Dragon Ball is a Japanese manga written and drawn by Akira Toriyama, later adapted by Toei Animation into a run of TV shows, films and specials that turned Goku, Vegeta and the Saiyan cast into shorthand for shonen anime itself1. The core setup follows Goku as he trains, fights escalating villains and hunts the seven wish-granting Dragon Balls, a template that gave the internet a bottomless supply of power-up jokes, screaming transformation loops and "training arc" edits2.

Online, the property is less a single meme than a whole meme ecosystem. Fans built dedicated Tumblr single-topic blogs like Dragon Ball Lovers and Fuck Yeah Dragon Ball Z around clips, panels and screencaps2, while YouTube uploads of Kamehameha showdowns, the "It's Over 9000!" scene and other DBZ fight bits pull tens of millions of views each3.

Most Dragon Ball memes lean on a handful of visual and audio beats: a Kamehameha charge-up used as a metaphor for effort, a Super Saiyan transformation glow representing sudden power, or Vegeta's scouter reading "It's Over 9000!" repurposed as a hyperbole punchline. Creators typically pair a screencap or short clip with a caption swapping the in-show stakes for something mundane, like grinding through a workout, an exam or a work deadline, and the joke usually lands because the anime's over-the-top delivery is common convention across the fandom.