I swear on my life there isn’t a single shonen author that understood what made dragon ball different. Ignoring the ki system, the show was genuinely about martial arts and still is. There wasn’t and still isn’t constant use of theatrics, most techniques shown were completely real and borrowed from karate and jest kune do, acrobatic tricks weren’t used routinely they were used when someone was getting dog walked just to demonstrate superiority, and most injuries were fucking real. Even the ki system is partially realistic given that aura creation is analogous to tummo breathing used specifically to heighten one’s internal body heat for preparation for intense activity. Even ultra instinct is a direct reference to a real concept called Mushin that functions exactly like the technique shown in the show.
Instead every shonen that came out after it is just acrobatic wizards with kickboxing skills after acrobatic wizards with kickboxing skills.
the show is an 80s neoliberal ronald reagon allegory. the humorous parts at least
>>29341Man the people on this site just write anything to posts they don’t understand
Dragon Ball, at its heart, was a sci-fantasy wuxia/xianxia series
Toriyama was a big fan of Hong Kong martial arts movies so I know what you mean. There's a lot of shit in anime/manga that looks like cartoon nonsense to us but is rooted in some deep cultural context, like people complaining about Naruto ninja not being "real" ninjas when they're pretty much how Japanese culture described ninjas for centuries
>>29299I've genuinely heard people in the know say that the "fight world" in the 20th century was kind of like Dragon Ball and other fighting anime of the time but in real life.
It’s just a butchered and japanwashed Journey to the West, it has the exact same powercreep as Chinese fiction
>>29367Holy shit it’s like the show was based of a legend of a monkey with a staff. Almost like the name “son Goku” of an alien creature wielding a staff that changes shape based on his will and also transforms into a giant primate may have been influenced by something that actually exists in human mythology