Untalked about symbolism of Dragon Ball...

[USSJ Roshi]

I've never seem anybody talking about these things. Things like Trunks being a Nephilim because he was born of ROYAL Saiya-Jin blood. Jin means Devil in Japanese. Meaning the same as the Arabic word Djinn or Djinni. Beings that are the opposite to Angels. In the bible it speaks of Devils of ROYAL blood breeding with Humans and giving birth to silver haired beings. Though Trunks now has purple hair so I'm not sure whats going on there...

Also the super Saiyan hair is symbolize of the Sun. It also looks like a golden "crown of thorns"... like Jesus's crown of thorns? When you draw a picure of the Sun. It is usually a circle with thorns around it representing "rays", like the super Saiyan hair. Notice how when they turn SS2 and SS3 their hair grows. Representing more powerful "rays" coming from the Sun.

Also the name Mr Satan. Satan the great deciever... Mr Satan who decieves the world into believing he saved them. Who has a daughter named Videl. Mix those letters up spells Devil.

There is a lot of Bibical symbolism and also stuff taken from Journey to the West. Instead of Son Goku / Son Wu Kong(THE MONKEY KING) "hatching" from a rock. Goku "hatches" from a space ship. I thought that was really funny.

I'm so glad I get to exist in a world where Dragon Ball Z exists.

Edit: Oh and the whole shapeshifting Reptilian conspiracy-thing connects to Frieza, but that is... too out there for some folks. Akira Toriyama is "ILLUMINATED".

[Lord Frieza]

What you have to remember is that as far as the Japanese are concerned Christanity and other wester religions are treated no differently then western cultures tend to treat the faiths of others in our entertainment media. It's full of concepts and symbolism that can be very affective and striking or just fun to throw in.

We've turned religious characters like Thor and Hercules into comic book heroes, we make regular us of stuff from many religions across the world in our own fiction and we don't sometimes give a lot of deep thought to it.

Dragon Ball is also one of the lesser examples. Many Go Nagai works, which procced DB by quite a few years, have a lot of Christion themed concepts and imagery through out such as Devilman and Mao Dante, the later of which has the Christian God as the bad guy while the Demons are the heroes. Then you have other works like Neon Genesis Evangelion, the very bad Angel Sanctuary and a whole host of others.

[dbgtFO]

Jin means person or people or man or human. That's why they are called Saiya-jin ie. Saiya-person, Saiya-man etc. In Japan a japanese person is called "Nippon-jin" and foreigners Gaijin and repeat that with a lot of races in Dragon Ball too and in other series.
This is the first I've heard of jin meaning devil and I think you are confusing it with Majin, which is what is used in Dragon Ball and other series dealing with Demons like Seven Deadly Sins.
But the experts might just correct either of us and show what is right.

[USSJ Roshi]

Jin means person or people or man or human. That's why they are called Saiya-jin ie. Saiya-person, Saiya-man etc. In Japan a japanese person is called "Nippon-jin" and foreigners Gaijin and repeat that with a lot of races in Dragon Ball too and in other series.
This is the first I've heard of jin meaning devil and I think you are confusing it with Majin, which is what is used in Dragon Ball and other series dealing with Demons like Seven Deadly Sins.
But the experts might just correct either of us and show what is right.

Just Googling there and you're right it does mean person. It also means "Diety or God". It seems to have many different meanings.

Notice the guy that turns into a Devil / Demon whatever in Tekken. His name is Jin.

[Marco Polo]

Also there are 7 Dragon Balls clearly like the recurrence of the number 7 in the Bible

[Makaioshin]

In Dragon Ball the God that we are introduced to is a mysterious green man from space. This green God is known to have inadvertently cast down a great evil, known as Piccolo Daimao (Satan),who causes mayhem and destruction to mankind. In order to rectify this evil and the many evils that exist within this world a savior is needed. That savior is none other than Piccolo, who is essentially the son of God. A holy trinity is then established in which three beings God, Piccolo (the holy son), and Shenlong (the holy ghost) are of one essence but are three distinct. It is then through Piccolo's ultimate sacrifice in which he strikes the distinct crucifix pose that mankind is delivered. It is through his resurrection that mankind is restored.

Piccolo is also the martial arts master of not only Gohan (who saves the world through His teachings), Goten, and Trunks but as he is one with God he is also the master of Son Goku, Kuririn, Tenshinhan, Yamcha, Chaozu, and such. It is through His teachings that mankind finds salvation. It is therefore fitting that notable Japanese Christian Toshio Furukawa is the one allowed to voice the king of kings.



Masha'Allah. Peace be upon you.

[Kamiccolo9]

Jesus Christ

[USSJ Roshi]

In Dragon Ball the God that we are introduced to is a mysterious green man from space. This green God is known to have inadvertently cast down a great evil, known as Piccolo Daimao (Satan),who causes mayhem and destruction to mankind. In order to rectify this evil and the many evils that exist within this world a savior is needed. That savior is none other than Piccolo, who is essentially the son of God. A holy trinity is then established in which three beings God, Piccolo (the holy son), and Shenlong (the holy ghost) are of one essence but are three distinct. It is then through Piccolo's ultimate sacrifice in which he strikes the distinct crucifix pose that mankind is delivered. It is through his resurrection that mankind is restored.

