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

[Kunzait_83]

The thing about scholars in so many Wuxia stories is that many times often the narrative itself will seemingly go out of its way to "punish" the character for being unable to fight or stand up for themselves. There's usually almost always an element of (no matter how understated) cruelty and mean spiritedness towards scholars in a great majority of Wuxia stories. Its not so much that a scholar necessarily has to be like Gohan where they have a clear opportunity presented to them to be trained and become a proper martial artist/Wulin/Youxia and its therefore a question of whether or not they take it and keep up the training: rather its a question of "does this character's inability to fight make them 'pathetic' in the eyes of the narrative"?

With Bulma, you never really get the sense from Toriyama's storytelling that her not being a martial artist puts her in a demeaning position. She's always presented as "cool" and with tons of agency all her own despite her non-warrior status. The story never at any point looks down upon her for not being a martial artist: THAT'S what's always, to me at least, really stuck out most about Scholars in so many Wuxia stories. Its not merely just that they're normal and are more interested in cracking books than cracking skulls, its that the stories often present them as pitiful sadsacks for being like that. You're supposed to look at scholars in most Wuxia stories and get the message "Don't be like this guy. This guy may be smart, but he also has no spine. Be more like the Xia and stand up for yourself and for others."

With Gohan, his inability to fight at first puts him in direct harm's way to a degree that Bulma's NEVER come within lightyears of having to face. Even if Gohan NEVER properly learned how to fight but was still put in many of the same situations as he is in the series, he'd still be Dragon Ball's Wuxia Scholar... just one who like most Scholars, never learns how to throw a punch or a Ki blast.

With Gohan, whether or not he's actually able to fight isn't what makes him a scholar archetype. As I said, I still consider him one even after he's been trained and can carry himself in battle. Rather its the fact that the central dramatic conflict of the character is "You're not a 'real' man yet. You still have a lot of growing up to do."

Again though, I'm not necessarily opposed to classifying Bulma as somewhat of a scholar-like character, she's definitely got SOME of the attributes for sure. I just think its much, much, MUCH more blatantly apparent and overt with Gohan.

[Cipher]

Isn't Bulma specifically a riff on/subversion of the central, non-Wukong character in Journey to the West? I'd think her inclusion would stem from that rather than any more generalized wuxia archetype.

[Kunzait_83]

D'oh! I brainfarted on that earlier, but yes you're correct, she's sort of a loose take on Tripitaka.

[Cipher]

D'oh! I brainfarted on that earlier, but yes you're correct, she's sort of a loose take on Triptaka.

No worries. I think it's worth pointing out that many characters introduced at the beginning of the series, while they fit right into wuxia archetypes because ... well, Journey to the West is a foundational wuxia story ... are based specifically on its cast rather than the archetypes it created.

In terms of non-Journey to the West character inspiration, though, I'm really curious about your proposed Freeza inspiration. I'd love to see Toriyama asked about that. Are those more general genre tropes? Is the film well known enough that there could be a direct connection? Or is it all just a coincidence, two similar hodge-podges of classically villainous attributes sharing a genre?

[Kunzait_83]

In terms of non-Journey to the West character inspiration, though, I'm really curious about your proposed Freeza inspiration. I'd love to see Toriyama asked about that. Are those more general genre tropes? Is the film well known enough that there could be a direct connection? Or is it all just a coincidence, two similar hodge-podges of classically villainous attributes sharing a genre?

Here's the thing: Dongfang Bubai (who I went into a pretty good amount of detail about earlier in the write-up) was a MASSIVELY popular and influential character. It cannot possibly be overstated how much of an incredible impact that character had on Asian popular culture: he/she's a goddamned LGBT icon over there. Actresses who've played him/her over the years her have found it to be a career-making/defining role (just ask Brigitte Lin)*. Eunuch/gender-bending attributes became WAY more massively used as a trope for Warlord-esque Wuxia villains forevermore ever since that character.

I singled out Wang Zhen in particular due to the numerous other incredibly fucking eerie similarities he shares with Freeza: is it entirely possible that those similarities are 100% coincidental? Sure, anything's possible... doesn't seem likely to me though. And in either case, regardless of whether or not its Zhen specifically, I definitely think that Freeza is meant to be a take on that particular type of Eunuch/sexless Warlord villain. That character-type is WAY too much of a thing across contemporary Wuxia fiction and media for Dragon Ball to somehow not touch upon it (as it touches upon damn near every other major modern Wuxia trope and cliche).

Hell, Freeza's signature/iconic piercing fingertip beam attack?



Absolutely 100% identical to Bubai's trademark piercing needle blasts (down to the crimson color and "impaling" effect it has on its victims). I definitely don't think that that's a coincidence and is a pretty good signifier of where Toriyama's head was at when he was coming up with Freeza.

