Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

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Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:45 am

It sorta feel so, the music had a Yamamoto-vibe, the fights similar to Z and there were some VAs from the DB cast, iirc.

Same happened with Saint Seiya but neither of these two anime series were ever as grand as they wanted to be, as was and still is, Dragon Ball Z.

YYH and SS have really solid scores and catchy, memorable theme songs.

By the way, Saint Seiya (aka: Knights of the Zodiac) was at one point very popular in Western countries although Yu Yu Hakusho wasn't even as much but it was appreciated in US, at least. There appears to be an English Animax dub that's supposedly better than FUNi's dub but not something I care about, tbh. Just thought to bring it up while at it.

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Kataphrut » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:48 am

I mean, maybe in the sense that DBZ kind of laid the groundwork for all shounen to follow. Yu Yu Hakusho was interesting because it didn't start out very shounen but each arc added more of the tropes until we got straight up demon power levels in Chapter Black.

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by jjgp1112 » Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:28 am

Dragon Ball Z didn't invent martial arts tropes, and Yu Yu Hakusho's soundtrack is standard late 80s/early 90s synth/pop music (and then hip-hop and New Jack Swing during the Chapter Black arc)

I'm sure DB influenced Togashi, but Dragon Ball was hardly the only anime doing that type of stuff.

Sharing voice actors is just happenstance. Plenty of other shows did as well. Guys like Shigeru Chiba, Norio Wakamoto, and Daisuke Gori were anime staples. Most prominent anime get their VAs from the same production company/agency.

You seem to think DB was the end-all be-all and the center of the anime universe. It wasn't.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by JulieYBM » Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:43 am

Koyama Takao and Morishita Kouzou were brought over to work on Dragon Ball Z specifically because of their accomplishments on Saint Seiya, so it was more like Saint Seiya inspired Dragon Ball.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Vijay » Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:00 pm

if anythin, I'd say HXH was copied frm YYH

DBZ was copied frm DB which was copied frm Journey to West

YYH & DBZ had lotsa similarities. True.

But I dare say dat was not deliberate intention of Togashi fer sure.

Stream online YYH's 1st Arc. It wasnt even tryin to be anythin remotely shounen.

Though I'd say it got progressively action-oriented the moment epic, legendary Genkai was introduced...till 3 Kings Arc...good times

My personal fav was Sensui Arc. Like....no other series could've crafted such thrilling & smart threads into a tale woven keeping in mind of grand scheme of things: 7 dudes: Doctor, Sailor, Sniper etc...followed by Sensui's climatic battle against Yusuke, Hiei, Kurama vs Sensui....even frickin Yenma & his frickin Dad had to intervene....dafuq???!!! To say nothin abt Yusuke's Mazoku transformation & dat single-glimpse of foreshadowing his ancestal lineage leading-up to its next big arc....holy crap!!! Such great moments

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:12 pm

Most shonen during and after Dragon Ball's heyday was imitating it one way or another.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Saikyo no Senshi » Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:14 pm

I'm used to the "every shounen is a rip-off of Dragon Ball cause the MC likes to eat, wears an orange outfit, has wacky hair" and all that bullshit, but this is next level.

By this logic, Dragon Ball was trying to copy Slump cause it had the same main staff, music composer and most of the seiyuus.

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Polyphase Avatron » Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:21 pm

Dragonball, Saint Seiya, and Fist of the North Star are the archetypes upon which most later shounen battle manga were based.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:30 pm

There's certainly one key thing that YYH took significant influence from Dragon Ball for: and that's the idea of the Eastern Buddhist Afterlife (King Enma/Yama, Oni demons, etc) and depicting it within the framework of modern day Japanese office culture. That's the one key thing in YYH that is very much specifically a Dragon Ball-unique idea (and a damn clever/fun one at that) that YYH not only clearly took from DB, but also I would argue further fleshed out and took advantage of to its own benefit.