Piccolo is also the martial arts master of not only Gohan (who saves the world through His teachings), Goten, and Trunks but as he is one with God he is also the master of Son Goku, Kuririn, Tenshinhan, Yamcha, Chaozu, and such. It is through His teachings that mankind finds salvation. It is therefore fitting that notable Japanese Christian Toshio Furukawa is the one allowed to voice the king of kings.



Masha'Allah. Peace be upon you.

Interesting I never saw that. So Piccolo is the Holy Spirit? Goku is the Father and Gohan is the Son? How ironic that Goku and Gohan's surname is Son.

There is a phrase in Dragon Ball. I cannot remember where you hear it and / or which dub, but it's "NUMBER ONE UNDER THE SUN". The Sun... God. Son Goku the Son of God.

The VERY first scene in Dragon Ball intro is the Sun now that I think about it.

I dunno maybe I'm thinking to much...

[VegettoEX]

I guess while I appreciate the fun and games people are having beyond the initial post, I also think it's important to point out how some of the stuff mentioned in said initial post absolutely isn't the symbolism you may think it is. While it's hard to tell what here is intended as parody (uhh... hopefully all of it, initial post included?), it wouldn't be very responsible to let it go on forever without clearing some stuff up.

I'm not the etymological master and I would appreciate extra context from those who are, but it seems bizarre to pull reasoning between the Japanese language reading of the word for "person" (人 hito, jin, nin) and the name 仁 (Jin) from Tekken (which, from my understanding, that specific kanji means "benevolence") and then somehow extrapolating out things into royalty and demons. So we're clearly in parody territory here. That all being said, that the loanword djinn resembles the pronunciation of the Japanese word for "human" is likewise (I mean, I would have to assume...?) totally unrelated; a quick look at its roots shows an original meaning of "to hide" or "to conceal". Just because words sound the same, particularly when they're coming from such drastically different languages, don't just go in assuming things.

We know that Super Saiyan hair was specifically done as a new transformation to avoid inking in so much. I tend to avoid making grand, sweeping claims of, "There's no symbolism here and you're a bad person for looking for and/or discovering any unintentional, hidden meaning of your own here"... but there's no symbolism here. They just wanted to draw less.

The description of Satan and Videl and the ongoing name pun series there (complemented later on by Mark and Miguel) is... well, it's just a series of jokes. I think it ends up being particularly funny when Satan is the one who truly saves the world in the end, but that's the extent of the "symbolism" there. Just a, "Huh. Funny. Anyway..." kind of thing.

There is no deeper meaning to there being seven Dragon Balls, and it's not a reference to anything in real-world religion. Toriyama just copied the idea from Hakken-den and changed the number so it wouldn't be exactly the same.

What religious "symbolism" (or iconography) Toriyama uses is generally surface-level-only, and almost always in service of a gag, rather than in service of commentary. Upa making a cross to help defeat Dracula Man? Kuririn praying to God (i.e., Dende)? Toriyama isn't "saying" anything here.

Yeah, I suppose you could make some parallels with Demon King Piccolo and his offspring and their being an original being who split off his evil part and became God of a planet and Goku is totally Jesus... but, again, I don't really think there's much more to say there.

The name 孫 (which, when read in Japanese, doesn't sound like the star in the sky beaming light on Earth) has nothing to do with anything anyone is talking about here. It's directly taken from Journey to the West, where the "handsome monkey king" begins training with his first real master, the Taoist monk Subodhi. To earn his favor, the monkey inquires about receiving a new name (where in a roundabout way it just comes from the fact that he's an actual monkey):

The Patriarch laughed and said, "Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a monkey (hu-sun) that feeds on pine seeds. This gives me the idea of deriving your surname from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name 'Hu.' Now, when the accompanying animal radical is dropped from this word, what's left is a compound made up of the two characters, ku and yüeh. Ku means aged and yüeh means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of 'Sun'. When the accompanying radical is dropped from this word, we have the compound of tzŭ and hsi. Tzŭ means a boy and hsi means a baby, so that the name exactly accords with the Doctrine of the Baby. So your surname will be 'Sun'." When the Monkey King heard this, he was filled with delight. "Splendid! Splendid!" he cried, kowtowing. "At least I know my surname. May the Master be even more gracious! Since I have receive the surname, let me be given also a personal name, so that it may facilitate your calling and commanding me." The Patriarch said, "Within my tradition are twelve characters which have been used to name the pupils according to their divisions. You are one who belongs to the tenth generation." "Which twelve characters are they?" asked the Monkey King. The Patriarch said, "They are: wide (kuang), great (ta), wise (chih), intelligence (hui), true (chên), conforming (ju), nature (hsing), sea (hai), sharp (ying), wake-to (wu), complete (yüan), and awakening (chüeh). Your rank falls precisely on the word 'wake-to' (wu). You will hence be given the religious name 'Wake-to-Vacuity' (wu-k'ung). All right?" "Splendid! Splendid!" said the Monkey King, laughing: "henceforth I shall be called Sun Wu-k'ung."

[SupremeKai25]

Fascinating topic. I always thought that my absolute favourite character, Fused Zamasu, looked like Jesus on the Crucifix at times.

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