Babidi: The Wizard Who Awakened Majin Buu

As soon as he had awakened Majin Buu, he threatened to lock him back up in his ball, and it was Buu who silenced him for good: Babidi is the little wizard who unleashed this monster on Earth. Here's the story of this Dragon Ball Z wizard, from his henchmen marked with the “M” to his end.

Babidi the wizard, son (or duplicate) of Bibidi

Babidi is an evil alien wizard, the one who awakens Majin Buu on Earth. The manga and the anime make him the son of the wizard Bibidi; the Q&A in the Dragon Ball Full Color edition makes him a duplicate of Bibidi instead.

His Japanese title is madōshi (魔導師), rendered as “warlock” in the Viz Media English edition of the manga and as “wizard” in the English dub: chapter 446, “Madōshi Babidi” in Japanese, is titled “Bobbidi the Warlock” in the Viz edition. Viz calls him “Bobbidi,” but the English dubs of Dragon Ball Z, by Ocean and by Funimation, and the dub of Kai call him Babidi.

His name gets around before he does: at the start of chapter 445, Yamu thinks Babidi will be pleased with the stolen energy, and at the end of the same chapter, Supreme Kai reveals to the heroes that the wizard Bibidi had a child with a heart as evil as his own, the wizard Babidi. He appears in person in chapter 446, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump on November 9, 1993, and collected in volume 38. In the anime, he makes his debut in episode 220 of Dragon Ball Z (“The Wizard's Curse” in the Funimation dub), the first episode of the Babidi Saga, which aired in Japan on March 9, 1994.

The Q&A in the Dragon Ball Full Color edition tells a different story: according to it, Babidi isn't a son in the true sense, but a duplicate of Bibidi, who used to split himself into several people and share his magic power among them whenever he needed help. Babidi is said to be the duplicate that survived Bibidi's death, and to have then inherited all of the original's power.

In chapter 445, Supreme Kai and Kibito tell the same story, each to a different group: Bibidi brought the ball in which Buu was sealed to Earth, and Supreme Kai, who had been waiting for this opportunity, killed Bibidi before the seal could be broken. To prevent Majin Buu's resurrection, Supreme Kai explains in chapter 446, Babidi must be stopped; he and Kibito tracked the wizard's henchmen all the way to his hideout. In chapter 447, Babidi in turn spots his father's killer among his pursuers, and asks Dabura to leave that one to him.

Babidi is small: when he finds him alongside Dabura, Gohan figures that “the smaller one” of the two must be the wizard. Supreme Kai describes him as physically weak but endowed with formidable magic, powerful enough to make Dabura, the Demon King, his subordinate.

His mind-control spell exploits the evil in the heart of its target and controls them by worming its way into their thoughts; according to Supreme Kai, only those with no evil in their hearts can therefore take on the wizard. The spell unlocks the potential of his henchmen, increases their power and makes a large “M” appear on their foreheads.

According to an interview with Akira Toriyama, this “M,” which also appears on the clothes of Bibidi, Babidi and Buu, stands for the Japanese word “Ma” (魔, “demon”); it has also been read as the initial of Majin or madōshi. As for the names Bibidi, Babidi and Buu, together they point to “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” the Fairy Godmother's magic words in Disney's Cinderella (1950), most likely a nod from Toriyama.

✒️ Babidi's “M” shows at a glance who's on his side; to mark your own things in turn, from your water bottle to your laptop, choose from our Dragon Ball stickers.

A buried ship, henchmen and an energy meter in kili

In the manga and in Dragon Ball Z, Babidi puts Dabura, Yakon, Pui Pui, Yamu, Spopovich and Vegeta, among others, under his spell; his soldiers, for their part, are mere extras in the manga. Dabura, the Demon King, is the strongest of the ship's guardians: Supreme Kai and Kibito panic when they discover he has fallen under Babidi's control. Unlike most of the others, Yakon bears the “M” on his chest.

To gather a lot of energy fast, Babidi sends two spellbound fighters, Yamu and Spopovich, to the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament to steal it from the competitors; it's Gohan they drain of his energy with their energy-collecting device.

To hide from Supreme Kai and Kibito, Babidi buried his spaceship: his pursuers find it in chapter 446, with a slaughtered family close by. In chapter 447, once he has the energy, Babidi deems Yamu and Spopovich useless: he makes Spopovich swell up until he explodes, and Pui Pui kills Yamu as he tries to flee. In chapter 449, Babidi pours the energy into Buu's ball and finds that this injection alone provides almost half of the energy needed: he wonders whether he got rid of his two henchmen too quickly.

