Dragon Ball Z -Yes, I HAVE Changed My Mind

 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.
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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.
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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!"

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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.


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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!