And by the way, no, none of this in any remote way acts as retroactive justification for Linda Young's ghastly FUNimation dub performance. Just thought I'd nip that in the bud before some dub person chimed in.

*Apropos of nothing by the way, but among the perks of embarking on this little writing/media-compiling project here was getting to catch up on a whole metric fuckton of very recent Wuxia TV shows that I was behind on, among them the newest Swordsman/Smiling Proud Wanderer adaptation from last year. The most recent actress to play Bubai, Joe Chen?



Rowr. Kinda in love.

[Cipher]

In terms of non-Journey to the West character inspiration, though, I'm really curious about your proposed Freeza inspiration. I'd love to see Toriyama asked about that. Are those more general genre tropes? Is the film well known enough that there could be a direct connection? Or is it all just a coincidence, two similar hodge-podges of classically villainous attributes sharing a genre?

Here's the thing: Dongfang Bubai (who I went into a pretty good amount of detail about earlier in the write-up) was a MASSIVELY popular and influential character. It cannot possibly be overstated how much of an incredible impact that character had on Asian popular culture: he/she's a goddamned LGBT icon over there. Actresses who've played him/her over the years her have found it to be a career-making/defining role (just ask Brigitte Lin). Eunuch/gender-bending attributes became WAY more massively used as a trope for Warlord-esque Wuxia villains forevermore ever since that character.

I singled out Wang Zhen in particular due to the numerous other incredibly fucking eerie similarities he shares with Freeza: is it entirely possible that those similarities are 100% coincidental? Sure, anything's possible... doesn't seem likely to me though. And in either case, regardless of whether or not its Zhen specifically, I definitely think that Freeza is meant to be a take on that particular type of Eunuch/sexless Warlord villain. That character-type is WAY too much of a thing across contemporary Wuxia fiction and media for Dragon Ball to somehow not touch upon it (as it touches upon damn near every other major modern Wuxia trope and cliche).

And by the way, no, none of this in any remote way acts as retroactive justification for Linda Young's ghastly FUNimation dub performance. Just thought I'd nip that in the bud before some dub person chimed in.

Interesting! Thanks for the answer. That's all new to me.

[Polyphase Avatron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiRHu1JjpI0

Here's the scene from that movie I talked about earlier. He totally goes Super Saiyan at the end.

[Ex-Dubbie369]

I, like may others who've commented so far, am absolutely entranced with all the information here. I have to admit that I've skipped around a fair bit, so this may have been touched on somewhere in the earlier posts, but I'm curious about some of the themes Toriyama plays with in the Buu arc and how they may or may not relate to the Wuxia archetypes you've described.

We have the end of the Cell arc where Gohan is reluctantly thrust into the hero position, still exhibiting traits of a scholar-type character. His transition into the main character still focuses on these traits, I mean, he is going to school. Once we move into the main part of the Buu arc, after a quick Kamen Rider/Spider-Man parody in the Great Saiyaman stuff, it seems like initially, even though Goku is back, Toriyama is wanting us to still feel like Gohan is the main protagonist, basically until he gets taken out by Fat Buu. Then he plays around with Gotenks (who I'm pretty sure Toriyama never meant to deliver the final blow to Buu), back to Gohan for two seconds, then finally with Goku again. Was Toriyama trying to transition Gohan into a proper Youxia-type character, then decided that it wouldn't work? And related to that, how often is a generational progression made a theme in Wuxia? Because I would definitely argue that it is a big theme throughout the Z-Era of the series.

[dougo13]

Beautiful work on the history of wuxia. I only found out about Chinese comics recently though I had seen them years ago (I had about 100 issues of various comics in a box stored away 20 years ago that I only "found" again a few months back). In the interim, several books and collections have been released in English. I had the first of the English translated Jademan comics but they never seemed to do well over here. Several collections are in my local comics store's 1/2 price or clearance bin. I had been watching the films from the Shaw Studios since the mid 70's but did not know much of the history behind the old legends, poems, etc. Thanks for the synopsis. Looks like more stuff to add to my ever growing pile of things to read. I keep trying to turn people on to the old Shaw Studios (and other studios like Golden Harvest, etc.) films but it's been a tough sell. Hopefully with new venues through streaming services this will become easier. Was fun seeing those old clips from all the films I've seen. Still way too many new ones to view. And much like the mining of the old Greek and Norse legends in the West, the East is still making new films based on the old stories. It'll never end...

[Kunzait_83]

I, like may others who've commented so far, am absolutely entranced with all the information here. I have to admit that I've skipped around a fair bit, so this may have been touched on somewhere in the earlier posts, but I'm curious about some of the themes Toriyama plays with in the Buu arc and how they may or may not relate to the Wuxia archetypes you've described.

