cell and Freeza give ones to each other. Freeza calls him unoriginal and manufactured, who's never made a choice because all he did was follow his programming. Cell fires back that for all Freeza's pride as a terrifying warmonger, he was killed twice so far.
• Red Herring: Episode 5 sees Cell getting constantly pranked, with Freeza seemingly being built up as the culprit due to being Cell's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis. As it turns out, the one responsible for (most of) the pranks was Guldo, as payback for threatening to rat out the Ginyu Force.
• Replacement Goldfish: Guru clearly views both Raditz and Cell as these for Nail, given how he always refers to them as "New Nail" and "Other New Nail" respectively.
• Resurrective Immortality: In HFIL, even death is not an escape. Freeza snaps Cell's neck as an unfriendly welcome, and Cell just wakes up on the street an hour later.
• Rule of Funny: Pretty much the entire reason Ginyu and the Namekian frog are still body swapped. As by the logic of Freeza having his original body back, and the fact that they're dealing with souls and not bodies, Ginyu should follow suit. But then there wouldn't be many of the jokes that there are now.
• Running Gag:
  • Since they're literally in Hell, or a specific division of it at least, Cell's gotten into the habit of saying "Why/What the here" instead of "hell."
    • Freeza also has one in Episode 9, though he messes it up by saying "What the here are you doing hell?"
    Cell: Pretty sure that's my line you just flubbed.
  • Goz or Mez will say something (often in German) only for the other one to explain what it means. Cell always responds with "Then just say that!"
  • One person refuses to do chores. Another questions why they even have a chore wheel.
  • Caddyshack II being a horrible movie.
• Secret-Keeper: Episode 6 reveals that Goz and Mez knew the entire time that Captain Ginyu now has the soul of an innocent frog and got condemned anyway due to a clerical error, but kept quiet because the Ginyu Force were just so happy to have their captain back that it vastly improved their behavior. That, and the upper management wouldn't own up to their mistake.
• Self-Inflicted Hell: As Cell observed, the punishment of HFIL isn't the place, it's being forced to spend eternity with horrible, selfish, monstrous, and/or extremely irritating people (like yourself if you wind up there). And this is before Freeza decides to show Cell the pecking order.
• Series Continuity Error: The dead characters lack halos over their heads, as opposed to how they did back in the abridged series (and canon). No explanation for this is given.
  • Raditz's armor in Episode 2 is normal, without the hole of Piccolo's attack that killed him, but in Episode 7 in the brief moment you can see the armor again in Raditz's room in HFIL the armor has a hole made by the Special Beam Cannon.
• Sequelitis: In-Universe. HFIL lets the villains rent movies but the only ones available are bad sequels.
• Shout-Out:
  • Cell is not sure if Goz and Mez are supposed to be "brothers, or lovers, or both"; much like Akbar and Jeff from Life in Hell.
  • Cell's statement that "Hell is literally other people" is a direct reference to Garcin's famous line from No Exit.
  • Episode 2 references William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, albeit somewhat misquoted.
    Freeza: Well, some are born into greatness, some have it thrust upon them. ^note The quote itself is "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
  • Episode 4 reveals that the Ginyu Force have a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 cabinet.
  • Episode 8 has Raditz humming a few bars of "I Feel Fantastic" by Jonathan Coulton.
  • Episode 9 has a bit with Freeza and Cell trying to unlock the door using a keypad. A similar joke can be seen in LittleKuriboh's Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, where Yami Marik/Melvin has trouble trying to unlock a door. Both Freeza and Melvin try brute forcing the combination to open it, with Melvin even entering all the way to 9999 in a later episode. You almost expect Freeza to yell out "THIS DOOR IS A BITCH!" like Melvin did in LK's show.
• Skewed Priorities: Cell has one on seeing Goz and Mez.
  Cell: Where am I? Who are you? And... why are you German?
• The Smurfette Principle: Dodoria is the only woman in HFIL.
• Stating the Simple Solution: In episode 4, the Ginyu Force speculate on why Captain Ginyu has gone "feral." Recoome and Jeice believe that he must have suffered some immense psychological trauma before he died. Guldo thinks he just swapped bodies with a frog, something that the rest find ridiculous due to the implication that the frog was evil enough to go to HFIL. Episode 6 reveals the reason the frog was condemned was due to a hasty error in judgement on King Yemma's part out of sheer disgust for Ginyu's crimes, and no one in upper management wanted to take responsibility for that screw-up. Also, the rest of the Ginyus admit they kind of knew, but were in denial.
• So Last Season: Discussed during Episode 9. When Freeza expresses interest in pummeling the heroes, Cell decides to catch Freeza up on how the heroes have evolved since the latter's death. He points out Vegeta's genuine transformation into a Super Saiyan and the existence of the "Super Duper Saiyan" form to tell Freeza how outclassed he is, with Freeza dismissing it as nothing important.
