Beerus, a god whose job is destroying planets, shows up at Bulma’s birthday party. In the Dragon Ball Super TV version, Vegeta tries to keep him from wrecking Earth by making him takoyaki. It works, for a while.

This is a man who once called himself the Prince of all Saiyans standing over a griddle, flipping octopus balls for a cat.

On the way to Earth, Vegeta set his pod’s wake-up timer early so he could take over Planet Arlia and sell it. He fought King Moai and his guards, looked around, decided the place was too run-down to bring a good price, and blew up the whole planet with a Galick Beam.

The detour only exists in the anime. The edited English release squeezed four original episodes into one called “Trouble on Arlia.” He conquered a planet, judged it, and deleted it, all before reaching the place he was actually going.

Vegeta had just gotten stronger and wanted a real fight. Cell needed to absorb Android 18 to reach his perfect form. Future Trunks, his own son, tried to stop it, and Vegeta got in his way so Cell could finish.

Put plainly, his overconfidence let Cell absorb 18. Perfect Cell then beat him. Vegeta later helped Gohan finish the job, which is the closest he will get to admitting he was wrong.

Vegeta entered the World Martial Arts Tournament with one goal, and it was beating Goku, not making nice family memories. Babidi’s servant Dabura noticed how much darkness Vegeta was carrying and decided he could be turned.

Vegeta let Babidi’s power take hold of him and became Majin Vegeta, rematch finally booked. He knew exactly what he was signing up for and signed anyway.

Battle of Gods was the first animated Dragon Ball movie in theaters in 17 years, and the first one Akira Toriyama supervised personally. It made around $50.4 million. It also contains the scene of Vegeta at Bulma’s party, trying to keep Beerus calm by desperately performing a song and dance about bingo.

Let that sit. The proudest man in anime, in front of his wife, his son and Goku’s entire friend group, singing about bingo.

Later at the same party, Bulma slaps Beerus. Beerus hits her back. Everything Vegeta had swallowed all night came back up at once.

He went Super Saiyan 2 and attacked a god, and for a moment his rage pushed him past Goku. He still lost. But a man who once would not admit to caring about anything showed the whole universe what he cared about.

After all the Majin business, Vegeta faced Majin Buu alone and used everything he had in a Final Explosion, burning himself out. He said goodbye to Trunks and Bulma first, and then, with clear effort, to Kakarot too.

Buu regenerated anyway. The sacrifice did not even work. It still sits near the top of this list, because it was the first time Vegeta did something that was not about Vegeta.

The Japanese title of episode 280 translates to “Vegeta Takes Off His Hat!! Goku, You are No. 1.” The English dub called it “Vegeta’s Respect.” Watching Goku fight Kid Buu, Vegeta finally says it out loud: Goku is better.

It took him from 1989 to 1995 to get there. The episode aired 31 years ago this week.

Nappa asks what the scouter says about Goku’s power level. Vegeta reads it, yells that it is over 9000 and crushes the scouter in his hand. In the original Japanese he says over 8,000. The Ocean dub, with Brian Drummond as Vegeta, bumped it to 9,000, and the internet never let it go.

The clip that made it a meme went up on YouTube on October 17, 2006, which makes “over 9000” 20 years old as of last Saturday. It is the most quoted line Vegeta ever said, and he said it while losing an argument with a piece of equipment.