Apart from that though? No, as I've made it my personal mission to try and impress on these forums numerous times now for the past few years, Dragon Ball DID. NOT. INVENT. MOST. OF. THESE. TROPES. Dragon Ball's core themes, storylines, character archetypes, and yes, its very style of fighting and depicting Ki and supernatural martial arts, are ALL taken directly from the broader Chinese genre of Wuxia/martial arts fantasy via literally countless films, comic books, novels, poems, ancient Taoist & Buddhist legends and myths, etc.

Goku being a rural, naive bumpkin who knows nothing about the modern world, but is a genius savant at martial arts? That's an ancient Wuxia trope. Characters harnessing their inner Ki/Chi to fly through the sky, smash whole mountains apart with their bare hands, fire light beams of Chi across the countryside that can level the entire landscape, and move at speeds impossible to keep up with the naked human eye? ALL very, very, VERY old depictions of Taoist martial arts myths whose depictions in Wuxia fiction date back CENTURIES and have been used in modern media since the black and white SILENT FILMS of the 1920s. Tournament drama and rivalry storylines? As old and standard a set of Wuxia cliches as there is. Characters like Gohan, Freeza, Yamucha, Tenshinhan, Tao Pai Pai, Vegeta, Kuririn, Muten Roshi, Tsuru Sennin, even some aspects of Cell? ALL culled from common Wuxia archetypes. Dragon Ball's core themes of training, self-improvement, competition, breaking past one's barriers, passing the torch to future generations of fighters, etc? ALL key, central themes of Wuxia, and just general, non-Wuxia martial arts fiction overall.

By which I mean: these things had ALL been done and done and done to death across literally countless THOUSANDS upon thousands of films, books, TV shows, comics, and even ancient poetry, stage plays, and religious myths dating back hundreds if not THOUSANDS of years before Dragon Ball or anime or any of us ever came along. Dragon Ball didn't invent them, and it CERTAINLY wasn't the one, sole thing that was inspiring other works of fiction to continue doing them well into the modern day. All Dragon Ball had done was put Toriyama's own distinctive spin on what were otherwise VERY old Chinese/Taoist cliches about superhuman martial arts skills and fighters.

Hell if anything, most of Dragon Ball's most ardent self-described successors in Japanese Shonen manga and anime from the late 90s onward have largely been going out of their own way to NOT be Wuxia/martial arts fantasy-related (pirates, chefs, superheroes, etc), and to instead carry forth the vague general spirit and tone of Dragon Ball (or their own rough idea/interpretation of it at least) in stories that AREN'T martial arts fantasy & Taoist mythology-focused in any serious way.

Yu Yu Hakusho meanwhile is not only Wuxia/martial arts fantasy themed, but more specifically it deals with a trope/archetype/form of it that Dragon Ball largely DOESN'T: that of martial artists as Ghost Hunters and warriors who mainly deal in the Buddhist occult and paranormal. I've mentioned this in other threads before (and probably should've also gone into it in more detail in the original Wuxia thread: I plan to in a still-in-the-works Wuxia Thread 2.0) but one of the biggest, most prominent Wuxia archetypes that Dragon Ball DIDN'T really ever touch upon throughout its run was that of stories and tropes relating to Fangxiangshi: Chinese Exorcists and Taoist Ghost Hunters.

There's a VERY massive sub-strain of Wuxia/martial arts fantasy stories that are more paranormal/horror focused in which these kinds of characters are the primary focus: they in turn stem from real life stories and myths pertaining to Taoist priests who utilized Chi cultivation and supernatural martial arts-related skills (along with a whole host of other mystic paraphernalia) as traveling exorcists and demon fighters. I've described them as being basically the Chinese/Wuxia/martial arts fantasy equivalent of Van Helsing-like Vampire Hunters in gothic European horror stories: experts in the occult who use their vast knowledge of their culture's demonology and ancient mysticism to combat the forces of Hell and spirits of the afterlife and protect the living from the dead. In European gothic horror, such characters fight the demonic forces of their culture's Hell using things like Holy Water, wooden stakes, garlic, crossbows, and Christian spiritual beliefs: in Wuxia and martial arts fantasy fiction, they fight the demonic forces of their culture's Hell using enchanted blades, Fulu talismans, Chi-cultivating supernatural kung fu (as is the norm throughout Wuxia), and Taoist spiritual beliefs.

