Dragon Ball's True Genre: We Need to Talk about Wuxia

[Zephyr]

I think it's far more pragmatic to apply the term "Wuxia" for all of the "proto-Wuxia" and "Wuxia-inspiring" material. Otherwise, what word would you use to describe all of that stuff? As Kunzait already pointed out, "Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction" is a mouthful. I think we can agree that all of what Kunzait's been describing in the thread, that most would label "Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction" IS indeed of a similar nature that is justifiably denoted as belonging under one single umbrella term. And if I am correct in that assumption, what singular term would be most fitting?

[Herms]

If either Herms or Kei thinks for even so much as a microsecond that I'm going to pick through that ENTIRE write up from start to finish, pick out nearly each and every single solitary instance of the use of the word "Wuxia", and replace it instead with "Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction", they're both of them clinically, certifiably, straight-to-Bellevue insane.

Neither of us suggested anything of the sort. But some note to the effect that your definition of "Wuxia" is broad and that in Japan the term is not commonly applied to DB or the pre-20th century works mentioned might be a good idea. Your introduction strongly gives the impression that the DB=Wuxia connection is taken for granted in Japan (or at least, that not associating DB with Wuxia is peculiar to Western fandom), but we've got Kei saying that's not the case. I don't want to get too bogged down in this one small point, since this is a great thread with lots of fantastic information and images, but I think it's an important clarification.

I think it's far more pragmatic to apply the term "Wuxia" for all of the "proto-Wuxia" and "Wuxia-inspiring" material. Otherwise, what word would you use to describe all of that stuff? As Kunzait already pointed out, "Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction" is a mouthful. I think we can agree that all of what Kunzait's been describing in the thread, that most would label "Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction" IS indeed of a similar nature that is justifiably denoted as belonging under one single umbrella term. And if I am correct in that assumption, what singular term would be most fitting?

Yeah, ultimately I don't have a problem with using "Wuxia" as a catch-all term. Kunzait says it's commonly accepted in English, and I defer to him on that. All I really want to point out is that the term isn't used in quite so catch-all a way in Japanese (or Chinese either from what I've seen, but without some Chinese equivalent to Kei to verify, I'll hold off on any definitive statements), and so in Japan itself DB is not commonly referred to as Wuxia. The thread's title and introduction give the impression that DB is commonly labelled as part of the Wuxia genre in Japan, and I just want to avoid that misconception.

(I admit, I increasingly regret diverting the thread onto this tangent.)

[Kunzait_83]

If either Herms or Kei thinks for even so much as a microsecond that I'm going to pick through that ENTIRE write up from start to finish, pick out nearly each and every single solitary instance of the use of the word "Wuxia", and replace it instead with "Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction", they're both of them clinically, certifiably, straight-to-Bellevue insane.

Neither of us suggested anything of the sort. But some note to the effect that your definition of "Wuxia" is broad and that in Japan the term is not commonly applied to DB or the pre-20th century works mentioned might be a good idea. Your introduction strongly gives the impression that the DB=Wuxia connection is taken for granted in Japan (or at least, that not associating DB with Wuxia is peculiar to Western fandom), but we've got Kei saying that's not the case. I don't want to get too bogged down in this one small point, since this is a great thread with lots of fantastic information and images, but I think it's an important clarification.


The thread's title and introduction give the impression that DB is commonly labelled as part of the Wuxia genre in Japan, and I just want to avoid that misconception.

.....

Nothing in the introduction, and I don't think even the entire write up itself, ever at any single point gives even the slightest indication about Wuxia as a term's use specifically in Japan. You and Kei and only you and Kei are the ones who are talking about that. My use of Wuxia throughout this entire thread (up until my most recent response towards Kei at least) has been completely without the slightest comment towards Japan's use of the word, for a very simple reason: at no point when writing this did I even THINK ABOUT Japan's views towards what is (clearly) a Chinese word. Hell, I don't even know Japan's Shenron/Shen Long-esque Japanese re-approximation of the word, and in all truthfulness I've never even really in ALL these past 25+ years ever even thought to look that up.*

*Note that that last point is something I'm admitting to with no small amount of shame and embarrassment. Let it never be argued that I'm somehow NOT in fact an utter moron and meat-head of the highest order.

Also while we're on the subject... this is literally the first in my entire life I've ever heard of anyone NOT considering the "Big 3" Chinese novels as Wuxia. In pretty much every, and I do mean very literally E-V-E-R-Y single solitary discussion I've EVER been involved with about those books over the last few decades, they've ALWAYS been held under the prism of being "the three most genre-defining Wuxia stories". Its not even just that they're considered to be Wuxia stories: they're considered to be THE Wuxia stories.

[Cipher]

Seems like we're in a terminology debate now, and I'm not really equipped to speak on that.

What I do want to keep in sight though is what kunzait's done to provide a thorough history of the tropes that informed much of Dragon Ball's structure and visual identity -- to present that, though whatever cultural cross-pollination or convergent evolution is most accurate, it falls in line with a particular genre of fiction under any name, rather than being the stand-alone invention many Western fans hold it to be. Also that, under whatever terminology, there's a large swath of fiction its storytelling elements fit snugly into, the whole series through, whether by design or by accident (and probably, though the way genre tropes and cultural osmosis works, both).

And that's cool, important shit and I've learned quite a bit.

(Also, from a theory standpoint, it does seem pragmatic to affix the genre with an easy general term, even if it's retroactive and unique to Western discussion, because ... these things are all of one genre, again, whether through cross-pollination or convergent evolution. Wuxia may or may not be it, but ... you know, theory language and all that. Maybe "martial arts fantasy" is fine, but the key thing here is that it seems to be a rather clear single genre even with different cultural nuances, into which Dragon Ball utterly fits and from which it draws the bulk of its influences through its entire run.)

EDIT -- Also, Toriyama is or was something of a pop-culture junkie, and was certainly quite into at least the brand of Kung-fu cinema helmed by Bruce Lee. So regardless of whether it permeated larger Japanese culture, it seems possible Toriyama could have been taking cues even directly from the type of material Kunzait's presented here.

[irreality]

rather than being the stand-alone invention many Western fans hold it to be.

