Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

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super michael
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Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by super michael » Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:43 am

Like let say an example, has anyone used techniques or reference from other materials, such as techniques or lines?

In the anime That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime a character called
In another anime I think Dragon Quest Adventure of Dai Reboot, they make a reference about Goblin Slayer in one episode if I am not mistake.

I wonder if Dragon Ball has done something like that.

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by Wrigglything » Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:14 am

Assuming I get your question, even the concept of Dragon Ball was a spoof of Journey to the West. That's not to mention all the references to pop culture splattered in the original run, like one of the androids looking like the Terminator and so on.

Toriyama is quite blatant about the works that he enjoys and gets inspired from, anyway, such as kung fu films, especially Jackie Chan films, and plenty of Hollywood films.

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:37 am

In addition to early Dragon Ball being based on Journey to the West, Son Goku's name, Kinto Un, and Nyoibo are straight out of Journey to the West

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by Koitsukai » Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:41 am

I guess you could say Freeza's telekinesis is like the Force? which is not that different from regular telekinesis.

Piccolo, Freeza and Cooler have that Superman eyebeam. But then again, I guess the concept of shooting lasers through your eyes existed way before the 1940s.

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Mar 31, 2023 11:30 am

Koitsukai wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:41 am I guess you could say Freeza's telekinesis is like the Force? which is not that different from regular telekinesis.
.
I could be wrong but I don't think either Dragon Ball or Star Wars came up with idea of using chi as telekinesis

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by coola » Fri Mar 31, 2023 11:31 am

The Terminator:
- Sergant Metallic Schwarzenegger like appearance
- Time travel and killer cyborgs

TMNT Movie 2:
- Coola 5th form Super Shredder like appearance

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by Zephyr » Fri Mar 31, 2023 12:54 pm

As others have said, a lot of stuff from Dragon Ball's first arc is based on Journey to the West, Son Goku himself as well as his name, Kinto-un, the Nyoibo, etc. But there's also Tenshinhan, who was based on Erlang Shen.

Kunzait_83 made a pretty lengthy thread here 8 years ago (!?) that covers a lot of things Dragon Ball referenced. Well worth the read if you have an afternoon to spare. Here's also a less lengthy one that's also worth checking out.

Some highlights:
- Bruce Lee's film "The Game of Death" -> Muscle Tower
- The film "King Boxer" (also known as "Five Fingers of Death") -> the Bruce Lee knockoff in West City offering prize money to anyone who can beat him & the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai arc itself
- Sheng Kuan (from the film "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow") & Thunderleg (from the Jackie Chan film "Drunken Master") -> Tao Pai Pai
- Dongfang Bubai (from the novel "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer", but specifically film adaptations of it) -> Freeza
- Bruce Lee's 'paralyzing glare' -> Goku's expression when he becomes Super Saiyan for the first time

There are also a ton of things that Toriyama used in Dragon Ball that are basically lifted from Dr. Slump. Kame Sennin's design being basically the same as God in Dr. Slump is the biggest one that comes to mind for me. There are a ton of others though that I'm blanking on, and it would be nice if there was some sort of comprehensive guide of "Dr. Slump Things Toriyama Re-Used in Dragon Ball".

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Fri Mar 31, 2023 3:49 pm

As well as everything already mentioned, everyone seems to forget Roshi's blatantly plagiarised flying steed Baby Gamera, who's literally just a miniaturised copy of the turtle kaiju of the same name owned by Daiei Film. It's no surprise Baby Gamera's appearances are very sparse.

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by coola » Fri Mar 31, 2023 5:41 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 3:49 pm As well as everything already mentioned, everyone seems to forget Roshi's blatantly plagiarised flying steed Baby Gamera, who's literally just a miniaturised copy of the turtle kaiju of the same name owned by Daiei Film. It's no surprise Baby Gamera's appearances are very sparse.
Previous Toriyama work, Dr. Slump, also had lots of various cameos from both west and east :) https://twitter.com/modelsheets/status/ ... 9312789504
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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by pixie_misa » Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:17 am

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 3:49 pm As well as everything already mentioned, everyone seems to forget Roshi's blatantly plagiarised flying steed Baby Gamera, who's literally just a miniaturised copy of the turtle kaiju of the same name owned by Daiei Film. It's no surprise Baby Gamera's appearances are very sparse.
Explicit, extremely blatant nods like that are "plagiarism" now?

