The Dragon Ball franchise has lots of Expy.
- A number of characters introduced in the original Dragon Ball are based off of characters from Journey to the West and Dr. Slump, Akira Toriyama's previous successful manga series.
- Son Goku is an expy of:
- Sun Wukong, The Monkey King from Journey To The West, mixed with Superman. It's even down to having the former's EXACT SAME name in a Japanese reading, though in the original Wukong/Goku's case, Dragon Ball-Wukong/Goku has started to pay less homages to him day by day ever since his fame in the US.
- In his early days, he was basically a Spear Counterpart to Arale, the main character of Akira Toriyama's previous work.
- Bulma:
- Like a number of the early characters, she actually did begin as a loose expy of a Journey to the West character - in this case, no less a person than Xuanzang Sanzang himself (she's on a quest which Goku/Wukong is just tagging along for, she gets into peril and needs saving by Goku, she's far less of an Action Person than Goku, etc). Of course, as time went on these elements drifted away and by the time the Saiyans show up, it can be hard to remember it was there at all.
- In the original series, she has a personality quite similar to Akane Kimidori of Doctor Slump, the first success of Akira Toriyama, being a sassy and outspoken teenage girl who serves a Straight Man to the naive and strong Kid Hero (Goku and Arale, respectively). Even Bulma's first love Yamcha looks a lot like Akane's love interest Tsukutsun. The main difference is that Akane is a full-blooded tomboy, while Bulma is a boy-crazy Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak and that Akane is Street Smart but not a genius like Bulma.
- Exception for the scar, Yamcha is physically identical to Tsukutsun from Doctor Slump; both characters at the beginning can not approach women for certain reasons (Yamcha because he was afraid of them, while Tsukutsun is because when a woman touches him she becomes a tiger), they also have Animal Motifs (Wolf for Yamcha and Tiger for Tsukutsun), and their Love Interest is the spoiled but sensible teenage girl.
- Chi-Chi:
- She is a Composite expy of both Princess Iron Fan and Red Boy, the respective wife and son of the Ox-King from Journey to the West. Strangely enough, while Red Boy and Wukong were sworn brothers, she and Goku are married.
- Her personality and appearance, in adult form, are based on Mrs. Tsun, a character from Doctor Slump.
- Chi-Chi's father, Gyū Maō/Ox-King, is an expy of, well, the Ox-King/Bull Demon King of Journey to the West, straight down to having the literal same name in kanji/hanzi characters (牛魔王). This Ox-King is a bit more chill and a family man than the one in the novel, though.
- Son Goku is an expy of:
- Dragon Ball Z:
- The Ginyu Force are this to the popular Super Sentai franchise, the whole lovable lot of them.
- Future Trunks is the unborn future son of the female lead, and he travels back in time to stop a group of robots from taking over the world in the future. Sounds familiar... (He even shares John Connor's hairstyle and taste in clothes.)
- Android 16 to Android 8 from earlier in the series. Both androids are fully mechanical creations that are incredibly strong but considered failures in spite of it due to their well-meaning, caring personalities. 16 is even a multiple of 8.
- Umpteen times in the Non Serial Movies. Almost every villain is an expy of a main series villain in some way, along with many of the movie-original supporting characters. Just for example, Lord Slug is an expy of King Piccolo (they're both evil-hearted Namekians), Cooler is an expy of Frieza (they're brothers), Janemba is an expy of Majin Buu, etcetera.
- Dr. Wheelo and Bojack's crew are an inversion. They're original villains who don't match up with any previous or then-current enemies, but they do share common traits with future enemies. Dr. Wheelo is similar to Dr. Gero in that both are mad scientists who transferred their brains into android bodies and built robots with the intent to defeat Earth's greatest warriors. Bojack's crew are similar to the Heeters as they're extravagantly-dressed blue-skinned aliens who share some history with an older character (the Kais and Monaito) and resurface sometime after both the defeat of Broly and the death of an all-consuming villain (Cell and Moro).
- Dragon Ball Super:
- Goku Black is basically the canon version of Turles, Goku's original Evil Counterpart and the main antagonist of The Tree of Might. Interestingly, Goku Black's debut episode featured lettuce frequently, which was most likely a reference to Turles, who, like Black, closely resembled Goku in appearance, and even having a similar status of being pure evil. Both have similar personalities, since both are vicious sociopaths with a veneer of friendliness... although Black is more evil and deranged than Turles.
- Fused Zamasu has similarities to some characters as well:
- He is similar to Super 17, in the sense that both characters are fusions of two counterparts of the same individual. However, in Super 17's case one of his fusee is an artificial incarnation (as Hell Fighter 17 is an artificial copy of Android 17).
- Zamasu's Half-Corrupted form design resembles that of Two-Face.
- Several fans have noticed many similarities between Infinite Zamasu and Giygas. Both being incomprehensible, formless Eldritch Abomination level monstrosities who's immense power comes at complete lack of sapience.
- Universal Survival arc features several expies of movie villains (that's right, expies of expies) as competitors from different universes:
- Frost shares similarities with Cooler, as both are the third best known member of Freeza's race.
- The most prominent is Kale, a seemingly submissive and mild mannered female Saiyan who can transform into a huge berserker beast, mirroring Broly from the three Non Serial Movies . They share a similar appearance, Kale says the same things Broly did, and many visual shots in the anime are the same as the movie Broly starred in. They also both steamroll a bunch of weaker fighters and suffer from Power Incontinence. The Toei character sheet even regards her as "similar to that Legendary Super Saiyan."
- A more downplayed example is Caulifla. As a fight-loving Saiyan who's quick to learn new techniques by watching somebody else do them and who basically cares only about finding challenges and loyalty to her friends, she's the Universe 6 counterpart to Goku.
- Aniraza is one to Hatchiyak from Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans. He has a very similar design (despite his different color scheme and having Hildegarn's facial structure), backstory (artificial lifeform partially spawned from the fusion of a scientist with his machinery), powers, and speaking patterns. In the anime, he also meets his end the same way: a team assault of five foes simultaneously blasting him in a beam struggle.
- Pirina takes his role as an arrogant and antagonistic Super Namekian, plus his overall appearance, from Lord Slug. This includes his tall and very bulky build (otherwise unique among Namekian characters), use of White Gloves, facial structure, and his signature attack being a Breath Weapon.
- Bardock in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. While the original incarnation was similar, this incarnation of Bardock is more in line with Jor-El from the Superman mythos, as a loving father that alongside his wife sent his son to another planet, one that no one would bat an eye. Depends on which Jor-El incarnation, but you get the point.
