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Dragon Ball may not have gotten a worthy live-action adaptation yet, but one epic Jackie Chan fantasy movie comes close to qualifying as a spiritual adaptation of the renowned anime. Created by Akira Toriyama in 1984, Dragon Ball went on to become one of the biggest and most internationally acclaimed shounen anime franchises in the 90s and the aughts. Over the years, the franchise has only grown from strength to strength, paving the way for newer additions, including video games, manga spinoffs, and films.

In 2009, Dragon Ball was also loosely adapted as a live-action movie, Dragonball Evolution, which turned out to be a commercial and critical disaster. Owing to its inability to get anything right about the original anime and manga, the movie was panned by viewers and critics worldwide, forcing many to grow skeptical towards anime-to-cinema adaptations in general. However, before Dragonball Evolution presented one of the worst live-action takes on anime,...

Did you ever know that our beloved Goku actually has a very rich and fascinating history behind his iconic appearance? Shockingly, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama himself admitted that Goku was never meant to look like what he does now. Rather, he had thought of making Goku look like a complete monkey!

A still featuring Kid Krillin and Kid Goku | Credits: Toei Animation

In an intriguing interview, Toriyama shared his fair share of reasons for how he came up with this original idea and what exactly made him change his design. Fans would find it exceptionally fascinating, because after all, this is the transformative journey of one of anime’s most recognizable characters.

According to Toriyama, Goku’s Monkey Design Wouldn’t Have Been Innovative at All! Goku | Credits: Toei Animation

Goku was initially meant to look like an actual monkey! This revolutionary piece of information was revealed in Dragon Ball Daizenshuu 2: Story Guide,...

The two biggest anime series in the world, One Piece, and Naruto, have been in tough competition with each other since the early 2000s. Both of them have a vast fan following that helped them acquire legendary status and inspire many other prominent stories. However, fans might not know this, but both Naruto and One Piece have been inspired by the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West.

Naruto and Luffy | Credit: Weekly Shonen Jump

Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng’en, and it follows the story of Sun Wukong, who was born from a stone and somehow acquired supernatural powers through Taoist practices. Sun Wukong had many names, but the most prominent one that is used even today is the Monkey King, and he has inspired a lot of popular stories that made a name for themselves, including Dragon Ball.

Both Eiichiro Oda and Masashi Kishimoto have...

Global indie animation powerhouse Miyu Distribution has acquired Mexican Aria Covamonas’ buzzy debut feature, “The Great History of Western Philosophy,” sure to be a key player on the 2025 animation festival circuit.

Featuring digital cutout animation, the meta comedy turns on a cosmic animator hired by the Central Committee of the People’s Republic to create a philosophical film for Chairman Mao. The leader is outraged, however, when the depressed filmmaker gives up on the project before it even gets off the ground and sentences the director to death by firing squad.

Mao’s murderous motivational techniques fail to light a fire under the filmmaker, but an intervention from “Journey to the West’s” Monkey and Pigsy inspire the protagonist to embark on a journey through the history of Western philosophy and some of its most impactful characters.

Inspired by Lacanian theory, the film plays with the frontier between reality and...