Dragon Ball Culture Volume 5: Demons

Dragon Ball Culture

Volume 5

Demons

Derek Padula

thedaoofdragonball.com

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Copyright © 2015, by Derek Padula

Written and published by Derek Padula in The United States of America, all rights reserved.

Cataloging In-Publication Data

Padula, Derek.

Dragon Ball Culture / Derek Padula

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-943149-02-5

1. Fantasy comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – 20th century – History and Criticism. 2. Martial arts – Comic books, strips, etc. 3. Spiritual life – Buddhism 4. Spiritual life – Daoism. 5. Good and evil. 6. Imaginary wars and battles. 7. Ethics, ancient. 8. Heroes.

PN6790.J33 – P2 2014

741.5952 – 23

LCCN: 2014922138

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The author has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information herein. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages to be caused either directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

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Rather than indicate every occurrence of a trademarked name as such, this book uses the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of infringement of the trademark.

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Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Kai, Dragon Ball Online, and all other logos, character names, and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of TOEI ANIMATION, Akira Toriyama, BIRD STUDIO, SHUEISHA, FUNIMATION, VIZ MEDIA, BANDAI NAMCO, ATARI, and all other respective license holders unmentioned. This book was not prepared, licensed, or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the Dragon Ball series. It is an independent, unofficial work that has no connection to the official license and is written within fair use guidelines.

Image Information

The illustrations in this book and on the cover that are rendered in the Dragon Ball style are original works, created through work for hire contracts with independent artists unaffiliated with the official Dragon Ball license. They are not licensed images, nor official artwork owned by the Dragon Ball license holders. All rights to the images are owned by Derek Padula, and may not be reproduced without his express written consent. The Dragon Ball license holders in the United States (FUNIMATION and VIZ MEDIA) recognize these as independent and wholly owned works, and do not claim ownership of them, nor claim that they infringe upon their official licenses, nor that they are equal to an official license.

Cover Art Illustration by Javier Secano.

Version 1.0

Web: http://thedaoofdragonball.com

Contents

Introduction

Timeskip

Revisiting Toriyama

Evolving Art Style

Demons

Shénmó

Mixed Culture

The 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai

Dorian-kūkō

Budō-ji Encounter

Etymology of Tsuru-sennin

Appearance of Tsuru-sennin

Red-Crowned Crane

Natural Selection

Equal yet Opposite

Tiger-Skin Loincloth

Preliminaries

Yamucha versus Mohawk Man

Kuririn versus the André the Giant Clone

Three-Eyed Warrior versus Sumō

Gokū versus Chapa-ō

Jakkī Chun versus Bear Man

To the Quarter-Finals

The 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai Quarter-Finals

Meeting their Rivals

Taking the Stage

Yamucha versus Tenshinhan

Jakkī Chun versus Otoko Ōkami

Bukū-jutsu

Chaozu

Chaozu’s Origin

Jiāngshī

Jiāngshī Characteristics

Jiāngshī Powers and Weaknesses

Hong Kong Horror to Japanese Joy

Nǎzhā Battles Sūn Wùkōng

Chaozu’s Appearance

Single-Haired Puppet

Etymology of Chaozu

Kuririn versus Chaozu

Gokū versus Panputto

The 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai Semi-Finals

Etymology of Tenshinhan

Tenshinhan’s Appearance

Tenme

Tenme in Traditional Culture

Jakkī Chun versus Tenshinhan

Taiyō-ken

Seeing the Light

Refusing to See the Light

Enlightenment Quality

Stepping Down

Gokū versus Kuririn

Student Showdown

Two Fighters Remain

The 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai Final

Origin of Tenshinhan’s Third Eye

Gokū versus Tenshinhan

Haikyū-ken

Combat Power

Taiyō-ken’s Second Flash

Stepping Out of Shadow

Shiyō-ken

Kikōhō

Ring Out!

Freefall

A Champion Arises

A Dark Turn

Pikkoro Daima-ō

Second Tonal Shift

Devil in the Details

Etymology of Pikkoro Daima-ō

Hellish History

Etymology of Mutaito

Appearance of Mutaito

Etymology of Mafūba

Mafūba in Traditional Culture

Denshi-Jā

Pikkoro Daima-ō’s Appearance

Piano

Four Fingers

Pirafu Returns… Again

Gokū versus Tanbarin

Pokopen

Shinbaru

Mazoku

Appearance of the Mazoku

Tanbarin’s Killing Spree

Yajirobē

Japanese Cinema Influence

A Man’s Fish

Swordman’s Appearance

Gokū versus the Swordsman

Swordsman versus Shinbaru

Etymology of Yajirobē

Vagabond Monk – A Rōnin

Yajirobē’s Backstory

Gokū versus Tanbarin Round 2

Gokū versus Pikkoro Daima-ō

Right Motivation

Life and Death

Immortality Elixir

Muten Rōshi versus Pikkoro Daima-ō

Pikkoro Summons Shenron

Poetry through Action

Death of Shenron

Senzu and Chō-shinsui

Daimao-ō Storms the Castle

Koku-ō

Senzu Surprise

Etymology of Senzu

Appearance and Texture of Senzu

Origin of Senzu in Dragon Ball

Origin of Senzu in Traditional Culture

Immortality Pills and Magical Plants

Bìgǔ and Diet

How do Senzu Work?

Simple Senzu

Chō-shinsui

Origin of the Chō-shinsui

Drinking the Chō-shinsui

As Above, So Below

Demon King Ethics

Feeling Ki

Gokū’s Kintōun

Battle with the Demon King

Tenshinhan versus Pikkoro

Tenshinhan versus Doramu

Gokū versus Doramu

Gokū versus Pikkoro Daima-ō Round 2

Full Power

Fated to Save the World

Deathblow

Son Gokū Wins!

Defeating the Demon King

A New Challenger Appears

Conclusion

Pikkoro and Gokū

Three Years and Counting

Ever Forward!

Next Steps

About the Author

Glossary

Introduction

Go out into the world and study all kinds of things! The world is vast. More amazing things could be waiting for you. You have unknown possibilities! Come back even stronger and astound me! With these inspiring words from his martial arts master, Gokū runs toward new adventures!

Gokū just concluded his journey through Western culture, where he defeated an evil army, resurrected a noble savage, and met his grandpa Son Gohan, who came back from the dead for a single day. His master, Muten Rōshi, advises him to travel the world in order to prepare for the 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai (天下一武道会, The Number One Under Heaven Martial Arts Tournament). And to make things tougher, Gokū is forbidden to use his magical cloud, the kintōun (筋斗雲, somersault cloud). That means he has to run, swim, and jump his way to greater strength!

Now in Dragon Ball Culture Volume 5 we’ll meet up with Gokū again—three years later. But will he be powerful enough to contend with his fellow disciples, Kuririn and Yamucha? And what new and fearsome opponents await him at the tournament?

Timeskip

Akira Toriyama uses a timeskip to rejoin us with Gokū and friends in Dragon Ball Chapter 113,¹ three years after Gokū leaves Uranai Baba’s Palace for his global trek.

A timeskip is a narrative device that allows an author to jump forward a number of months, years, or decades, in order to convey that their characters have changed over time without having to show their incremental progress. This enables the author to bypass unimportant details or story elements that may be difficult to tell. And in the process, the reader can see a dramatic change between the character’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ states.

As Gokū grows up, the reader sees him transform from a cute little boy to a young man with strong muscles. This is part of the Dragon Ball charm. But it’s an idea that almost didn’t happen, and that’s because it flies in the face of shōnen (少年, young boys) manga convention.

