Dragon Ball is one of the most influential anime series of all time. The creators of One Piece, Bleach, and Fairy Tail have all cited Akira Toriyama and Dragon Ball as their biggest inspirations, and that's the case for Naruto as well. Naruto is the third best-selling manga 📚 of all time, with Dragon Ball in second place. They were both published in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine and have been featured in various video games.
However, Naruto had the benefit of learning from Dragon Ball's mistakes, which allowed it to become a famous anime. We are here today to explain why the Naruto series is better than the Dragon Ball saga. 👍 From the quality of the combat, to the comparison between the main characters, here are the 15 reasons why Naruto is better than Dragon Ball.
15. FIGHTS ARE MORE TECHNICAL
One aspect that helped the series become popular 🔥 (at least initially) was the tactical nature of the fights. The series did not rely on power levels. Instead, when it came to combat, intelligence trumped brute force.
A character with weaker skills than his opponent could emerge victorious with a suitable strategy. This is why Shikamaru was so popular in character popularity polls, despite the fact that he had an annoying combat technique. He used his intelligence to win battles and fans loved seeing him outplay his enemies. 🧠
The fight scenes in Dragon Ball Z were often visually exciting to watch, but the conclusion often came down to a strength level being determined long before the battle began. Dragon Ball Z's battles boiled down to a specific formula of pointless punches and kicks, transformation sequences, and massive light beam attacks. ⚡ Battles in Dragon Ball Z were often one-sided, which also made it less interesting. This is why the few evenly matched fights (like Piccolo vs. C17 ) are still in our minds.
14. THE NARUTO SAGA MAKES AN EXTRA EFFORT TO ATTRACT A FEMALE AUDIENCE
One of the main advantages of manga over Western comics is that it has managed to reach a female audience. Even Marvel and DC still haven't been able to use the advertising power of their films to bring female audiences to their comics. Unlike Mangas which have managed to conquer a female audience, 💄 whose size is close to that of the male audience.
Dragon Ball certainly has its share of female fans, but it came from an era where Weekly Shonen Jump was focused on attracting male readers. This changed by the time Naruto came along, as the Naruto saga went out of its way to include elements that would be able to attract a female audience.
It seems this plan worked. In the case of Naruto , they did this by including more romance and relationship teases than you would see in an average fighting manga. This is why Naruto is the second biggest series on Fanfiction.net (after Harry Potter), because it inspires a new level of creativity in its fans. 🆕
13. NARUTO NEVER ABANDONED A SINGLE ONE OF ITS CHARACTERS
It could be said that Akira Toriyama is a notoriously absent-minded person, since this has been true throughout his career, as many Dragon Ball characters and concepts ceased to be relevant upon their first appearance in the first arc.
One of the most notable characters to disappear is Lunch , who never appeared in the Dragon Ball manga after the Saiyans arrived. ⚡ It's because Toriyama literally forgot she existed. The people who worked on the anime managed to give her a few more passages, so she wasn't totally forgotten in the anime.
Naruto not only kept all of his main cast until the end, he also managed to keep them relevant in combat. They all got their chance to shine during the World War arc. ⚔️ Naruto and Sasuke were eventually able to surpass the other characters, but that didn't make the others useless.
In the case of Dragon Ball Z, everyone who wasn't Saiyans was left in the dust and ceased to be relevant as anything more than a brief distraction.
12. NARUTO WAS NOT RUINED BY HOLLYWOOD
Dragon Ball is another licensed anime that has a terrible Hollywood adaptation. 📺 Dragonball Evolution made Goku a high school student who had to fight against the evil Piccolo in a contemporary setting. The film was hated by the majority of people when it was released. In conclusion, Dragonball Evolution is just another failed adaptation of the Dragon Ball saga.
Akira Toriyama hasn't interacted much with fans since Dragon Ball ended. But it seems that even he couldn't hold his tongue over the adaptation of Dragon ball Evolution. 👅
Naruto hasn't yet received his Hollywood film... but it won't be long! Lionsgate is currently filming a Naruto film, with Masashi Kishimoto on board as producer. We can only hope that the failure of Ghost in the Shell calls into question the production of this one.
