As we’ve established in parts #1 and #2 of this 48 part series, there are a lot of things I love about Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball. The disheartening arrival of the abomination Dragonball Evolution dulled my enthusiasm for a time, but I feel it flowing back into me, raisin’ the ol’ power level back up to arbitrary numbers.

Anyhoo, one of these things I really love about Dragon Ball is that its elegant, elemental narrative style and clear characterization make it easy to notice the wide variety of tropes, motifs and other devices that Toriyama uses to guide and develop his storylines. It has the epic Brechtian quality of a theatrical production where you can see the wires and the lighting equipment, without breaking the emotional identification and welcoming effortlessness of Stanislavski’s “Magic If.”

So, taking a bit of a break from using everything else I know to try to explain Dragon Ball, today I will use what I know about Dragon Ball to explain something else. Namely, one of the most useful and interesting distinction in parts of speech across poetical and literary systems, and also one of the most neglected in the casual enjoyment of art.

Today’s battle in the expansive desert, full of its elaborate rock formations that all produce prodigious dust clouds upon their destruction?

Metonymy and Metaphor. If these are things you’re not 100% solid on, read on, increase your literary power level, and actually learn something pretty simple that will help you enjoy art and lesser things you already like all the more. Because they’re certainly using it . . .

(Oh, and if you’re 100% solid on them, you’re clearly an enthusiast, so that is no excuse to turn away from the “Read More” button)

Today’s discussion starts with two fairly intuitive Dragon Ball special moves, the Kaioken (Fist of the Kais or Fist of the Worlds) and the Taio-ken (Fist of the Suns) — keep in mind that, despite my choice of video clips, here I must rely on what I get out of the English — this is not a canonical discussion of the original Japanese, because I DON’T SPEAK JAPANESE!

This is the Taio-ken. The taio-ken is an example of Metaphor.

The taio-ken converts life energy into a bright flash of light that blinds the opponent.

This is the Kaio-ken. Kaio-ken is an example of Metonymy.

The kaio-ken puts one’s body under tremendous strain in order to multiply one’s strength.

Metaphorical comparisons are similar, whereas metonymical comparisons are contiguous.

The Fist of the Suns is so named because it produces an effect that is like the sun — it’s really bright and blinding. Tenshinhan, the guy who first uses the move, isn’t associated with the sun. He never went to the sun. Nobody lives on the sun in Dragon Ball, and the sun doesn’t get referenced much in Toriyama’s work (the moon, on the other hand . . .). He just happens to have a move that’s like the sun, so it has a metaphorical name that reflects that relationship.

Conversely, Goku learns the Fist of the Worlds from King Kai, one Dragon Ball’s wacky deities, in the afterlife. At the cost of giving up his body for a time, Goku is put under tremendous strain on a planet with ten times normal gravity and learns how to multiply his strength.

Now, King Kai never gets in any fights, he isn’t nearly as physically strong as the protagonists, and he looks like this:

So, the kaio-ken doesn’t make you similar to King Kai. It’s his move, so it’s named after him, but he’s also a diety, and its name implies godlike power that isn’t natural in the human world (thus, mortals can’t easily handle it).

And the Fist of the Worlds doesn’t make you similar to a world. But it reflects both the extraterrestrial scope of the power levels involve, and it reminds you that this is the kind of move you don’t get to learn if you stick around on your own planet. It talks a bit about the history of the move, the things that are associated with it.

These two explanations fall within a close range of ideas that would be grouped together under the umbrella of “King Kai and his stuff.”

Other things that would be contiguous with King Kai would be Bubbles the chimp, Gregory the cricket, his little house and his classic car.

It’s notable that King Kai is not the only Kaio in Dragonball (far from it) – otherwise, the Kaio-Ken would lose some of its metonymical quality. Being a Kaio isn’t just a namesake, it’s another quality that is contiguous with being King Kai.

It seems pretty intuitive by this example; the word contiguous is what gets in the way of understanding it most of the time. But people refer to things that are part of the set of “so and so and his stuff” all the time, and it feels a lot different from a metaphor.

For example, if you compare Randy Moss to Gisele Bundchen, that isn’t metaphor, it’s metonymy, because these are both people who are contiguous with Tom Brady. You could even compare Gisele to Kate Moss and in turn to Randy Moss, but that sort of fleaflicker trick play only works in the movies.

Metonymy: "This is one randy reciever."

And if you compare Tony Soprano and Tonya Harding, it might be a metaphor, because they’re both criminals, but it’s more likely metonymy, contiguous with the set of “stuff associated with hitting people in the kneecaps.”

It’s easy to write this off, but I think it’s an important, useful distinction, and I think Dragon Ball highlights it. In Dragon Ball, metonymy tends to beat metaphor. Things that boast similarity carry less of a weight of legitimacy than things that are contiguous. The kaio-ken is just plan stronger than the taio-ken. Cell, who is actually engineered from the genes of the heroes, is stronger than the androids, who are simply programmed to have similar powers. When Gohan uses attacks that remind him of his father in the end of the Cell Saga, he’s much more effective than when he dresses in his father’s costume, as in near the end of the interminable Majin Buu Saga.

What, do you think I’d leave you with just that? Oh, wait, there’s more!

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