Nappa's History
Nappa was a mid-class Saiyan warrior from Planet Vegeta, and Vegeta's partner in combat. Prior to the destruction of Planet Vegeta, Nappa was the general of the Saiyan Army and aid/partner to the young prince, Vegeta. After his race's demise, he, along with Vegeta and Raditz, worked as soldiers directly under Frieza, which led him to Earth.
Nappa was born into a noble family, and thus has a high ranking and power level compared to other Saiyans, automatically making him an upper-level warrior. At a young age he battled alongside his Saiyan comrades during the Saiyan-Tuffle War. Eventually, he was assigned to the same group as Raditz, later Vegeta was added to the group too. Nappa was the direct subordinate to Prince Vegeta. At the time when Planet Vegeta was destroyed Nappa was in his 20s or 30s, he and the rest of Vegeta's group were away on a mission and did not return from the mission even when called back as Vegeta chose to ignore the message. When they received a message that Planet Vegeta was destroyed by a meteorite, Nappa wondered about Raditz and Vegeta's younger brothers but neither of them cared.
A few days before the destruction of Planet Vegeta, in Age 737, Nappa is seen watching the young Vegeta fight a group of Saibamen on monitor screens, and afterwards having a conversation about Frieza.
In an anime only flashback in the Frieza Saga, Nappa, along with Raditz and Vegeta return from their conquest on Planet Shikk. However, they are met with insult rather than congratulations by Dodoria, Zarbon, and Frieza. Nappa nearly loses control of himself and tries to attack Frieza, Zarbon and Dodoria, but Vegeta orders his comrade to calm and stand down, knowing that they would not stand a chance against them. Afterward, he then informs Vegeta that there was talk that, contrary to the reports about an asteroid collision blowing up the Saiyan race, it had in fact been Frieza who was responsible for Planet Vegeta's destruction, although Vegeta dismissed it, citing he didn't care and implied that the Saiyan race as a whole was weak for perishing.
Eventually, the three Saiyans come across a planet which they wish to conquer in order to sell for a high price, but the inhabitants prove to be much stronger than they had anticipated, so they temporarily abort the mission. However, they soon discover the location of Raditz's long-lost younger brother, Kakarot, who has been raised on Earth. While Raditz heads for Earth to intercept Goku, Nappa goes on to conquer another planet with Vegeta.
While sitting near a fire, they receive a distress call from Raditz, who has been defeated by Goku and Piccolo. Raditz relays Piccolo's explanation about Earth's Dragon Balls to Nappa and Vegeta in the hopes that they will come to use the balls to revive him. Nappa does briefly consider wishing Raditz back to life, but Vegeta instead decides to use the balls for them to wish for immortality, also adding that Raditz deserved to die for foolishly underestimating his opponents. They also take note of the high-power level displayed by Goku's Earthling-Saiyan hybrid son, Gohan. Nappa briefly suggests merely taking over Earth so that they may mate with its inhabitants and produce a race of powerful half-breed Saiyans, who may eventually become Super Saiyans and re-establish Saiyan dominance in the universe, but Vegeta fears that they may become more powerful than the two of them, and merely settles on immortality (though the dialogue about producing an army of half-breed Saiyans is omitted in the Funimation dub) as they depart for Earth.
In the anime, Vegeta and Nappa stop by Arlia for a short time in February of Age 762 while they are traveling to Earth. While there, they make quick work of the planet's strongest warrior, Yetti, along with the planet's king, King Moai. After this, Vegeta destroys the whole planet.
After arriving on Earth, Nappa does a power demonstration by blowing up an entire city just with his Volcano Explosion. After Vegeta warns him not to do so or he will kill him (because it could destroy any Dragon Ball nearby), they head off to seek out the Dragon Balls, heading directly to where Gohan, Piccolo and Krillin are, looking for the one who killed Raditz, arriving moments before Yamcha, Chiaotzu and Tien Shinhan.
