What makes Dragon Ball special?

Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.

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What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Akuma Johnson » Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:54 am

Dragon Ball is all over the world, right? It's popularity can't be underestimated by the fact it's the most influential Shonen manga of all time. Skyrocketing the manga-circulation scale in the 1990's, many fans undoubtedly love Dragon Ball.

But there's a question: What makes Dragon Ball special?
Let's talk about that! **GMM INTRO INTENSIFIES**
Dragon Ball sucks lmao
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:52 am

First thing is that it's not overtly Japanese. It's a series about superpowered martial arts and adventure, which can appeal to anyone.

The story is simple (or simplex depending how you look at it) yet effective.

It has Toriyama's stylistic art style from Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger.

The characters, while not terribly complex, are very well-defined and endearing. We have Goku the quintessential 'idiot hero', Vegeta the original unmitigated 'badass' rival, and Bulma the 'tomboyish yet intelligent' female lead

Last but certainly not least, it had those crazy over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques (most notably Kamehameha) that were quite unlike anything before it both in the east and west.
fadeddreams5 wrote:
DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:31 am I'm just about done with the concept of reboots and making shows that were products of their time and impactful "new and sexy" and in line with modern tastes and sensibilities. Let stuff stay in their era and give today's kids their own shit to watch.

I always side eye the people who say "Now my kids/today's kids can experience what I did as a child!" Nigga, who gives a fuck about your childhood? You're an adult now and it was at least 15 years ago. Let the kids have their own experience instead of picking at a corpse.

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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Forte224 » Mon Jun 11, 2018 2:10 pm

I'll just post my reply from another similar thread. There's nothing I really want to add to it:
Forte224 wrote:I've given this question a lot of thought. I've determined that it has to be the art style/character designs. I can pick a Toriyama design or drawing out of a crowd and so can just about anyone else that's even remotely familiar with his work. That can't be said about many other anime. And, of course, that unique art style actually looking great exemplifies that even more. This is further driven home by how popular it is regardless of the version people see. Whether it's Japanese Kikuchi, American Faulconer, the manga, or anything in between, people just absolutely love this franchise.

Also, the fact that Goku constantly focuses on improving himself I think is a message that people subtlety connect with and want to incorporate into their own lives. And it's told in such a simple way: Work hard at what you love and have fun doing it=a better "You".

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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Yuli Ban » Mon Jun 18, 2018 11:34 am

I can probably Frankenstein a bunch of my other answers together for this, but for the sake of making it simple:

1: Toriyama's art style. It's very cutesy and recognizable, which actually adds to the impact of seeing such brutal events. I don't think I've ever gone into detail about this one, but it has its roots in the Uncanny Valley and our hardwired desire to protect things we see as cute. Dragon Ball characters look cuter and more cartoony than most "generic" anime, making it stand out. Couple that with gruesome injuries and fatal attacks and you have a bit of unconscious confusion and panic in our brains.

2: Wide variety of influences coming together. Dragon Ball doesn't have many original individual attributes— Kunzait_83 and I have already drilled a hole to the center of the planet boring people about how it's a wuxia story through-and-through and you can see on wuxia forums people complaining about some very suspiciously familiar cliches in other movies and books. Not to mention that a lot of elements are parodies of other stories and concepts, so naturally it goes for the more 'Theme Park version' of them. Things like ninjas, samurai, artificial humans, dragons, warrior monks, etc— in the early series at least, it was simplified and almost stock. But altogether, it was awesome.

3: Right place, right time. I've also been saying that Dragon Ball couldn't have become what it was if it was made any later because it came at exactly the right time, right when shonen manga was starting to get stale and Western cartoons were at their creative nadir. Go back and watch any prime time 80s action cartoon— there's so little physical violence in them! When Dragon Ball made it big in Japan, it shattered many established tropes and gave a new breath of life into shonen when most of them beforehand were basically just raw power fantasies. When Dragon Ball Z hit it big in the West, it was literally unlike anything we'd ever seen before (except, of course, if you were a connoisseur of Hong Kong movie imports, but even then it felt much bigger). Even in its butchered form, it was far beyond anything that aired on TV. So it impacted our childhood like a wrecking ball to the face.

