Above: This is so similar to Hong Kong Manhua covers and posters not to mention splash pages that the mind tells you this is Manhua influenced.
__________________
_____________________________________________
You see, I was working after publishing that Dragon Ball Z and Manhua influence and images started flashing up in my mind. Art I had seen a long time ago but realised it wasn't Chinese. Something was "off".
So, I looked around on my bookshelves. Nope. Searched some of my old web groups but accidentally came across one of the recalled images!
Above: VERY Manhua in style.
_______________________
It was from Dragon Ball Z and so I did a quick search and....well, I came up with a lot of very Manhua art, but altered so that it was more in-keeping with "the Manga style".
Far from being coincidental I think it is very likely.
First time I saw Dragon Ball Z I thought it was Manhua but looking closer you see the Manga influence and, to be honest, a Japanese creator HAS to include those popular Manga traits to get a comic published and sold. The people who head businesses in Japan are VERY conservative and tend to look down at foreigners and things from outside Japan.
Above: This could well have been lifted from a Jademan comic. It screams "Manhua!"
_________________________________________________________________
Working in a creative arts media Toriyama would have seen lots of material -also Chinese martial arts films became major outside Hong Kong in the late 1960s/early 1970s -when I went to see Bruce Lee, etc., in kung fu movies. Now, a Japanese businessman visiting, say, London or a European city -even the USA- would have had to have been blind NOT to see this explosion of kung fu mania. And that leads to the question: "what inspires these movies that make so much money?" And from that....Manhua.
I have looked at what I can find of Dragon Ball Z and you look at Jademan Kung Fu comics that burst on the scene in the early 1980s and the similarity is rather striking. If you asked me to give a per centage figure on the likely probability of Manhua influence on Toriyama and this series...75% which is as far as anyone can go without being told "No" by the man himself.
So Derek Padula may well be on to something.
_______________________________________________________________________
Below: Do I need to say more? Toriyama is famous, I'm told, for being reclusive. I'd really love to know what has to say because only he knows!
No comments:
Post a Comment