A while ago, when A Fei and I went to study at A Zhu’s place, every time we would see a set of Dragon Ball Complete Collection glowing brilliantly on the shelf at the Third Wave bookstore next door…… dazzling…… resplendent…… multicolored…… sure enough, in the end I still couldn’t help buying a set……
When I announced that I was going to buy a set of Dragon Ball, Mist also thought of buying a set of Doraemon (later he transferred it to me; I’ll talk about that next time). As expected, once these two sets of books were placed in the dormitory (mainly Dragon Ball, of course), they immediately attracted the attention of the boys at large and began to circulate widely.
Today I finally finished reading all 42 volumes of Dragon Ball once through. I’ve wasted two or three days on it (I’m generally rather slow when reading leisurely books). From here on, I’m going to transform in anger, anger, anger—there are a whole lot of things getting more and more urgent, and if I don’t turn into a Super Saiyan, that won’t do……
Super Saiyan, Dragon Ball…… people of our generation, especially boys of our generation, who hasn’t heard of them? Of course, there are some people from remote hometowns who may indeed never have heard of them, but if a boy in the city has never watched Dragon Ball…… hmm…… then childhood is incomplete!
Compared with many classmates who only came into contact with Dragon Ball in junior high or even high school, my contact with Dragon Ball should count as belonging to one of the earliest groups in China, because I started watching it when I had just entered elementary school, when Dragon Ball was still being serialized——the Dragon Ball volumes my family bought (as well as Doraemon) were all first printings of the first edition, all bought as soon as the book came out. Later I checked, and the earliest Dragon Ball at home was published in 1992. At that time, the original Japanese Dragon Ball had only been serialized a little more than halfway, and it took several years before the full set was completed. On the other hand, it was not until after 1995 that the Machine Cat Doraemon was published by Ji Mei in a relatively complete collection. During that period I certainly made many trips to bookstores and bookstalls. My habit of loving to browse bookstores probably began to take shape back then.
When I was even younger, I only liked Machine Cat (earlier than that, let’s not mention Calabash Brothers or Ultraman and the like). When Dragon Ball first came out, I remember I was somewhat resistant; I said I only watched Machine Cat, and Dragon Ball was just people fighting and killing, nothing interesting. But at the time my cousin bought some first, and I don’t know from which day on, I also started watching it…… These two comics had an influence on my childhood that was simply immeasurable—Son Goku was even venerated by me like a deity——by the way, in the fantasy dream world of my youth, Son Goku quickly replaced the original purely fictional lord Akexian (and by the way, the evil camp was ruled by Akexian’s older brother Akemai)…… why was he called Akexian? For no reason at all. It seems that one day when I was four or five, I was playing alone with toys and staging battles between good and evil, and wanted to set up a banner for the side of justice; then these three syllables suddenly floated up in my mind (could it have been divine revelation?). Later, when Lord Akexian went traveling through the other-dimensional world, the position of lord was handed over to Son Goku. This dream world mainly operated when I had nothing to do or when I couldn’t sleep. In it I would imagine some stories; I would invent some characters or gather together the characters from various animations, comics, and TV dramas, and then imagine some bizarre plots. In fact, this world is still operating to this day (though much less than in childhood), and the lord there seems not to have changed again, so I should say it is still Son Goku who is in charge, hehe.
Back to the point: if I were to recommend some leisure reading to elementary school students, then Doraemon and Dragon Ball would definitely be must-reads. Although there are many other books worth recommending, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, if you didn’t read Romance of the Three Kingdoms when you were young, it won’t be too late to read it when you grow up; but if you don’t read these comics when you are young, it is something that can never be made up for again——just like how martial-arts novels must be read in adolescence, if you miss that period, it’s too late to read them later!
Those elders who never read comics or watched animation when they were young often only know that anime is for children, and even if some anime are entirely adult in theme, those adults often look down on them with disdain. But people who watched anime as children are different; at the very least, they will never be averse to anime.
Animation and comics are two very special artistic media. If film is characterized by a strong sense of reality, then exaggeration, dreaminess, and strangeness are anime’s specialties. It is rare to see animated masterpieces on themes from real life, and I think anime is not suited to expressing real life; what anime should express is the world of children, the world of dreams. In this respect, anime’s boundless expressive power—free from material constraints, and not much shackled by language—can be fully brought into play. Compared with television and film, animation is very little limited by filming conditions; and compared with literary fiction, comics can transcend language and words—no matter how you translate comics, they won’t change flavor all that much.