4: Over the top. If there's one thing you can't call Dragon Ball Z, it's "restrained". This goes back to what I said just above about how it was so crazily different from traditional action cartoons. Remember how awesome Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was? Would it have been as awesome if Simon's drill maxed out at the size of, say, a small building rather than an entire universe? That's sort of what it was like for Dragon Ball Z, when these human-sized characters could literally bust a galaxy with their fists. Back then, size mattered— only Godzilla-sized characters could be so strong, and even they had limits. But then came DBZ, where the smallest opponent was always the most dangerous and powerful. That just made it feel even more over the top! It was one long sequence of "Did they just fucking do what I think they did?" starting with the Saiyans shaking the entire planet by screaming/laughing and ending with the universe's most powerful coffee-flavored jawbreaker.

5: It's not completely detached. The reason why Dragon Ball's slice of life episodes work so well is because it's not like they only exist in a constant state of battle due to there being multi-dozen-episode arcs, compared to what was usually the case in older cartoons when every episode was its own plot with only a handful of two-episode plotlines saved for the end of a season. This goes back to my second point again— at least before every single plotline became "save the universe", things felt real. One of my favorite moments in the entire Dragon Ball mythos, from the dub at least?

Krillin: Hey Goku, you're my friend. We grew up together. Just make sure that...that we both grow old together too. (Goku holds Krillin's hand)
Goku: Right. I couldn't have asked for a better best friend than you Krillin!


It felt much more impactful than it would have in an episodic series, at least if you watched from the very start, because it didn't feel like you only saw them interact for a few minutes. It was more akin to a novel. Not a particularly well-written novel, sure, but still more than the serial nature of traditional cartoons. Characters grew up, and you got to see them grow up and develop. Actually, because it was so simple, it was easy to get into even if you skipped a lot of the story. So while Dragon Ball is actually quite atrocious from a professional narrative standpoint filled with amateur mistakes that could have been done much better without detracting from the series' feel, it's genius from a practical storytelling standpoint.

6: Morals. The one thing that Dragon Ball taught that was a subversion of traditional shonen was that "there's always someone stronger", so you had to keep getting better and breaking past your limits. Before Dragon Ball, shonen was— as aforementioned— nothing but power fantasies where the protagonist was the strongest damn thing alive. This power progression was novel, and it resonated with a lot of people. It works to start from little and work up because that makes the eventual power fantasy feel that much more cathartic.

7: Super Saiyan. Or, basically, power fantasy. Once the power progression wore off around Z, it was able to become a power fantasy series in full and it deserved it. Of course, it went too far with it in my opinion— going back to what I said about Dragon Ball having objectively bad narrative, it hit runaway escalation when it reached the point of "the only reason why you can't defeat an opponent is because you are physically weaker than them", meaning that weaknesses and flaws essentially had no purpose in the series and, thus, creativity is essentially out the window after that point. But again, we forgive it for that.

Aaaand I'll cut it off here.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by sintzu » Mon Jun 18, 2018 12:51 pm

It's a story that everyone can enjoy and relate to, regardless of what part in the world they live in. Goku for example wants to be the best at what he does and in his journey to do so he faces a lot of challenges that he fails at but finds the strength to get back up and face them. That's something everyone alive can relate to, regardless of what they're trying to achieve.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Gligarman » Mon Jun 18, 2018 3:40 pm

I honestly think it's the fact that it has one of the most memorable and likable casts of any series. Also the passage of time within the story itself made it more related able. When the show started Son Goku was a 12 year old kid that didn't know what a vagina was. Now he's a grandfather.

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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Mon Jun 18, 2018 11:11 pm

DBZAOTA482 wrote:First thing is that it's not overtly Japanese. It's a series about superpowered martial arts and adventure, which can appeal to anyone.
No, DB/Z isn't overtly Japanese... its overtly CHINESE. It being a series about superpowered martial arts and the adventures therein, along with a heapton of other specifics endemic to that, makes it about as Chinese as all get out. Understand; while DB is filled to the brim with other Western/international influences, the OVERWHELMING majority of DB/Z, including its very core themes, are absolutely and specifically Chinese.

