Janemba
From The Character Database
| Janemba | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Vital statistics | |
| Names | Janemba, Janempa (Fat Janemba), Super Janemba |
| Gender | Genderless. Appears to be Male |
| Race | Evil Energy Incarnate |
| Occupation | Warrior |
| Origin | Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn (ドラゴンボールＺゼット 復ふっ活かつのフュージョン！！悟ご空くうとベジータ Doragon Bōru Zetto Fukkatsu no Fyūjon!! Gokū to Bejīta, lit. Dragon Ball Z: The Rebirth of Fusion!! Goku and Vegeta), |
| Alignment | Evil |
| Age | 0 Years Old |
| Created By | Akira Toriyama, Takao Koyama |
| Height | {{{height}}} |
| Weight | {{{weight}}} |
Janemba (ジャネンバ Janenba) is the main antagonist in Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn, and he appears in several other Dragon Ball media. He is a powerful demon and the living definition of evil.
Concept and Creation
Janemba's name is likely a pun on "Je n'aime pas," which means "I don't like" in French. Spelled 邪念波, Janemba means "Evil Thought Wave".
Janemba's original coloration was meant to be purple and white with red eyes. Interestingly, Janemba's appearance when transformed by Time Breaker magic in Xenoverse 2 appears similar to this original design.
Janemba may be somewhat based off a Rakshasa, as his sword is sometimes referred to as Rakshasa's Claw (羅刹爪 Rasetsusō).
Janemba was originally going to have a mini Goku and mini Vegeta perform fusion into Skinny Veku.
Appearance
In the form he took by possessing the Saike Demon, Janemba appears as a giant yellow obese monster. He has four holes on his belly that he uses to shoot his ki blasts and two holes on his shoulders. His legs and forearms are colored as a dull-purple. His eye sclera are white, and his eye irises and pupils are black. Being are completely rounded. He also has a large tail, and two stubby toes.
As Super Janemba he becomes smaller and human-sized. He gains yellow eye sclera, upper armor color being dull-purple and his skin tone and tail is bright red. He also gains two dull-purple curved horns on his head while gaining dull-purple wrist-lets, pelvic armor, and ankle supports. The skull cap and horns of Super Janemba are that of the Frieza Race Head/Hair Type 16 option for the Future Warrior suggesting Super Janemba's skullcap, horns, and possibly his tail are traits he acquired due to the influence of the evil from deceased members of the Frieza Race, his pointy ears are a trait relatively common among Demons.
Personality
Like many Dragon Ball villains, Janemba is a destructive and aggressive monster who seems to have little motivation other than sadistic pleasure and lust for anarchy. In his first form, he appears more childlike and innocent but becomes much less so in his second one.
He is capable of using his power to alter the reality to his liking, with no regard for how it affects others, showing an obsessive need to control. If someone insults his magic it becomes slightly weaker for a while and cracks, proving that his powers are deeply connected with his emotional state and that he is easily offended, which can be used during battle to unbalance him for a short time period.
Biography
Background
The evil energy which eventually manifested into Janemba had been gathering for generations and created a powerful evil heart. The evil energy that he was born from includes that of many humans. In Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury, King Yemma tells Goku that Janemba was the kingpin of an organized crime syndicate in the Demon Realm before he came to Hell. His scouter profile in the game also states this, saying that the soul of the crime boss Janemba had just arrived in the soul cleansing machine, and turned into a monster after taking over the Saike Demon.
Fusion Reborn
Janemba is incarnated in the Other World into the Saike Demon, a teenage ogre responsible for watching the Soul Cleansing Machine, when the latter slacks off and causes the cleanser to explode. The evil formed around the ogre which mutates him into a giant, yellow, and childlike being who begins to turn Hell into his own paradise which results in the inhabitants of Hell coming back to the living realm. Goku and Pikkon are interrupted from their match in the Other World Tournament to fight Janemba.
Arriving at the Check-In Station, Pikkon shouts at Janemba to turn things back to the way they were but gets flicked instead for his effort with Pikkon saying that Janemba is stronger than he appears. Goku excited to fight the behemoth, manages to lure Janemba after this where they move down to Hell below. Pikkon being left behind to free King Yemma from the barrier that Janemba created around the Check-In Station where he throws insults at it in order to get it to crack, though the process is slow.
