- Jan 25, 2009
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For anyone into anime shows like Dragon Ball Z, I would HIGHLY recommend seeing the new series called Dragon Ball Super....haven't missed a show yet and the actual mythology of Dragon Ball (one of my favorite shows growing up and something I used to draw a lot in before)
To be clear, it needs to be remembered what the concept of Dragon Ball is based on
It's well-known within anime circles that Dragon Ball is loosely based on the centuries-old tale Journey to the West, in which a monkey boy flies on a magic cloud while wielding a size-changing staff...but the series has since evolved in many ways. The Dragon World is founded upon Buddho-Daoist and Shinto belief systems, even though there are similarities with Greek mythology when seeing the multiple gods and demons. Also, Gods do not influence people indirectly in DBZ, but speak and interact directly with the characters and can be hurt/killed by people. More specifically, in Toriyama's universe humans or non-God entities seem to have a lot more autonomy and control over their lives and yet there is concern about this with other gods.
In the Dragon Ball universe, there are others which are Gods of Destruction and others that are Supreme Kais - Gods of creation. And with the evolution of the series, many have been speculating on how much more things have evolved. Specifically, the reveal of an evil character similar to Goku known as Goku Black in a recent episode of Dragon Ball Super, has had fans trying to figure out who he is, from being an older and alternate version of Goten to a possible God of Destruction from another universe. ...and it has been having many process since in the Dragon Ball mythology, there were originally 18 universes and now there are currently only 12.
It was rather fascinating to me since I've been keeping up with the new series entitled "Dragon Ball Super" and the ethos of the series has been astounding. Specifically, I've enjoyed keeping up with it thus far and seeing them explore more of the mythology of the series in how the hieary of the universe goes with Divine Beings/Councils and it has had me processing a lot on how to actually contexualize the series with its figures in the religious sense. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear. The mythology really brings up many religious themes tackling multiple dimensions, parallel worlds and the fact of order being set and yet those over that order being in flux....
As another noted best, "It does always seems the Dragon Ball lore is right at the limit of how far it can expand, with Toryama never holding back, but then it manages to take things a step further. I expect the 12 universes aren’t really “everything”, and the new king is really just the King of Some subset of Everything.
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