We have the end of the Cell arc where Gohan is reluctantly thrust into the hero position, still exhibiting traits of a scholar-type character. His transition into the main character still focuses on these traits, I mean, he is going to school. Once we move into the main part of the Buu arc, after a quick Kamen Rider/Spider-Man parody in the Great Saiyaman stuff, it seems like initially, even though Goku is back, Toriyama is wanting us to still feel like Gohan is the main protagonist, basically until he gets taken out by Fat Buu. Then he plays around with Gotenks (who I'm pretty sure Toriyama never meant to deliver the final blow to Buu), back to Gohan for two seconds, then finally with Goku again. Was Toriyama trying to transition Gohan into a proper Youxia-type character, then decided that it wouldn't work? And related to that, how often is a generational progression made a theme in Wuxia? Because I would definitely argue that it is a big theme throughout the Z-Era of the series.

Yes abso-freaking-lutely on both counts: the "passing of the torch between generations" is a HUGE staple theme across Wuxia fiction going back I dunno how fucking long, and the Boo saga was DEFINITELY playing into that for a good stretch of it before Toriyama got cold feet and backed out of it at the 11th hour (word supposedly has it due to fan-pressure): which incidentally has always been my biggest problem with the Boo arc in general. Overall I really dig the storyline and think its tremendous fun, but in spite of that I've always had misgivings about how it ends because:

A) I'm a HUGE sucker in general for the whole "rise of the next generation of fighters" storylines across Wuxia and martial arts fiction and consider those some of my absolute favorites (yes, I am among those relatively few Street Fighter fans who's ALWAYS loved and embraced the "New Generation" characters from Street Fighter III from the very-most getgo in the late 90s without needing time to "warm up" to them precisely for this reason). And also...

B) I always found the sudden, last-possible-minute swerve away from that plotline/theme (which the Boo arc was clearly steadily building towards and heavily focused on) to be awkwardly handled. The narrative leaps needed to make Goku the main-main hero once again rather than the next generation of fighters like Gohan and the kids has a very forced, unnatural feeling to it that's generally rubbed me the wrong way.

Again, overall I DO like MUCH more than dislike the Boo arc by and large, and this is really just a fanboy nitpick/criticism, but it is and always has been a blemish for me on the last chunk of the series just the same.

And actually now that you mention it I didn't really delve into the Boo arc too much, even though I definitely should've (as I probably should've pressed upon how much of a classic, well worn thematic motif the whole "passing the baton to the next generation" generally is). I SORT of touched on that when I talked a bit about how crucial and important it is to Xia to pass on their skills to a worthy student (and how oftentimes the criteria of which prospective student is deemed "worthy" doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with actual blood relation, which incidentally Dragon Ball also touches on with the whole Oob thing) and how the relationship between master and student is such a key bond between Xia that transcends (and can even outright blatantly and overtly stand in for) a parent/child relationship.

I think I might've glossed over it because I was so focused on dispelling the whole "Dragon Ball gets away from being about martial arts and becomes more superhero-ish because sci fi" nonsense (the Boo arc moves the series away from sci fi and back to overt mysticism once again: the timing of which could be coincidental, but I've always found it highly suspect how this change-up just so happens to almost directly coincide almost perfectly with the somewhat increased critical backlash against really super-wild modernized genre-mixing in Wuxia right at the mid-point of the 90s, just the same as how DB also began to originally embrace sci fi-blending right at the tail-most end of the 80s/very-most-beginning of the 90s, just as that stuff happened to be hitting the white-hot fever-pitch peak of its popularity and ubiquity across broader Asian/Wuxia media) and as a hardcore child of the late 80s/early 90s Wuxia scene, that misconception always bothered the living FUCK out of me whenever it comes up in latter-day fan discussions.

[Zephyr]

Finally managed to read the bulk of this (though admittedly I skipped a majority of Part 4). Fantastic read! I've had several rather frustrating conversations on the internet as of late, attempting to defend the notion that Dragon Ball was a martial arts story, even during the Z portion, albeit with little more than observation of the obvious things (ki attacks are martial arts techniques, they continue to wear martial artist uniforms, Cell holds a fucking martial arts tournament, etc.). So this is definitely a conversation that needs to happen more frequently and in more places. Ignorance of this seems to be one of the major factors in the continued division in the franchise's western fanbase.

What I didn't know was that all of the insanely over the top shit that we see during the Z portion is as ripped straight out of Wuxia media as it is. That in itself is incredibly damning to the claim that it's not primarily about martial arts during the Z portion (and thus, no, Funimation's replacement score does not have any semblance of merit).

I am curious to hear your perspective on how the current batch of new Dragon Ball material touches upon Wuxia tropes.

Also, this may have been touched on in a part that I missed, but do the series' penchant for constant transformations, and the appearance for some of them (Super Saiyan in particular) have its roots in older Wuxia material?

