Dragon Ball

I love the manga Dragon Ball, well the original Dragon Ball rather than its many derivatives populated by power mad aliens intent on universal domination.

The first one was about a chubby ingenuous kid who didn't know his own strength and lived in the mountains far away from people, with his grandfather. After his grandfather's passing the little boy Son Goku, goes on an quest around a whimsical mythologized China seeking to retrieve his sole memento of his grandfather, a dragon ball stolen by thieves.

Unlike his egocentric teenage companion or the numerous villains, monsters, rivals and friends that he meets in his travels, Goku has no ulterior motives and pursues his goal of retrieving his grandfather's dragon ball artlessly.

Its a very funny simple story told leisurely with the recursive flourishes enjoyed by Japanese readers. Characters from Asian and Western legends show up along with people from other manga and video games as diverse as Frankenstein's monster and Pan from Virtual Fighter.

People tend to have eccentric names like Gohan (cooked rice) and Yamcha (dim sum) while practicing lucrative professions like Desert Bandit and Capsule Vehicle Inventor.

Son Goku is author Akira Toriyama's adaptation of Sun Wukung, the Monkey King from one of the four classics of Chinese Literature, Journey to the West. This book is itself based on the historical travels of the Chinese monk Hsuan Tsang who traveled to India in the 7th century CE to bring Buddhist canon back to China.

It's amazing what can come from a good idea.