History DragonBall / TropesEToN

* FantasyAllAlong: SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome when society all but breaks down after King Piccolo takes over, abolishes all laws and frees all the prisoners. It gets even worse after Piccolo announces that he will destroy one city by lottery every year for the next 36 years. But then the evil demon king is defeated by a super-powered monkey boy and order is promptly restored across the world with no lasting consequences.

* InconsistentSpelling: The romanizations of many characters' names tend to vary between Japanese media. Even the English adaptations of the manga and anime can't seem to agree on which spelling to use.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Mercenary Tao's EstablishingCharacterMoment involves murdering General Blue as a demonstration of his skill, using only his tongue. This might be a tragic and shameful sendoff for a character who lasted much longer than any other military leader, had General Blue spent that screentime being anything but a complete and utter bastard. He did not, and so the audience would not miss him.

** The Dragon]Balls themselves are a homage to the eight magic orbs from ''Literature/NansouSatomiHakkenden''.

* [[invoked]]MoralEventHorizon: Android 8 is willing to take physical and emotional abuse from Murasaki and General White since he is a true pacifist who hates fighting. He won't even save himself when Murasaki is ready to blow him up and pleads with Goku not to kill General White. However, when General White seemingly kills Goku by shooting him in the back of the head with a high-powered ray gun, Android 8 loses it and punches General White right out of Muscle Tower and over the horizon.

* NoPronunciationGuide:
** In the anime, a running gag is made of people mispronouncing Goku's name whenever they see it in writing, usually pronouncing it as "Go-Cow-Uh".
** Chiaotzu's name is also pronounced incorrectly by the tournament's announcer during the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament.

** For its first story arc, the story was an updated retelling of ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'' with a few vague science-fiction elements. When it came to the Tenkaichi Budōkai story arc immediately thereafter, it jumped feet-first into martial arts action, and when the Red Ribbon Army was introduced immediately after '''that''', the world became openly, and proudly, a FantasyKitchenSink for the rest of the series's run.

* HoldOntoMyHat: Goku's four-star Dragonball, given to Bulma to use for a wish.

* {{Expy}}:
** Goku of [[Literature/JourneyToTheWest Sun Wukong, The Monkey King]] from ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'', with light dashes of Comicbook/{{Superman}}. [[BilingualBonus His name is even the exact same as Wukong's, only rendered in Japanese on'yomi]].
** Oolong originally, of Zhu Bajie (aka "Piggy") from ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'' also.
** Yamcha is a CompositeCharacter. Initially Toryama used Sha Gojo from ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'' for the character. A likely prototype design for Yamcha was the title character to Creator/AkiraToriyama's one-shot Pink. Although Pink is a female, she also is a bandit living in a desert hideout who has an animal companion and rides a flying vehicle similar to Yamcha's Jet Squirrel. After cutting his long hair for the first time in the series, Yamcha looks very similar to the character Tsukutsun Tsun from ''Manga/DoctorSlump'' in both appearance and characteristics.
** Chichi of Princess Iron Fan from ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest''. Her helmet is also a homage to Ultraseven from ''Series/{{Ultraman}}''
** Launch's bad form was based on Polly Buckets, a character from ''Manga/DrSlump''.
** Bulma's Mom, from Creator/MarilynMonroe. Also overlaps with CastingGag, as her Japanese voice actress (Mariko Mukai) was her de facto voice actress for Monroe in almost all the Japanese dubs of her films.
** Bulma's father, Dr. Brief, resembles Albert Enstein.
** Android 8 of Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'s Monster.
** The killer Tao Pai Pai. His appearance are based from the villain of the '78 Jackie Chan movie ''Film/SnakeInTheEaglesShadow''.
** Piano (one of King Piccolo's monsters) of Baramos, another pterodactyl-headed cloaked humanoid from ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII''. The game was drawn by Toriyama and released during the same year as the King Piccolo Saga.
** Jackie Chun is obviously named for Creator/JackieChan, but the similarity ends there. There is, however, a Jackie Chan expy competing in each Tenkaichi Budōkai, though he never makes it past the preliminaries.
** Sergeant Metallic, an android created by the Red Ribbon Army, is clearly based on Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger's portrayal of the T-800 in ''Film/TheTerminator''.

* GrowingMusclesSequence: When Master Roshi powers up to use his Kamhemahema, his muscles expand tremendously. The withered old master briefly resembles a bodybuilder for the duration of the attack.