[kei17]

I think what we have here is a simple difference of opinion. Whereas this person (who I THINK might be Japanese or at least lives in Japan, but I can't say that with any real certainty) finds my definition of Wuxia as a genre to be too broad-reaching, based on what they've written here... positing it down primarily it seems to a specific set of novels that didn't see official Japanese publication until the mid-90s... I would have to say that their definition of Wuxia as a genre may be far too narrow and pedantic.

The entertainment genre called Wuxia was born in China in the 1920s. Its confrontive ancestry is 俠義小説 (no idea about the pronunciation in Chinese) in the end of Qing dynasty around the end of the 19th century. It's not a term that retrospectively encompasses every martial-arts-oriented entertainment based on the Asian cultures.

While many of the most influential and broadly-adapted Wuxia novels of the modern-era (and many of the ones I think this individual is largely focused on) didn't see print in their native China until circa-the 1950s, to say that there was absolutely NO precedent for the genre before that - even in Japan - is just flat out demonstrably incorrect. This "M1120A" person even in their very own tweets had copped to "kung fu movies' influence on Japanese subculture": dismissing the idea that Wuxia had ANY cultural presence whatsoever in Japan prior to the mid-90s is to dismiss the very Wuxia films that this person within the same breath flatly admitted to having impacted Japanese culture.

As stated above, there is NO precedent that should be called "Wuxia" before the early 20th century. Modern Chinese popular fictions had not been introduced into Japan until the 1990s (the word 武侠/Wuxia itself was not even recognized at all), and the kung-fu movies that gained popularity in Japan were mostly straightforward martial arts action films instead of orthodox Wuxia Pin. The kung-fu movies impacted the Japanese subculture in a superficial way, like exaggerative superhuman actions and ki waves, but their spiritual nature was not something new to the Japanese; There already had been popular fictions, movies, manga and such focused on spiritual seeking of budo which developed completely independently of Wuxia in China. Even the superhuman actions and magic tricks in Wuxia that you stated are not as unique as you think they are. Similar elements can be found in classic Japanese kengi/chanbara movies that were produced in the early 20th century, before the first Wuxia movies in China. Google Matsunosuke Onoe and you'll see it. It's also worth pointing out that Toriyama's very first manga was about chanbara.

Even if the most cornerstone works of Jin Yong or Gu Long didn't see official Japanese print until the mid-90s (and I don't really know for sure how true that is, but this M1120A person seems pretty convinced that it is, so I'm open to the possibility), plenty of Wuxia Manhua, films, televisions shows, video games, etc. had without question penetrated Japan well, well long many years/decades beforehand, as they have plenty of other territories.

It's a fact that Jin Yong's works and any other Wuxia novels didn't see Japanese print until the mid-'90s. There's multiple sources confirming it. But Wuxia Manhua penetrated Japan? From what I know, it never did. I know that the earliest Wuxia Manhua artists studied art in Japan and were heavily influenced by manga, though.

And at no point in my write-up do I contradict the premise that the roots of Wuxia concepts cropping up in Japanese media are stemmed from anything other than the extreme similarities between Japanese and Chinese cultures. Those similarities were hardly coincidental: its long been common knowledge that Japan has had a very, very long history of cribbing cultural notions and ideas from China. Wuxia is hardly an exception to this.
If my writeup was more overtly China-focused, that's because Wuxia is to its core an inherently Chinese genre with much of the real meat of its history stemming from there, with Japan often (as they're generally want to do with plenty of other Chinese cultural cues) mimicking along.

You're misunderstanding my point. Of course I DO KNOW that the cultural similarities are the result of Japan absorbing the Chinese culture for thousands of years. Maybe more than you do. I never said that the cultural similarities are coincidental. My point is that even if they share the same cultural roots, the specific genre named Wuxia and similar things in Japan developed independently and parallel evolution occurred. It's like the relationship between placental wolf and Tasmanian wolf. Unlike these species, they somewhat mixed together at some point, though.

I love your attempt at explaining Dragon Ball from the Asian point of view. I myself learned a lot from this topic. However, the biggest problem of your approach is that you are trying to lump together any martial arts fictions sharing elements (even if slightly or superficially) from the Chinese culture by using the word Wuxia, which is quite a jump in logic. You should add double quotes to it for that kind of use or create a new term for martial arts entertainments in general sharing the eastern Asian cultures as a basis. You're expanding the definition of Wuxia too much and overplaying it. Turn your attention more to the other Asian cultures and you'll see how things are not as simple as you might think.

[Kunzait_83]

Pardon how long it took to post this, but I had to actually write this all out twice after the site accidentally ate my first attempt at posting this.

