Goku / Dragonball is just a more fun/good-hearted version of Sun Wukong / Journey to the West
>become stronger than all locals
>become strongest in the world
>become stronger than the Gods of this world
>become stronger than the Gods of those Gods
>repeat until reaching "the" God, then finally get humbled
there was just a lot more repetition of
>become stronger than the Gods of those Gods
in DB to fill in more levels of power scaling for an endless weekly shonen story rather than a self-contained novel.