What's the True Origin of the Kamehameha in DRAGON BALL?

Wait -- am I actually writing up another episode of JOJO’s here?

It’s another head-smacker that I would’ve come to a long time ago (if I’d gotten a proper introduction to these characters). Capcom and SNK may have pilfered a bunch of their fighters from JOJO’s, specifically; but this is the first appropriated DRAGON BALL character I’ve spotted.

One of the combatants in the first FATAL FURY game was named Tung Fu Rue. He was an old, martial arts master with the ability to morph into a hideously muscular monstrosity. Sound familiar? Well, he was also bald, with a pointed white goatee… just like Master Roshi’s. I sincerely doubt that’s coincidental.

== TEASER ==

Since that pushes my thoughts over to fighting games (as will happen), I ought to bring up the Kamehameha (which, like Chichi, is introduced far sooner than I would’ve expected). I’m really starting to wonder if the Kamehameha, the Hadoken, the Ripple and basically every projectile attack in every fighting game ever have all been riffing on the same concept. Was there some specific folk tale that first put forth the notion of dudes throwing fireballs out of their palms? Was it JOURNEY TO THE WEST? Considering that Ryu from STREET FIGHTER was so famously modeled after real life karate legend, Mas Aoyama, might this have started with some installment of KARATE FANATIC?

Obviously, you’re seeing a fanciful extension of chi here. Instead of controlled breaths that throw more weight into an attack, it’s an actual electrical aura that flies out beyond the punch. The imaginative process would be easy enough to understand, but… still… it seems too specific to be that simple. And Roshi naming the attack for Kame, the god of Shintoism, and explaining that he learned the art from Kame itself…

…that seems exactly the sort of uncomfortable, non-PC religious explanation that would be made safe and more generalized by later franchises. It’s less uncomfortable to say that Ryu’s Super-Hadou comes from his power bar than it is to ascribe it to the heavens, isn’t it?

If any of you more learned Vicers know something about this, I’d love to hear some explanations. I'd kill to be enlightened.

Watch "the Kamehameha Wave" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode.

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