Yeah, that is the main thing I appreciated about this. I had seen a lot of threads of the sort "Was Dragonball the first to do X…" which seemed frustrating because I couldn't name counter examples off the top of my head, but I knew inherently just by having caught glimpses of chinese and japanese media (cinema, tv, manga) growing up that it was not the case: Dragon Ball clearly had lots of influences all over the place. It is nice to have a lot of them put in one place as a reference and named.

[Zephyr]

Yeah, ultimately I don't have a problem with using "Wuxia" as a catch-all term. Kunzait says it's commonly accepted in English, and I defer to him on that. All I really want to point out is that the term isn't used in quite so catch-all a way in Japanese (or Chinese either from what I've seen, but without some Chinese equivalent to Kei to verify, I'll hold off on any definitive statements), and so in Japan itself DB is not commonly referred to as Wuxia. The thread's title and introduction give the impression that DB is commonly labelled as part of the Wuxia genre in Japan, and I just want to avoid that misconception.

Ah okay, that makes more sense.

Nothing in the introduction, and I don't think even the entire write up itself, ever at any single point gives even the slightest indication about Wuxia as a term's use specifically in Japan. You and Kei and only you and Kei are the ones who are talking about that. My use of Wuxia throughout this entire thread (up until my most recent response towards Kei at least) has been completely without the slightest comment towards Japan's use of the word, for a very simple reason: at no point when writing this did I even THINK ABOUT Japan's views towards what is (clearly) a Chinese word.

Perhaps not explicitly, but I can see how they might have read it as implying such. I think just an additional small disclaimer would do wonders for preventing further errors in communication. It'd be a shame to see one of the best threads I've seen here in my entire 5 years on this site derailed with confusion and potentially frustrated posters talking past each other. This shit's just too great.

As far as the transformations go, while stuff like that DOES happen from time to time in some bits of Wuxia Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction (I'm having trouble thinking of very many specific examples at the moment beyond one*, but I'm sure I've seen it around here and there) that seems to be more the sort of thing that Dragon Ball's kind of played up to the point of having almost made it into its own thing. Golden auras and sudden super-power bursts are the sort of generic things that are just ever-present across Wuxia Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction as a whole, but things like Freeza, Cell, and Boo's multiple physical forms and manifestations are the sort of things that while they DO occasionally happen elsewhere, DB has hammered and relied upon them FAR more often than most Wuxia Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction stories generally tend to.

I guess Dragon Ball had at least some original stuff then (with the ladders of transformations), unless that was pulled from some form of Western media. Golden auras and sudden power bursts are generic, but is golden hair standing up on its ends generic as well?

[Kunzait_83]

Disclaimer added. Better?

[Zephyr]

I think it works well enough.

[goku the krump dancer]

Awesome Awesome AWESOME thread.

I know you listed some but I'm going to try to get the names of all those movies and just have at it.

[NinjaGoku]

Wow, best thread I've ever read! Knowing all this information now has made me appreciate the manga a lot more from all his inspiration, the original background music in DB and Z stays true to Akira's DBworld.

I'm interested to know more about Wuxia's influence on the Buu saga, I guess it was was some of Toriyama's most inventive work because it wasn't so inspired from Wuxia.

So..... GT Wuxia?

[MCDaveG]

So cool thread! That is what got me into Dragon Ball! I was a huge fan of wuxia movies as a kid, those with Jackie Chan, Jet-Li, 38 Chambers of Shaolin and such, even the Monkey King TV show that was airing here.
Anime was mostly Pokémon, Digimon and weird colourful flashy stuff for me before, so as I did follow some of there (mostly Digimon) I was a huge martial arts junkie and as I saw Goku vs Vegeta fight from the Buu arc, it hooked me on.
It's pitty that the pictures are so many in this thread, as it seriously f**ked up my Chrome on second page.

[Innagadadavida]

Man I just want to thank you Kunzait_83 for your effort and research that it took to write this post up. I remember long ago you sent me a PM that was much shorter and sweeter than all this but got me started going down a rabbit hole of Kung Fu films and it helped me gain a deeper appreciation of Dragon Ball. I hope that others will take the time to read through (or at least skim to look at all the pretty pictures), because this is some quality stuff. Its amazing how the more you look into the influences on Dragon Ball, the more obvious it becomes how much of a grab-bag of random pre-existing ideas it really is. That's not a bad thing, after all, every creative work is like that, but its just not obvious to a lot of westerners who haven't had much exposure to the earlier material.

But now we live in a day and age where we have complete access to all this stuff. I will definitely be checking out some of the movies and other works you wrote about. Thanks for all the time you put into this, man.

[tinlunlau]

Wow...that was a chore to read and I am very familiar to the wuxia genre myself. I've read a few of Louis Cha's novels myself (before he went back and dabbled into revising his classics). Believe me when I say this. Louis Cha's novels are so long that they are split into several volumes. I even recall one particular character had to castrate himself in order to achieve a particular set of skills.

[Kunzait_83]

Wow...that was a chore to read and I am very familiar to the wuxia genre myself.

Sincerest possible apologies if the struggle reading it was either due to the length, the images/gifs, or some combination of both. That said though, I'm beyond ecstatic to find at LEAST one other already-initiated Wuxia fan on here.

I even recall one particular character had to castrate himself in order to achieve a particular set of skills.

Dongfang Bubai, who I went into a TON of detail on in this whole mess of post (including the castration bit). Love the character about as much as the next Wuxia fan; allow me to fawn over Brigitte Lin's incredible portrayal in The Swordsman II, like pretty much everyone else has since forever ago. Though like I mentioned earlier on the last page, I think I might have a crush on Joe Chen after watching her play the role on the vast bulk of the newest TV adaptation from a couple of years ago.







Also yeah, Cha's novels are RIDICULOUSLY dense. Totally worth digging into though and can't come recommended highly enough (Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils probably being my personal fave overall if I had to pick, though Smiling Proud Wanderer and Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre are high up there as well, and the latter has one of my favorite ever Wuxia characters in Huogong Toutuo).

