

I recently learned of a folk storybook character in Turkish culture named
Keloglan. He is a bald child that uses his wits to get out of tough
situations:

![Keloglan](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hZocN.jpg)

I was pretty struck by how similar he looked to Krillin in Dragon Ball, and it
made me wonder if Krillin was based on this character. Some reasons behind my
suspicion:

1) The names are remarkably similar: The Turkish pronunciation is keh-lee-o-
lan, and the Japanese name seems like a very likely transliteration of this
name.

2) Goku was based on a folklore character (the monkey).

3) They look quite similar, and share their primary physical characteristic
(baldness).

Is there any information about whether Akira Toriyama used Keloglan as an
inspiration for Krillin in the Dragon Ball series?


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2013-09-23T23:08:46.420
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2015-06-12T10:01:47.157
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dragon-ball
Was Krillin based on the Turkish folk character Keloglan?


This seems to be a coincidence.

From <http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Krillin>:

> Like most characters in the series, the name Krillin is a pun. In his case,
> its Japanese source, Kuririn, is made up of two parts. The first two
> syllables come from 栗 (kuri), which means "chestnut" in reference to his
> shaved head (the "chestnut" pun is also carried over to his daughter
> Marron). The second part of his name comes from 少林 (Shōrin; "Shaolin" in
> Chinese), as his early character designs were closely modeled on Shaolin
> monks.

So, the similarity to the name Keloglan looks like a coincidence.

Regarding the baldness, as is pointed out by @krikara, this is probably
because he is a Shaolin monk. Note that Krillin can grow his hair, whereas
Keloglan cannot.

Even so, Krillin does not have a counterpart in "Journey to the West", so it
is possible that Akira Toriyama looked to other folklore for inspiration when
creating Krillin.


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2013-09-24T06:06:20.670
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