It is THAT particular strain of Wuxia/Taoist martial arts fantasy from which Yu Yu Hakusho is largely working from as its basis (and its also naturally the strain/subgenre of Wuxia where Jiangshi/Chinese vampires are also most routinely present; unlike in DB which only borrowed the physical appearance of such creatures for Chaozu's character design without actually making him one): it has virtually NO direct link to Dragon Ball insofar as one being of any obvious influence on the other, apart from them both stemming from the same overall core martial arts fantasy genre of storytelling (that and the whole "Afterlife as a Japanese office" thing). While Dragon Ball routinely deals in the Buddhist Afterlife, spirits, demons, gods, and other basic themes of Taoist spirituality (as plenty of other Wuxia stories in general often do), it NEVER does so from the perspective and standpoint of martial arts exorcists and Taoist paranormal/occult experts: Dragon Ball is VERY much that of a wandering Youxia adventure of constant training, challenge, self-discovery, and competition.

Yu Yu Hakusho is of a closely related/connected, but still VERY distinctive strain and subgenre of Wuxia storytelling that deals in experts and warriors of the Buddhist/Taoist occult and paranormal who while they are indeed Ki-cultivating martial artists in constant training as well, their primary goals and function is less competition and testing of their skills and more to act as exorcists and Taoist "ghostbusters" of a sort. Though Yusuke does indeed have in him the general fighting spirit and drive of a Youxia martial arts master who wishes to constantly challenge himself and pit his skills against other worthy warriors, he actively struggles against this throughout YYH (unlike Goku, who always fully embraces it without reservations) against his bigger, less selfish duties as a Spirit Detective (YYH's term for what is effectively a Fangxiangshi-like Taoist exorcist/ghost hunter).

In essence, think of Yu Yu Hakusho's type of Wuxia/martial arts fantasy story as inhabiting the same kind of Eastern fantasy genre, utilizing the same mythology, and general storytelling tropes, but with its focus on a different kind of Wuxia character archetype than Dragon Ball's: ghost hunters rather than wandering challenge & adventure-seeking fighters.

Like imagine you had two different European, Tolkien-esque medieval high fantasy franchises, but one is centered on a group of elf rangers and the other on human paladins, or something along those lines. They're clearly related and in the same broader fantasy genre, but they're certainly going to diverge in what types of specific stories they'll be telling within that broader framework, and obviously one's existence is in no way necessarily hinged upon the other's.

Or imagine if Dragon Ball's main central character from the beginning were instead Tao Pai Pai or pre-22nd Budokai Tenshinhan (unscrupulous, amoral martial arts assassins/hitmen), rather than Goku (pure, noble, roving Youxia) and it otherwise inhabited the same world with the same Eastern martial arts fantasy conventions, but with stories focused on the assignments of these mystical kung fu hitmen rather than the growth of a pure-hearted, Wukong-like boy-monkey from the mountains. Same broader genre and set of basic storytelling conventions, with a much different type of character perspective.

Or for another example, there's a very famous and noteworthy Wuxia character/franchise I mentioned in the Wuxia thread was that of Chu Liuxiang, a noble-hearted, benevolent martial arts bandit/gentleman thief who is the star of his own long-running series of Wuxia novels and films centered on his roguish, Wuxia Robin Hood/Lupin-like exploits. Imagine it as being roughly akin to a Dragon Ball series where the main character and focus was (a MUCH more suave and sophisticated take on) Yamucha in his bandit days.

Dragon Ball and Yu Yu Hakusho's connection to one another is sorta along those rough lines: same broader genre, different character archetype at the center.

While Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragon Ball are certainly tied together by their bigger, more overarching umbrella genre of Chinese-derived martial arts fantasy stories, Yu Yu Hakusho takes it down the road of a horror/paranormal subgenre of it that in some ways diverges a fair bit from Dragon Ball's more straightforward warriors path (while still containing SOME elements of it such as martial arts tournaments and Yusuke's inner-drive for a challenge and test of his skills). The main direct link of one actively influencing the other, as far as I'm aware of at least, would appear to be Yu Yu Hakusho's Buddhist Afterlife as a 90s Japanese office building being clearly swiped from Dragon Ball (and ran with even further): but otherwise, they're simply two totally different stories working within the same broad genre of Taoist myths and Wuxia martial arts fantasy.

Just because Dragon Ball existed and was massively popular, doesn't therefore mean that EVERYTHING within its (MUCH older and bigger) genre owes its very existence to it. Wuxia and martial arts fantasy stories akin to Yu Yu Hakusho and others would've continued getting made (in dizzying amounts), both within and outside of Japanese anime and manga, and continued being popular throughout Asia (and the world) even had Dragon Ball never been made. If anything, the fact that such horror/occult infused Wuxia was going through a MASSIVE surge in popularity throughout Asia during the late 80s and early 90s (as I also talked about a little bit in a few other threads here) probably had a LOT more to do with YYH's creation than did Dragon Ball were I to venture a guess.

Just because Dragon Ball is A big name in this genre doesn't mean it is THE big name in this genre. Dragon Ball is a milestone, not ground zero.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Mister_Popo » Fri Oct 19, 2018 2:18 pm

It didn't want to copy the story and have one of it's own, but the show did use simular aspects as DB was this popular and set the benchmark of that era.

I was watching Seven Deadly Sins recently, a shounen within a completely different setting as Dragon Ball but it used a comparable system of power levels. :lol:
I guess DB's legacy will count for the long run. Future shows will keep getting inspiration from it.

Yu Yu Hakusho is one of those shows i still have to finish, it's not bad but from the older shows i still prefer Saint Seiya, Fist of the Northstar, Rurouni Kenshin ...

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Mewzard » Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:17 pm

JohnnyCashKami wrote:It sorta feel so, the music had a Yamamoto-vibe, the fights similar to Z and there were some VAs from the DB cast, iirc.

Same happened with Saint Seiya but neither of these two anime series were ever as grand as they wanted to be, as was and still is, Dragon Ball Z.

YYH and SS have really solid scores and catchy, memorable theme songs.

By the way, Saint Seiya (aka: Knights of the Zodiac) was at one point very popular in Western countries although Yu Yu Hakusho wasn't even as much but it was appreciated in US, at least. There appears to be an English Animax dub that's supposedly better than FUNi's dub but not something I care about, tbh. Just thought to bring it up while at it.
If anything, there were some elements that Dragon Ball copied from Saint Seiya:

Remember SSJ, that golden power up we all love that hit the Dragon Ball manga in Chapter 318, back in April of 1991?

Have a little Golden gem that hit volumes in March of 1989, which would have been sometime in 1988 for WSJ chapter (for some reason, chapters were combined and renumbered in volume form, so I don't have an exact date):

Image

Hell, Saint Seiya ended in 1990 in WSJ with a god power up, decades before Battle of Gods:

Image

As for voice actors, remember. While Tohru Furuya was Yamcha first before Pegasus Seiya, Mami Koyama was Lunch before Ophiuchus Shaina, and Hiromi Tsuru was Bulma before Chameleon June, Hirotaka Suzuoki was Dragon Shiryu before he was Tien, Ryo Horikawa was Andromeda Shun before he was Vegeta, Hideyuki Hori was Phoenix Ikki before he was Captain Ginyu, and Ryusei Nakao was Kraken Isaac before he was Freeza.

There are more in both sides, but those are the ones that stand out the most in my mind.