11. NARUTO NEVER HAD A 4 YEAR OLD CHILD AS A PROTAGONIST
Goku was 13 years old at the start of Dragon Ball. The series followed him into adulthood, to the point where he became a grandfather. 👴 One of the most disturbing aspects of Dragon Ball Z is the fact that Gohan was thrust into the protagonist position at the age of 4 - Piccolo takes him to the mountain in order to train him for combat. Gohan was then pushed into fighting even though he was not yet able to read or even count. What makes this worse is the fact that Gohan is clearly traumatized by these experiences and spends most of these fights in tears. 😭 If you don't know Naruto yet, discover our blog: Who is Naruto.
10. NARUTO NEVER USED A TIME MACHINE
The Cyborg Saga introduced time travel to Dragon Ball Z. This came in two forms - via Trunks' time machine and via the Room of Mind and Time . Trunks was able to return to the past to warn Goku's gang of the arrival of the Cyborgs 🤖 and of Goku's death from heart disease.
As the story continued, Goku revealed the existence of the Room of Spirit and Time on Karin's Tower. It is a room in which time is accelerated and where 1 year corresponds to 24 hours outside of it. The Sayans were able to use this piece to become stronger. 💪
Introducing time travel to a series is always a tricky suggestion. This usually raises the question of "why don't they use time travel to solve all their problems". This is something the Harry Potter franchise learned the hard way. Naruto never needed to time travel, so he managed to avoid these problems. ⌛
9. NO UNSUSTAINABLE SCREAMING DURING FIGHTS
The importance of Dragon Ball Z cannot be understated when it comes to series that helped popularize anime and manga in the West. He stands alongside Pokémon and Sailor Moon. The flip side is that the negative aspects of Dragon Ball Z have been associated with the anime and manga 📚 as a whole.
Dragon Ball Z featured a lot of screaming and growling during various fights. The highlight was when Goku's voice actor, Sean Schemmel, fainted during a recording of Dragon Ball GT due to the amount of noise required during Goku's transformation into Super Saiyan 4. The character's "scream while transforming into Super Sayan" has become a stereotype associated with anime as a whole. Fortunately, the Naruto license has managed to escape this kind of heresy.
8. THE NARUTO SAGA HAS REMAINED CONSISTENT
Dragon Ball was a weird series in that it seemed to completely change tone and genre from one arc to another. The story began as a fantasy adventure that parodied aspects of Journey to the West, but, at the end of Dragon Ball, the Super Saiyans ⚡ had to face a genius who had existed for millennia.
The reason for these changes was because Akira Toriyama ✒️ made everything up as time went along, without any long-term plan. What makes this series so upsetting is how easily it jumped between light adventure and brutality. This is especially true for Dragon Ball Z, where almost every main character from the original series is killed fighting the Space Saiyans.
Naruto has always managed to combine both moments of levity and intense fights throughout his journey. This means that those who started the series from the beginning were never shocked by the evolution of the saga.
7. THE NARUTO ACTORS WERE RECOGNIZED FOR THEIR ACTIONS
Naruto ended with a world at peace. The ninja villages declared a ceasefire that appears to have remained in place for several decades. Technology had progressed, with the arrival of skyscrapers and computers 💻in Konoha . The old Kages had also retired and left the world in the hands of the new generation.
The world of Dragon Ball Z never seemed to be altered by the events of the story. Goku and his friends mainly dealt with world-ending threats and were never proactive in stopping them.
They were willing to allow Dr. Gero 🤖 to finish building his Cyborgs, because Goku wanted a real fight. Additionally, the Z-Fighters never received any recognition for their actions, which allowed Hercules to swoop in and get recognition for supposedly stopping Cell. Goku and his friends certainly don't exist in the eyes of the world.
6. THE FIGHTS WERE BLOODIER
It's hard to deny that Naruto was a much bloodier series than Dragon Ball. Characters were constantly being cut by blades and dodging poison attacks. There were many Shinobis who specialized in medical ninjutsu, which they used alongside (or in tandem) with their combat abilities. Only the most skilled ninjas could use their chakra to heal the wounds of others, which allowed many of them to survive.
Dragon Ball Z has tended to minimize injuries inflicted during combat. This is because the characters never seemed too troubled by serious injuries. Ten Shin Han also had his arm torn off against Nappa, but he was still able to continue fighting.
There were also characters with powerful healing abilities like Dende, but also Senzu Beans , which can heal someone from the brink of death in seconds. The resurrection abilities of the Dragon Balls increase this minimization of death and its long-term implications.