By the way just as a quick notice: I haven't forgotten that I was still gonna do an "epilogue"-ish wrap up to all this going into all my personal fan history as a Wuxia (and thus Dragon Ball) dork, I'm just waiting for my PC which is currently being fixed at the moment (one of the hard drives clonked off on me: didn't lose anything important though miraculously) so I'm currently posting from a borrowed laptop that's... a little awkward to use. Hopefully I'll have my computer back in another day or two, then I can more easily whip something up.

[Kendamu]

I've been watching a lot more Shaw Brothers films on El Rey network since I've read this. Since reading it, I've seen:

- The One-Armed Swordsman
- Eagle Shadow Fist
- The 36th Chamber Trilogy
- The Lizard
- The Pirate

I also added a bunch of martial arts films to my streaming services to check out. I'm looking at both the films and Dragon Ball as a whole in a completely new light thanks to this! Thanks for writing it!

I've noticed a bunch of tropes, character types, settings, etc. that match up between these films and Dragon Ball. In Return to the 36th Chamber, I noticed several things that Dragon Ball fans would instantly recognize:

- A polite ultra-powerful villain
- Weird training methods that make the main character stronger without them realizing that they're training
- Moving the big fight to a more remote location where there won't be collateral damage
- Lines like, "I'm only using 60% of my full power!" and, "Now I'm using 70% of my power!"

In Disciples of the 36th Chamber, I noticed some of those things plus a powerful martial artist mother who is strict about raising her children to be scholars.

That's not everything I noticed. The music was another big one. Those listed above are just some that I thought Dragon Ball fans might especially enjoy from some films that aren't too hard to find.

I'd love to talk about this and tell people about what I learned, but there's so much info that I don't think I could make a shorter version that gets my point across just the same.

[DerekPadula]

I've been working on a reply to this post for the last 6 months. Here's my first of what may be several replies, addressing in particular the issue of Hong Kong comics, and asking Did Hong Kong Comics inspire Dragon Ball?

I learned a lot from reading Kunzait_83's post, but it also sent me down a rabbit hole that I still haven't finished digging through. I really wanted to find out if what he's saying is true, and it put a big portion of my other work on hold. So... thanks for that.

Fortunately, in the process of doing so I became a bit of an expert on Hong Kong comics. At least in their relevance to Dragon Ball.

There's a lot more that I want to address in Kunzait's 3 pages of posts, breaking down and analyzing each statement in detail. But man, that would be so tiring, and I don't want to 'live to prove my point.' Plus, I'm not that kind of guy, and in addition, I'm not sure enough people care about it to the degree that I do. I just want to seek the truth and share it with others.

For the record, I think you're wrong that Toriyama intended the Dragon Ball series to be wuxia. And if it is wuxia, then it's by happenstance, like so much of the rest of series. You can read my thoughts on Dragon Ball's Genre here.

So if nothing else, thanks for opening my mind.

[Draconic]

I am happy someone bumped this thread. Can someone sticky it? I think everybody should read this stuff. Some things might be open to interpretation, but some are well researched facts that people SHOULD know.

[Zephyr]

Seconding the suggestion for a sticky.

[Kunzait_83]

Whoa!

So... lots and lots and lots to digest here.

Before I get to address a few niggling issues I have with his article point by point, first and foremost some slobbering high praise is in order for the out and out fantastic work Mr. Padula put in here (as he has in general). Seriously, my (metaphorical) hat is tipped in total admiration to you sir for the IMMENSE level of research, time, and dedication you put into fact checking all this.

Particularly this:

Beyond that, I contacted experts in Hong Kong comics and East Asian culture from around the world and asked them to weigh in on the topic. This includes the actual creators of these comics; namely, Tony Wong and his associates. Tony Wong is the ‘Godfather of Hong Kong comics,’ and a veritable ‘Stan Lee of East Asia.’ He created the entire industry.

And as if that weren’t enough, I reached out to Akira Toriyama and his editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, through my contacts at Viz, who I asked to forward my request to Shueisha.

I practically spit out my drink upon reading this. I know that Mr. Padula has written a VERY extensive (and all around excellent) book about the cultural influences of Dragon Ball, but all the same I want to give him a MASSIVE amount of props and gratitude for him to go to these lengths in researching this topic. I only dearly wish that he'd gotten more responses from more of those parties, but all the same THIS is what makes a community like this so immensely invaluable and worthwhile as a resource.

Seriously man, well done, and I greatly look forward to reading anything further you may have to add on this subject down the line.

So much great research and work went into that write-up that I honestly feel more than a little awkward and shitty for picking certain portions of it apart like I'm about to. But particularly there's the matter of this first point about some of the content within my own actual write-up here in this thread, which I simply couldn't allow to go unresponded to due to it being just outright incorrect.

In addition, most of his definitions about what is and is not wǔxiá are wrong. For example, none of Jackie Chan’s classic movies belong to the wǔxiá genre, such as Drunken Master (醉拳, 1978). Nor do the famous 36th Chamber of Shaolin (少林三十六房, 1978) trilogy. Both are classic kung fu films by definition; not wǔxiá. While ‘kung fu’ and ‘wǔxiá’ share similarities—such as character archetypes and martial arts—they are not the same genre.

While I have indeed certainly tagged examples like Street Fighter and Journey to the West (rightly or wrongly) as being Wuxia, I never at any point in the write up made the claim that Jackie Chan films like Drunken Master or certain Shaw films like 36th Chamber were Wuxia. Those are definitely and without the slightest doubt "traditional" kung fu films/narratives, without any of the supernatural or mythical elements which generally define wuxia and set it apart from regular kung fu fiction. Hell, I think my one and only mention of 36th Chamber in this ENTIRE write up was listing it among the standout important works that Shaw pumped out during their 1970s heyday when going through the company's history. So in all honesty, I have NO idea where this claim is coming from.

If nothing else, I would very, very much appreciate Mr. Padula correcting this particular bit of the article, because it posits me as making claims in my own write up that I did not in any way. If anything in my post(s) in this thread gave the mistaken impression that I identified examples like these two as being wuxia (and at the very least I KNOW that wasn't the case for 36th Chamber), then that was entirely unintentional on my end and I greatly apologize.