The entertainment genre called Wuxia was born in China in the 1920s. Its confrontive ancestry is 俠義小説 (no idea about the pronunciation in Chinese) in the end of Qing dynasty around the end of the 19th century. It's not a term that retrospectively encompasses every martial-arts-oriented entertainment based on the Asian cultures.

I think there are two main things causing the confusion here.

The first is the fact that the actual genre of Chinese mythological kung fu fantasy fiction itself is much, much older than the term Wuxia: a point which I was sure to note VERY early on at the beginning of the writeup.

The end of the Qing Dynasty is actually when the word Wuxia first began to be used as a proper genre-label for Chinese martial arts fantasy fiction, not the 1920s. Prior to that, there were a number of other terms that went in and out of use for mythical martial arts fiction (not 100% all of which I'm admittedly familiar with) the most well known of which was Youxia (named after the character-archetype). I have no idea what the Chinese equivalent is to whatever Japanese word you cited there, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was either Youxia or one of the many other different terms used for the genre off and on throughout the centuries before Wuxia eventually became more or less universally settled on.

The fact that A) the word Wuxia is a retroactively-applied term and B) the genre went for a great many centuries before that known under a series of different names, may be where the root of this discrepancy is coming from.

That being said however... none of that changes the fact that the Chinese genre of supernatural/mythological kung fu fantasy fiction, under whatever name you wish to call it, has a much, much, MUCH longer, deeper history than what you're describing here.

To wit...

As stated above, there is NO precedent that should be called "Wuxia" before the early 20th century.

This is absolutely, every-which-way provably incorrect.

The 1920s is when the first Silent Wuxia films were produced, the history of which I'd already laid out in reasonably gross detail early on in the mammoth Part 4 of the writeup. That's a very good, reasonable benchmark to set for the start of Wuxia's history in modern day 20th century pop culture, which is in point of fact why I named part 4 “Wuxia in Modern Media”. Because those 1920s Silent Wuxia films are the start of Wuxia within modernized mediums. That does NOT however mean that that's somehow the start of Wuxia as a genre altogether. Those films took their basis from VERY ancient writings that date back more than 2000 years.

The actual earliest known origin-point of Wuxia, as I said in the writeup, is roughly 2nd or 3rd Century B.C. or thereabouts. Which would be somewhere in the Qin Dynasty (not to be confused with the Qing Dynasty in the 19th Century, which is an altogether different era). Journey to the West, universally considered one of the 3 cornerstone works of the Wuxia genre, was first published in 1592. Slightly before either the 1920s or the Qing Dynasty. Water Margin is even much, much older than that. Hell The Legend of Madame White Snake, as I also noted in the write-up, is so goddamned old it predates any formal written work altogether, and was originally passed around through oral tellings. Some of the oldest Youxia poetry I read through as a child dated back to the Tang Dynasty, roughly around somewhere within the mid 7th Century A.D.

Once again, I think the root of the issue here is that Wuxia as a label for this genre came around much, MUCH later on and was retroactively applied to earlier writings and myths by academics and historians. Maybe you knew that, maybe you didn't. But this is all absolutely, undeniably 100% factual.

Whether or not you want to be a super-stickler for historical and etymological purism and denounce the retroactive application of the word Wuxia to older works is entirely 100% on you and you're very much entitled to that viewpoint... but you'd have to bear in mind that that's NOT how the VAST overwhelming majority of scholars and historians on the subject (not that I'm even remotely claiming to be one myself mind you, but I've been good friends with my fair share of them over the years) tend to view things.

As you yourself alluded to, words and language are fluid and evolve. For a VERY long time now (almost a century in fact), Wuxia has widely come to be understood as a MUCH broader umbrella-term used to describe any piece of kung fu/martial arts fiction with a supernatural/mythological basis to it (particularly rooted in ancient Chinese folklore), and that deals with deeper themes centering on archaic warriors' principals.

That includes ancient Youxia poetry. That includes 3 out of the 4 Great Chinese Literary Works. That includes countless varied Chinese folktales spanning thousands of years. That includes the great 1950s classics and standards by people like Jin Yong and Gu Long and whatnot. That includes the 1920s Silent serials, and the much later Shaw Bros. and Golden Harvest epics. That includes obscure independent Taiwanese no-budget efforts. That includes TVB series dating back to the 1970s and 80s. That includes Japanese manga and anime takes on such subject matter.

And yes, that therefore thus also includes Dragon Ball.