Really, Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya started in the same year, so Dragon Ball only had a few months ahead of it in terms of music and voice acting.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Mister_Popo » Fri Oct 19, 2018 5:31 pm

Yes, pretty epic anime.

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Ssjcell » Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:33 pm

I would say it has some similar elements such as the after life and king yamma but not too many . And for the record yu yu Hakusho is an excellent anime front to back

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Kid Buu » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:31 pm

The Dark Tournament finals is similar to Cell Games. With Cell/Toguro attacking the protagonists friends to enrage the protagonist and make them unlock their true power.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by Wizard Sesame » Sat Oct 20, 2018 2:10 am

Kid Buu wrote:The Dark Tournament finals is similar to Cell Games. With Cell/Toguro attacking the protagonists friends to enrage the protagonist and make them unlock their true power.
Their release date was like a few months apart in real time, so it's almost definitively simply a coincidence.

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by zarmack » Sun Oct 21, 2018 8:16 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:There's certainly one key thing that YYH took significant influence from Dragon Ball for: and that's the idea of the Eastern Buddhist Afterlife (King Enma/Yama, Oni demons, etc) and depicting it within the framework of modern day Japanese office culture. That's the one key thing in YYH that is very much specifically a Dragon Ball-unique idea (and a damn clever/fun one at that) that YYH not only clearly took from DB, but also I would argue further fleshed out and took advantage of to its own benefit.

Apart from that though? No, as I've made it my personal mission to try and impress on these forums numerous times now for the past few years, Dragon Ball DID. NOT. INVENT. MOST. OF. THESE. TROPES. Dragon Ball's core themes, storylines, character archetypes, and yes, its very style of fighting and depicting Ki and supernatural martial arts, are ALL taken directly from the broader Chinese genre of Wuxia/martial arts fantasy via literally countless films, comic books, novels, poems, ancient Taoist & Buddhist legends and myths, etc.

Goku being a rural, naive bumpkin who knows nothing about the modern world, but is a genius savant at martial arts? That's an ancient Wuxia trope. Characters harnessing their inner Ki/Chi to fly through the sky, smash whole mountains apart with their bare hands, fire light beams of Chi across the countryside that can level the entire landscape, and move at speeds impossible to keep up with the naked human eye? ALL very, very, VERY old depictions of Taoist martial arts myths whose depictions in Wuxia fiction date back CENTURIES and have been used in modern media since the black and white SILENT FILMS of the 1920s. Tournament drama and rivalry storylines? As old and standard a set of Wuxia cliches as there is. Characters like Gohan, Freeza, Yamucha, Tenshinhan, Tao Pai Pai, Vegeta, Kuririn, Muten Roshi, Tsuru Sennin, even some aspects of Cell? ALL culled from common Wuxia archetypes. Dragon Ball's core themes of training, self-improvement, competition, breaking past one's barriers, passing the torch to future generations of fighters, etc? ALL key, central themes of Wuxia, and just general, non-Wuxia martial arts fiction overall.

By which I mean: these things had ALL been done and done and done to death across literally countless THOUSANDS upon thousands of films, books, TV shows, comics, and even ancient poetry, stage plays, and religious myths dating back hundreds if not THOUSANDS of years before Dragon Ball or anime or any of us ever came along. Dragon Ball didn't invent them, and it CERTAINLY wasn't the one, sole thing that was inspiring other works of fiction to continue doing them well into the modern day. All Dragon Ball had done was put Toriyama's own distinctive spin on what were otherwise VERY old Chinese/Taoist cliches about superhuman martial arts skills and fighters.

Hell if anything, most of Dragon Ball's most ardent self-described successors in Japanese Shonen manga and anime from the late 90s onward have largely been going out of their own way to NOT be Wuxia/martial arts fantasy-related (pirates, chefs, superheroes, etc), and to instead carry forth the vague general spirit and tone of Dragon Ball (or their own rough idea/interpretation of it at least) in stories that AREN'T martial arts fantasy & Taoist mythology-focused in any serious way.

