The story behind the villains

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ABED
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The story behind the villains

Post by ABED » Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:17 pm

I love hearing where writers get their inspirations for their stories. In this particular case, do you guys know the inspirations for the various DB villains? It can range from the name, the look, the motives, etc. For instance, Freeza was inspired by the land sharks (not the SNL kind) in Japan? And wasn't Freeza's third form inspired by the Xenomorphs from Alien(s)?
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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by Kid Buu » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:38 pm

Androids inspired by the Terminator films is another notable one.

Early antagonists being based on Journey to the West characters.

Baba's fighters based on Universal Horror monsters.
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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by Polyphase Avatron » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:54 pm

I know Beerus was based on one of Toriyama's cats.
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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by Zephyr » Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:18 pm

Piccolo Daimao, Freeza, and Majin Buu are, were, in part, inspired by Toriyama's three editors, respectively: Kazuhiko Torishima, Yū Kondō, and Fuyuto Takeda.

Kunzait has mentioned that Tao Pai Pai and Freeza are also, in part, based on prolific characters or archetypes in Wuxia films. I don't remember the former, but the latter was Dongfag Bubai. Hopefully he chimes in and elaborates.

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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by sunsetshimmer » Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:38 pm

Oceanus Shenron is inspired by Japanese legend princess Otohime.
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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:13 am

Polyphase Avatron wrote:I know Beerus was based on one of Toriyama's cats.
So was Karin incidentally.
Zephyr wrote:Kunzait has mentioned that Tao Pai Pai and Freeza are also, in part, based on prolific characters or archetypes in Wuxia films. I don't remember the former, but the latter was Dongfag Bubai. Hopefully he chimes in and elaborates.
Dongfang Bubai. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Dongfang Bubai is one of the main villains from classic Wuxia novel The Smiling Proud Wanderer, and one of the all time most iconic and influential Wuxia characters of the last hundred years easily, to the point where characters that are essentially Bubai knockoffs are effectively their own archetype all unto themselves at this point.

Image

Basically the Bubai character-type - as is the case with Bubai his/herself (Bubai is a castrated male who is effectively transgendered; and is thus almost always played in films and TV shows by a female actress, and it often tends to be a career-defining breakthrough role for most Chinese actresses who are cast in it) - tends to be a ruthless, feared, all-powerful martial artist who is head of a vast organization/network of fighters that are fanatically devoted to him/her and who are treated in turn as expendable pawns to be casually and thoughtlessly slaughtered by their master for their slightest failures. This villain-type is also very androgynous and effete/haughty in their appearance and mannerisms, having a calm facade masking a twisted inner-psychopathy, is usually deathly pale or albino in hair and/or skin color, and prone to fighting with lethal piercing fingertip attacks.

As noted, Dongfang Bubai embodies all of these characteristics (and a whole lot more) and was so iconic and popular that scores upon scores of Wuxia emperor-type villains have emulated him/her for many, many years after. Freeza of course being clearly no exception; and if he isn't based directly on Bubai his/herself, then most certainly on any one of the countless Bubai clones that have cropped up throughout scores of Wuxia films/books/TV shows/comics/other anime & manga in his/her wake. Or he's just based more generally/broadly on just that villain "type" overall rather than from any one specific example of it.

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Bubai even has one particular spinoff film starring him/her as the main protagonist where his/her martial arts cult gets involved in all sorts of global political intrigue among various conquering empires, culminating in him/her having to fight against Spanish Conquistadors during the climax. Its every bit as bugfuck insane a concoction as it sounds: so of course it was from the early 90s.

Tao Pai Pai meanwhile is a composite who is very closely modeled on two different but very related characters: Sheng Kuan, the main villain of the classic Jackie Chan (non-Wuxia) martial arts film Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, and Thunderleg, the main villain from the original Drunken Master (also starring Chan). Both characters were played by legendary martial arts film star Hwang Jang Lee, as both movies were filmed back to back with one another by the same director and using the exact same cast and crew across both films, which are thus regarded as companion-pieces to one another.

Tao Pai Pai's character background and role in the story is modeled on Thunderleg (who is a martial arts assassin/hitman hired to kill the main hero), while his physical appearance/character design is modeled directly after Sheng Kuan's pretty much exactly verbatim. Tao's general personality overall is basically just Hwang Jang Lee's overall iconic & charismatic villainous screen persona (he was notable for almost always playing sinister, unscrupulous, underhanded, and lethally brutal bad guys in most of his martial arts movies).

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You might notice a passing resemblance

Meanwhile, most of Tao's moves and fighting techniques are a general collection of fairly over the top ridiculous Wuxia stunts common to many films throughout the genre.

Image Image
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Last edited by Kunzait_83 on Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:53 am, edited 3 times 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.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by Zephyr » Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:47 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:
Zephyr wrote:Kunzait has mentioned that Tao Pai Pai and Freeza are also, in part, based on prolific characters or archetypes in Wuxia films. I don't remember the former, but the latter was Dongfag Bubai. Hopefully he chimes in and elaborates.
Dongfang Bubai. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Uhm.....that's my bad for not catching it, but I swear it was a copy-paste from one of your posts! :lol:

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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:51 am

Zephyr wrote:Uhm.....that's my bad for not catching it, but I swear it was a copy-paste from one of your posts! :lol:
Oh god, it is! And from the main Wuxia thread no less! :o :o :o :lol: :lol: :lol: :oops: :oops: :oops:

To be fair though, I only made that typo just the once: its spelled properly every other time the name comes up throughout (which is a fair decent amount), so of all the sentences you zeroed in on to copy/paste from... :D
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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: The story behind the villains

Post by RandomGuy96 » Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:08 am

ABED wrote:I love hearing where writers get their inspirations for their stories. In this particular case, do you guys know the inspirations for the various DB villains? It can range from the name, the look, the motives, etc. For instance, Freeza was inspired by the land sharks (not the SNL kind) in Japan? And wasn't Freeza's third form inspired by the Xenomorphs from Alien(s)?
It was already noted that Majin Buu was inspired by Toriyama's then-editor, and I believe you could extrapolate where he got his name (Cinderella... hence Bibidi-Babidi-Buu). But he was also heavily inspired by Arabian Nights, or more accurately, the various adaptations of One Thousand and One Nights that Toriyama would have watched as a kid.
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/press-archive ... the-majin/
Is the appearance of Majin Boo inspired by the Arabian-style majin, or “genie”? His clothes seem to have a sort of Arabian fairy-tale style. Or were you thinking of a different kind of “majin”?

Right. I saw The Arabian Nights when I was a kid, so I have this set image of what a majin, or genie, should look like. So that’s how I came to put him in that costume.
Toriyama drawing from Arabian Nights for Buu's aesthetic would go a ways to explaining the plethora of references to both those stories and other Arabian folklore about djinns in the Buu arc.
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RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Re: The story behind the villains

Post by Tian » Fri Nov 16, 2018 3:17 am

I recall reading Frieza was based on Akira's childhood fears.

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