Sheesh

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by Jord » Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:32 am

The Stay Puft Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters showed up at a budokai in the manga.

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Mon Apr 03, 2023 10:53 am

pixie_misa wrote: Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:17 am
LoganForkHands73 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 3:49 pm As well as everything already mentioned, everyone seems to forget Roshi's blatantly plagiarised flying steed Baby Gamera, who's literally just a miniaturised copy of the turtle kaiju of the same name owned by Daiei Film. It's no surprise Baby Gamera's appearances are very sparse.
Explicit, extremely blatant nods like that are "plagiarism" now?

Sheesh
Well no, it was a bit of a comic exaggeration on my part, but the topic is about elements in Dragon Ball taken from other media and Gamera falls into that category more explicitly than most. Considering how harsh Japanese film studios (producers of kaiju movies in particular) tend to react to any perceived misuse of their intellectual property, it was wise of Toriyama to only use Gamera as a one-off Family Guy style cameo rather than a recurring character. Funnily enough, the anime still occasionally shows scenes of Roshi being transported atop a rotating turtle shell but the animators never make it too obvious that it’s obviously Gamera.

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by nineko » Sat Apr 08, 2023 9:33 am

It's well known but it hasn't been mentioned here yet, so let me be Captain Obvious™ for once: several characters from Universe 11 are basically pulled straight from DC comics.

Belmod → Joker
Marcarita → Harley Queen
Dyspo → Flash

And, according to some, Jiren → Superman (though I don't see that, personally).

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sat Apr 08, 2023 2:36 pm

Zephyr wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 12:54 pmKunzait_83 made a pretty lengthy thread here 8 years ago (!?) that covers a lot of things Dragon Ball referenced.
Apart from even the big stuff, there's COUNTLESS little tiny details from across Wuxia fiction and media that Dragon Ball liberally lifted directly from: I chronicled a ton of them in the thread. Here's a random one from the original thread that never seems to jump out at folks (even though it ought to):
Kunzait_83 wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2015 8:57 pmAnother of Goku's techniques directly lifted from the Wuxia writings of Jin Yong is the Shunkan Idou (Instantaneous Movement) which is ripped directly from the “Shifting Stance” from Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. Everything from the “index and middle fingers to the temple” hand gesture to the specifics in how the technique works via “locking onto” a specific Ki source and being able to transport others along with you by touch is copied verbatim from Demi-Gods' Shifting Stance, which is among its more well known and notable supernatural martial arts techniques.

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Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by RandomGuy96 » Sat Apr 08, 2023 6:24 pm

It's worth noting that according to Torishima, Dragon Ball in large part exists in the form that it does because he called up Toriyama and essentially just said "make this like Fist of the North Star."
T: You only need to read that much of Fist of the North Star to understand it. I didn’t care for it that much.
M: Oh?! How can you say that?!
T: Nah, it’s alright because it’s just my personal preference. I don’t like it. But Fist of the North Star was so popular at the time, so I read it carefully and studied it, and that’s how the future of Dragon Ball evolved. I decided the policies.
M: You mean in terms of story arrangement?
T: Yes, I made the story simple by reducing the amount of characters.
M: So that’s it.
T: When I read Fist of the North Star I felt that it was a bit preachy. But I was struck by its dialogue, “You are already dead.” “I don’t qualify to live another day!!” “Because I love the same woman.” And, “I have no regrets in my life.” Children think that such lines sound cool, of course. It had a lot of appeal in that regard, and was incredible.
M: How did you plan to change the policy of Dragon Ball?
T: That’s when I decided to make Dragon Ball a work without substance.
M: Without substance?
T: That’s right, Matsuyama-kun, have you ever learned anything by reading Dragon Ball, that you can remember?
M: Well, of course, um…
T: No, there’s nothing you can learn by reading Dragon Ball. It’s not a lesson in life, it’s useless in our lives; it’s just a funny comic. And that’s fine!
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He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Re: Has Dragon Ball used things from other materials?

Post by WKZ » Thu May 04, 2023 12:59 am

Pretty sure there was some Chinese movie that had similar magic system to ki blasts, just on the lower scale. I don't know the name, I've only seen clip of it, and can't say if it had any influence, but it surely looked like.
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