What's the True Origin of the Kamehameha in DRAGON BALL?

Wait -- am I actually writing up another episode of JOJO’s here?

It’s another head-smacker that I would’ve come to a long
time ago (if I’d gotten a proper
introduction to these characters). Capcom and SNK may have pilfered a bunch
of their fighters from JOJO’s, specifically; but this is the first appropriated
DRAGON BALL character I’ve spotted.

One of the combatants in the first FATAL FURY game was named
Tung Fu Rue. He was an old, martial arts master with the ability to morph into
a hideously muscular monstrosity. Sound familiar? Well, he was also bald, with a pointed white
goatee… just like Master Roshi’s. I
sincerely doubt that’s coincidental.

== TEASER ==

Since that pushes my thoughts over to fighting games (as will happen), I ought to bring up the
Kamehameha (which, like Chichi, is
introduced far sooner than I would’ve expected). I’m really starting to
wonder if the Kamehameha, the Hadoken, the Ripple and basically every projectile attack in every fighting game ever have
all been riffing on the same concept. Was there some specific folk tale that
first put forth the notion of dudes throwing fireballs out of their palms? Was
it JOURNEY TO THE WEST? Considering that Ryu from STREET FIGHTER was so
famously modeled after real life karate legend, Mas Aoyama, might this have
started with some installment of KARATE FANATIC?

Obviously, you’re seeing a fanciful extension of chi here.
Instead of controlled breaths that throw more weight into an attack, it’s an actual
electrical aura that flies out beyond the punch. The imaginative process would
be easy enough to understand, but… still… it seems too specific to be that
simple. And Roshi naming the attack for Kame, the god of Shintoism, and explaining
that he learned the art from Kame itself…

…that seems exactly the sort of uncomfortable, non-PC religious
explanation that would be made safe and more generalized by later franchises.
It’s less uncomfortable to say that Ryu’s Super-Hadou comes from his power bar
than it is to ascribe it to the heavens, isn’t it?

If any of you more learned Vicers know something about this,
I’d love to hear some explanations. I'd kill to be enlightened.

Watch "the Kamehameha Wave" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode.