Tag: anime

What Can We Really Learn From Dragon Ball?

On the philosophy and legacy of Dragon Ball and the shonen genre.

As Wisecrack illustrates, Dragon Ball is not just a high-action brawler modeled after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies; in essence, Dragon Ball aimed to teach Buddhist lessons of compassion and open-mindedness through its emulation of Journey to the West. Though a lot of people are getting buff at the gym, the aesthetic and ethics of Dragon Ball and the shonen titles heavily inspired by it (namely One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach) lie not in becoming the “very best” at something so you can beat an overpowered villain who’s vaguely trying to conquer or destroy the world. It’s not about being singularly focused on your goal. It’s about all the sidetracks along the way. It’s about the people you meet and learn about and helping them to solve their problems. It’s about relating your strife to the world around you. It’s about having new and surprising experiences that make you question your place in the world. In my opinion, people who use shonen to prop up their missions to excel at physical training or self-defense techniques in order to achieve a specific body type or become popular are not just shallow. Their super-controlled, super-individualist mindset is antithetical to Eastern philosophy and plays exactly into the hands of Western media values. They live in a space where flexibility, doubt, wonder, and diversity are undervalued or non-existent. Here, your unique talents shouldn’t be valued and put to good use in reciprocity with others – instead, you need to mold yourself into what the social structure deems to be the most valuable asset, because you know that achieving social dominance is the only thing that matters when you can’t trust anyone else to have your back.

Thanks for reading.

Naruto – Goals and Philosophy

Naruto is driven less by a need for glory than a desire to be accepted. He works diligently and learns as much as he can about his world so he can make as many connections as possible. He is very sympathetic toward people who feel alone. Naruto strives to convince others that unity can overcome any suffering. He derives his power from the connections he makes with others, through senjutsu, his relationships with the tailed beasts, and his relationships with his friends. He is stubborn and hyper-focused on his goals. He is so possessive of his bonds with others that he will chase people down and sacrifice his body, especially for Sasuke. Besides unity, Naruto focuses on the future rather than the past, and is more existentialist than essentialist. He believes that everyone has the power to choose who they want to be, and that no matter what mistakes you’ve made in the past, there’s always a way to change yourself. As such, Naruto doesn’t accept fatalist or essentialist logic as excuses for not changing, leading to clashes with such people as Neji, Gaara, and Obito. Despite his parents’ death and the deaths of mentors and friends, Naruto shoulders the memory of the people he’s lost and goes on to foster new relationships

Sasuke focuses more on the past, and is more essentialist in nature. From the beginning of the story, Sasuke falls back on his innate Uchiha abilities and prides himself on his heritage. He is so distraught by the pain of losing his family that revenge becomes more important to him than protecting the bonds of the friends and mentors he’s come to know. Like most other Uchiha, Sasuke tries to take everything on himself without acknowledging anyone else. This escalates to the point that he would rather appoint himself dictator who oppresses everyone equally than strive for cooperation on an even footing. Obito, Itachi, and Madara are also examples of Uchiha who tried to take on too much by themselves.