One of the reasons I make this distinction is because I get the distinct sense when people make this argument that "Dragon Ball isn't overtly Japanese", the undertone is "its not TOO foreign, and thus it isn't inherently offputting to Westerners/Americans".

And frankly... that simply ISN'T in anyway true whatsoever, because Dragon Ball IS incredibly fucking foreign (as in, non-Western): in its visuals, in its tone, in its overt subject matter, in its characters, themes, setting, etc.

About 80% of it is DEEPLY and intrinsically rooted in ancient Chinese martial arts mysticism and Wuxia fantasy: the other 20% is a mish-mash smattering of Western/International pop cultural riffs that appealed to Toriyama as well... with a tremendous amount of late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s Wuxia media all throughout Asia making similar blendings of such foreign elements anyways (to the point of it being a full-blown trend/fad throughout the entire genre during those years), so its not even like THIS particular concoction of Chinese martial arts fantasy/Wuxia with modern day Western genre elements was all that unique or specific to Dragon Ball.

The point is, people throughout North America, and Western territories, fell in love with something (to the point of welcoming it into their own mainstream popular culture) that is overwhelmingly Eastern in its makeup, on both a surface and thematic level. Yes, the FUNimation dub's changes helped that go down a lot easier for many: but as many of us on this forum have long argued for YEARS now, its far beyond likely, if history and other international markets (including other Western territories like Europe and Latin America) are any indication, that Dragon Ball would've been a hit and pop cultural sensation anyways, with or without the (clumsy and awkward) attempts at "Westernizing" it.

*Note, the rest of this is very much generally aimed at no one in particular, least of all DBZAOTA

Whether they realize it or not (and many people certainly do not), Dragon Ball was accepted by Western mainstream pop culture not DESPITE it being something foreign and different, but in large part BECAUSE it was something so foreign and different. This isn't something to run away from: its something to be celebrated, the idea that people can be confronted with something that is unfamiliar, strange, and new to them and instead of recoiling away from it or being intimidated by it, they welcome and engage deeply and passionately with it and absorb it into their own identity and cultural makeup.

This is EXACTLY the sort of encouragement and stimulation of growth, learning, and unifying/bridging otherwise disparate people that lends art (even in the form of a silly, dumb, pulpy piece of kung fu zaniness for children like DB) its power, and its the sort of thing that fans should be proud of DB for embodying; not making excuses to shy away from it.

And this is probably the aspect about Western DB fandom that frustrates me the most by far: the constant attempts at retroactively de-Asia-fying it (within the fanbase itself, apart from and beyond the efforts of FUNimation themselves over the years) by constantly downplaying or otherwise being grossly ignorant of its (VERY obvious and not at all obscure or arcane and quite plentifully easy to pinpoint) cultural roots.

This kind of excuse-making, this kind of awkward "shame/denial/ignorance" about DB's nature as an overtly Eastern bit of martial arts weirdness: that to me smacks of the same nervous fear-of-the-unfamiliar that fuels things like DB's Westernization via the FUNimation dub, and leads to people trying to awkwardly tapdance around the elephant in the room by blatantly trying to make DB seem like something more Western, and thus "familiar", than it actually is. Hence the whole "they're not martial artists; they're more like superheroes" type of nonsense, or the just as cringe-worthy "I don't like anime, but DB's cool because it isn't very anime-like".

If you like Dragon Ball, then you like something that is HUGELY un-Western and decidedly Asian (a Japanese interpretation of a VERY Chinese thing: which in itself is about as Japanese as something gets :P ) on just about every level, and that's nothing at all for anyone to feel like they have to run away from or explain away with caveats; doing so is silly and pointless. Just own it.
DBZAOTA482 wrote:Last but certainly not least, it had those crazy over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques (most notably Kamehameha) that were quite unlike anything before it both in the east and west.
I don't know how many times I have to do this, but...