In shōnen manga your main character isn’t supposed to grow up. They’re supposed to stay a young child who can forever represent youth and adventure. But Toriyama is writing a linear story about a boy on a path of progression, and he can’t show his progress one day at a time for the rest of his life. He has to jump ahead to show the big change. To do this, Toriyama has to be bold and break the conventions of his predecessors.

In 1987, Dragon Ball was one of the first mainstream shōnen manga to incorporate a timeskip. Others include the giant robot series Majingā Z (マジンガーZ, "Mazinger Z," 1972), the sports manga Ganbare Genki (がんばれ元気, "Do Your Best Genki," 1976), and the battle manga Hokuto no Ken (北斗の拳, "Fist of the North Star," 1983). But it was a rare enough event that Toriyama’s editor, Torishima Kazuhiko, became worried that fans of Dragon Ball wouldn’t put up with it, and he didn’t want Toriyama to do it.

Torishima-san says in Daizenshū 2 (1995), "The thing I felt was the biggest crisis for serialization was when he told me that Gokū would grow up. Toriyama-sensei threatened that if Gokū didn’t grow up, then he couldn’t continue with serialization. (laughs) It was terrible, breaching the subject like that. I said, ‘You can have the protagonist grow up, just don’t scare me like that.’"

He accepts it with hesitation, but continues, "It was against the theory of manga. The impression each character leaves is the basis of their appeal. I was very nervous, so on the release day I went to the editing department before 8:00 am and waited. I thought, ‘Won’t there be phone calls of complaint from the readers?’ But there weren’t any at all. It seems that the readers accepted it."

This is the first instance of a timeskip in Dragon Ball, but far from the last. The series is noteworthy for following the characters across the span of their lives, and Toriyama uses the timeskip device in order to do this.

The way he most often uses a timeskip is by first establishing a motivation for the characters to follow and for the reader to look forward to. For example, an upcoming tournament or an impending threat—either of which are years away—provides the characters with a reason to train hard. Then he’ll skip everything between that establishing scene and the arrival of the big event. This skip will be followed by a short reunion where you can see how their appearances have changed. Then the subsequent battles that follow will show you how much they’ve improved.

I believe the reason Toriyama uses the timeskip so often is because it’s convenient. He does his best storytelling through action and fights, rather than through dramatic dialogue and clashes of intrigue. The timeskip allows him to bypass the part he’s weak at writing and jump right back into the action where he excels. It also allows for mystery and curiosity to develop, instead of revealing every detail of their lives. You get to fill in the blanks with your imagination, so these gaps in time are a ripe target for fan fiction or anime filler.

As an added bonus, after the timeskip, the characters seem fresh. As the reader, you know their personalities well enough to recognize them, but you wonder, ‘how have they and their world changed?’ This creates new opportunities for story development. It’s also an easy way for the author to get himself out of a jam if he’s not sure where to take the story. Considering that Toriyama makes up the story as he goes, it’s no surprise that he pushes the timeskip button so often.

Revisiting Toriyama

Speaking of Toriyama’s mindset, let’s take a moment to touch back in with him.

Toriyama’s star continues to rise, and he gets to meet his source of inspiration for Dragon Ball’s creation, Jackie Chan, when he comes to Japan to film the Hong Kong action-comedy Fúxīng gāozhào (福星高照, "My Lucky Stars," 1985). Jackie’s character in the movie goes to a theme park and dresses as the main character of Toriyama’s Dr. Slump manga, Arare-chan.² A picture of Toriyama and Jackie is used on the cover of Bird Land Press #22 (December, 1986), alongside Toriyama’s wife, Mikami Nachi (みかみなち).

Dragon Ball has become a big success by 1986. It plays the largest role in helping to sell over 4 million copies of Weekly Shōnen Jump each week.³ And that number will continue to rise as the years roll by.