Modern Chinese popular fictions had not been introduced into Japan until the 1990s (the word 武侠/Wuxia itself was not even recognized at all), and the kung-fu movies that gained popularity in Japan were mostly straightforward martial arts action films instead of orthodox Wuxia Pin. The kung-fu movies impacted the Japanese subculture in a superficial way, like exaggerative superhuman actions and ki waves, but their spiritual nature was not something new to the Japanese; There already had been popular fictions, movies, manga and such focused on spiritual seeking of budo which developed completely independently of Wuxia in China. Even the superhuman actions and magic tricks in Wuxia that you stated are not as unique as you think they are. Similar elements can be found in classic Japanese kengi/chanbara movies that were produced in the early 20th century, before the first Wuxia movies in China. Google Matsunosuke Onoe and you'll see it. It's also worth pointing out that Toriyama's very first manga was about chanbara.

A couple of points in here completely perplexed me. I never once at any point in the write up claimed that depictions of supernatural Qigong/Chi/Ki techniques were somehow “unique” nor that they were at all “new to the Japanese” (no clue where you got any of that from in any of what I wrote). Quite the contrary, a huge motivating factor for me even embarking on this absolutely gargantuan project of a post was to specifically point out and prove to most folks here how positively NOT unique (and in fact, anciently old-hat) such stylistic and narrative tropes actually are across an impossibly wide and gobsmackingly vast swath of Asian media (Chinese, Japanese, hell even Taiwanese, etc.) going back long, long, long many ages ago.

So trust me, I'm fairly sure that we're on the same page there. The alternate title of this thread could just as easily be “Everything North American fans tend to think is so special and unique about Dragon Ball is in actuality older than fucking dirt and is the furthest thing ever from original.”

That having been said however, DAMN good catch on Silent Japanese Chanbara/Jidaigeki films technically beating out Silent Chinese Wuxia films to the punch of depicting supernatural Ki techniques on screen by a few years. That's a crucial point that I overlooked, and that's entirely 100% my bad. So kudos and thank you very, very much for picking up on that and pointing it out.

As to the rest of your points, while its not too surprising that the Chinese term Wuxia itself wasn't really used in Japan for a very long time, once again I simply think that you're overlooking a ton of things that clearly DID make it to Japan (such as the aforementioned martial arts films) that in modern uses of the word would actually be considered Wuxia (regardless of the word's lack of widespread use in Japan for however long). There are any number of anime directors and manga authors who have long, numerous times (going back to well long before your mid-90s benchmarker) directly cited clear Wuxia sources for influence. Hell, there's even a number of visuals in my giant write-up where I clearly show places where 1980s Japanese animators were directly copying from Chinese Wuxia visuals.

The discrepancy you're having with me here is that you're not recognizing these various pieces of media as existing under the term Wuxia, when virtually the entire rest of the planet does. The problem you're having with all this here essentially boils down to the use of a single word.

If you object to this (long-since very widely accepted) use of the word, whether its once again due to some nitpicky sense of historical/etymological purism or something else along those lines, then understand that what we're talking about here throughout this thread, getting past that particular word entirely for a moment, are Mythological/Supernatural Kung Fu Fantasy Fiction and Folklore. Does that succinctly get around the “retroactively applied” aspect of the term Wuxia? Yes it does. Is that also WAY too much of a fucking mouthful to repeat at each and every single stage? Good god yes.

I'm sticking with Wuxia. Its been good enough for every single Chinese cultural scholar and historian the academic world-over for the last 80 some-odd years, its good enough for me. Don't like it? Take it up with someone who actually has a degree in this shit. I'm just a dork with a ratty old VHS collection.

It's a fact that Jin Yong's works and any other Wuxia novels didn't see Japanese print until the mid-'90s. There's multiple sources confirming it.

Cool, I didn't know the specific Japanese publication histories for those books, so I'll defer to you on that. Thanks again for pointing that out.

But Wuxia Manhua penetrated Japan? From what I know, it never did. I know that the earliest Wuxia Manhua artists studied art in Japan and were heavily influenced by manga, though.

I talked about manhua artists like Ma Wing Shing and the like being heavily, greatly influenced and impacted by Japanese manga art during the write-up. Went into a pretty good amount of detail on that.

I can't remember where I read this, this is going back a LONG time ago now, but I distantly recall having heard way back in the day that several Wuxia manhua, among them Chinese Hero and a few Lee Chi Ching series, had made some rounds in Japan. Also that the Street Fighter and SNK manhua had Japanese runs at some point as well, though that's hardly surprising considering.

If any of that's incorrect, then my apologies.

You're misunderstanding my point. Of course I DO KNOW that the cultural similarities are the result of Japan absorbing the Chinese culture for thousands of years. Maybe more than you do. I never said that the cultural similarities are coincidental.

Okay, let's all of us take a deep, deep breath and calm down here.

Let me make something abundantly clear here: I would never, ever even so much as THINK to do something as positively snotty and dickish as accuse a native Japanese person of not knowing their own damn heritage nor claim that I somehow know it better than they do. To paraphrase a quote from Tarantino, if I did something that abhorrently disrespectful in a dream I would wake up and apologize.