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Dragon Ball. Did. Not. Invent. Nor. Popularize. This. Type. Of. Over. The. Top. Super. Powered. Martial. Arts. Fighting. And. Ki. Blasting.

It. Has. Been. Around. In. Chinese. Fiction. And. Folklore. For.

Literally.

Thousands.

Of.

Years.

Including. Throughout. Modern. Filmed. Media. Since.

The.

Silent.

Movie.

Era.


Image Image

Image Image
(Right on down to the teleportation and beam struggles even)

Even a ton of its specific supernatural martial arts techniques, from the Zanzoken/Afterimage Technique, to the Shunkan Idou?Instantaneous Movment, and even the Genkidama... many of these character-signature attacks and Ki techniques are ripped almost VERBATIM from older Wuxia stories, and simply renamed and/or sometimes given some SLIGHT bits of tweaking around the edges by Toriyama.

Image Image

Image

This stuff wasn't even new to Japanese anime or manga either prior to Dragon Ball. Exhibit A:

Image Image

The main demographic throughout the entire world to which this stuff was "new" to via specifically DB/Z was millennial American/English speaking children in the late 90s/early 2000s. Pretty much just you folks on here, and similar people on other assorted modern English-language anime communities and forums, and almost virtually no one else. Older Western nerds had much of the above Wuxia media introduce them as far back as the 1970s and 80s, while Japanese kids (and adults, since Seinen was hardly any stranger to this sort of thing either) had plenty of other manga/anime long before Dragon Ball came along, etc.

I don't mean to downplay how notable DB/Z was: it was a milestone manga/anime title, and remains so to this day obviously. But that's mainly due to its general style, tone, and a boatload of specifics around its execution via Toriyama's particular artistic touch: not because it innovated or reinvented the wheel on ANY of the stuff regarding its plot beats, character archetypes, or depictions of super-powered martial arts action that fans from places like this mistakenly credit it for doing.

Just because this stuff was new to YOU guys as kids in the late 90s/early 2000s, does not therefore mean it was new in general period to everyone else.
Last edited by Kunzait_83 on Tue Jun 19, 2018 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Yuli Ban » Tue Jun 19, 2018 12:43 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:snip.
You're a bit late to this jamboree.
Yuli Ban wrote:Dragon Ball doesn't have many original individual attributes— Kunzait_83 and I have already drilled a hole to the center of the planet boring people about how it's a wuxia story through-and-through and you can see on wuxia forums people complaining about some very suspiciously familiar cliches in other movies and books. Not to mention that a lot of elements are parodies of other stories and concepts, so naturally it goes for the more 'Theme Park version' of them. Things like ninjas, samurai, artificial humans, dragons, warrior monks, etc— in the early series at least, it was simplified and almost stock. But altogether, it was awesome.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:06 am

Yuli Ban wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote:snip.
You're a bit late to this jamboree.
Bah. S'what happens when you also have to juggle a life. :P

Nonetheless though, I still had miscellaneous points in there that I wanted to add into the mix anyhow.

And a few more Wuxia gifs that I still have never used on here yet. :lol:
http://80s90sdragonballart.tumblr.com/

Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Kamiccolo9 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 10:56 am

Meh, that guy will just disappear from the thread, and post the same uninformed bullshit later anyway. Love the gifs, though. Glad those keep coming back.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:28 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:
DBZAOTA482 wrote:First thing is that it's not overtly Japanese. It's a series about superpowered martial arts and adventure, which can appeal to anyone.
No, DB/Z isn't overtly Japanese... its overtly CHINESE. It being a series about superpowered martial arts and the adventures therein, along with a heapton of other specifics endemic to that, makes it about as Chinese as all get out. Understand; while DB is filled to the brim with other Western/international influences, the OVERWHELMING majority of DB/Z, including its very core themes, are absolutely and specifically Chinese.

