What Do the Japanese Words in Dragon Ball Really Mean?

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The name promises a staff that does whatever its owner wishes, and for a long time Goku treats it as a handy stretching weapon. Its real job comes out later: set into the top of Karin Tower and extended, it reaches God's Temple in the sky, and Goku uses it to go up after defeating Demon King Piccolo. A tool named for reaching the spot your hand can't reach ends up reaching heaven. Whether or not Toriyama had the back scratcher in mind, the word fits the staff's true purpose surprisingly well.

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Dictionaries describe the novel's cloud only by how fast it goes. Dragon Ball adds a condition: when the Turtle Hermit gives the cloud to Goku in Chapter 4, it turns out only someone pure of heart can ride it, and the hermit himself falls straight through. That one rule turns a vehicle into a running test of character. The cloud later carries Goku's sons too, and it quietly tells the reader who in the cast is good-hearted without anyone having to say so.

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In the same interview, Toriyama said he didn't really like naming techniques at all, since nobody in a real life-or-death fight would shout one out, and that he only did it because his editor told him to. So one of the most famous attack names in manga started as a joke at home. The hermit first fires it in Chapter 14 to put out a fire on a burning mountain, and blows the whole mountain away instead. A royal name, a turtle pun and a slapstick result: it's arguably the perfect debut.

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In the story, the god in the name is literal. Shenlong was made by Earth's God, and the dragon depends on its maker: when God's life is at stake, so are the Dragon Balls. Kanzenshuu also points out a small printing detail: when Chapter 19, where the dragon first rises from the balls, ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump, the dragon character was printed in the simpler everyday form 竜 rather than 龍. Either way, Shenlong is one of the few names in the series that means exactly what it says.

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So the tournament's name is a title, and the story makes it hard to earn. Goku first competes in Volume 3 and finishes runner-up twice, first to the Turtle Hermit in disguise and then to Tenshinhan, before winning on his third try against Piccolo. Each tournament works as a checkpoint showing where the cast stands. A title that literally means “no equal under heaven” arguably fits best in a series where someone stronger always turns up next.

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The name puts the trick where it really happens: in the opponent's eye. The fighter isn't creating a copy of himself; he moves so fast that the other person keeps seeing where he was a moment ago. Goku copies the move after seeing it once, just as he copied the turtle master's beam attack. A few volumes later, a ninja seems to split into five, and the answer turns out to be quintuplets; Goku answers with an afterimage. Early Dragon Ball arguably enjoys explaining its tricks instead of leaving them as magic.

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The irony is sharp. A word for gentle health exercises names one of the most self-destructive attacks in the series. When Tenshinhan first unleashes it at the 22nd tournament in Chapter 132, the Turtle Hermit explains that it uses so much energy it can kill the person firing it. Tenshinhan fires it again against Nappa in Volume 19, and it costs him his life. The ki in Dragon Ball is the same ki as in qigong, but here the life energy you're supposed to build up gets spent all at once.

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The beans come from Karin, the sage at the top of Karin Tower. When he first tosses one to Goku in Chapter 150, it heals his injuries at once, and a single bean is said to keep you fed for ten days. That's a very practical kind of immortality: not living forever, but being able to get back up. In a series where the heroes fight past their limits again and again, the hermits' most important gift may be this small one.

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Toriyama took that ancient, terrifying judge and turned him into an office worker. In the Daizenshuu 4 interview, he said God's temple felt mysterious, so he wanted the afterlife to feel realistic instead, and dressed Enma and the oni in suits like salarymen. In Chapter 205, Enma sits behind a giant desk, checks Goku's record and approves his request to train, while God whispers that the Kaiō is even stronger. Making the judge of the dead a short-tempered manager arguably suits a series where death so often turns out not to be the end.

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Whether or not Toriyama had the proverb in mind, the road teaches a version of it. It runs a million kilometers along the back of a giant snake, with Hell below anyone who falls, and it isn't the usual route for the dead: Enma has to approve Goku's request first. At the end waits the Kaiō, a master who knows exactly what a fighter like Goku needs. Goku sets out in Chapter 205 and only reaches the end about six months later, in Chapter 210. Before he learns a single technique, the road tests whether he belongs in that world.

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The Genki-Dama runs on exactly that older sense. Goku doesn't power it with his own strength; he asks the earth, the seas and every living thing to lend him a little of their energy, which is why it takes time to gather. He first tries it against Vegeta in Chapter 233. The everyday word for “I'm fine” and the old word for the source of all life turn out to be the same word, and the attack sits right on that overlap: a little ordinary well-being from everyone, gathered into one ball.

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Dragon Ball stretches that definition until it breaks. Its first jinzō ningen is No. 8, a gentle giant who befriends Goku back in Volume 6. When the boy from the future warns of two new ones in Chapter 335, he says they were built on Earth by Doctor Gero, and the story keeps widening the word: some are pure machines, No. 17 and No. 18 turn out to be people Gero rebuilt, and Cell is grown in a lab, yet Toriyama uses the one term for all of them. That lands close to the question Čapek's play asked: what makes a made thing a person?