On top of such an “infinite” medium, there ought to appear some eternal classics—there must be some works that, like literary works of the past, transcend their era. Although in this age of information explosion, anything popular that wants to become a classic is truly not easy. Still, after the great waves have washed away the sand, there will always be some works that settle down in the end and become classics that can never be replaced. In my view, Doraemon and Dragon Ball are two legendary works among them.
Of course, like many comics with extremely long serial runs, the last several volumes of Dragon Ball seem somewhat perfunctory, but on the whole, the story of Dragon Ball is compact and complete.
It is obvious that Akira Toriyama (whom I long read as Dao Shan Ming when I was a child) originally intended to imitate Journey to the West in his writing. In the first volume he declares that the story is fictional, set against a Chinese background, and Bulma corresponds to Tripitaka, Oolong corresponds to Zhu Bajie, Yajirobe is probably Sha Monk? Then there is Ox-King and others joining in the fun. But probably after the first World Martial Arts Tournament, the plot developments became increasingly uncontrollable, and in the end Goku and the others all thoroughly turned into super-invincible beings from the universe, which was really too ridiculously overpowered…… But in a certain sense, I still prefer the early Dragon Ball. Although the early style was a bit less serious (early lewd, later violent……), it had more childlike charm, and the plot was also relatively compact.
However, it can be said that the whole of Dragon Ball still retains some of the essence of Journey to the West. For example, like Journey to the West, Dragon Ball also takes pleasure in poking fun at the immortals and gods—from the very beginning with that most classic dirty old man in anime history, Master Roshi, to the Earth’s God, to the adorable King Kai, and finally to the Kaiōshin and the former Kaiōshin, each and every one is a comic character, and before Goku and the others they all end up extremely weak.
Compared with Journey to the West, Son Goku in Dragon Ball can be said to have been shaped into a very perfect character, though in fact the most perfect character may be his son Gohan, who develops comprehensively in morality, intellect, and physique. But aside from that short stretch involving romance, Gohan never became the protagonist of Dragon Ball (although in the volume after Goku’s death, Toriyama once previewed it that way), and Son Goku has always been the undisputed protagonist.
Son Goku, as Vegeta said before self-destructing, is someone who combines kindness and a love of battle. The young Son Goku is depicted completely as a naive boy whose heart is like a blank sheet of paper, ignorant of the world; and later, although Goku’s outwardly beautiful character never changes, Toriyama also endowed him with a combative, competitive personality. The nature of the Saiyans is bellicose; they do not fight in pursuit of something, but fight for the sake of fighting. In fact, such a Saiyan disposition is probably also the disposition of traditional Japanese people, the disposition of the samurai. Of course, at root, it is also the persistence in loyalty and righteousness found in Chinese tradition. And this Japanese-style competitiveness differs somewhat from the will to power in the modern West: the former emphasizes self-transcendence, while the latter emphasizes domination and control.
If such a combative disposition lacks good control, it can easily lead to disastrous results; Japanese militarism is precisely one example. Yet for an individual or a nation, its “nature” is not something that can be judged as good or evil, right or wrong (or perhaps one should say that nature is always inclined toward the good). Perhaps because I have after all been deeply influenced by Japanese anime, in any case I want to say: this Saiyan nature of the Japanese also has its admirable side.
How can a person’s character be both combative and kind? Toriyama, through Son Goku, gives one possibility. The key lies in childlike innocence and tenacity.
When the planet was about to explode, Son Goku was unwilling to escape by borrowing the power of Shenron, and insisted on finishing his duel with Frieza; when the Earth was facing danger, Son Goku still gave Cell a Senzu Bean in order to ensure a fair duel…… Why be so unwise? Could it be that choosing with the whole Earth as the stake is still moral? In these situations, if one calculates according to utilitarian moral principles, these actions are of course utterly unforgivable. However, why use utilitarianism? Judge with your own eyes: don’t invoke any ethical theory, and even less use mathematics to calculate and measure; look with your eyes: do you think Son Goku’s choice is an evil act? You will be infected by his confidence and stubbornness, and you absolutely cannot think of Son Goku as a villain. But if you do not use your own eyes to look, and instead think this sentence—“A person, merely because of his own stubbornness, actually increased the danger of the entire Earth being destroyed”—then what you will think of is a villain. But do not think; look!
……Writing while reminiscing, so slow…… recalling so many things from childhood. But I won’t have time to finish my homework. I’ll talk about it later. Now I’m going to transform into a Super Saiyan and devour books……
May 20, 2007, 1:22 a.m.
Latest Comments
- kakarotto
2009-01-29 13:28:05 Anonymous 219.131.176.237
This is truly wonderfully written. I also only came into contact with Dragon Ball in junior high, and I still miss it deeply to this day~~
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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