One of the reasons I make this distinction is because I get the distinct sense when people make this argument that "Dragon Ball isn't overtly Japanese", the undertone is "its not TOO foreign, and thus it isn't inherently offputting to Westerners/Americans".

And frankly... that simply ISN'T in anyway true whatsoever, because Dragon Ball IS incredibly fucking foreign (as in, non-Western): in its visuals, in its tone, in its overt subject matter, in its characters, themes, setting, etc.

About 80% of it is DEEPLY and intrinsically rooted in ancient Chinese martial arts mysticism and Wuxia fantasy: the other 20% is a mish-mash smattering of Western/International pop cultural riffs that appealed to Toriyama as well... with a tremendous amount of late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s Wuxia media all throughout Asia making similar blendings of such foreign elements anyways (to the point of it being a full-blown trend/fad throughout the entire genre during those years), so its not even like THIS particular concoction of Chinese martial arts fantasy/Wuxia with modern day Western genre elements was all that unique or specific to Dragon Ball.

The point is, people throughout North America, and Western territories, fell in love with something (to the point of welcoming it into their own mainstream popular culture) that is overwhelmingly Eastern in its makeup, on both a surface and thematic level. Yes, the FUNimation dub's changes helped that go down a lot easier for many: but as many of us on this forum have long argued for YEARS now, its far beyond likely, if history and other international markets (including other Western territories like Europe and Latin America) are any indication, that Dragon Ball would've been a hit and pop cultural sensation anyways, with or without the (clumsy and awkward) attempts at "Westernizing" it.

*Note, the rest of this is very much generally aimed at no one in particular, least of all DBZAOTA

Whether they realize it or not (and many people certainly do not), Dragon Ball was accepted by Western mainstream pop culture not DESPITE it being something foreign and different, but in large part BECAUSE it was something so foreign and different. This isn't something to run away from: its something to be celebrated, the idea that people can be confronted with something that is unfamiliar, strange, and new to them and instead of recoiling away from it or being intimidated by it, they welcome and engage deeply and passionately with it and absorb it into their own identity and cultural makeup.

This is EXACTLY the sort of encouragement and stimulation of growth, learning, and unifying/bridging otherwise disparate people that lends art (even in the form of a silly, dumb, pulpy piece of kung fu zaniness for children like DB) its power, and its the sort of thing that fans should be proud of DB for embodying; not making excuses to shy away from it.

And this is probably the aspect about Western DB fandom that frustrates me the most by far: the constant attempts at retroactively de-Asia-fying it (within the fanbase itself, apart from and beyond the efforts of FUNimation themselves over the years) by constantly downplaying or otherwise being grossly ignorant of its (VERY obvious and not at all obscure or arcane and quite plentifully easy to pinpoint) cultural roots.

This kind of excuse-making, this kind of awkward "shame/denial/ignorance" about DB's nature as an overtly Eastern bit of martial arts weirdness: that to me smacks of the same nervous fear-of-the-unfamiliar that fuels things like DB's Westernization via the FUNimation dub, and leads to people trying to awkwardly tapdance around the elephant in the room by blatantly trying to make DB seem like something more Western, and thus "familiar", than it actually is. Hence the whole "they're not martial artists; they're more like superheroes" type of nonsense, or the just as cringe-worthy "I don't like anime, but DB's cool because it isn't very anime-like".

If you like Dragon Ball, then you like something that is HUGELY un-Western and decidedly Asian (a Japanese interpretation of a VERY Chinese thing: which in itself is about as Japanese as something gets :P ) on just about every level, and that's nothing at all for anyone to feel like they have to run away from or explain away with caveats; doing so is silly and pointless. Just own it.
DBZAOTA482 wrote:Last but certainly not least, it had those crazy over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques (most notably Kamehameha) that were quite unlike anything before it both in the east and west.
I don't know how many times I have to do this, but...

Image Image

Image Image

Image Image

Image Image

Image Image

Image Image

Image Image

Image Image

Image

Image

Image

Dragon Ball. Did. Not. Invent. Nor. Popularize. This. Type. Of. Over. The. Top. Super. Powered. Martial. Arts. Fighting. And. Ki. Blasting.