Babidi lures Goku, Gohan and Vegeta into his ship, where each level pits them against a stronger opponent: Pui Pui on the first, Yakon on the second, Dabura on the last. The trap rests on a simple principle: the damage the intruders take inside the ship is converted into energy for Majin Buu.

To give his first two guardians the edge, Babidi magically moves each fight to the guardian's home planet: Zoon, Pui Pui's planet, with ten times Earth's gravity, for his fight against Vegeta (chapter 449), then Ankoku, Yakon's Planet of Darkness, for his fight against Goku (chapter 450). Dabura's duel with Gohan, for its part, takes place on yet another planet, a nameless one, from which Babidi brings them back to the ship at Dabura's request (chapter 455).

Babidi casts his spells, from teleportation to the crystal ball to mind control, with a magic word, “Papparapā” (パッパラパー), which comes up often in both the manga and the anime; the Dragon Ball Heroes game also makes it an ability of his father Bibidi, who doesn't appear in the manga.

To measure power levels, Babidi has an energy meter: a needle dial graduated in kili, with each mark worth 1,000 kili. In chapter 451, the device gives Goku 3,000 kili as a Super Saiyan, while Yakon has only 800. As early as chapter 449, after Pui Pui's lightning-fast defeat at Vegeta's hands, Babidi couldn't believe there were fighters that strong on Earth; Dabura had replied that there weren't any three hundred years ago.

⌚ Babidi reads Goku's power level on the dial of his meter; to read the time on a dial on your wrist, choose from our Dragon Ball watches.

From Majin Vegeta to Majin Buu's awakening

Dabura tells Babidi that one of the intruders has an evil heart (chapter 455); Babidi likes the idea of making them fight each other to gather the energy Buu still lacks. In chapter 456, the wizard watches Vegeta in his crystal ball and casts his spell on him: Vegeta raises his head with an “M” on his forehead. This is Majin Vegeta.

But Vegeta doesn't obey: he only wants to fight Goku, and Babidi realizes he does not completely control him.

Buu comes out of his ball at the end of chapter 460. In chapter 461, Babidi introduces himself to him as the son of his creator, Bibidi, and as his new master, since he's the one who let him out. So Babidi didn't create Buu: he awakened him. The monster ignores him and sticks out his tongue at him; at first, the wizard thinks he came out a failure, with neither brains nor power.

To make Buu obey, Babidi threatens to seal him back in his ball: he claims to have studied his father's notes and to know the sealing spell. That's why, once Buu is awake, Supreme Kai no longer wants anyone to kill Babidi: without him, he says, there's no longer any way to seal Buu away.

In chapter 463, Dabura, who has just run Buu through with a spear, warns Babidi that the monster is uncontrollable and will never be a loyal servant; stung, Babidi refuses to listen. In chapter 464, Buu turns Dabura into a cookie and eats him.

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Cut in half, healed, then killed by Buu

In chapter 466, Piccolo appears behind Babidi and cuts him in half with a single backhand sweep of his arm. The anime (episode 237 of Dragon Ball Z) draws the scene out: Babidi covers Piccolo in an electrified slimy substance and surrounds himself with a magic barrier before being sliced in two.

Despite the chapter's title in the Viz edition, “The Mastermind's Demise,” Babidi survives: after Vegeta's final explosion, Piccolo finds the wizard's head, still barely alive, apparently shielded by a barrier during the blast. The re-formed Buu is reluctant to heal him, but gives in when Babidi threatens to seal him away.

Babidi's buried ship has been gone since chapter 464: Majin Vegeta blew it up to get to Buu as fast as possible. Healed by Buu, the wizard now travels on his back (chapter 468) and wants to turn the planet into a living hell to get revenge on Piccolo, Trunks and Goten. In chapter 470, titled “Bobbidi's Revenge” in the Viz edition, he telepathically addresses the entire population of Earth to demand that they tell him where those three are, then asks Buu to show the Earthlings what awaits them.

In chapter 473, Babidi announces that he knows where Trunks lives and that he'll raze his city, West City, if the boy doesn't show himself; Goku then comes to buy time against Buu. In front of Goku, Buu starts to stand up to his master: when Babidi threatens him with sealing once again, Buu retorts that if he seals him, Goku will kill the wizard.

