everything’s good shonen what is it worth fantasy elements. It’s one of the best kept secrets of all cartoonists, and in large part, what has led to the popularity of this genre and therefore of anime. What makes these stories so appealing is not specifically their plot (although there are exceptions) or their characters, but the powers and abilities they possess. From george lucaspassing for JRR Tolkienand of course Akira Toriyamaall the authors used fantastic elements to endow their works with an imaginary universe without limits.
The inclusion of these magic keys They manage to move the viewer/reader to a new dimension, once he has already been captivated by the verisimilitude of the story. It is a phenomenon that has tended incredible growth of Japanese popular culture and especially in their animes and mangas. Akira Toriyamaone of its greatest exponents has also been able to capture certain whimsical elements in “Dragon Ball” thanks to the famous Ki.
The Ki, one of the most basic tools in all of Dragon Ball
After more than three decades of stories in the world of magic balls, many still wonder why origin and meaning of this kind of life force that allows certain characters to be endowed with superhuman abilities. The Ki constitutes the basic pillar on which all of Toriyama’s work rests, and thanks to him everything that happens in his world has a coherence. However, despite being the main fantasy element, its base is in a real conceptand that may be precisely his secret to being believable in premises that are clearly not believable.
What is Ki really?
The Ki, translated as “latent energy”it’s nothing but the stream of life that runs through all things and beings. It is found everywhere and constitutes the sense of existence of the universe of “Dragon Ball”. His description is quite similar to that which years before Lucas had attributed to strengthbut contrary to this, the Ki can manifest itself in a tangible way.
If it’s true that Toriyama uses it to measure the power of beingsKi does not simply imply strength, since it can be used in other less transgressive ways with intelligence or persuasion. Its degraded nature is due to Chinese term “Chi” where it comes from, and which refers to its own energy of life on earth.
In this way, and depending on the userKi can be used as a combat weapon through different techniques or tactically. It’s this second track that has given the series more depth over the years. Since the Saiyans landed on Earth, the presence of said energy has become more visible, not because they brought it from their planet, but because they had greater mastery to materialize it.
everyone remembers the famous Nappa Scouter and the “It’s over 9000!” with which we first discovered the amount of Ki that Goku possessed, but the ability to witness the energy in other beings (Sentoryoku) It is inherent and does not require any device.. But besides serving as a radar, Ki also allows other things like discern his naturethus being able to prevent the acts of the various users.
What is the importance of Ki in Dragon Ball?
The importance of Ki is such that without it we would never have known the different power levels that Super Saiyans reach once they concentrate certain amounts of energy, nor the famous techniques who made popular “Dragon Ball” of the Z saga. The ability to accumulate it is apprehended and not innate, since as we were able to verify during the Buu saga, a human like Videl could also dominate her to fly. And even when Goku set out to defeat the pink enemy, he asked the various inhabitants of Earth to send him their energy to focus on the Genki-dama.
Ki has always been the true protagonist of the series, and when “Dragon Ball Super” was introduced, his relevance was even greater. With the arrival of the gods of destructionthis energy is passed to a divine plane with the consequent transformation of the characters in their god modes. This, in turn, continued to be developed during the Tournament of Power and also during subsequent arcs of the manga.
What can be drawn from all this is that if Son Goku is the protagonist of “Dragon Ball” on whom all the light shines, Ki is clearly the protagonist of the franchise in the shadows. Despite the fact that we have left the era of measuring power levels in units simply because the values are now astronomical, it is clear that for a long time to come Ki will continue to be an absolutely indispensable part of the franchise of Akira Toriyama. .
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