It. Has. Been. Around. In. Chinese. Fiction. And. Folklore. For.

Literally.

Thousands.

Of.

Years.

Including. Throughout. Modern. Filmed. Media. Since.

The.

Silent.

Movie.

Era.


Image Image

Image Image
(Right on down to the teleportation and beam struggles even)

Even a ton of its specific supernatural martial arts techniques, from the Zanzoken/Afterimage Technique, to the Shunkan Idou?Instantaneous Movment, and even the Genkidama... many of these character-signature attacks and Ki techniques are ripped almost VERBATIM from older Wuxia stories, and simply renamed and/or sometimes given some SLIGHT bits of tweaking around the edges by Toriyama.

Image Image

Image

This stuff wasn't even new to Japanese anime or manga either prior to Dragon Ball. Exhibit A:

Image Image

The main demographic throughout the entire world to which this stuff was "new" to via specifically DB/Z was millennial American/English speaking children in the late 90s/early 2000s. Pretty much just you folks on here, and similar people on other assorted modern English-language anime communities and forums, and almost virtually no one else. Older Western nerds had much of the above Wuxia media introduce them as far back as the 1970s and 80s, while Japanese kids (and adults, since Seinen was hardly any stranger to this sort of thing either) had plenty of other manga/anime long before Dragon Ball came along, etc.

I don't mean to downplay how notable DB/Z was: it was a milestone manga/anime title, and remains so to this day obviously. But that's mainly due to its general style, tone, and a boatload of specifics around its execution via Toriyama's particular artistic touch: not because it innovated or reinvented the wheel on ANY of the stuff regarding its plot beats, character archetypes, or depictions of super-powered martial arts action that fans from places like this mistakenly credit it for doing.

Just because this stuff was new to YOU guys as kids in the late 90s/early 2000s, does not therefore mean it was new in general period to everyone else.
This is basically what I was trying to say except when I said it wasn't overtly Japanese, it doesn't require knowledge or interest in the medium and culture (be it Chinese or Japanese) to get into. Just like you said, super-powered martial arts and chinese mythology were already widely accepted as staples of western pop culture.
fadeddreams5 wrote:
DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:31 am I'm just about done with the concept of reboots and making shows that were products of their time and impactful "new and sexy" and in line with modern tastes and sensibilities. Let stuff stay in their era and give today's kids their own shit to watch.

I always side eye the people who say "Now my kids/today's kids can experience what I did as a child!" Nigga, who gives a fuck about your childhood? You're an adult now and it was at least 15 years ago. Let the kids have their own experience instead of picking at a corpse.

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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 4:20 pm

DBZAOTA482 wrote:Just like you said, super-powered martial arts and chinese mythology were already widely accepted as staples of western pop culture.
Yeah... but that part isn't what YOU said:
DBZAOTA482 wrote:Last but certainly not least, it had those crazy over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques (most notably Kamehameha) that were quite unlike anything before it both in the east and west.
Hence my gif-laden response: Dragon Ball's crazy, over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques like the Kamehameha ARE indeed VERY MUCH exactly like PLENTY of things that came before Dragon Ball for damn sure in the East at least (much of which we were plenty privy to here in the West going back to at least the 1970s).
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by floofychan333 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:37 pm

In my opinion, Dragon Ball is special because of what it meant to me and to a lot of other people. I decided to give Dragon Ball a try and fell in love after bingeing the Pilaf saga in one weekend. It was also there for me when nobody else was, as I had started watching the series in a time where I was bullied, had few if any friends, and had underwhelming marks in school. In spite of all the shit I was enduring on a daily basis, I always had Goku and friends to cheer me up at the end of the day. I needed comedy, action, and heroes, and I wanted to explore anime and Japanese culture in general more so Dragon Ball was a good fit for me.

