Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

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Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Bebi Hatchiyack » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:00 pm

Dragon Ball as a franchise is now leading towards a new era, a new adventure set with Super and going forward.

During Dragon Ball Super runs we have saw new characters using new power and skill for the Franchise Black who could create Ki based Scythe, Hit with his timeskip power and the angels who are nearly to omnipotencia power.

For Dragon Ball their power are new but for people who are well versed into others show/franchise their powers are nothing new, Hit draw his power inspiration perhaps from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Goku Black him have some of his power inspired perhaps by Bleach or Wizard based anime/manga. As for the angels they remind me some of the deity we find in some comics like Marvel or DC. With that said, would you want to have Dragon Ball keep on taking inspiration from other show or would you want first, that the Franchise works what's the franchise already have and nurture what it have, by growing it up to its full potential ?

I'm a bit in the middle personally. Because first we already have so much that I want Dragon Ball first to explore and handle everything it have to its full potential. But in order to appeal for the merchandising, they will have the needs to create new things which is a double edged sword IMO.

Let's take for example the fusion if they want new fusion they will have the needs to create new method, so here I would like them to take inspiration from Yu-Gi-Oh! Mainly with the Synchro, XyZ and Link Card.

So what are your feeling toward this subject ?

Are you torn like me or are you firm either toward building first what Dragon Ball have or toward they will need more things ?
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by sintzu » Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:09 am

I think it's hard to do anything without it being something found somewhere else.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Banana » Thu Apr 05, 2018 5:41 am

True. Everything is usually inspired by something that already exists, even if it's a subconscious connection to something else or if we realize where the idea came from.

Even from the very beginning, Dragonball got its roots from the Journey to the West story from China and this is super apparent even from the tobikiri zenkai power ending in Z with Gohan's outfit to actually having the Saiyuki outfit in Xenoverse 1&2. The Monkey King transforming into a giant ape at the sight of the moon in the story was essentially the basis for the Saiyan people and it draws many other similarities such as the Tian Shan mountains in the story which resembles the name Tenshinhan who we all know and love. The pig demon in the story also inspired Oolong and that's just scratching the surface of it.

Heck, even the ideas for the plagiarized music in the series came from somewhere! Haha joking aside, it's been true and there had to have been great controversy.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Firebolt » Thu Apr 05, 2018 6:49 am

Yes. In fact, DB is already taking inspiration from other franchises. The character designs for the upcoming movie were clearly inspired by Pokémon : Sun & Moon.

Yamamuro's designs are generally disliked because they're a weird mish-mash between flat, simple designs and super detailed designs, and they're extremely stiff. This is due to Yamamuro not seeing any other anime besides his own, thereby not knowing what makes a character design appealing and animation-friendly.

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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by dbgtFO » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:10 am

I'm shocked there haven't been more use of constructs like the Green Lantern popularised, but at least the anime has had a few characters making objects out of their ki. Most notably Goku-Black/Zamas, Trunks, Caway and #17.
Goku and Vegeta can be more wedded to their basic power approach but the less powerful fighters could be more creative with their ki utilization. Too bad the ToP didn't give the other U7 fighters that, though #17 of course made a bit up for it with his smart use of his barriers.

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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Bebi Hatchiyack » Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:20 pm

Banana wrote:True. Everything is usually inspired by something that already exists, even if it's a subconscious connection to something else or if we realize where the idea came from.

Even from the very beginning, Dragonball got its roots from the Journey to the West story from China and this is super apparent even from the tobikiri zenkai power ending in Z with Gohan's outfit to actually having the Saiyuki outfit in Xenoverse 1&2. The Monkey King transforming into a giant ape at the sight of the moon in the story was essentially the basis for the Saiyan people and it draws many other similarities such as the Tian Shan mountains in the story which resembles the name Tenshinhan who we all know and love. The pig demon in the story also inspired Oolong and that's just scratching the surface of it.

Heck, even the ideas for the plagiarized music in the series came from somewhere! Haha joking aside, it's been true and there had to have been great controversy.
Do you think we can draw more from the Journey to the West story into DB ?
dbgtFO wrote:I'm shocked there haven't been more use of constructs like the Green Lantern popularised, but at least the anime has had a few characters making objects out of their ki. Most notably Goku-Black/Zamas, Trunks, Caway and #17.
Goku and Vegeta can be more wedded to their basic power approach but the less powerful fighters could be more creative with their ki utilization. Too bad the ToP didn't give the other U7 fighters that, though #17 of course made a bit up for it with his smart use of his barriers.
Speaking of DC would you like more inspiration from this Universe into DB ?
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Banana » Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:46 pm

Bebi Hatchiyack wrote:
Banana wrote:True. Everything is usually inspired by something that already exists, even if it's a subconscious connection to something else or if we realize where the idea came from.