Understand that I wasn't even responding directly to you, nor could I at the time. I was simply clarifying for some of the other folks here in this thread the historical/cultural backstory (for the benefit of those who didn't know), since I was originally replying to something you wrote indirectly off-site. And I certainly also never meant to imply that you were saying that the cultural similarities were coincidental. Again, that was just me (over)-explaining to the folks here, as I'm a wordy motherfucker (in case that somehow wasn't already apparent). My deepest, deepest apologies for any confusion that that may have caused.

I love your attempt at explaining Dragon Ball from the Asian point of view. I myself learned a lot from this topic. However, the biggest problem of your approach is that you are trying to lump together any martial arts fictions sharing elements (even if slightly or superficially) from the Chinese culture by using the word Wuxia, which is quite a jump in logic. You should add double quotes to it for that kind of use or create a new term for martial arts entertainments in general sharing the eastern Asian cultures as a basis. You're expanding the definition of Wuxia too much and overplaying it. Turn your attention more to the other Asian cultures and you'll see how things are not as simple as you might think.

I think I've already succinctly explained that my use of the term Wuxia here is NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM my own “expansion” of the term but is rather how I've ALWAYS seen the term used throughout everything from pop culture to outright scholarly academia throughout quite literally my entire lifetime. This isn't my definition of the word. I'm pulling all this from the minds and writings of a great many, many, many brilliant people who are a TREMENDOUS deal smarter and better studied on this matter (and countless others) than I am, ever was, and likely ever will be.

I don't know why this use of the term Wuxia as a catch-all genre-label for Chinese Myth-based Kung Fu Fantasy Fiction bothers you as much as it does: my “historical/etymological purism” remarks from before were idle speculation on my end, but I'm not a mind reader. Regardless, if you for whatever reason disagree with and dislike what has been the popular use and go-to definition of the word Wuxia for the better part of nearly a hundred years now, then I'm not the person you should be having this argument with. I'm not a scholar or academic on Chinese culture, literature, history, and folklore, and I went out of my way numerous times in the actual write-up here to make that as crystal clear as can possibly be. Those are the sorts of people you should be taking this debate up with.

In the meantime, I'm simply going along with the use of the word as such (vastly smarter than I) people have defined it since long, long, LONG before I ever came along.

[Herms]

It might seem piddling to get hung up on the definition of one word, but when that single word is the basis for the entire thread, I think it's fair. This thread is a fantastic look at the cultural background of Asian supernatural/mythological kung-fu fantasy, but the central claim that DB's "true genre" is Wuxia is a stretch. It's not merely Western DB fans who are strangers to the term "Wuxia": near as I can tell, Japanese DB fans don't use it in relation to the series either, and I think that's a big part of where Kei is coming from. The broad definition of "Wuxia" may be second-nature to you and those you learned from, but it appears to be a mostly Western redefinition. Looking around a bit, both the Chinese and Japanese Wikipedia pages on Wuxia define it as a genre originating in the 20th century, while at the same time noting that its antecedents go all the way back to the Spring and Autumn period. The English Wikipedia page mostly follows suit, but does at times phrase things in a way that leans towards the idea of the term "Wuxia" being retroactively applied to pre-20th century antecedent works.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with retroactively applying a term like that, and it certainly happens all the time as you've noted, I'll again stress that (near as I can tell) this retroactive application of "Wuxia" is a Western phenomenon, and not how the term is used in Chinese itself or Japanese. Case in point, you cite Water Margin, Journey to the West, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms as examples of Wuxia, but not too long ago I ended up reading an awful lot in Chinese about all three as part of a course, and I never saw them labelled as "Wuxia". They certainly influenced the modern Wuxia genre, but (again, near as I can tell) in Chinese the original novels themselves aren't classified as Wuxia. Googling a bit, I even found a reference to a "Wuxia version of Journey to the West" (武侠版西游记), implying the original doesn't count as Wuxia.

Bringing it back to DB, Japanese Wikipedia lists its genre as "shonen manga" (少年漫画) and "fighting manga" (格闘漫画)...almost word-for-word the two genre labels you reject in favor of Wuxia as its true genre. Digging around a bit, it seems that the Japanese Wikipedia page for Wuxia novels did at some point list DB and Fist of the North Stars as being inspired by Wuxia, but this was eventually judged as "baseless" and removed (the main article itself also notes that the term "Wuxia" is not well-known in Japan). Obviously Wikipedia can be wrong, but I think this strongly cuts against the idea that DB is self-evidently part of the Wuxia genre and that there's something wrong with the Western fanbase for not recognizing this.

So, long story short, "Wuxia" can serve as a handy catch-all term for the general Asian supernatural/mythological kung-fu fantasy background DB takes inspiration from, but it needs to be kept in mind that this expanded use of the term seems to be a Western thing, and in Japan DB is not commonly considered "Wuxia".