That being said, the reason I brought them up in the article in the first place was due to the obvious influence that films like them had had on Dragon Ball. As much as Dragon Ball takes from Wuxia, it also takes every bit as much from "grounded" kung fu fiction as well (Toriyama citing Drunken Master himself on numerous occasions). As much as the focus of this thread was on Wuxia specifically, I did also intend for it to also be focused to a degree on DB's non-Wuxia, "grounded" kung fu fiction influences. I go into a lot of detail on Muscle Tower's similarities to Game of Death for instance, and NOBODY anywhere (least of all me) is going to mistake Game of Death for being even remotely Wuxia. Its definitely and unarguably a traditional martial arts narrative through and through. And Dragon Ball, as we all know by now, has taken just as much from traditional, grounded kung fu fiction as it does from Wuxia/MMAFF.

However, most of the plots are different, and involve Chinese heroes fighting against evil Japanese organizations, or they involve fight after fight with little comedy or Dragon Ball style escalation. Above all, no science fiction and fusion-style writing like we find in Toriyama’s masterpiece. So Toriyama certainly wasn’t emulating their writing style.

The "silly comedy mixed with dramatic martial arts" approach to martial arts/wuxia storytelling is definitely more aligned with film (and television) than with manhua, which tends to er much more often in general on the straightforwardly dramatic side of things. The overall "genre mixing" however CAN certainly be found throughout manhua though and I cited several examples of it in my writeup, including Dragon Tiger Gate which merges its supernatural martial arts fantasy story with modern day crime/street gang elements (as does Chinese Hero, which brings in American 1930s mobsters), as well as manhua adaptations of wuxia novels by authors like Huang Yi, which include numerous sci fi flourishes into the mix.

My delving into the origins and increasing popularity of Mo Lei Tau comedy throughout Chinese media (including martial arts/wuxia) is as much a partial explanation for the bountiful examples of wacky slapstick comedy being increasingly injected into otherwise straight dramatic stories (of many different genres, but for purposes of this topic, particularly martial arts/wuxia media). I emphasize "partial" because obviously martial arts stories - traditionally grounded and fantastical wuxia alike - that merge comedy and drama goes back much, much, MUCH, much farther in history than Mo Lei Tau, which is a very modern style.

Nonetheless though, there grew a substantial spike in the starkness and severity of tonal whiplash and silliness (which were already very prevalent attributes in Asian martial arts/wuxia media to begin with) throughout the late 80s and early 1990s film output of martial arts and wuxia, coinciding with (and largely sparked by) the increasing popularity of the whole Mo Lei Tau movement (and notable martial arts film performers like Chan and especially Stephen Chow bringing it prominently into their most popular films of the time, Chow even bringing it into numerous Wuxia films himself). I felt it was worth including as a relevant additional note on the particular tonal/stylistic direction that all of martial arts/wuxia media throughout Asia was taking during this particular timeframe, much of which lines up with Dragon Ball pretty succinctly.

Likewise, the overall genre blending with wuxia and martial arts storytelling in general (sci fi among them) was a major, major trend that had come about all throughout Asian martial arts media during and throughout the 80s and 90s, both in comics as well as in films, video games, and television.

Dragon Ball takes its influence from a vast cornucopia of Eastern and Western media, not just other comics. Film clearly played a very, very heavy role in how it eventually turned out.

Nonetheless, he presents direct similarities that are hard to ignore. As a result, there are now fans in the Western fan base who believe Akira Toriyama intended Dragon Ball to be a wǔxiá manga from the start.

...

While I’ve only addressed Hong Kong comics in particular here, the root of Kunzait_83’s argument that Dragon Ball is intended to be a wǔxiá series is also flawed.

...

For the record, I think you're wrong that Toriyama intended the Dragon Ball series to be wuxia.

I really, REALLY hate to keep getting bogged down into these semantic arguments here, but much like with Herms and Kei's misconception earlier in this thread that I was trying to posit the word "Wuxia" as a term recognized in Japan (something I never at any point did), I don't think I ever once at any point in this thread made any claims or guesses or assertions about Toriyama's "intent".

The main point of this thread was to argue for "Wuxia" (or "Supernatural Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction" if you like) as being the main genre that most definitively classifies Dragon Ball. That's it. At no point at all in any of this did I attempt to get into Toriyama's mind and divine his exact authorial intent because... I don't know the man and I'm not psychic.

But if I were to play at being an amateur psychic here for but a moment: based on what exceedingly little we ultimately know about the man personally, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Toriyama, to one degree of another, turned out to be in all likelihood somewhat as flighty and daffy in his general sensibilities as the stories he writes (and I in no way mean that as a negative, don't misunderstand me). The guy has by his own admission consumed a TON of pop culture throughout his life and he very clearly and obviously doesn't in any way take himself or the comics he draws and writes all that particularly seriously (indeed, there's that whole now long-since infamous "forgetful" streak of his).

I'd gotten into this particular debate about this in the IRC, but I may as well repeat it here: one of the misconceptions about this topic (and my general stance on it) that some people here seem to hold is that Wuxia is somehow this incredibly exotic, super arcane, esoteric, and scholarly topic of a genre. Largely for no other reason than because... well, for various reasons (FAR too numerous to delve into here) so very, very many present day Western Dragon Ball fans have never even heard of, much less have any real experience with Wuxia of any sort (and what little they do, they generally have no idea what it is that they're looking at in the first place).

If I had to guess, I would venture to say that this assumption seems to be the foundation for a lot of people who read this now apparently seeming to think that Toriyama had all of these high minded, flowery ideas and gobs of genre history in his mind when writing/drawing/creating Dragon Ball. And this (very much misguided and highly likely incorrect) assumption generally seems to be predicated on little more than "Well, I never heard of any of this stuff before, so clearly it MUST be this incredibly obscure and intellectually dense wellspring of literary academia from which Toriyama must have himself been an expert in to have divined so much from it."

Not only is this entire premise false to begin with (not that there aren't a great, great deal of more ancient examples of Wuxia/MMAFF that very much qualifies as "intellectually dense literary academia" mind you), but - yet again, for the umpteenth time - I at NO point in any of this ever once claimed any of it to be the case.

