Anime has not been a niche for years and is also featured in cinemas. Even among major actors, there are fans of well-known series like Dragon Ball or Naruto.
Which actor is it? It is Michael B. Jordan, who is probably best known from Black Panther and the Creed series. The actor is a big anime fan. He regularly expresses his passion in interviews, including in a YouTube video with Paul Mescal and Austin Butler.
But his love for anime also comes to light in his films. In his directorial debut with the film Creed 3, he hid a reference to the probably most iconic battle in Dragon Ball Z.
You can watch the trailer for Creed 3 here:
A punch every Dragon Ball fan knows
Which scene is it? Michael B. Jordan is mainly seen as an actor, recently for example in Blood & Sinners, but for Creed 3 – Rocky’s Legacy (2023) he took a seat in the director’s chair. He made sure to hide anime references in the boxing drama.
Adonis has to fight against his former friend Damian in the film’s finale. In the brutal duel, both boxers meet quite evenly with hard punches. Not only are visual metaphors like a prison used, but also slow-motion during certain attacks.
In one scene, Adonis receives a pretty heavy punch to the stomach. In slow motion, you can see his face and the beads of sweat flying off his back. It looks quite similar to a scene from the fight Goku against Freezer
. You can compare the mentioned scene on YouTube (Warning: There is a fast, flickering scene change).
In this fight, there is also a scene where both fighters hit each other in the face simultaneously. It reminds of a scene from the fight Goku against Majin Vegeta
, but also occurs in series like Naruto Shippūden or Ashita no Joe.
Has Michael B. Jordan confirmed this? In an interview with IGN (via Instagram), he said that he has several anime influences in the film. He wanted to bring his own spin
into the Rocky history. He mentions series like:
- Hajime no Ippo
- Megalo Box
- Naruto
- My Hero Academia
He also explicitly mentions Damian’s punch in the finale, which is inspired by Dragon Ball.
Why did he draw so heavily from anime for the film? In the interview with IGN, Jordan explained that he finds the relationships between different characters in anime particularly interesting and that they resemble the relationship told between Adonis and Damian in Creed 3. You can find more films that remind you of anime here: 5 films that remind you of anime and that you wouldn’t think of immediately