Placing his hand to the ground, Janemba creates multiple smaller versions of himself (though they were still much bigger than Goku) and they all swarm on Goku until he throws them all off and they vanish. Janemba proceeds to use a variety of strange abilities as well as performing surprisingly nimble physical attacks that Goku proves to have little to no answer for even as a Super Saiyan. With no other option, Goku transforms into a Super Saiyan 3.
Janemba is pummeled by Goku's new found might and is seemingly defeated. However, Janemba transforms into a smaller but much more powerful and fierce looking form known as Super Janemba. Goku fights valiantly against the monster but loses the upper hand, thanks in part to Super Janemba's Bunkai Teleport ability that allows him to avoid attacks. Super Janemba is able to give Goku added pressures after he forms the Dimension Sword and appears to defeat Goku before he is saved by Vegeta. Vegeta tries his hand at defeating the monster but fares no better and it is Goku's turn to do the saving where they flee and eventually decide to fuse together while Super Janemba searches for their location.
After a failed attempt at fusing, Goku and Vegeta make a second attempt while Pikkon shows up to try and buy them some time though Janemba beats him with ease, only being troubled when Pikkon insults him due to sharing the same weakness as the barrier. When Super Gogeta finally emerges, he utterly overpowers and destroys Super Janemba by purifying his pure evil energy and turning him back into the Saike Demon.
Trivia
- The dubbed version makes a large distinction between the character's two forms, calling the first form "Janempa" and the second form "Janemba." In the closing credits of the movie, Janempa and Janemba are listed as different characters, as they are voiced by different actors. The original Japanese dub makes no such distinction, using the name Janemba for the two forms.
- Janemba is very similar to Majin Buu. They both start out as overweight beings who are limited in intelligence and eventually transform into a physically fit and stronger form.
- The two have allied several times: in Super Janemba's ending in Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai's arcade mode, he and Kid Buu are shown to be able to understand each other's words, and they even become friends. In Xenoverse 2, Janemba and Kid Buu become friends in the parallel timeline featured in Parallel Quest 57: "Hell is a Picture?" where they end up turning hell into their playground. In Dragon Ball Fusions, Kid Buu and Super Janemba are allies and can use EX-Fusion to become Janembu.
- Ironically, their counterparts do not get along as Buu absorbs Janemba, however this may have been due to his personality changing from having absorbed Dabura.
- Additionally, Janemba shares Broly's love of destruction and fighting. Both Broly and Janemba team up in the opening of Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and work for the Time Breakers to cause trouble in Age 774 in Xenoverse 2.
- In Xenoverse 2, Chronoa is shown to be fully aware of Janemba's history which is not surprising given the threat possessed by his ability to manipulate dimensions and reality.
- In the Budokai Tenkaichi series, Janemba is the only character to have a base giant form, then transforming into a regular sized character and losing health when transforming.
- As part of the 1.15.00 Update DLC in Xenoverse 2, Janemba's armored sections can be color customized to make him resemble his Black Janemba form.
- When encountering Dabura in Shin Budokai - Another Road, Dabura states that Super Janemba resembles the Master of the Demon World.
- Toyotarō drew a what-if form of Janemba named "Masked King of Destruction Baby Janemba", having it as a warrior who was taken over by Janemba, who was infected by Baby and then placed under mind control by Towa and Babidi.
- In the Funimation dub, Kent Williams' Janemba voice is similar to his Dr. Gero voice. However, in later media, he made him sound more demonic. The Japanese dub also had a voice change. In the movie, Janemba's voice was deep like in the Funimation dub, but in later media, it's high like Kid Buu's voice.
- In Xenoverse 2, Janemba is one of the two movie villains which does not serve as a mentor to the Future Warrior. The other is Android 13.
- His weakness to insults is similar to that of the Metalman race introduced in Dragon Ball Super. However in Janemba's case, insults can inflict physical damage upon him as his body (and his altered reality constructs) are literally weak to insults, while in the case of Metalman, it is more of a mental handicap/weakness.
- Janemba is the third main movie villain to have a weakness, after Bio-Broly (solidifies when exposed to salt water), and Lord Slug (Namekian weakness to whistling).
