Dragon Ball (universe)

The Dragon Ball universe refers to the Smash Flash series' collection of characters, stages, and properties that hail from Weekly Shōnen Jump's manga and anime series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. Inspired by the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West, it follows the adventures of Son Goku from his childhood through middle age as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the seven mystical objects known as the Dragon Balls, which can summon a wish-granting dragon. Along his trip, Goku meets several friends and fights against several villains who also seek the Dragon Balls. Dragon Ball is one of the most popular manga series of its time, and it continues to enjoy high readership today.

Franchise description
Wanting to break from the Western influences common in his other series, Dr. Slump, when Akira Toriyama began work on Dragon Ball he decided to loosely model it on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. He also redeveloped one of his earlier one shot manga series, Dragon Boy, which was initially serialized in Fresh Jump and released in a single tankōbon volume in 1983. This short work combined the comedic style of Toriyama's successful six-year series Dr. Slump with a more action-oriented plot and paid homage to famous martial art actor Jackie Chan. Toriyama notes that his goal for the series was to tell an "unconventional and contradictory" story. The fighting techniques were initially unnamed, but the series editor felt it would be better to name them all. Toriyama proceeded to create names for all of the techniques, except for the Kamehameha (かめはめ波, lit. "Turtle Devastation Wave") which his wife named when Toriyama was indecisive about what it should be called. When creating the fictional world of the series, Toriyama decided to create basing it from his own imagination to avoid referencing popular culture. However the island where the World Martial Arts Tournament is held is modeled after Bali. When having fights in the manga, Toriyama had the characters go to a place where nobody lived to avoid difficulties in drawing destroyed buildings. In order to advance the story quickly, he also gave most fighters the ability to fly so they could travel to other parts of the world without inconvenience. This was also the reasoning behind Goku learning to teletransport (thus allowing characters to move to any planet in a second).

The story follows a monkey-tailed boy named Goku who is found by an old martial arts expert who raises him as his grandson. One day Goku meets a girl named Bulma and together they go on a quest to retrieve the seven Dragon Balls, mythical objects that can summon a dragon who will grant any wish. Along the way, they meet and befriend a plethora of martial artists. They also undergo rigorous training regimes and educational programs in order to fight in the World Martial Arts Tournament, a tournament in which the most powerful fighters in the world compete. Outside the tournaments, Goku faces diverse villains such as Emperor Pilaf, the Red Ribbon Army, a demon known as Piccolo Daimao and his offspring.

As a young adult, Goku meets his older brother, Raditz, who tells him that they come from a race of extraterrestrials called Saiya-Jin (Saiyans in English version). The Saiya-jin had sent Goku to Earth to destroy it, but his ship crashes upon arrival. Goku fell into a deep ravine and lost all memory of his mission. Goku refuses to help Raditz continue the mission, after which he begins to encounter others who want to battle him, such as the Saiya-jin prince Vegeta. He also encounters Frieza, who is considered to be one of the strongest beings in the universe, after which Goku begins training his first child, Son Gohan, to be his successor. Years later, a group of soldiers from the Red Ribbon army known as androids appear to kill Goku. Another android, Cell, absorbs Androids #17 and #18 from the Red Ribbon army to increase his power, then fights Goku and Gohan, resulting in the former's death. Goku decides to stay dead for seven years to train in the Other World. When he returns, he is drawn into a battle for the universe against an extraterrestrial named Majin Buu. Joined by Vegeta and Gohan, the evil half of Buu is destroyed and the Good Buu (Mr. Buu) settles down with them. Ten years later at a martial arts tournament, Goku meets evil Buu's human reincarnation, Uub. At the end of the series, Goku takes Uub away on a journey to train him as another successor.

After the first chapters were released, readers commented that Goku seemed rather plain, so his appearance was changed. New characters (such as Master Roshi and Krillin) were added and martial arts tournaments were included to give the manga a greater emphasis on fighting. Anticipating that readers would expect Goku to win the tournaments, Toriyama had him lose the first two while continuing his initial goal of having Goku be the champion and hero. At the end of the Cell arc, he intended for Gohan to replace Goku as the series protagonist, but then felt the character was not suited for the role and changed his mind.

Toriyama based the Red Ribbon Army from a video game he had played named Spartan X in which enemies tended to appear very fast. After the second tournament concluded, Toriyama wanted to have a villain who would be a true "bad guy." After creating Piccolo as the new villain, he noted that it was one of the most interesting parts of the stories and that he, and his son, became one of the favorite characters of the series. With Goku established as the strongest fighter on Earth, Toriyama decided to increase the number of villains that came from outer space. Finding the escalating enemies to be a pain to work with feeling it was too simple, he created the Ginyu squad to add more balance to the series. During this period of the series, Toriyama placed less emphasis on the series art work, simplifying the lines and sometimes making things "too square." He found himself having problems determining the colors for characters and sometimes ended up changing them unintentionally mid-story. In later accounts, Toriyama noted that he didn't plan out the details of the story, resulting in strange occurrences and discrepancies later in the series.

In Super Smash Flash 2
As one of the most successful and well-recognized manga franchises of all time, the Dragon Ball series makes a sensational debut in the Super Smash Flash series by being one of the new franchises in Super Smash Flash 2. It is heavily influenced on its more popular saga: Dragon Ball Z.

Character
The only known character appearing in the game is Goku, however, Vegeta, another major character and self-rival to Goku, was initially confirmed to be playable until it was revealed he would be merely a background character.


 * Son Goku: Simply known as Goku. He is the main protagonist of the series portrayed as a pure-hearted man who practices martial arts and possesses superhuman strength to fight against evil forces that, usually, have ambitious goals, as well as endangered many innocent lives. Originally named Kakarotto (Kakarot), he is from a fictional race of extraterrestrials called Saiya-Jin, said to be the strongest warriors within the fictional universe. Through constant training, Goku has achieved many abilities (which he uses in battle in SSF2); aside from his great strength, he also possesses super speed, reflexes and can perform energy blasts which are formed from ki. He also learns, through simple observation, Master Roshi's technique the Kamehameha, which then becomes his signature move. Another technique of his is an attack that multiplies the user's ki for an instant, called the Kaiō-ken (界王拳, lit. "World King Fist"). Goku also learns a teleportation skill called the Instant Transmission. As his Final Smash he poses the ability to change into his Super Saiyan form, which overpowers drastically all his existent moveset and giving him more resistance to his opponents' attacks.

Assist Trophy
Krillin, a major character of the series, was shown in a tutorial page of how to sprite and animate an Assist Trophy, he was summoned to release a Kamehameha of unknow effects, however, not much is known about him anymore, mostly because he was only used to exemplify, so was not entirely confirmed.

Stage
The following stage was shown in almost every SSF2 Mini-Trailer, however, the final design differs from that from the Mini-Trailers.
 * Planet Namek: A green-surfaced planet, home to all the Namekians, it consists of several rock-platforms over a large body of water, so it is possible for players to swim in the water. The stage also conects with the boundaries, meaning it doesn't have any kind of hole. For the rest of the battle, Piccolo will stay and observe the battle from the right corner while Vegeta, Trunks and Gohan can occasionally be seen flying around.