Yu Yu Hakusho meanwhile is not only Wuxia/martial arts fantasy themed, but more specifically it deals with a trope/archetype/form of it that Dragon Ball largely DOESN'T: that of martial artists as Ghost Hunters and warriors who mainly deal in the Buddhist occult and paranormal. I've mentioned this in other threads before (and probably should've also gone into it in more detail in the original Wuxia thread: I plan to in a still-in-the-works Wuxia Thread 2.0) but one of the biggest, most prominent Wuxia archetypes that Dragon Ball DIDN'T really ever touch upon throughout its run was that of stories and tropes relating to Fangxiangshi: Chinese Exorcists and Taoist Ghost Hunters.

There's a VERY massive sub-strain of Wuxia/martial arts fantasy stories that are more paranormal/horror focused in which these kinds of characters are the primary focus: they in turn stem from real life stories and myths pertaining to Taoist priests who utilized Chi cultivation and supernatural martial arts-related skills (along with a whole host of other mystic paraphernalia) as traveling exorcists and demon fighters. I've described them as being basically the Chinese/Wuxia/martial arts fantasy equivalent of Van Helsing-like Vampire Hunters in gothic European horror stories: experts in the occult who use their vast knowledge of their culture's demonology and ancient mysticism to combat the forces of Hell and spirits of the afterlife and protect the living from the dead. In European gothic horror, such characters fight the demonic forces of their culture's Hell using things like Holy Water, wooden stakes, garlic, crossbows, and Christian spiritual beliefs: in Wuxia and martial arts fantasy fiction, they fight the demonic forces of their culture's Hell using enchanted blades, Fulu talismans, Chi-cultivating supernatural kung fu (as is the norm throughout Wuxia), and Taoist spiritual beliefs.

It is THAT particular strain of Wuxia/Taoist martial arts fantasy from which Yu Yu Hakusho is largely working from as its basis (and its also naturally the strain/subgenre of Wuxia where Jiangshi/Chinese vampires are also most routinely present; unlike in DB which only borrowed the physical appearance of such creatures for Chaozu's character design without actually making him one): it has virtually NO direct link to Dragon Ball insofar as one being of any obvious influence on the other, apart from them both stemming from the same overall core martial arts fantasy genre of storytelling (that and the whole "Afterlife as a Japanese office" thing). While Dragon Ball routinely deals in the Buddhist Afterlife, spirits, demons, gods, and other basic themes of Taoist spirituality (as plenty of other Wuxia stories in general often do), it NEVER does so from the perspective and standpoint of martial arts exorcists and Taoist paranormal/occult experts: Dragon Ball is VERY much that of a wandering Youxia adventure of constant training, challenge, self-discovery, and competition.

Yu Yu Hakusho is of a closely related/connected, but still VERY distinctive strain and subgenre of Wuxia storytelling that deals in experts and warriors of the Buddhist/Taoist occult and paranormal who while they are indeed Ki-cultivating martial artists in constant training as well, their primary goals and function is less competition and testing of their skills and more to act as exorcists and Taoist "ghostbusters" of a sort. Though Yusuke does indeed have in him the general fighting spirit and drive of a Youxia martial arts master who wishes to constantly challenge himself and pit his skills against other worthy warriors, he actively struggles against this throughout YYH (unlike Goku, who always fully embraces it without reservations) against his bigger, less selfish duties as a Spirit Detective (YYH's term for what is effectively a Fangxiangshi-like Taoist exorcist/ghost hunter).

In essence, think of Yu Yu Hakusho's type of Wuxia/martial arts fantasy story as inhabiting the same kind of Eastern fantasy genre, utilizing the same mythology, and general storytelling tropes, but with its focus on a different kind of Wuxia character archetype than Dragon Ball's: ghost hunters rather than wandering challenge & adventure-seeking fighters.