Just because Wuxia may sound like some fancy-pants, hoity-toity, elitist scholarly topic to Joe and Jane American Mainstream from Northern Bumfuck Shittkickersville Nebraska, does not in ANY way remotely mean that that's what it is in just about EVERY corner of the Eastern world. In just about ALL the key areas of Asia where its big (China, Japan, Taiwan, etc.) Wuxia (or again, since we're including areas outside China, "Mystical Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction derived from Wuxia") is as mainstream and ubiquitous as all get out. The concept of ever-wandering martial arts masters practicing an esoteric, supernaturally mystical form of kung fu against opponents ranging from gods, monsters, and tyrannical despot rulers (be it within a mythical fantasy version of China or not) is as old hat and widely known as Cowboys and Superheroes are here in the West.

Put it this way: at this point in our pop cultural history, a typical American of ANY background or level of knowledge (or lack thereof), probably knows at BARE minimum just enough about the key-most points of lets say... vampires and vampire lore, to write an entire epic vampire story without having ever really delved very deeply into the most classic stories and works. In fact - to cite a particularly egregious example - exactly that DID indeed happen: a woman by the name of Stephanie Meyer had never so much as seen or read ANY vampire story at all in her whole life by her very own admission (even any version of Dracula) when writing a certain infamous vampire series you may have heard of called Twilight (that her lack of experience or knowledge on vampires being but one of NUMEROUS deeply-seated problems that plague her work being neither here nor there).

Plenty of people have probably never seen a single Sergio Leone or John Ford film in their lives, yet can probably rattle off just enough of the bare-most basics of the Western genre to sound, at least at a cursory glance, like they're at least reasonably knowledgeable enough on the matter (lone gunslinging drifter wanders into a dusty nowhere town, goes to the local saloon and gets into a bare knuckled brawl, pistol duels the main bad guy at high noon, etc). Same goes for superheroes now: for the last 16 years now, superheroes have stubbornly remained the genre du jour in popular media, and just about everyone now is, to one degree or another, a self-styled "expert" on all things cape and tights, even if all they've seen are movies and tv shows and have never once cracked a comic in their lives.

Plenty of people could probably even take a legitimate stab (ugh, sorry) at writing a Friday the 13th-style slasher story, even if they've never sat through a single genuine slasher movie at any point ever: the genre fundamentals for all these things are, by now, just THAT deeply embedded into the overall pop cultural psyche.

Throughout a LARGE swath of Asia, this basic principle is much the same for Wuxia/Mystical Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction. That it is not here within the Western world (anymore, these days, within certain circles, for whatever reason) is neither here nor there: Dragon Ball is NOT a product of the Western world (outside of a few cursory influences). The core crux of it stems from Eastern culture and from martial arts fiction and narrative conceits: ALL of which are MORE than easily absorbed and instinctively known by now on a mass mainstream level within that part of the world.

Again, while there are indeed numerous ancient writings (which if you don't wish to call them under the 19th century moniker of Wuxia, are then at the VERY least proto-Wuxia) which are very much worthy subjects of classically literary academic study, from at the very least the early 1900s and onward (if not even earlier) Wuxia is, within its homelands, VERY much crowd pleasing populist genre fare. Pulp fiction through and through, often no different in its public stature over in the East than Flash Gordon B Movie Serials, Arthurian/Tolkien-esque Medieval High Fantasy, or Slam Bang Summer Action Tentpole Spectacles are here in the West.

Being such a dense and long-existing genre, its also dabbled heavily into more high-brow art house fare as well... again, this is a MASSIVELY dense genre with a TON of history behind it which has gone through a near-infinite number of incarnations and representations... but by and large, overall, the core conceits, themes, and essence of Wuxia (self-betterment, personal accomplishment, individuality, journeying to find and surpass one's own limits, seeking justice for wrongs committed against the weak and against friends/family, etc.) very much speaks to the masses and common people on a very, VERY large scale. On a very simple and primal level.

Make no mistake, this stuff has long, long, long ago-since spread and seeped deep into the popular consciousness throughout Asian territories: regardless of the term used for it, and regardless of whatever cultural bad blood persists between different regions/countries. If something resonates, it resonates, cultural borders be damned.

All of which is basically to say: even a fairly silly dude like Toriyama (who describes himself as essentially a lazy slacker who is primarily obsessed with model kits and movies) doesn't have to search THAT far and wide or think/ruminate all too deeply or be extremely well read on the academic history of the genre and its fundamentals or be any other kind of seasoned expert on the matter to still write a very simple and competent (indeed, now culturally iconic, amazingly enough) Wuxia yarn, even if he (in all likelihood) has never once heard the term Wuxia himself, purely from how much and how densely the genre's basics and core ideas/themes are ingrained into the culture on his side of the globe. No more so than anyone posting here would have to be well versed on the history and deeper intricacies of American comic book history in order to write their own superhero story and have it be even reasonably well executed.

Again, THIS is the ultimate point I was driving at with all this: what Dragon Ball, at its core, IS as a genre at its most fundamentals, regardless of Toriyama's own level of formal knowledge about the deeper details of that genre's history. If someone writes a story about a government experiment gone awry or a magical totem that's been disturbed from its cradle, what have you, which then causes corpses to start coming to life in droves and start munching on the flesh of the living, all while said hypothetical-author having NEVER seen any of the George Romero oeuvre at all, only absorbing their very basics through sheer popular osmosis (which is VERY easy to do now in our presently zombie-fried modern culture), that doesn't somehow mean that the story in question is anything other than a fucking zombie story. A horror story at the VERY bare minimum.

Wuxia, Mystical Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction, whatever you wish to call it, is at its basics a genre of stories that are generally about obsessively dedicated masters of armed and unarmed kung fu who are often loners or exist on the fringes of their society, whose entire lives revolve around training deeply in Taoism-rooted supernaturally Ki-powered martial arts and who engage in rivalries and fights with demons, gods, monsters, rival martial arts schools, and tyrannical emperors/rulers of despotic kingdoms. Often within a fantasy-fied mythically ancient Chinese setting, but also sometimes within a modern setting, and sometimes (particularly within the 80s and 90s) with some other non-martial artsy genre window dressing on top (Time traveling! Modern criminal street gangs acting as rival martial arts sects!) with the tone in more modern examples often (though not always by any means) violently whiplashing from silly to dramatic and back at the drop of a hat, and with forbidden, destructively powerful martial arts techniques and magically enchanted artifacts often acting as common MacGuffins.