5. KUNOICHIS HAVE BEEN PRESENT FROM THE BEGINNINGS
Dragon Ball featured several prominent women in its cast. The series could never have gone anywhere without Bulma and her inventions. 📻 However, there were almost no female fighters in Dragon Ball, except for filler arcs and movies, which were not created by Akira Toriyama. Dragon Ball Super recently featured its first Super Saiyans, who took over twenty-five years to debut.
Naruto featured quite a few prominent female characters who appeared in positions of power and were equal to men in combat. Tsunade , Mei Terumi, and Kurotsuchi were among the most important political figures in the ninja world.
Dragon Ball Super has recently allowed women to become more prominent in terms of physical power in the franchise, although it took a long time ⏰ to get there. Fortunately, Naruto has always allowed the Kunoichis to take part in battles and be important, from the beginning.
4. NARUTO NEVER FIGHTED HITLER
Dragon Ball and Naruto take place in fictional worlds that were not intended to reflect our version of Earth. 🌏 Despite this, a version of Adolf Hitler appeared in one of the Dragon Ball Z films.
The antagonist of Dragon Ball Z: Fusion was a demon named Janemba, who broke the barrier between the real world and the afterlife. This allowed all the evil souls trapped within Hell to return to the real world.
Goten and Trunks encountered the reincarnation of the Third Reich, which was led into battle by a copy of Adolf Hitler, called the Dictator. Goten and Trunks then merged into Gotenks and sent the Nazis straight back to the afterlife.
Scenes with the Dictator were censored ❌ in the film Fusion Worldwide. Most international versions of Fusion Reborn had to remove the Dictator, due to laws regarding the depiction of Nazi imagery. There were a lot of bad Naruto movies, but none of them ever invoked Godwin's Law.
3. NARUTO HAS A GOAL AND AN ENDING
One of the oldest urban legends regarding Dragon Ball is that Toriyama 🖋️ wanted to end the series earlier in the story, but was forced to continue by his editors. That's not true, although the series could have ended sooner than it did.
Dragon Ball ended with Goku first meeting Uub and leaving for training. The series tried to make a comparison between Uub and the child version of Goku, which never made much sense. This is probably one of the reasons why Dragon Ball has had several different sequels over the years.
Naruto's goal was to become Hokage . He achieved this goal in the end, which was a natural point to end the story. We then saw his son pulling the same pranks he did in the first few issues, which made for a satisfying end to the series. 🎉
2. NARUTO NEVER FEATURED CHILDHOOD NUDITY
There are probably many people who will disagree with what is said in this article. 📰 Naruto certainly has its detractors and the series has its flaws. Despite Naruto's flaws, there is one aspect of Dragon Ball that the saga managed to avoid. You may hate Uzumaki Naruto , but at least you've never seen his penis.
Akira Toriyama made sure to include full nudity for Goku and Bulma in the Dragon Ball manga, at a time when they were 13 and 16 years old respectively. It could be argued that Dragon Ball was a product of its time and that there are different sensibilities - the nudity of young boys in Japanese culture is sometimes seen as a sign of innocence.
It's harder to defend the scene where Yamcha spies on a naked Bulma coming out of the shower. These scenes actually led to the Dragon Ball manga being removed from "ToysRUs" stores until they had been sufficiently censored. ❌
1. THE MAIN CHARACTER IS LINKED TO THE OTHERS
Naruto is defined by his relationships with others. As an orphan, he cherished the bonds he formed with the other Ninja in his village. He also endured feelings of abandonment and isolation. These are moments that all human beings go through at one time or another. Kishimoto ✒️ managed to weave human drama with fantastic ninja action.
Goku is a great fighter, but he is a terrible father, husband, and friend. The only thing Goku cared about was fighting, which meant he had no problem abandoning his family. Besides, Goku's plan to defeat Cell consisted of putting his son in danger, which led Piccolo 🤢 to accuse him of being a horrible father.
It's possible to love Goku as a hero, but it's difficult to relate to him on a personal level. Naruto goes through the same trials and tribulations that many children and teenagers do, which appeals to fans because they want to know if things ever worked out for him. 🔮
If you are a big fan of the Dragon Ball Z saga, teleport yourself using the banner above to our partner Goku-Shop !
J’aime les manga
C’est un troll ?