Even from the very beginning, Dragonball got its roots from the Journey to the West story from China and this is super apparent even from the tobikiri zenkai power ending in Z with Gohan's outfit to actually having the Saiyuki outfit in Xenoverse 1&2. The Monkey King transforming into a giant ape at the sight of the moon in the story was essentially the basis for the Saiyan people and it draws many other similarities such as the Tian Shan mountains in the story which resembles the name Tenshinhan who we all know and love. The pig demon in the story also inspired Oolong and that's just scratching the surface of it.

Heck, even the ideas for the plagiarized music in the series came from somewhere! Haha joking aside, it's been true and there had to have been great controversy.
Do you think we can draw more from the Journey to the West story into DB ?
dbgtFO wrote:I'm shocked there haven't been more use of constructs like the Green Lantern popularised, but at least the anime has had a few characters making objects out of their ki. Most notably Goku-Black/Zamas, Trunks, Caway and #17.
Goku and Vegeta can be more wedded to their basic power approach but the less powerful fighters could be more creative with their ki utilization. Too bad the ToP didn't give the other U7 fighters that, though #17 of course made a bit up for it with his smart use of his barriers.
Speaking of DC would you like more inspiration from this Universe into DB ?
It's possible more from Journey to the West may be able to be done, however I don't exactly know for sure. I've read a bunch of wikis and seen the (2013?) movie twice and that's my extent of the knowledge on the story. Any further drawing from it and that may make Dragonball in the slightest bit religious- something that may not be taken well. The story of Journey to the West pulls greatly from Buddhism, and many American audiences don't even know the first thing about it, let alone many other people around the world despite it being so commonly practiced between the otera in Japan (お寺) as well as the amount of influence it has had in other areas of Asia. I understand Dragonball has its own gods and afterlife, and the characters have been seen to believe in these gods, so the show is largely polytheistic even though the humans on earth may be monotheistic which is interesting, however for someone such as myself who is atheist I don't mind that all one bit because it's interesting for me to see what others believe, and the religious structure in the Dragonball series is something exclusive to the universe of the show. I digress, however.

Getting back to Journey to the West, another reason why it may be difficult to pull more influences is simply because it is also a love story. Sanzang, the main character who is a demon hunter (going after the pig demon, the monkey king, and a couple others) is confused and believes that lesser love and greater love exists, and lesser love being romanticism and greater love being adoration for all living kind on a general level. Sanzang falls in love with another Demon hunter named Duan, but rejects her multiple times because he feels like this "lesser love" would get in the way of enlightenment. When Duan is killed by the Monkey King, Sanzang experiences feelings of his love for her and true pain, and becomes enlightened. Long story short, we've seen how Toriyama handles relationships and love in the DB series, and that's not very well, because in effort to make this story different and original, the DB series is largely based upon fighting as we know. At least the movie Journey to the West does have some martial arts in there, however it seems as if they've pulled all they can.

As far as DC goes, I'm not qualified to speak on that matter lol hopefully someone else can? I barely got into American comics and don't actually know much about it...
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Jackalope89 » Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:49 pm

Well, Goku escaped his planet as a baby/toddler just before it was destroyed, landed on Earth, and raised by a very kind parent-figure.

Other than Superman having both parents, that's essentially his backstory as well. And Dragon Ball Minus (written by Toriyama himself) goes even further by having Goku's parents go the extra mile of making sure he left the planet before Freeza got there.

Cell, much like AMAZO (robot from DC comics) has the powers/abilities of the Z Fighters (AMAZO has those of the Justice League).

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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Shaddy » Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:42 pm

Obviously it does. Dragon Ball's problems stem from aggressive traditionalism, worrying too much about what feels sort-of like standard Dragon Ball and not enough about what's actually really good and interesting. It's common for Japanese series to do this, running themselves into the ground and somewhat failing to transform and adapt to the modern era. It's why something like Osomatsu-San is an unexpected and strange revival, but characters that have existed for more than half a century in Marvel comics can still feel new (Sometimes. That ol' cinematic universe is kinda repetitive on it's own, actually).

But more than anything, this is just characteristic of anime. It's an incredibly derivative medium, and a lot of the things contained within it are based less in trying to be good, and more in trying to be like other anime, mostly because they made money. When people talk about the decay that seems to happen over each era, this is really the reason. At a certain point, most of what can be done with a type of show has been, and it takes a new breakout hit series to inspire tons of other shows for the thing to change. But the shows that do this are always ones that take influence from outside of anime. All of the best manga are like this too. Look at Berserk, or Neon Genesis Evangelion. Really stylistically impactful manga and anime, made by creators who took influence from all sorts of shit. Movies, books, even just Hideaki Anno's weird obsession with power lines and trains gives the city of Eva a unique feel to it, and the distortion of the western fantasy setting establishes Berserk's incredibly unique and varied world.