Dragon Ball is... a story about a group of obsessively dedicated masters of, largely unarmed, kung fu (one in particular as a central focus) who are mostly loners (they tend to lose track of one another for like decades at a time in many cases) and exist on the fringes of their society, whose entire lives revolve around training deeply in Taoism-rooted supernaturally Ki-powered martial arts and who engage in rivalries and fights with demons, gods, monsters, rival martial arts schools, and tyrannical emperors/rulers of despotic kingdoms. Largely within a fantasy-fied mythically ancient Chinese setting which is also mixed with a very modern setting, and which has also at times (particularly within the late 80s/early 90s) dabbled in mixing in other non-martial artsy genre trappings as window dressing (Despot SPACE emperor! Evil mutant Youxia created from the DNA of other Youxia by a mad scientist!) with the tone violently whiplashing from silly to dramatic and back again at the drop of a hat, and with forbidden, destructively powerful martial arts techniques and magically enchanted artifacts (the series being NAMED AFTER one of them) often acting as common MacGuffins.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.

From Mr. Padula's own writings on Dragon Ball's genre classification:

Wǔxiá (武侠, pronounced ‘woo-shya,’ “martial hero”) is a genre of Chinese martial arts novels, films, and comics popular in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Wǔxiá stories are set in a fantasy world that is similar to China – but not actually China – called jiānghú (江湖, “rivers and lakes”). It’s made of lush plains, grandiose mountains, mystical temples, lavish Chinese cities and villages, and inhabited by monsters.

Within this fantasy realm is a secret community of martial artists collectively called wǔlín (武林, literally “martial forest,” but meaning “martial world”). The young hero of the story is often an idealistic martial artist who trains under a master or within a secret society, and during his adventures he encounters supernormal Buddhist monks, Dàoist magicians, immortal sages, villains, and other wandering disciples. The hero has to train hard, look within, and continually reach the next level in order to attain his dream.

These stories often involve major themes in Chinese culture, such as endurance, truth, or compassion, where the character is an idealist who suffers great pain and faces near-death adversity, yet offers mercy to his enemies, making allies and friends along the way.

The biggest similarity is the reliance on supernormal martial arts techniques which are dependent on qì (ki). These include supernormal speed, power, toughness, projection of external energy as a weapon, self-powered flight, energy healing, supernormal vision, cross-dimensional travel, and so on.

Essentially everything I talked about in my own Wuxia write-up, summarized, encapsulated, and described with about 1000% more professionalism (my pesky lack of academia shining through once again).

But yeah, that description perfectly summarizes Wuxia as a genre. It also pretty much dead-on nails just about the entire core crux of what makes up Dragon Ball to its very most essence (the use of Qi being far, far, far from the only similarity here). And once more, the concept of Wuxia throwing in elements of comedy, science fiction, Bangsian fantasy, etc. are all across the board nothing new at all and nothing that hadn't been already done (across just about ALL mediums) prior to Dragon Ball. Barring the debate on the flow of Hong Kong manhua to Japan (which is easily and without question the very best and most important point that he's raised, though it still doesn't make their availability to Japanese eyes out and out IMPOSSIBLE, as just about anything that exists out there will find its way overseas to any part of the world, one way or another) I simply do not see how this genre label's relation to DB can be disputed. At all. Again, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.

That its taken till NOW, 20-freaking-16, for it to become an actual serious point of discussion in fandom - and that its taken someone like me, a goddamned simpleton, to be one of the sole people making enough noise to get it discussed at all now - is more a sad indictment of the overall direction and trajectory that DB and general anime fandom as a whole have taken within the last decade and a half and change or thereabouts (a whole other can of worms unto itself).

I digress. Has Toriyama seen or read EVERY single example (contentious or not) of wuxia that I specifically cited in this thread? Hell, even MOST of them? All but ASSUREDLY not, I very much doubt. Has he at least seen/read SOME of them? Or at least others that are very much like them? I don't see how one could conceivably argue against that (indeed, several works cited here DB all but blatantly swipes from wholecloth). Did he divine his creative spark in general from the mass cultural osmosis of this genre of fiction that the Eastern world has had for countless generations now? I don't think there's the slightest doubt of that.

Do I in any way think or believe that Toriyama is as versed in the nitty gritty historics of this genre as countless other actual studied academics on the subject are? Very likely not, no. Do I think that Toriyama, in all likelihood, absorbed much of this from pure "pop cultural osmosis" though? Absolutely I do. I don't think there's very much room to argue otherwise. And unless I'm mistaken, I think that that's much the same conclusion that Mr. Padula more or less comes to in this bit here:

The similarities are mostly by happenstance as he made the story up week to week. In part, through his subconscious sublimation of countless tropes and character archetypes as a result of watching thousands of hours of these films as he drew each chapter.

Look, I don't have any problem at all with anyone disagreeing with me or even outright proving something I say as being horseshit (in fact I actively WELCOME it, especially if they're indeed able to do so, and Mr. Padula certainly does precisely that at various points in his article). I only ask that if people are going to actively engage with what I'm saying, at the very least actually read it thoroughly and don't put words in my mouth that I never said or claim that I didn't cover something that I very much did.

A few too many times now (both on and off the forums) I've had to defend this sucker of a thread from people claiming I said X, Y, or Z in it when, if you actually look through it (and I know, its a LOT to look through, I do apologize for that), you won't find any such claim or statement that I'm being accused of saying in it. Whether it be "Japan specifically uses the word Wuxia as a cultural term", or "Jackie Chan's Drunken Master films and Shaw's 36th Chamber series are Wuxia", or "Toriyama specifically intended for or thought whatever about Wuxia when he wrote Dragon Ball", etc.

Hell, one person (not within this thread) even went on an entire insane, angry tirade off the forums at one point awhile back about this whole thing I allegedly said in the write-up that was "insulting/belittling" to Ranma 1/2 as a series, when my entire mentioning of Ranma throughout ALL of this only encompasses like all of two or three sentences at the very most which only amount to "Rumiko Takahashi incorporated a handful of Wuxia elements when making Ranma" and literally nothing more beyond that.



Prove me to be totally wrong on something I said here by all means please, all I ask is that it be something I actually said in the first place and isn't pulled from seemingly thin air.

