I feel like the conversation went something like this:
Beerus: Freeza! Destroy those Saiyans for me, I'm tired.
Freeza: Why should I, Lord Beerus? They've always been loyal warriors, if a bit stupid.
Beerus: King Vegeta's feast was unsatisfactory.
Freeza: While I can sympathize with getting mad over a bad tribute, it's hardly a legitimate reason to remove such a valuable asset, as I could just kill the King.
Beerus: Whis! Give me a good reason to order this!
Whis: The Saiyans have great potential for power and the legend about the Super Saiyan may be a threat to Freeza in the distant future.
Beerus: What he said, now I'm leaving.
Beerus and Whis leave
Freeza (thinking): That old legend? Hmm, if what he said is true, though, than I can't take any chances!
edited 14th Aug '15 8:41:18 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
Beerus never once said that he told Freeza to destroy Planet Vegeta. His exact words in the English dub are:
"I'm curious, Whis. While I enjoyed my all-too-brief slumber, did that upstart Freeza manage to eradicate Planet Vegeta for me?"
He was going to do it himself but it was "so off the beaten path" and he'd "rather use that time for a nap".
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!@ IANCE last page: One thing I was surprised at, reading DB all the way through, was actually how well it holds up. The popular consensus around the 'net seemed to be, at least for a while, that DB was notable more for its historical significance than actually being good; it was "That series that started the trends Bleach/One Piece/whatever did better." But no, I think it's perfectly serviceable on its own. Like, for instance, my favorite Vegeta-clone character... is Vegeta.
Agreed. I honestly consider the various copies of Dragon Ball to be largely inferior to the original.
One Piece is probably closest Dragon Ball clone that I actually like tho.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.That always confuses me. The only other "manga" I've ever read that was remotely similar to Dragon Ball was YuYu Hakusho.
Even then, it's kind of superficial beyond the deliberate references. The protagonist is book dumb, uses spiritual powers and starts out with a blue firing technique. He fights in tournaments and visits a very obviously Buddhist inspired afterlife. note
Dragon Ball's influence on Japanese media is easy to see, especially in "shonen" demographic works, but no one seems to directly base themselves on it so much as use its conventions because they've been so hammered into public consciousness. I've been told Super Kid was a deliberate Dragon Ball cash in but even then, I just take people's word for it because I've never watched the show. It's much easier for me to point out clones, cash ins and send ups to Superman, The Lord Of The Rings, Godzilla, Street Fighter, Pokemon, American Idol than anything that seems actively, deliberately based on Dragon Ball.(well, there is that video game, Bid For Power, but that was a Divorced Installment...)
I think that has to do with the fact Gladiator, John Carter of Mars, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Digital Devil Story, and Star Search had generally fallen into obscurity while A Journey To The West was and still is a Stock Shout-Out. While Norse Mythology is also the source of many a stock shout out, I think Lord Of The Rings was unique enough, simply ripped off enough and then had a successful enough trilogy of movies to become it's own ripe ground for shameless pastiches that people just are not confident enough to get away with in regards to Dragon Ball yet...not to mention it's much older. In another twenty years I think Dragon Ball clones will become as common as people claim they are.
Dragon Ball Evolution would have been better off as a ripoff, or at least a spinoff, of Dragon Ball rather than an In Name Only adaptation.
Buldogue's lawyerWell, there's the fact that Kishimoto has admitted that Naruto is partly based off of (a misinterpretation of) Goku, how Sasuke is basically a reverse Vegeta, and how both of them receive power ups from the plot that are such bullshit that they make even Dragon Ball blush.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!Yet another unfounded rumour. If that was why Toriyama introduced them, he failed hard because he never DID subvert it. He showed that relying on scouters was bad because they can't detect hidden power, but it was also made clear that a higher battle power does make you stronger, and to get stronger you'd have to raise your battle power. To subvert it the numbers would actually have to be wrong, but a character who is hiding their true strength really is as strong as they're currently reading - if Goku kept his battle power to 5,000 all the time, he really would lose to the Ginyu Force.
No, it doesn't, because the boys completely wrecked Abo and Cado in the manga version, which is the one Toriyama supervised and called better than the anime. They're outright acknowledged as stronger than 18 as Super Saiyans, so it's not possible for their base forms to be around first form Freeza.
Admittedly, I haven't read Naruto, but my cousin does\did. I have played a video game that was an obvious send up to the first three Budokai games but other than that the characters and setting didn't seem particularly Dragon Ball like to me.
Then again I've seen so many things that are apparently supposed to be like Dragon Ball that weren't I may have become skeptical. I've heard people call everything from G Gundam, to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to Invincible, to Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, to Enslaved "Dragon Ball inspired\Dragon Ball ripoffs", so when I read things like "Naruto's gonna be the next Dragon Ball Z but better when those kids all grow up" I kind of just skipped ahead until the subject changed. Well, I did suggest Bleach might be similar to Dragon Ball once when someone tried to describe it to me but they got all defensive about it so I assumed it wasn't either.
The most unironically Dragon Ball like work I'm familiar with is Sonic The Hedgehog. Spiky hair, golden super forms, seven collectible plot coupons, genius inventor friend, evil Dr. with a grudge, ultimate evil blob, several tamed rivals\enemies, a planet that suspiciously looks like Earth but obviously is not...I say unironically because Yu Yu Hakusho pokes fun at the obvious overlaps but I still wouldn't accuse Sonic of directly ripping it off, so much as being a cobbled together series of things people thought were "cool" at the time.
