Dragon Ball's spiritual successor

[Kappa]

So I noticed that a lot of people in the anime community consider One Piece "Dragon Ball's spiritual successor".

What do you guys think about this? I get where people are coming from cuz One Piece really does feel like Dragon Ball.

[MasenkoHA]

Way back in 1999-2008ish when it looked like Dragon Ball was over and done with as of GT and One Piece was the new hot shonen series and Oda was known for his love of Dragon Ball and Monkey D. Luffy was, let's be honest, a Goku knock off? Sure yeah.

But Dragon Ball isn't really gone anymore. It's had a revival series, four new movies, some weird trading card web cartoon promotion....thing, and a still ongoing manga.

You can't really be a spiritual successor to something that's still around.

[TheGreatness25]

Yu-Yu Hakusho is Dragon Ball's true spiritual successor! I mean... besides the fact that YYH is finished and Dragon Ball is still around...

[capsulecorp]

OP is obviously heavily inspired by Dragon Ball, but to me the thing holding it back from really feeling like a "successor" is the character designs. They're just... not that strong, most of the time.

[Xeogran]

OP is obviously heavily inspired by Dragon Ball, but to me the thing holding it back from really feeling like a "successor" is the character designs. They're just... not that strong, most of the time.

OP is wacky by nature so the civilians will have those silly designs to reflect that. But all the major characters are pretty well designed (Admirals, Emperors, the Straw Hats and stuff)

[Cipher]

It doesn’t have one, content-wise. Nothing has quite captured its same magic, and that’s to its credit. Wouldn’t be here if it were so imitable.

In the public consciousness? One Piece, and Naruto, and Bleach, and Demon Slayer, and Jujitsu Kaisen, and… At least in terms of being the all-ages action series of the moment. They don’t all of the staying cultural iconography of DB, but in that sense it’ll never have a successor—nothing is ever going to be a second Goku in terms of pop-culture iconography in Japan at least, in the same way nothing is ever going to replace Doraemon. In the same way nothing is ever going to replace Star Wars or Batman in America, etc. They’re just a fixed part of the landscape. I don’t think we’ve quite seen a series in its genre do that since DB—not even One Piece, which is probably as close as it gets. But your mom (in Japan, anyway) can’t name any of Luffy’s forms or attacks in the way she could Super Saiyan or Kamehameha. Even Masako Nozawa is held as a national treasure, and a replacement for Goku is going to be a kind of generation-defining thing.

There’ll always be a defining shonen (Jump) action manga for each new generation of kids though. They come and go. DB was just part of that chain—albeit with a particularly high level of craft and staying power—but its spot in terms of immediate consciousness has rotated again and again. In terms of content, they’ll always have their similarities, and things that keep them unique—or they wouldn’t rise to that level of notoriety in the first place.

[WittyUsername]

It doesn’t have one, content-wise. Nothing has quite captured its same magic, and that’s to its credit. Wouldn’t be here if it were so imitable.

In the public consciousness? One Piece, and Naruto, and Bleach, and Demon Slayer, and Jujitsu Kaisen, and… At least in terms of being the all-ages action series of the moment. They don’t all of the staying cultural iconography of DB, but in that sense it’ll never have a successor—nothing is ever going to be a second Goku in terms of pop-culture iconography in Japan at least, in the same way nothing is ever going to replace Doraemon. In the same way nothing is ever going to replace Star Wars or Batman in America, etc. They’re just a fixed part of the landscape. I don’t think we’ve quite seen a series in its genre do that since DB—not even One Piece, which is probably as close as it gets. But your mom (in Japan, anyway) can’t name any of Luffy’s forms or attacks in the way she could Super Saiyan or Kamehameha. Even Masako Nozawa is held as a national treasure, and a replacement for Goku is going to be a kind of generation-defining thing.

There’ll always be a defining shonen (Jump) action manga for each new generation of kids though. They come and go. DB was just part of that chain—albeit with a particularly high level of craft and staying power—but its spot in terms of immediate consciousness has rotated again and again. In terms of content, they’ll always have their similarities, and things that keep them unique—or they wouldn’t rise to that level of notoriety in the first place.

I don’t know. For Japan at least, it seems like One Piece basically eclipsed Dragon Ball in the cultural zeitgeist a long time ago.

[Cipher]

I don’t know. For Japan at least, it seems like One Piece basically eclipsed Dragon Ball in the cultural zeitgeist a long time ago.

That’s why I basically had two (if not three) answers above. One Piece definitely has more people actively following/invested in it now than Dragon Ball. So does Demon Slayer and JJK, and the same was true of any of the intermediary big Jump series of the day. That door’s kept rotating.

But One Piece doesn’t pass the “your mom and grandmother know about this detail” test in the same way DB does. Maybe that’ll shift in the future, and it’s already the closest of the big post-DB series to occupying that spot. But even if it gets there, it’d exist as a touchstone alongside DB rather than replacing it.