If that weren’t enough good news, Toriyama says in the introductory comment to Chapter 107,⁴ First, my cat Koge was pregnant, and now my wife is. That’s right, Toriyama’s going to be a father! But then he continues, Thinking about how hard it will be for me to just relax and goof off from now on, I’m happy of course, but sad too…

As this new reality sets in, he says in Chapter 114,⁵ My wife will be giving birth soon. I try to look calm, but inside I’m a ball of nerves. Pathetic!! Then in Chapter 116,⁶ "I’m desperately trying to think up a name for my child. It’s way worse than coming up with manga storyboards, and is giving me a killer headache."

Finally in Chapter 120⁷ he says, On March 23rd, my baby boy was born. His name is Sasuke (佐助, Assistant).⁸ He cries so loud, he seems like a promising lad.

Toriyama seemed nervous to have a child, but relieved once he was born. Unfortunately, he barely has time to see his son because he’s working so hard. In the questions and answers section of Dragon Ball Volume 9⁹ he says, Even though we were all in the same house, I hardly had any time to be with Sasuke. When he was awake, I would be asleep or be busy working. Well, this continued for so long that I think Sasuke forgot his own father’s face! I went up to him and made a funny face, and he started crying! So now I am careful to show him my face often and tell him, This is your father, this is your father’s face. So you see, recently I haven’t been a very good father. And I regret this very much.

With weekly deadlines, model competitions, and now a baby boy, Toriyama ends up an even bigger workaholic, releasing a chapter of Dragon Ball a week while barely leaving his chair. He’s tired, gaining weight, smoking like a machine, and starting to lose his hair. Meanwhile, the characters in his manga are full of life and running around the world on wild adventures. Their youthful and carefree spirit is the opposite of Toriyama’s life, and I believe this is part of why this wishful energy gets compressed into his manga. He’s expressing his inner self through his external manga because he is experiencing the opposite in real life.

That’s the side of Dragon Ball that no one sees. The man behind the laughs and action who pours himself into his work. Toriyama suffers for his craft, and this behind-the-scenes hardship is what makes his story have so much vitality to this day. He puts his soul into Dragon Ball.

Just as Gokū evolves and matures into a young man, so too does Toriyama, taking his art and family to the next level.

Evolving Art Style

Like the true artist that he is, Toriyama’s art style is always evolving. You’ll notice that when we started our adventure Toriyama’s style was more rounded, but at this point things have become sharper and more angled. This is because the action has intensified and the battle scenes need those sharp lines to convey movement.

But I didn’t really do this consciously, he says in Daizenshū 1 (1995). "It basically changes without me knowing. But if I look at a tankōbon (単行本, standalone volume) or something from a year back, I think, ‘Ugh! This was done poorly.’ Then I think. ‘Ah, I guess I’ve evolved a lot.’ (laughs). Even with pictures from a little while back, I still think it looks weird. For example, with even a manuscript from about half a year ago, I feel that the design is weird. With color manuscripts as well, after I’ve painted it I usually think, ‘Ah, I messed up.’ If there was time, I’d like to try and fix it, but there’s never any time."

This is a classic example of an artist who is always refining his craft. No matter what field you’re in, whether it’s music, painting, writing, illustrating, or sculpting, if you don’t look back at your previous work and think, ‘Oh man, what was I thinking?’ then you’re doing something wrong. Artists always have to adapt, evolve, and improve their final product. Toriyama does it at a rapid pace because he never stops drawing.

In the questions and answer section of Daizenshū 1 he is asked, "Do you feel that you made any deliberate changes in your pictures between Dragon Ball and the earlier serialized Dr. Slump? He replies, Yeah, I don’t really like to go for the same sort of pattern, so I change the pictures to suit the story. Because of this, even now if you tell me to draw with a Dr. Slump-esque touch, sure enough I can draw like that. I just use round lines. When I got into the second half of Dragon Ball, I had already become more interested in thinking up the story then in drawing the pictures. Then I started to not place much emphasis on the pictures. The battles became intense, and I gradually came to switch to more simple lines. At any rate, I despise doing the same thing. I’m fundamentally perverse that way. I got postcards from readers saying, Compared to the old days, it’s really square now. It was better the way it used to be. So I thought I’d go make it even more square. (laughs)"

That’s right, if you tell Toriyama that you like his art, he’s the type of guy who will go out of his way to change his art so that you no longer like it. As contrary as this sounds, he’ll be happier because of it, and in the end, you may like his art even more.