If the author of Naruto admitted to basing his work off Dragon Ball though, I guess that doesn't leave much room for argument.
Buldogue's lawyerNo, no it doesn't.
Also, Bleach is probably the least like Dragon Ball of the Big Three. Ichigo is most certainly nothing like Goku (either how Goku actually is or how people think Goku is) and battles there rely on figuring out how your opponent's powers work then countering them more than it does raw physical strength (of course, it does come down to raw physical strength at times).
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!I think what makes Dragon Ball appeal to me more than Naruto and Bleach (and I guess One Piece but I'm still trying to catch up with that) is it doesn't take itself too seriously. I mean, disregarding all the name puns, and the Buu Saga, it never got as...melodramatic as, say, Naruto. Goku wasn't The Chosen One, and neither was Vegeta. Villains didn't spout complex philosophy. Whenever the story started getting too serious, Toriyama would put in the comic relief to show us that it's still goofy at heart.
Except with the final fight with Freeza. Which is probably why I can't get into that as much as other people can.
edited 15th Aug '15 3:03:23 AM by LOLypop1224
The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!
All three of those series have probably just as many moments as Dragon Ball where it doesn't take itself seriously. I feel like Naruto and One Piece actually run into the opposite problem, where they don't know when they should take themselves seriously. I feel Dragon Ball could also fall into this problem, for example where Goten's reaction to his mother's death is immediately followed with him deciding it'd be cool if Gotenks pretends to lose.
![]()
I agree with this, and that's probably why Bleach is the only one that I like on the same level as Dragon Ball. It has a clear influence but feels more like its own story whereas Naruto and One Piece feel too strongly like The Theme Park Version of Dragon Ball's tropes.
That's the biggest problem I have with Naruto and One Piece as spiritual successors. Not only do they feel like they rely too heavily on Dragon Ball, they also misinterpret the elements they borrow.
It's kind of ironic because back in the day when the new shonen series were reaching the peak if their popularity, and likening anything to DBZ was a popular insult, Bleach was often derisively called "DBZ with swords". This was based entirely on the idea that Dragon Ball (and Bleach) were nothing more than action and energy beams.
You really think that? That's odd.
I had the complete opposite problem with Naruto. I felt it was taking itself way too seriously, given the phenomenal goofiness and stupidity of the plot, and was trying way too hard to be way deeper than it actually is.
Dragon Ball was always, in contrast, ridiculously simple, and it was easy to shift between serious and comedic modes because, well, the story had always been kinda silly, even at its most serious moment, so I can take Goku biting Majin Buu in the middle of a fight for the sake of the universe without it breaking the atmosphere.
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimariIt's fucking impossible.
Think about it. Goku, ever since he saw Roshi do the Kamehameha wave, has shown the innate ability to master any technique he sees by watching it done once. It still takes him nearly a YEAR to master Kaoiken and the Genki Dama. If the Mozart of Martial Arts takes forever to do it, Baldy Mc Three Eyes ain't got a prayer.
I like this. It makes perfect sense. Thread Vegeta/GohanLISTEN approves.
Regarding Beerus telling Frieza to destroy Planet Vegeta
As I mentioned before, while this is absolutely a retcon and one of disputable validity, there is something hilarious in the Alternate Character Interpretation it produces. Picture the exact same events only this time Frieza legitimately has no idea what a Super Saiyan is.
- DODORIA: Wait, what just happened?
- ZARBON: Lord Frieza blew up Planet Vegeta! He must have believed the Saiyans would some day become a threat to him.
- FRIEZA: ...sure, we'll go with that.
- VEGETA: I have become the legend that you fear! I am a Super Saiyan!
- FRIEZA: What's this nonsense now?
- GOKU: I am Son Goku and I am a SUPER SAIYAN!!!
- FRIEZA: SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING HERE?!
There was a manga version? I didn't know that.
I shouldn't be surprised that that's the version you consider valid as well. Well, if Toriyama was behind that one, I suppose it's more canon, though I've noted that how much we take Toriyama's word about what version is more accurate seems to be determined by personal preference.
Still though, I just assumed the boys were stronger in the anime, but their lack of experience meant they screwed up a lot.
One Strip! One Strip!Strong enough to give Android 18 reasonable alarm for her ability to win a fight with them.
I haven't seen that special, but from the sounds of it, Abo and Kado should have been whipped harder than Super Saiyan Goku vs. Full Power Frieza.
Those two are ridiculous and may well surpass Goku and Vegeta when they grow up if they don't lose interest in fighting. Which they might.
edited 15th Aug '15 12:16:19 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I didn't even know there was a manga version of that special in the first place, source?
As for the whole thing between the big three and their Dragon Ball influences, I still prefer One Piece to all three of them. It may have the most overt references to Dragon Ball, but I still feel like its distinct enough to not be completely derivative of it.
edited 15th Aug '15 12:29:38 PM by BlackYakuzu94
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I don't really like thinking of any of them as being Dragon Ball's "successor". Yeah, there are obvious draws and influence, that I think all three of them have admitted, but if they can't stand on their own from that they aren't very good I think. And for better or worse I think they all do. This applies to a lot of other series as well.
edited 15th Aug '15 12:37:56 PM by LSBK
Trying to figure out what shonen is Dragon Ball's "successor" is like trying to pick which sitcom is the successor to Seinfeld.
edited 15th Aug '15 12:56:35 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

I heard someone say that "Beerus told Frieza to blow it up" was a mistranslation. What actually happened was Beerus wanted to blow it up but knew Frieza was going to do it anyway so he just decided to be lazy.
Dunno if it's true.