Did Dragon Ball Super Just Pay Homage to Naruto’s Sage Chakra?

Dragon Ball Super manga chapter 53 sees the Dragon Ball Z fighters of Earth try to prepare for the incoming threat of new villain Moro. Piccolo, Bulma, Krillin and the rest of the gang on Dende’s watchtower are working with Galactic Patrol agent Jaco to get the intel on Moro’s gang, which also helps us get to the mix of psycho killers that have been terrorizing the universe (including Dragon Ball‘s newest evil android). Meanwhile Goku and Vegeta are each off-world pursuing new training in order to defeat Moro. In Vegeta’s case, the Saiyan Prince is revealed to be engaged in some very Naruto-style training on Planet Yardrat.

In fact, a lot of manga/anime fans are taking a look at Vegeta’s new training regiment and immediately comparing it to Naruto’s iconic Sage training from Naruto: Shippuden.

In Naruto: Shippuden episode 156 “Surpassing the Master” (manga chapters 417 – 420) Naruto attempts to master a perfect Sage Mode, by training with the Sage Toad Fukasaku on Mount Myoboku. that training requires Naruto to learn how to concentrate and achieve perfect stillness while sitting on a board balanced atop a large spire. The training took Naruto’s master Jiraiya years to master, but since Naruto was pressed for time, he had to enlist the help of his Shadow Clones to learn the lesson. Not surprisingly, Naruto achieves Sage Mode (after a few early failures), which was a crucial step in helping him unlock the power that would one day make him the Hokage.

Vegeta is now training on Planet Yardrat to achieve a similar goal of “Spirit Control” (or chi control). The Yardratians master the power of their spirit, harness it, and manifest it through their physical bodies in the form of various special techniques. Ironically enough, making Shadow Clones is one of the techniques the Yardratians have mastered, in addition to teleportation (Instant Transmission) and size changing. Like Naruto, Vegeta is trying to master this technique to defeat an enemy that has dealt serious blows to the heroes (the evil sorcerer Moro), and fans expect the results to be pretty awesome.

This scene with Vegeta training on Yardrat is just one of many fun (but totally coincidental) parallels between Dragon Ball and Naruto that fans have spotted, and it just makes each series that much more enjoyable to read and/or watch together.

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block on Saturday evenings, and is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese-language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. The manga has chapters that can currently be read for free thanks to Viz Media, and Dragon Ball Super’s big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.