In chapter 475, before leaving, Goku promises Babidi that he'll get the punishment he deserves when he arrives in Hell. In the original Japanese version of the anime (episode 246), when Goku mocks him just before teleporting away, Babidi gives him the middle finger.

In the manga, his death plays out between the end of chapter 475, published on June 21, 1994, and the beginning of chapter 476: Buu grabs him by the neck to stop him from reciting the sealing spell, calls him an idiot, then knocks his head off with a punch. Chapter 476 opens on that blow: Babidi's head explodes, and Buu tosses the body aside before blasting it to pieces with an energy ball, then dances for joy.

In the anime, Babidi's death is shown in episode 246 of Dragon Ball Z, “Buu's Mutiny” in the Funimation dub, which aired in Japan on November 16, 1994. There too, Buu grabs him by the neck to keep him from speaking, then knocks his head off with a punch; the Japanese title, which opens with “Bai Bai Babidi!!” (“Bye Bye Babidi!!”), sounds like a farewell.

In Hell, in GT, Super, Daima and the games

In the anime, Babidi reappears in Hell: with Frieza, Cell, King Cold, Dr. Gero and others, he watches Goku's fight against Kid Buu, the original Buu, in a crystal ball; in the corresponding manga chapters, he's only mentioned. In that anime scene, he brags about having been Buu's master but, off to the side, cheers Goku on out of resentment toward the monster who sent him to Hell.

In Dragon Ball GT, during the Super 17 Saga, Babidi makes a cameo: he escapes from Hell along with other villains, then is defeated and sent back to Hell.

In Dragon Ball Super, it's the Babidi from Future Trunks's timeline who appears: in the anime, Trunks, trained by the Supreme Kai of his timeline, takes out both Dabura and the wizard. The Dragon Ball Super manga (chapter 16) tells it differently: this Babidi and his henchmen kill Kibito and mortally wound the Supreme Kai of that timeline; Trunks destroys them, then the Supreme Kai succumbs to his wounds.

In Dragon Ball Daima (2024-2025), Babidi only appears in a flashback, in episode 1, where Gomah and Degesu look back, on a magic screen, at the invasion of Earth by his organization, then by Majin Buu. Daima also specifies that it wasn't Bibidi but the witch Marba who created Buu, at the request of Bibidi, who was unable to create a Majin himself. Finally, in the JM5 promotional trailer for the arcade game Dragon Ball Heroes, Babidi is arguing with Super Buu in front of his ship when Beat, Note and Vegito find them.

In Japanese, Babidi is voiced by Jōji Yanami (1931-2021) in Dragon Ball Z and GT, as well as in the games up to Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team; Yanami also voiced the narrator and King Kai. Bin Shimada took over the role in Dragon Ball Z Kai and Daima. In English, Babidi is voiced by Duncan Brannan in Funimation's Dragon Ball Z dub, then in Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters and, in 2025, in Dragon Ball Daima; in the alternate Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z, he was voiced by Terry Klassen.

Babidi at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Babidi in Dragon Ball Z?
  He's the wizard who awakens Majin Buu on Earth with the energy stolen by his spellbound henchmen. The manga makes him the son of the wizard Bibidi.
• Did Babidi create Majin Buu?
  No, he only awakened him. The manga attributes Buu to Bibidi; Dragon Ball Daima makes him the creation of the witch Marba, at Bibidi's request.
• What does the “M” on the foreheads of Babidi's henchmen mean?
  It marks those Babidi controls. According to an interview with Akira Toriyama, it stands for the Japanese word “Ma” (魔), “demon.”
• Who kills Babidi?
  Majin Buu, in chapters 475-476: he stops him from reciting the sealing spell, then knocks his head off with a punch. Piccolo had cut him in half earlier, without killing him.
• Does Babidi return in Dragon Ball Super?
  It's the Babidi of Future Trunks's timeline who appears, taken out by Trunks in both the anime and the manga.
• Who voices Babidi in English?
  Duncan Brannan, in Funimation's Dragon Ball Z dub, then in Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters and Dragon Ball Daima. In Japanese, Jōji Yanami, then Bin Shimada.

🎒 Once healed, Babidi rides on Majin Buu's back; to carry your things on your own back, choose from our Dragon Ball backpacks.