[Polyphase Avatron]

If you're going to define Journey to the West as being Wuxia, then of course Dragonball was inspired by it...

[Herms]

If you're going to define Journey to the West as being Wuxia, then of course Dragonball was inspired by it...

Not sure if this was cross-posted with my last post, or was written in response to it, but anyway, I'll reiterate that in Chinese and Japanese the novel Journey to the West is NOT classified as Wuxia. It helped inspired the modern Wuxia genre, and has been adapted into modern Wuxia works, but (near as I can tell) it's only in English that the term "Wuxia" is retroactively applied to the original Journey to the West novel and other antecedents of modern Wuxia. Nothing inherently wrong with the word "Wuxia" being used differently in English than in Chinese (God knows the same thing happens with English words in other languages; Japanese is full of examples), but we need to keep this difference in mind.

[Kendamu]

I'll repeat what I said on Twitter, but with a bit more detail:

It is extremely difficult to chalk up the similarities between Wuxia and Dragon Ball to coincidence. If it isn't Wuxia, it's certainly heavily inspired by it. When it's said that Dragon Ball isn't Wuxia, it's like saying that A Fistful of Dollars isn't a samurai movie even though it took damn near everything from Yojimbo to the point that I'm surprised that it didn't feature Toshiro Mifune in a cowboy hat.

Yeah, that's not a 1:1 example. Maybe a closer example would be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Daredevil. If you put the main characters of Daredevil on Netflix in mutant animal costumes, you would have Eastman & Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics circa 1984. Now, TMNT isn't a superhero book, but Eastman & Laird consciously took so much straight from Frank Miller's Daredevil run that its hard to not call it one.

If more TMNT fans knew that connection, the 1980s B&W comic run would be a ton more popular.

The same applies here with Dragon Ball. If it isn't Wuxia, it "isn't Wuxia" the same way TMNT isn't "Marvel in the 80s."

[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.



You know what though? Honestly, no matter WHAT word you choose to ascribe to any of this, if any of the colossal mountains of words on the previous pages helped inspire at least one or two Kanz-folks to put down the motherfucking One Piece manga for at least a minute and pick up a Ma Wing Shing manhua instead, I'll consider the ultimate purpose of this thread to have been more or less properly served.

[Polyphase Avatron]

If you're going to define Journey to the West as being Wuxia, then of course Dragonball was inspired by it...

Not sure if this was cross-posted with my last post, or was written in response to it, but anyway, I'll reiterate that in Chinese and Japanese the novel Journey to the West is NOT classified as Wuxia. It helped inspired the modern Wuxia genre, and has been adapted into modern Wuxia works, but (near as I can tell) it's only in English that the term "Wuxia" is retroactively applied to the original Journey to the West novel and other antecedents of modern Wuxia. Nothing inherently wrong with the word "Wuxia" being used differently in English than in Chinese (God knows the same thing happens with English words in other languages; Japanese is full of examples), but we need to keep this difference in mind.

It was a response to Kunzait_83

[Kunzait_83]

What I didn't know was that all of the insanely over the top shit that we see during the Z portion is as ripped straight out of Wuxia media as it is. That in itself is incredibly damning to the claim that it's not primarily about martial arts during the Z portion (and thus, no, Funimation's replacement score does not have any semblance of merit).

Just to further hammer this very same point home that much more aggressively, and in case anyone may have missed these due to A) a bunch of them needing to be kept within RAM-conserving spoiler tags, B) general skimming around, and C) all the technical difficulty nonsense that plagued these posts early on when they first went up originally (and further for those who may still be having some hardware issues with whatever device they're reading this all on), I'll just gather up a select smattering of my personal favorites of all the Wuxia Asian Supernatural/Mythological Martial Arts Fantasy fight gifs that I'd sprinkled throughout the first few sections and leave them all here in one master-collection for easier view. It took a LOT of effort to make them, plus they're just plain badass.

Spoiler:

(Couldn't resist leaving in at least this one side-by-side comparison. )

I am curious to hear your perspective on how the current batch of new Dragon Ball material touches upon Wuxia tropes.

Also, this may have been touched on in a part that I missed, but do the series' penchant for constant transformations, and the appearance for some of them (Super Saiyan in particular) have its roots in older Wuxia material?

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'd originally planned to at some point possibly/maybe touch upon the more recent DB stuff, however doing so would probably require that I delve into.... other stuff that I've been struggling a bit with writing about most-recently. More on that possibly at a later time.

*The one clear-cut "super transformation" I could immediately think of off the top of my head was the giant winged demonic creature that Hell's Concubine from Saga of the Phoenix mutates into at the very end of that film.