Dragonball, the series created by Akira Toryama, is based on a old Chinese legend called "Sun Wu Kon: Journey To the West". This legend tells of a monkey with super powers, a pig with super powers, and a munk. The munk needs to get to the temple of the west. They have to battle the monsters and many other dangerous things as they try to travel through the land. Unfortunatly, when script publishing time came, most of the legend basis was gone and the story became basically a fight sequence.