Nappa reads the fighters power levels and mocks them, however Vegeta drops his scouter, claiming that the fighters can hide their true power levels, making the readings useless. Nappa plants six seeds into the earth's soil, and a group of Saibamen grow. Tien is the first to take on a Saibaman, defeating it without much effort, shocking Nappa, as each of the creatures' power levels were equal to Raditz. After Yamcha was killed by a Saibaman, and after Krillin and Piccolo destroyed the rest of them, Nappa charges up and demonstrates his sheer power over the Dragon Team, by brutally breaking Tien's arm in one clean punch. After Nappa uses his Blazing Storm on Krillin, Chiaotzu disappears, with everyone thinking he was caught in the blast. However, Chiaotzu flew on Nappa's back and self-destructed, but it was in vain, as not even Nappa's Battle Armor was damaged much. Angry over his best friend's death, Tien uses the last of his energy to attack Nappa with a Spirit Tri-Beam, which proves to be in vain as well since he falls to the ground and dies immediately afterwards, while Nappa survives again with no serious injuries. After the demise of Chiaotzu and Tien, Piccolo develops a plan to destroy Nappa with a team attack, but Gohan becomes too afraid to attack during the part where he was supposed to blast him. Before the fight can continue, Vegeta decides to pause it for three hours to allow Goku to show up, finding it amusing that Krillin, Piccolo and Gohan have so much faith on such a low level Saiyan warrior as Kakarot. In the anime, to keep himself occupied, Nappa destroys the news crew that had been reporting on the battle, and then easily decimates the military forces, consisting of battleships and aircraft carriers, that were en route to stop the Saiyans (albeit with enough effort regarding the latter that he admitted he may have come close to sweating from the last attack, causing him slight concern as Vegeta had given him permission to go on his destructive rampage under the condition that he not waste enough energy to cause him to sweat afterward.). After that, he destroys another city with his Exploding Wave.
After three hours have passed with Goku not appearing, Nappa takes off his armor so there is nothing holding back his power and the fight resumes. Piccolo devises a plan that involves him grabbing Nappa's tail to weaken him, but Nappa had already become immune to this and does not suffer any pain, unlike Raditz did. When Piccolo attempts this plan, Nappa elbows Piccolo on the head, knocking him out. Once again, the Saiyan demonstrates his might, clearly injuring Piccolo, torturing Krillin, and bullying Gohan. In a gamble, Krillin decided to throw a Destructo Disc at Nappa, which he barely dodged after Vegeta urged him to, getting out with just a scar on his left cheek.
This was enough to make Nappa stop making Krillin suffer, and just want to kill him. However, before Nappa can deliver the finishing blow, Piccolo launches a Ki Blast at him just in time, which makes Vegeta laugh at Nappa's incompetence on destroying these fighters. Nappa almost kills Piccolo, but decides to bully Gohan again, smacking him around, then deciding to take his time to relax by sitting on him while Gohan is laying face up. Nappa is eventually caught off guard for the first time during the fight when Gohan loses patience and kicks him in a rage, throwing him into a nearby rock formation. This only makes Nappa angrier. In the end, Nappa ultimately kills Piccolo when the Namekian uses his body to shield Gohan from a potentially fatal attack. Enraged by this, Gohan uses all his power to fire a Masenko that Nappa parries almost easily, though he admits that it had made his arm numb.his punch.
Just as Nappa is about to finish off the exhausted Gohan by stepping on him, Goku arrives, with the Nimbus carrying Gohan. Nappa claims Goku would not have a chance of beating him, and even after Vegeta reads his power level, Nappa attacks Goku, but Goku easily dodges his punch. Their fight carries on, Goku obviously dominating the battle. At Vegeta's insistence, Nappa eventually calms down and begins to attack with much better technique, but he is still hopelessly outmatched. Desperate, he fires his ultimate attack, which Goku effortlessly counters, stunning Nappa. When Vegeta loses patience with Nappa and orders him to stand down, Nappa decides to take the humiliation out on Gohan and Krillin, charging at them with the intention of finishing them off with his Break Cannon mouth blast. Goku had to use his Kaio-ken to stop him and attacks Nappa with the Kaio-ken Finish to his back, breaking it.
Defeated, Nappa is tossed at Vegeta's feet by Goku. Nappa begs for Vegeta to help him get up, and Vegeta grabs his hand, pretending to help him but then as a punishment for his failure, Nappa is quickly thrown in the air by the Saiyan Prince, as a Saiyan who cannot move is "useless", according to Vegeta. After he begs Vegeta for his life, Nappa is ultimately destroyed by Vegeta's Galaxy Breaker. Upon entering the Other World, he joins Raditz after being sent to Hell by King Yemma. Daizenshuu 7 states that he was in his 50's when he died.