At least in terms of Japan, depending on what sense this question is asked in, DB is simultaneously a bigger deal and less big deal than a lot of fans seem to realize. Bigger in the sense of being a verified pop culture touchstone, less big in the sense of basically every generation (every five or so years) getting its big Shonen Jump action manga that will stick with those kids in the same way.

What does “spiritual successor” even mean here?

[Yuji]

One Piece is nothing like Dragon Ball outside of being a light-hearted action adventure series. Humor, aesthetics, approach to storytelling and world building - they all differ greatly.

I'd say Seven Deady Sins is closer to capturing the Dragon Ball feel - particularly in its action and humor (though I don't particularly like how it leans into the sexual humor of earlier DB) - than any of the other big Shounen that have come since.

[Kappa]

Way back in 1999-2008ish when it looked like Dragon Ball was over and done with as of GT and One Piece was the new hot shonen series and Oda was known for his love of Dragon Ball and Monkey D. Luffy was, let's be honest, a Goku knock off? Sure yeah.

But Dragon Ball isn't really gone anymore. It's had a revival series, four new movies, some weird trading card web cartoon promotion....thing, and a still ongoing manga.

You can't really be a spiritual successor to something that's still around.

I think people mean that One Piece is a spiritual successor to the original DB manga. (A lot of people act like Super doesn't exist).

[BWri]

Yu-Yu Hakusho is Dragon Ball's true spiritual successor! I mean... besides the fact that YYH is finished and Dragon Ball is still around...

I would have to agree with this. In terms of power set, fights, afterlife, and even aesthetic to some degree. I wish YYH got to run as long as DB/DBZ did to see what it would have become.

I had actually tangled up a lot of my love for YYH into DB for some reason years ago until I rewatched the entirety of YYH around 2016/2017 and learned that I actually liked it more than DB (mostly because of the Dark Tournament and the fact that all 4 protags stay relevant throughout).

[UpFromTheSkies]

I definitely see Goku's character traits in Luffy, but I wouldn't say One Piece is Dragon Ball's spiritual successor because Dragon Ball is a fighting manga/anime, and One Piece, while it has plenty of action and fight scenes, is much more focused on the story and world building.

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball doesn't have a successor, even among the three series generally considered to be its 'spritual successor' as part of the 'Big Three'. Which, frankly, is fine and dandy.

[MasenkoHA]

(A lot of people act like Super doesn't exist).

Who is these "a lot of people" because it sure seems like people either like it enough to engage in discourse about it or have a giant hate boner for it which is really not doing a good job of acting like it doesn't exist.

[Kappa]

(A lot of people act like Super doesn't exist).

Who is these "a lot of people" because it sure seems like people either like it enough to engage in discourse about it or have a giant hate boner for it which is really not doing a good job of acting like it doesn't exist.

I meant that a lot of people love the original but don't watch Super. On youtube, a lot of people say that "Dragon Ball ended years ago" and treat DBS like a spinoff.

[JulieYBM]

(A lot of people act like Super doesn't exist).

Who is these "a lot of people" because it sure seems like people either like it enough to engage in discourse about it or have a giant hate boner for it which is really not doing a good job of acting like it doesn't exist.

I meant that a lot of people love the original but don't watch Super. On youtube, a lot of people say that "Dragon Ball ended years ago" and treat DBS like a spinoff.

At the risk of sounding sarcastic: who cares? I don't care what Nameless Person #43525234 thinks and they don't care what I think

[VegettoEX]

I meant that a lot of people love the original but don't watch Super. On youtube, a lot of people say that "Dragon Ball ended years ago" and treat DBS like a spinoff.

Agreed with Julie. Who cares what randos say? If you want to talk to them, great. If you don't, great.

But also:

That's all true. It's a twilight-years sequel series several years removed and differing from its original authorship/production process. Super isn't "more Dragon Ball" -- it's "more different Dragon Ball".

And that's not even making any kind of qualitative statements -- them's just raw facts about what it is.

[Vhanos]

I had actually tangled up a lot of my love for YYH into DB for some reason years ago until I rewatched the entirety of YYH around 2016/2017 and learned that I actually liked it more than DB (mostly because of the Dark Tournament and the fact that all 4 protags stay relevant throughout).

I like DBZ better than YYH. Always did. I re-watched YYH and found it not as good as when I first saw it. It's like watching pro wrestling or a sport, and expecting a good match, but instead I get results that don't live up to par.

As for it being the spiritual successor, no. Something that you competed with, and the two shows competed back in the 1990s, cannot be your successor.

[Desassina]

Nothing quite like it, since it's so disjoint in story telling, but consistent in art style that you would be hard pressed to find an author who's not artsy for the sake of it, and whose ideas are not made to be out there on purpose. Toriyama was very genuine! Part of it was due to his contributing nature to works outside his own which allowed him to design things freely and to make a collection of them under the same name. However, I do think that, while One Punch Man does not touch on the same ideas, its origins and development into a series, as well as the genres that it's being built upon, is quite like Dragon Ball in the 80s.

[Thanos]

Wasn't Dragon Ball technically a spiritual successor to "Dragon Boy"...?