Additionally, the franchise has been successful around the world alongside being huge in Japan and has used that to its advantage so it can continue to create new series, games, Doujinshi, and merchandise. I wasn't around for the majority of the period from when GT had ended to when Super started so my opinion probably isn't as relevant as that of a diehard longtime fan, but I feel as if Dragon Ball has been around forever. I knew about the series long before I started watching it and my cousins actually grew up with Dragon Ball on TV, which I just learned a few years back. It brought me together with my cousins, who I hadn't seen much in recent years, and this ability to connect people is one other thing that makes it special.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Yuli Ban » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:52 pm

Kamiccolo9 wrote:Meh, that guy will just disappear from the thread, and post the same uninformed bullshit later anyway.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 10:40 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote: Hence my gif-laden response: Dragon Ball's crazy, over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques like the Kamehameha ARE indeed VERY MUCH exactly like PLENTY of things that came before Dragon Ball for damn sure in the East at least (much of which we were plenty privy to here in the West going back to at least the 1970s).
Trust me, I saw them. They cool but they ain't DBZ.

My comment wasn't to imply Dragon Ball was the first of its kind but rather its style and execution of the tropes made it stand out.
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DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Kamiccolo9 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 11:22 pm

DBZAOTA482 wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote: Hence my gif-laden response: Dragon Ball's crazy, over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques like the Kamehameha ARE indeed VERY MUCH exactly like PLENTY of things that came before Dragon Ball for damn sure in the East at least (much of which we were plenty privy to here in the West going back to at least the 1970s).
Trust me, I saw them. They cool but they ain't DBZ.

My comment wasn't to imply Dragon Ball was the first of its kind but rather its style and execution of the tropes made it stand out.
DBZAOTA482 wrote:Last but certainly not least, it had those crazy over-the-top fighting scenes and cool techniques (most notably Kamehameha) that were quite unlike anything before it both in the east and west.
Do you even read what you post?
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Zephyr » Thu Jun 21, 2018 3:59 am

Maybe he means to say "Dragon Ball wasn't the first Wuxia story, but it was the first Wuxia story as distilled through the lens of Akira Toriyama's whimsical mind"? I dunno. That said:
Kunzait_83 wrote:a Japanese interpretation of a VERY Chinese thing: which in itself is about as Japanese as something gets
As piss-taking as this might seem, Kunzait's also absolutely right on this. Dragon Ball, in this kind of way, is very Japanese.

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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Anonymous Friend » Mon Jun 25, 2018 1:00 pm

@Kunzait's super long post with many gifs

Most of those gifs pertain to action that really only start in Z. Also, even if that awesome Chinese stuff came first, no one really cared. Because instead of my reaction of "OMG!!! What is that and where can I watch more!!!", I'd be like "*yawn* Oh, yeah. That. I remember watching that like ... *yawn* ... thirty years ago".

People are right though. Dragonball, and by extension most anime, are not the sort of things people encounter in Western programming. Very few Western programs seem to be able to match it, even when they're attempting to copy it.

I was in my last year of high school when I got into Dragonball Z. I was big on fighting games and superhero stuff. The Capcom Marvel fighters we're my favorites and I was a huge Street Fighter fan. Seeing characters shoot energy blasts from their hands and punch each other through mountains was great.

The plot and story stuff wasn't all that noteworthy. The Raditz stuff meant nothing to a first time viewer. Then we had two more trouble makers on the way who have to be dealt with. The whole Namek thing was a lot better with the whole hiding and sneaking thing. Then the Gunyu show up and it's an extremely long series of fights. Most of which I missed out on when they first aired and didn't get to watch until we were deep into Android stuff.

Overall, the success of the series is because it is a simple adventure/fighting to save the world series. There's nothing wrong with simple. Some of the best stuff to stand the test of time are simple stories.
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by ABED » Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:06 pm

The plot and story stuff wasn't all that noteworthy.
How do you figure?
I would say the serialized nature was particularly noteworthy. How many American shows had stories that serialized?
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Re: What makes Dragon Ball special?

Post by Kamiccolo9 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 10:12 pm

I don't know how you missed the Ginyu fights when they first aired. They re-ran them continuously for years. It took forever to get past Goku beating up Jeice and Burter.
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