• Static Character: An actual plot point since HFIL is all about rehabilitating MCMs and changing their old ways, but Freeza in particular doesn't seem to give a speck of a damn about it and remains as sadistic and ruthless in HFIL as he was in life, not even pretending he'd be willing to change, even though he knows this won't aid him in escaping HFIL in the least. This is something that both Cell and King Cold duly notes as well.
• String Theory: Raditz has a pegboard in his bedroom where he tracks the pecking order in HFIL using photographs and strings, along with some notes on certain characters. He's also written some words in sharpie on some pictures, such as Nappa's having "???" scribbled on it while Freeza's appropriately just says "Asshole".
• Suckiness Is Painful: Cell is horrified when the Ginyu Force starts performing their "Twerkarena" (a fusion of the Macarena and Twerking) dance, and it sets off his first serious escape attempt. Freeza later comments that merely seeing them practice said dance was "terrifying" and shudders in disgust at the thought. Keep in mind, he already knew how kooky they were in life. It seems they got even weirder in death.
• T-Word Euphemism: Mez has to remind Goz not to call the residents of HFIL villains or "the v-word" because it implies that label is forever. Goz corrects himself by calling them "morally compromised malefactors".
• Take That!: Goz and Mez describe the Ginyu Force as "taking to synchronized dance like the internet took to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen when they turned eighteen."
  Cell: Soooo, they'd been doing it for years?
  Mez: To a problematic degree.
• Take That, Audience!: When Freeza mocks Cell for having an absurd power level, Cell retorts by saying that no one cares about power levels anymore, to which Freeza fires back with "We both know that's a lie.", an obvious jab at fans who still try to apply power levels to the constant Power Creep of Dragon Ball characters.
• That Came Out Wrong: Since dying, Zarbon has realized that a lot of his word choices can be construed as Double Entendres. While he still does it out of habit, he quickly catches himself and apologizes.
• That Was Not a Dream: After getting neck-snapped by Freeza, Cell wakes up and thinks that everything was just a dream... until Goz and Mez show up.
  Cell: F**k.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Although "friend" is definitely not a word that should ever be placed alongside Freeza's name, he's clearly halting the rehabilitation progress of the Ginyus, Zarbon, and Dodoria by forcing them to act more as their past selves or as bullies to Raditz.
• Too Kinky to Torture: As Cell's getting choked out by Freeza, all Cell can say is that Freeza's "awakened something" in him.
• Undying Loyalty: Not pun intended, but Freeza's minions still serve him even in death.
• Verbal Salt in the Wound: In the second episode, Freeza laughs at Cell for getting killed by Gohan. Cell retaliates by not-so-subtly hinting at Freeza's humiliating dismemberment at the hands of Trunks, needling him with puns about how "dicey" it was - successfully pissing off Freeza for the first time in the series. He does it again in the third episode by guiding Freeza to the realization that he was cut into pieces by "Vegeta's overgrown sperm".
• Villains Never Lie: Freeza accuses Cell of lying about his killer being the son of Vegeta. Cell gleefully informs him that he hasn't lied once.
• Villainous Breakdown: Freeza does not take it well at all when he finally learns from Cell that the Saiyan who killed him was Vegeta's son from the future.
  Freeza: Y-you're lying…
• Villain Protagonist: The entire main cast (with the exception of Goz and Mez) are villains defeated by the Z-Warriors, with Cell in particular being the main focus character.
• Voodoo Shark: HFIL in this continuity exists to rehabilitate villains (who are Raditz's level or stronger) with two successes (Cui and King Cold) and no others in the years it has existed, which means that HFIL should be much more occupied than it is. As Episode 7 reveals, King Cold graduated from HFIL two years before Cell's arrival (during the Z-Fighters' training for the androids) and was offered a job in management. King Cold also casually informs Cell that he oversees "all of the HFILs", which suggests a more complex setup than the viewer has been shown.
• Wham Episode: Episode 7. The reason King Cold isn't in HFIL is because he graduated. And the The Stinger suggests he's stringing the higher ups along so he can get everyone out.
• Wham Line: King Cold casually reveals in episode 7 that there is more than one HFIL.
• Wham Shot:
  • The end of Episode 6 is the first time we ever see King Cold.
  • Episode 9 has two:
    • During The Stinger of Episode 9, the first annual HFIL games reveals a very special guest as ambassador: Cooler. Oh, and also Bojack.
    • The number that King Cold enters into the security system spells "Gevo," AKA the name of Doctor Gero's son that Android 16 was modeled after, and when active, the system lights up with the Red Ribbon Army logo.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Super Kami Guru wins the dodgeball match without ever moving or even waking up until the very end. For most of the match, the other players simply ignore him until he's the last player on Cell's team, but when Freeza tries to finish off Cell's team by taking him out, the ball gets caught in Super Kami Guru's considerable gut, which counts as a catch and allows Cell to re-enter the game. Cell then smacks Super Kami Guru awake as part of an enthusiastic thanks, causing Super Kami Guru to snort awake and causing his fat to rebound, launching the ball and hitting Freeza and then Cell, leaving Super Kami Guru as the sole winner.

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