People can easily say the same thing about the Naruto anime.
Nope, they can't. Dragon ball made the connection towards the West and gave real influence to the whole manga generation. All the mangas that were released in the last Decade got popular thanks to the influence brought previously by Dragon Ball. Without it, perhaps, mangas will only have been popular in Japan. Few forums site. Few online hosting of mangas. Few anime streaming. It will have been a Japan craze only. Not a worldwide one. Dragon ball is the one who changed that and still have a longevity enough to inspire some more people. Naruto haven't influenced that much.
I agree, heck even friggin' Queen's Blade got better plot than Dragon Ball. However, it is a classic, but the source of all anime and manga?
You do realize Toriyama's inspiration for Dragon Ball was Fist of the North Star right? You do realize that Saint Seiya was the DB of its time before DB came along right? And the reason why DB is still big in Japan is because One Piece did a crossover with it and the western anime fandom mistakenly connect that popularity with Naruto?
I mean, I know most shounen mangakas nowadays got their inspiration from DB, but DB's persisting popularity doesn't come from Naruto.
Saint Seya was big but never as much as Dragon Ball. In fact, it got more popular when Dragon ball was released. No matter about how Dragon Ball was influenced, it's the one who connected the Japanese manga culture to the world.
Nowadays, you may be in awe every week with a manga chapter release but did you ever get the craze of that time. If you analyze it, nowadays, mangas have more dramatic, well-created and epic moments in terms of writing but since there are so many mangas releases, none get as defining or as memorable as Dragon Ball moments. Defining chills and craze of the Son-Father Kamehameha or Goku's first SS transformation remain immortal. Will the epic moments in OP, Naruto ect... remain etched in the next 10-20 years? Time will tell but since there are so many new mangas nowadays, chances are more that it will mostly get lost among the other generation and that new ones will take up the flag. In that way, no anime/manga will perhaps influence the manga world as much as Dragon Ball. Despite its deficiency, it has the longest longevity.
It can be said that Dragon Ball was the founder of the Popularity kingdom of the Manga culture while the likes of OP, Bleach, Naruto ect... are rulers..
But there'll be many ruler among time but there'll remain one founder only.