Most importantly, wǔxiá didn’t exist as a genre when the story was published in 1592, and the author did not intend it to be a wǔxiá story. So the term should not (and I believe cannot) be retroactively applied with a 20th century mindset. Alas, that’s a topic unto itself.

Indeed it is very much a topic unto itself.

Once more, to quote my own write-up:

While the genre itself may date back to ancient times, the actual name Wuxia is a much more recent coinage, with the word's origins as a genre-label for martial myths dating back to the 19th Century Qing Dynasty and being retroactively applied to much earlier works by many scholars and historians.

I made sure to note that the term Wuxia itself is only but a couple hundred years old at most, while earlier examples of it date back several thousands of years ago. Maybe it is indeed erroneous from an academic perspective to use Wuxia as a retroactive term, I'm by NO means anywhere NEAR studied enough to make that call. But that being said, I didn't pull that practice from my ass: applying the Wuxia label retroactively to martial arts fantasy works from ancient, 3rd Century BC Chinese poetry on down has LONG been a done in most academic and historical writings about the genre's history that I've ever encountered within the last 25 some-odd years. If there's good reason to argue against doing that, then that's a debate that I am by no means remotely equipped to engage in. I'm just a regular-ass fanboy of this genre. More on that particular note in a little bit.

So once again, yet again: when I use the term "Wuxia" I am indeed using it as an umbrella catch-all term to refer to Mystical Martial Arts Fantasy Fiction as a whole (because YOU try typing THAT mouthful out several hundreds of times over when writing something like this), from ancient Youxia poetry by Li Bai, all the way on down through the "big three" texts (Water Margin, Three Kingdoms, etc.), the silent films of the 1920s, Japanese and Taiwanese-derivative works (because irrespective of the word Wuxia itself not being used in those territories, if the narrative shoe fits...), and so on and so forth. If you're an actual academic scholar who disagrees with that practice, don't take it up with me, I'm only relaying what I've read from other experts who do it themselves.

And it also ignores the fact that in the 1970s and '80s the Japanese disliked the Chinese and in no way wanted to copy what they were doing. Actually, the Japanese were rather elitist about their comics’ superiority, and would have made it a point to not copy from Chinese comics.

That door swung both ways: the Chinese likewise HATED the Japanese for GENERATIONS, the palpable bad blood between them spanning countless wars and military skirmishes (the two Sino-Japanese wars chief among them). You can even see this in their own media: numerous, NUMEROUS martial arts films and wuxia fiction from China would consistently portray Japanese characters in the most racially stereotypical and unflattering light possible, with the Japanese as a collective whole being a type of cliched stock villains in countless, countless Chinese martial arts and wuxia films.

For one particularly notable example, Bruce Lee's own "Fist of Fury" (itself a now-iconic and very fictionalized account of the real life Jing Wu martial arts academy's troubles with rival Japanese dojos) very famously plays up the hissable villainy of its Japanese antagonists to such outlandish degrees that most all later remakes and re-imaginings of the story quite notably downplay the out and out "evilness" of the Japanese martial artists and attempt to humanize them more.

By contrast, the Shaw Bros. film Heroes of the East was considered an incredibly progressive and ahead of its time film for having a more even-handed and level-headed approach to its Japanese antagonists. That it portrays its Japanese characters as even remotely sympathetic and human as it does (to the point of the main Chinese protagonist having an interracial wedding with a Japanese woman) was seen as incredibly daring, primarily due to how much and how deeply the practice of caricaturing Japanese people as being little more than vile, treacherous, sniveling scum had become as just a standard given throughout so many Chinese films, serials, and assorted media (within martial arts fiction and otherwise).

Regardless however... that racial, cultural, and political animosity between them DID NOT in any way stop the two from liberally pilfering from one another's art and creative works of media. I've no doubt that plenty of Japanese mangaka looked down their noses at Chinese manhua artists: it wasn't exactly like the Chinese had an especially rosey view of the Japanese either. Nonetheless, in an all too human fashion, that bitter animosity didn't at all stop so many Chinese artists from liberally stealing from Japanese manga anyway.

From my babblings here where I did indeed mention exactly that (in reference to Ma Wing-shing specifically):

Ma Wing-shin is easily the single most prolific and overpoweringly influential Manhua artist of the last 30 years. Taking his influence from Western cartoons and comics as well as Japanese manga, particularly the then-still flourishing Gekiga movement (Gekiga meaning roughly “dramatic pictures” and being a once-thriving artistic movement in Japanese manga of strikingly realistic and hyper detailed character designs and artwork), Ma Wing-shing's art style would singlehandedly transform the entire Manhua industry, particularly within Wuxia.

So its not like I didn't touch on this aspect of the history of manhua.

Kunzait_83 admits he isn’t a scholar, so the post isn’t professionally written and there are a lot of errors in his logic—which I may break down in a future article.

To further quote from my own write-up:

I've got the time to spare, so fuck it: Basic Wuxia 101 For Dummies it is. And its coming to you all courtesy not from someone who's actually... you know, smart, or at least someone who's had some actual semblance of formal training and study in Chinese culture, history, or linguistics; no, your teacher here instead is an aging dork who learned just about everything he ever knew about this genre largely from ratty VHS tapes with horrendous subtitles, obtained via growing up around a ton of stoners and junkies in a seedy neighborhood over 25 years ago.

Yep, nothing can POSSIBLY go awry from this.

I didn't just stick that disclaimer in there to be cute, ironic, or snarky: I very, very much meant every last word of that as straightforwardly as can be.

I'm NOT even remotely all that terribly bright, nor of any particularly "scholarly" level of expertise on pretty much anything. I'll be the first to freely admit that up front. I'm an airhead dunceboy who comes from a not-so-proud lineage of drug addicts, street thugs, and all around meatheads. I don't have a college degree or higher education in absolutely anything (I was forced very much against my will to drop out of college more than a decade ago now due to circumstances far beyond my control, but that's neither here nor there).

All of my "expertise" in the realm of wuxia and martial arts media comes directly and expressly from being a late 80s and early 90s Grunge kid whose entire childhood social circle generally consisted of much older skater punks and Gen X slacker-types, just about all of whom were of VASTLY greater intellect that I ever was. As I went into in detail in the write up, Asian martial arts media (particularly out of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan) were absolutely MASSIVE within that subset of people during that particular time period in American pop culture.