As a side-effect of his ever-changing style, this leads to a variety of looks over the course of the Dragon Ball story and its 30-year run. It’s consistent within any given period of time, but not consistent across the breadth of the series. That’s why some fans prefer the look of Gokū and company from different time periods, whether it’s the round style of the early adventures, the sharper angles of the middle years, or the slim and smooth aesthetics of his modern era. We’re now at the point where the battles are becoming increasingly intense and the art style is becoming sharper-angled.

However, despite the aesthetics of his art evolving, he always remains true to its signature Shōwa spirit. As a reminder, the Shōwa-jidai (昭和時代, Era of Enlightened Peace, April 21, 1909 – January 7, 1989) represents an era of television characterized by a lighthearted and simple tone. Creating these chapters of his manga in 1987 and ‘88, Toriyama is reaching the end of this era, and he can no doubt see that the other works around him are becoming more violent, darker, and serious, per the oncoming characteristics of the Heisei-jidai (平成時代, Era of Accomplished Balance, starting January 8, 1989). Perhaps this industrywide transition in the late ‘80s to early 90s is in turn a contributor to why his art style becomes more action-oriented. The audience is changing, so the art has to change in order to appeal to their interests. Nonetheless, Toriyama insists that the Shōwa spirit remain intact in each release of Dragon Ball, including up to today, because this spirit is what Toriyama’s work represents. Despite the concept of demons, martial arts-fueled violence, death, pain, sacrifice, and other seemingly dark topics, it never feels heavy or serious. On the contrary, it feels light, adventurous, and inspiring, through the medium of Gokū. That’s the Dragon Ball charm.

Speaking of which, let’s get this show on the road and start Part 3 of Gokū’s adventure!

1 Dragon Ball Chapter 113 is titled Dai-Nijūni-kai Tenkaichi Budōkai (第２２回天下一武道会, "The Twenty-Second Tenkaichi Budōkai"), premiering in Weekly Shōnen Jump #13, February 24, 1987

2 Toriyama’s Dr. Slump was even bigger than Dragon Ball at the time of Jackie Chan’s visit in 1985, so this suggests a cross-promotional reason for Jackie using Arare-chan as a disguise in his movie.

3 Circulation figures of Weekly Shōnen Jump in the 1980s and ‘90s: http://comipress.com/article/2007/05/06/1923

4 Dragon Ball Chapter 107 is titled Gokū no Shippo (悟空のシッポ, "Gokū’s Tail") and premieres in Weekly Shōnen Jump #7, January 13, 1987.

5 Dragon Ball Chapter 114 is titled Yosen Sabaibaru (予選サバイバル, "Preliminary Survival") and premieres in Weekly Shōnen Jump #14, March 3, 1987.

6 Dragon Ball Chapter 116 is titled Tsukurareta Taisenhyō (つくられた対戦表, "Manufactured Matchups") and premieres in Weekly Shōnen Jump #16, March 17, 1987.

7 Dragon Ball Chapter 120 is titled Nanto Dodonpa (なんとどどん波, "An Unexpected Dodonpa") and premieres in Weekly Shōnen Jump #20, April 14, 1987.

8 Sasuke (佐助, Assistant) is a common male name in Japan. It has the meaning of someone who assists, helps, or supports others.

9 Dragon Ball Volume 9 is titled Komatta Toki no Uranai Baba (こまったときの占いババ, "When Worried, See Uranai Baba") and is published on September 10, 1987. Toriyama draws a picture of his son, Sasuke, and his cat, Koge, as the thumbnail for his self-portrait.

