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A lot of animes feature characters capable of firing energy blasts (Dragon
Ball, Naruto, One Punch Man, Fairy Tail, etc.) But which was the first one?

Which anime was the first to feature energy blasts?


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Which anime was the first to feature energy blasts?


"Energy blasts" are actual Chi/Qi blasts and are copied from Chinese wuxia
stories. If not the first, Dragon Ball definitely popularized the concept.

The entirety of Dragon Ball is mostly just a very, very loose adaption of
"Journey to the West" (16th century Chinese literature). The concept of Qi and
Qi attacks was directly copied from there.

Qi isn't only used for attack and defense, it is also used to sense opponents,
so you can fight them blindly or sense them on the other side of the planet,
so you know where they are as long as they do not hide their Qi and as long as
you are strong enough to sense far away enough.

An earlier anime that copied the Chinese martial arts concept is Hokuto no
Ken. But not sure if this had the Qi blasts, too.

But the concept is lifted from classical Chinese literature.


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This is based on [this post](http://blawat2015.no-
ip.com/%7Emieki256/diary/201601304.html) and [this
discussion](https://animanch.com/archives/20155118.html) on origin of
kamehame-ha.

There are several possible precursors mentioned.

  * [Ultra man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraman_\(1966_TV_series\))'s spacium beam ([video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t03hna2LzI)) Neither anime nor manga. 1966.
  * Spaceship Yamato's canon ([video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BD6Na13qvU)) 1974. The "charge the energy and fire" scheme is similar.
  * [Cobra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_\(manga\))'s psycho gun. 1978. [This](https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B3%E3%82%AC%E3%83%B3) says it turns Cobra's spiritual power into energy.
  * [Hokuto shinken's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fist_of_the_North_Star) several killing(?) techniques. 1983. In particular [北斗剛掌波](http://hokutosite.sakura.ne.jp/ougi/hokuto/sinken1/gousyouha.html) and [天破活殺](http://hokutosite.sakura.ne.jp/ougi/hokuto/sinken1/tenhakassatu.html). Both use kind of invisible power to attack opponents. The influence of Hokuto no ken is seemingly acknowledged by Dragon ball author.

In the discussion linked above, it is also mentioned that Dragon Ball(1984)
may be the first to express the energy blast as a beam emitting from human
body, rather than a shot or some invisible wave.


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