If you ask me, while Dragon Ball updating it's fighting styles and pacing to be more in-line with the current best of shonen series would be a step in the right direction, the real answer is that it needs to reinvent what a Dragon Ball story can be by looking at stories outside of mere anime and manga. After all, a huge part of the original inspiration of the series was old kung-fu movies Toriyama watched while working on new ideas.

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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by emperior » Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:22 pm

I would like Dragon Ball to focus more on the technical aspects of the martial arts characters use, in a similar fashion to what happened with Hit.
I don't care if said inspiration comes from other franchises, as long as it's good.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by Lord Beerus » Sat Apr 07, 2018 2:42 pm

If it comes to storytelling, then, why not? There have been many Shonen manga and anime since Dragon Ball's time that have told better stories, and there's no harm fro borrowing some narrative concepts that have been used in better Shonen.

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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by sintzu » Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:38 pm

Lord Beerus wrote:If it comes to storytelling, then, why not? There have been many Shonen manga and anime since Dragon Ball's time that have told better stories, and there's no harm fro borrowing some narrative concepts that have been used in better Shonen.
There have been better stories but I think there's a risk when borrowing concepts as it can end up as just a cheap copy of the original. What DB should do is follow what others have done in terms of world building and character usage. The foundation is there as DB has great characters and a huge world but for some reason it's yet to fully utilize them in the way other stories utilize theirs.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by ABED » Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:50 pm

sintzu wrote:
Lord Beerus wrote:If it comes to storytelling, then, why not? There have been many Shonen manga and anime since Dragon Ball's time that have told better stories, and there's no harm fro borrowing some narrative concepts that have been used in better Shonen.
There have been better stories but I think there's a risk when borrowing concepts as it can end up as just a cheap copy of the original. What DB should do is follow what others have done in terms of world building and character usage. The foundation is there as DB has great characters and a huge world but for some reason it's yet to fully utilize them in the way other stories utilize theirs.
DB takes plenty of story concepts from other stories. Hell, it started off loosely based on Journey to the West.

Forget about world building. It's an overrated concept that many place too much importance on instead of concentrating on story.

Great writers use other stories as influences. Hell, even Shakespeare's stories were often unoriginal in terms of plot.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by sintzu » Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:55 pm

ABED wrote:Forget about world building. It's an overrated concept that many place too much importance on instead of concentrating on story.
If a world is built up right you'll get a better story out of it.

For example, if the Black arc took place in U10 and we were introduced to some of their fighters then they'd be more relatable in the tournament and their lose and getting erased would've had much more weight to it.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by ABED » Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:58 pm

sintzu wrote:
ABED wrote:Forget about world building. It's an overrated concept that many place too much importance on instead of concentrating on story.
If a world is built up right you'll get a better story out of it.

For example, if the Black arc took place in U10 and we were introduced to some of their fighters then they'd be more relatable in the tournament and their lose and getting erased would've had much more weight to it.
Which could negatively affect the Black arc in some way. I can't speak to the specifics having not seen Super, but world building is a means to an end. It works best when its in service of the story.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by sintzu » Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:09 pm

ABED wrote:Which could negatively affect the Black arc in some way. I can't speak to the specifics having not seen Super, but world building is a means to an end. It works best when its in service of the story.
I think once you see it you'll agree that there should've been more going on, including things from U10.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by ABED » Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:12 pm

sintzu wrote:
ABED wrote:Which could negatively affect the Black arc in some way. I can't speak to the specifics having not seen Super, but world building is a means to an end. It works best when its in service of the story.
I think once you see it you'll agree that there should've been more going on, including things from U10.
But how would U10 relate emotionally to what is going in the Goku Black arc? Wasn't it a story that had to do with Trunks' timeline?
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by sintzu » Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:15 pm

ABED wrote:
sintzu wrote:
ABED wrote:Which could negatively affect the Black arc in some way. I can't speak to the specifics having not seen Super, but world building is a means to an end. It works best when its in service of the story.
I think once you see it you'll agree that there should've been more going on, including things from U10.
But how would U10 relate emotionally to what is going in the Goku Black arc? Wasn't it a story that had to do with Trunks' timeline?
It did yet nothing was going on, it was just him waiting for the heroes to come and go to fight him. Imagine the Freeza arc with everything before the big fight not existing.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by ABED » Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:17 pm

I really would need to watch this because speaking in general terms isn't helping. After watching The Flash for the past few seasons, I'm not the biggest fan of multiverse stories.
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Re: Do you think Dragon Ball would have a need to took inspiration from others franchises ?

Post by sintzu » Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:21 pm

ABED wrote:I really would need to watch this because speaking in general terms isn't helping. After watching The Flash for the past few seasons, I'm not the biggest fan of multiverse stories.
What DB is doing isn't the same thing.
July 9th 2018 will be remembered as the day Broly became canon.

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