Demons

The core of Part 1 of Dragon Ball is Chinese culture. Toriyama uses the Chinese legend of Xīyóujì (西遊記, Japanese: Saiyūki, "Journey to the West") as the basis for Gokū’s story. Then he combines it with Hong Kong gōngfu films and Western culture, including Hollywood cinema and science fiction. He takes what he likes out of the Chinese story and mixes some ‘modern’ into his ‘ancient,’ and some West into his East. The result is a bedrock of fusion culture that makes the story relatable to everyone.

The core of Part 2 is Western culture. Toriyama uses real-life Western entities and stereotypes, such as a malicious World War 2-inspired army, Terminator-inspired robot, Nazi-inspired general,¹ plus ‘Cowboys and Indians,’ and then mixes them with elements of Eastern culture such as ninjas and gōngfu assassins. This represents an inversion of Part 1 and creates a contrast of opposites.

At this point, Toriyama has built a solid framework in which to tell Gokū’s story. From this moment onward it’s a matter of what new cultural layer he’s going to add next at each phase of Gokū’s adventure.

In this case, that new layer—and the core of Part 3—is shénmó.

Shénmó

Dragon Ball is founded upon Xīyóujì, and Xīyóujì is the quintessential example of shénmó (神魔, pronounced ‘shun-moh,’ gods and demons).² Shénmó is a genre of Chinese fiction that revolves around the gods, demons, monsters, and immortals of Chinese mythology.

Shénmó condenses folktales, legends, and popular Buddhist and Dàoist culture into its pages, so it’s rife with spiritual concepts and symbolism. Authors of shénmó literature use the framework of a supernatural realm and how it interacts with our natural realm as a vehicle to express humanistic themes. This is made possible by the two realms sharing the same space, where beings from one realm enter into the other. A man can defeat a demon and then talk to a god in the same day that he goes fishing.

The gods and demons in the supernatural realm are reflections of real-life people and their emotions, such as a pure-hearted monk or corrupt official—thereby providing social commentary. The main characters who travel through these realms undergo a transformation from normal men into supernormal men via the process of defeating demons along their path toward the gods—thereby providing ethical guidance. So it’s a human realm that is relatable yet is populated by supernatural beings that are fantastic, and the hero’s journey is inspiring.

The shénmó genre began to be written in the Míng Dynasty (大明, Great Brightness,)Dà Míng, 1368 – 1644 A.D.), grew more popular in the Qīng Dynasty (清朝, Qīng-cháo, Clarity Dynasty, 1644 – 1912 A.D.), and became more accessible over time, with an increased emphasis on humor and the martial arts. As I discussed in Dragon Ball Culture Volume 1, Toriyama takes the storytelling framework found in Xīyóujì and makes it easier to understand by stripping out the religious content and moral messages in order to focus the content on humor and fighting. But the underlying structure and messages, along with its cultural connections, remain intact.

Part 3 of Dragon Ball represents a return to this source material and an evolution in the Dragon World’s dimensional structure by adding demons and gods into the mix.

Toriyama starts Part 3 with the demons. It begins with internal and metaphorical demons and then takes a sharp turn toward external and literal demons. That’s what we’ll explore now in Volume 5. The second half of Part 3 will take us into the realm of the gods, and we’ll explore that in Volume 6.

Mixed Culture

Toriyama doesn’t introduce these supernormal characters and surrounding concepts in the way you’d expect an author to do in a story based upon Xīyóujì. Instead of going full Chinese, Toriyama often uses his native Japanese culture to express this Chinese culture. He’s a product of his environment, so he’ll use the inherited and then modified aspects of Chinese culture, or their Japanese equivalents. For example, when Gokū encounters a deity, it’s a Japanese representation of a deity, rather than a Chinese-style Buddhā or Dàoist immortal like