Like imagine you had two different European, Tolkien-esque medieval high fantasy franchises, but one is centered on a group of elf rangers and the other on human paladins, or something along those lines. They're clearly related and in the same broader fantasy genre, but they're certainly going to diverge in what types of specific stories they'll be telling within that broader framework, and obviously one's existence is in no way necessarily hinged upon the other's.

Or imagine if Dragon Ball's main central character from the beginning were instead Tao Pai Pai or pre-22nd Budokai Tenshinhan (unscrupulous, amoral martial arts assassins/hitmen), rather than Goku (pure, noble, roving Youxia) and it otherwise inhabited the same world with the same Eastern martial arts fantasy conventions, but with stories focused on the assignments of these mystical kung fu hitmen rather than the growth of a pure-hearted, Wukong-like boy-monkey from the mountains. Same broader genre and set of basic storytelling conventions, with a much different type of character perspective.

Or for another example, there's a very famous and noteworthy Wuxia character/franchise I mentioned in the Wuxia thread was that of Chu Liuxiang, a noble-hearted, benevolent martial arts bandit/gentleman thief who is the star of his own long-running series of Wuxia novels and films centered on his roguish, Wuxia Robin Hood/Lupin-like exploits. Imagine it as being roughly akin to a Dragon Ball series where the main character and focus was (a MUCH more suave and sophisticated take on) Yamucha in his bandit days.

Dragon Ball and Yu Yu Hakusho's connection to one another is sorta along those rough lines: same broader genre, different character archetype at the center.

While Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragon Ball are certainly tied together by their bigger, more overarching umbrella genre of Chinese-derived martial arts fantasy stories, Yu Yu Hakusho takes it down the road of a horror/paranormal subgenre of it that in some ways diverges a fair bit from Dragon Ball's more straightforward warriors path (while still containing SOME elements of it such as martial arts tournaments and Yusuke's inner-drive for a challenge and test of his skills). The main direct link of one actively influencing the other, as far as I'm aware of at least, would appear to be Yu Yu Hakusho's Buddhist Afterlife as a 90s Japanese office building being clearly swiped from Dragon Ball (and ran with even further): but otherwise, they're simply two totally different stories working within the same broad genre of Taoist myths and Wuxia martial arts fantasy.

Just because Dragon Ball existed and was massively popular, doesn't therefore mean that EVERYTHING within its (MUCH older and bigger) genre owes its very existence to it. Wuxia and martial arts fantasy stories akin to Yu Yu Hakusho and others would've continued getting made (in dizzying amounts), both within and outside of Japanese anime and manga, and continued being popular throughout Asia (and the world) even had Dragon Ball never been made. If anything, the fact that such horror/occult infused Wuxia was going through a MASSIVE surge in popularity throughout Asia during the late 80s and early 90s (as I also talked about a little bit in a few other threads here) probably had a LOT more to do with YYH's creation than did Dragon Ball were I to venture a guess.

Just because Dragon Ball is A big name in this genre doesn't mean it is THE big name in this genre. Dragon Ball is a milestone, not ground zero.
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by goku the krump dancer » Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:00 am

JohnnyCashKami wrote:It sorta feel so, the music had a Yamamoto-vibe, the fights similar to Z and there were some VAs from the DB cast, iirc.

Same happened with Saint Seiya but neither of these two anime series were ever as grand as they wanted to be, as was and still is, Dragon Ball Z.

YYH and SS have really solid scores and catchy, memorable theme songs.

By the way, Saint Seiya (aka: Knights of the Zodiac) was at one point very popular in Western countries although Yu Yu Hakusho wasn't even as much but it was appreciated in US, at least. There appears to be an English Animax dub that's supposedly better than FUNi's dub but not something I care about, tbh. Just thought to bring it up while at it.
I'm not sure on what bases are you trying to compare the two, but if you're going purely off aesthetics, then i wholeheartedly disagree.. Hell from a narrative stand point they're still hardly anything "copied" from Dragon Ball. If anything a lot of the story elements that they share, one could confidently argue that YuYu Hakusho does a lot of things BETTER than Dragon Ball.

