According to Akira Toriyama, Frieza's design is an amalgamation of what he thought monsters looked like in his childhood. Frieza is one of the villains in the series who possesses an entire range of transformations, each one being quite different than the others. It is implied by Vegeta in the series that Frieza's fourth, most powerful form is actually his original form, with the other three being forms that suppress his power in order to conserve it. Frieza later confirms this while fighting the main protagonist Goku. His forms seem to revolve around both western and Japanese concepts of demons.