Photo: AFP/Notimex-Especial
Edmond Etlinger
15/08/2024 07:00
The Dragon Ball series was not the first of Japan's animated works to reach the West (Astroboy had done so decades earlier), and its later successors (see Pokémon, One Piece) have far surpassed it in popularity. However, it was the adventures of Son Goku that clearly set the stage for later successes, with Dragon Ball putting the Japanese animation industry on the map in the 1990s.
The main character of the series is the orphan Son Goku, who gets what every young boy longs for: an adventure in the company of a pretty girl. Dragon Ball is nothing new in this respect, essentially a simple reworking of the classic Chinese story '"Journey to the West". Or it could have been, if the creator, Akira Toriyama, hadn't invented new ideas and successfully raised the stakes to an essentially intergalactic level. Apart from the likeable characters - including several anti-heroes who show that they can earn redemption as former villains - the martial arts theme, the ingenious (though sometimes a little perverse by today's standards) humour, the predictable unpredictability is clearly the series' main strength.
The viewer knows all along that Son Goku will win in the end, but sometimes at a much greater sacrifice than one might think. The audience also knows that there will always be a next villain, but how this has been escalated to such an astonishing length is amazing in itself. The adventure that started as a simple martial arts tournament becomes an interplanetary fight by the second big stage (Dragon Ball Z) and by the original end of the series (1995), time travel is no longer taboo. Then the newest instalment (Dragon Ball Super, from 2015) is all about intergalactic battles and world-destroying entities - but Son Goku, the once naive boy and all-time pure-hearted hero, is up there with them.
The popularity of the series rivals even the biggest Hollywood hits. Although it has received many criticisms over the decades (for example, excessive violence is a recurring parental complaint), its pop-cultural significance is indelible. It has taught tens of millions of adolescent boys and girls about perseverance, camaraderie, forgiveness and, above all, that friendship and love are more important than anything else. It may seem a banal thing to say, but it is one of the most important lessons in life.
It is this universal message, and the content that can be easily consumed by all ethnic groups, that has made Dragon Ball a phenomenon that has captivated masses of young people around the world for decades. There are only a handful of pop culture products that can evoke the same emotions in a young person from Brazil, Germany, India or Japan. But Dragon Ball is part of that elite club.
The author is a journalist for Mondo Magazine