Aesthetically they look or sound nothing a like. The Blast noise that's heard when a Spirit Gun is charged and fired sounds NOTHING Like a Kamehameha, the overall score and feel of YuYu definitely has more of a Modern "early/mid 90's" atmosphere to it, while Dragon Ball, at least in its original run had more of an "Old World" vibe to it, despite the Flying Cars and Spaceships. Look at the way most of the characters in YuYu Hakusho Dress, they're either wearing regular street clothes, school uniforms or they're well dressed dapper business men. Very rarely do you see someone wearing anything resembling "Battle Armor" or Martial Arts Dogi, most of the characters who wear anything like that, is usually heavily affiliated with Demons/Demon World.

In Dragon Ball they're either in some form of Karate Gi or battle armor.. or just plain butt naked. Save for Future Trunks, everyone walks around in Fight Me clothes and even then he walks around with a sword. Mind you That's just a bare minimum comparison.

Narratively speaking, Team Urameshi actually FEELS like a team!, whereas the Z fighters mostly feel like "Goku with assist trophies". The Tournament Arcs in YuYu Hakusho had pretty high steaks surrounding them, The 21st and 22nd Budokai's were mostly just for Shits and Giggles though one could Argue that Tien wouldnt have minded killing Goku had the tournament allowed it. Genkai's Tournament had Yusuke not only seeking her out as a mentor but also he had to Stop a Demon from Killing Genkai and stealing her secrets, had Rando succeeded he would've been a threat to the planet, Same thing had Toguro won the Dark Tournament. I could go on and on but I wont.. (I'm too tired to continue to care as much haha). But hopefully you get my point, those series are almost NOTHING alike outside of super fast punches and kicks during the fights. THAT's even a stretch honestly as that's hardly a common fight sequence in YuYu.

The only real similarity you could make is Goku being revealed to be a Alien and Yusuke likewise a Demon, though both were executed completely differently but in a good way in their respective stories... YuYu Hakusho is Awesome! :thumbup:
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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Mon Oct 22, 2018 10:17 pm

@jjgp1112

Haha, no. DBZ isn't the "end-all be-all" as you put it, but it certainly seem like it struck a nerve on you. Anime series (and Western ones too) have obviously taken inspiration from Dragon Ball as they also want to attract to a potential audience and that means money, obviously.

It's no secret shows that took ideas from Dragon Ball would have loved to have been the ones to come up with it, DB was like scoring the fuckin' jackpot for Toriyama and TOEI.

No need to get so sensitive.

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by zarmack » Mon Oct 22, 2018 10:49 pm

Speaking of which, does Jiren kind of remind anyone else of Toguro?

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Re: Was Yu Yu Hakusho trying to copy Dragon Ball Z?

Post by jjgp1112 » Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:25 am

JohnnyCashKami wrote:@jjgp1112

Haha, no. DBZ isn't the "end-all be-all" as you put it, but it certainly seem like it struck a nerve on you. Anime series (and Western ones too) have obviously taken inspiration from Dragon Ball as they also want to attract to a potential audience and that means money, obviously.

It's no secret shows that took ideas from Dragon Ball would have loved to have been the ones to come up with it, DB was like scoring the fuckin' jackpot for Toriyama and TOEI.

No need to get so sensitive.
The premise of your post and the points you made all came from what looks like a very ill-informed place that would seriously imply almost no exposure to most things from that era aside from DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho, in particular YYH's soundtrack being "Yamamoto-like" as if that sound was in any way unique to him, or them sharing voice actors. I wasn't being sensitive at all, but merely being direct. Kunzait said what I was trying to say in far more detail. As he said, the entire premise of a fantasy kung-fu series with Ki blasts and monsters isn't something unique to Dragon Ball.

Not to mention Saint Seiya came out in 1986, when Dragon Ball was in the middle of the Red Ribbon arc.
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