It was through a combination of being a part of that whole subculture as well as the particular type of area where I grew up - a very, very poor and decayed inner city neighborhood on the East Coast, exactly the sort of place where bootleg VHS tapes of anything from Italian horror movies, Taiwanese fantasy kung fu, unlicensed anime, and all sorts of other international oddities were as commonly found as loose change in a sofa cushion - that lead to my vast degree of exposure to all this stuff (as well as anime for that matter) throughout my entire childhood during those years.

I was simply THAT big of a fucking dork that I got so heavily into this stuff enough that I spent a ton of time as a kid doing my reading on it as well as watching it. Add to the fact that my mother's job at the time enabled me VERY early access to the then-incarnation of the internet and... yeah. Here we are.

Lots and lots and LOTS of VHS bootlegs, comics, books, video games, Usenet/World Wide Web access, a bunch of punk rocker friends, and just generally being DEEPLY plugged into the general pop cultural climate of the late 80s/early 90s: that's essentially the long and short of my "Wuxia academia" (or lack thereof). Like I've said many times before, I'm just a common garden variety fanboy for this stuff: just one who is the product of a VASTLY different pop cultural background than most people here these days are.

Honestly, this was a BIG part of the reason behind why I was for a long, long time now so reluctant and apprehensive to be the person who cracked this whole particular walnut open on this site. If nothing else, this site and community prides itself very, very much (with all the justification in the world and then some) on being 100% factual and authoritative: and I'm little more than a motor-mouthed idiot. I just kept thinking for a long time "Surely somebody who's WAY more qualified than I am has to at SOME point finally open up the conversation on all this stuff, right? Right?"

Never wound up happening obviously... as time went on and more and more discussions with GLARING misconceptions about DB on a very basic fundamental level (some of them even from a few of this site's own higher up big names) piled up unopposed, it grew to be utterly maddening. This site, as a general DB resource, was supposed to be far, far, FAR better than that.

Exactly the right stars also happened to align in my personal life late last year where I was saddled with vast stretches of free time (among other things), which finally lead me to say "eh, fuck it" and pull the trigger on doing this, in spite of my earlier misgivings.

Again, to continue to impress this home as much as I possibly can, I am NOT anywhere NEAR an especially bright bulb of an individual, and literally almost NOTHING of the material on Wuxia that I compiled together for this thread can be even conceivably considered to be obscure, arcane, or especially difficult to track down. No more so than it is to find all sorts of beyond readily available information and references on other nerd-favorite genres like European Medieval High Fantasy lore or Space Opera or Horror or whatever else have you. Wuxia is a MASSIVELY popular and mainstream genre almost the world over.

This sort of information and material wasn't in the least bit all that difficult for me to come across all the way back in 1988 when I was all of 4/5 years old, became increasingly less so in general as the 90s wore on, and they DAMN sure cannot be seen as any more elusive now in 2015/2016 where you now have Google, various Wikis, Youtube, torrents, etc. all but hand delivering all of this to you gift wrapped with a bow on top.

I have my own thoughts and views on why it is that modern day Dragon Ball and anime fandom as a whole continues to find all this type of information so elusive and far outside their realm of understanding, but that's indeed a discussion for another day and another thread entirely.

So... to close all this out on a more positive, uplifting note:

I learned a lot from reading Kunzait_83's post, but it also sent me down a rabbit hole that I still haven't finished digging through. I really wanted to find out if what he's saying is true, and it put a big portion of my other work on hold. So... thanks for that.

Heh. Man, I REALLY do at some point or another need to get around to cracking that one final, massive post I've had set aside for so, so very long now about the shift and change in the very core nature of Dragon Ball/general anime fandom over the last 25+ years or so. Just a few offhand comments from Mr. Padula here spoke VOLUMES about the VAST gulf in perspective on all this stuff and the overall trajectory of where and how the different generations and eras of fans have come at this stuff from over the years.

I first really, REALLY need to figure out just how in the goddamned motherfucking hell I'll be able to write it without immediately alienating almost literally the entire community right from the jump of it and presenting myself at the same time as a raging douchenozzle. Neither here nor there though.

Until then however, that bolded first part of that quote was ultimately the main, key point in me writing all this: for people here to learn and be better educated fans. I'll leave it at that for now before I end up on a whole other tangent.

There's a lot more that I want to address in Kunzait's 3 pages of posts, breaking down and analyzing each statement in detail. But man, that would be so tiring, and I don't want to 'live to prove my point.' Plus, I'm not that kind of guy, and in addition, I'm not sure enough people care about it to the degree that I do. I just want to seek the truth and share it with others.

For whatever little its worth, I certainly care. That was my OTHER main point in writing all this: to get the wider Dragon Ball fan community interested in, learning about, talking about, and digging deeper into Wuxia for themselves. Because it is SO crucially key to the very core of what makes Dragon Ball Dragon Ball, and that we've gone something like what, 18/19 years (in broad dub fandom terms) without so much as a fucking WORD spoken about ANY of this? At all? (Beyond the obligatory Journey to the West citings) Yeah, no. Not having that. Dragon Ball, dippy and ridiculous as it is, still deserves better than to have its genre heritage be so utterly buried for no good goddamned reason whatsoever.

So if nothing else, thanks for opening my mind.

You're very much welcome.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Just because Wuxia may sound like some fancy-pants, hoity-toity, elitist scholarly topic to Joe and Jane American Mainstream from Northern Bumfuck Shittkickersville Nebraska, does not in ANY way remotely mean that that's what it is in just about EVERY corner of the Eastern world.

As one who has lived in the American South or Midwest for most of his life, you best believe I got a kick out of that.

That has to be some truly staggering cultural insulation, though.

Even if you take Dragon Ball in a vacuum (which no one does but for the sake of illustration), it is abundantly clear that it is once a love letter and spoof to larger tradition that must be broadly consumed, else a goofy children's take on it would not catch on; all this clear as day to dumb pre-teen me with an abysmal cultural vocabulary watching the two series on Toonami! You're grasp on Asian media would have to be effectively zero.