Goku


Son Goku is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Dragon Ball manga series created by Akira Toriyama. He is based on Sun Wukong, a main character of the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, combined with influences from the Hong Kong action cinema of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. Goku made his debut in the first Dragon Ball chapter, Bulma and Son Goku, originally published in Japan's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on December 3, 1984.
Goku is introduced as an eccentric, monkey-tailed boy who practices martial arts and possesses superhuman strength. He meets Bulma and joins her on a journey to find the seven wish-granting Dragon Balls. Along the way, he finds new friends who follow him on his journey to become stronger. As Goku grows up, he becomes the Earth's mightiest warrior and battles a wide variety of villains with the help of his friends and family, while also gaining new allies in the process. Born under the name Kakarot, as a member of the Saiyan race on Planet Vegeta, he is sent to Earth as an infant prior to his homeworld's destruction at the hands of Frieza. Upon his arrival on Earth, the infant is discovered by Son Gohan, who becomes the adoptive grandfather of the boy and gives him the name Goku. The boy is initially full of violence and aggression due to his Saiyan nature, until an accidental head injury turns him into a cheerful, carefree person. Grandpa Gohan's kindness and teachings help to further influence Goku, who later on names his first son Gohan in honor of him.
As the protagonist of Dragon Ball, Goku appears in most of the episodes, films, television specials and OVAs of the manga's anime adaptations and sequels, as well as many of the franchise's video games. Due to the series' international popularity, Goku became one of the most recognizable and iconic manga/anime characters worldwide. Outside the Dragon Ball franchise, Goku has made cameo appearances in Toriyama's self-parody series Neko Majin Z, has been the subject of other parodies, and has appeared in special events. Most Western audiences were introduced to the adult version of Goku featured in the Dragon Ball Z anime, which adapted the final 26 Dragon Ball manga volumes, as opposed to his initial appearance as a child due to the limited success of the first anime series overseas.

Conception and creation

Goku, and Dragon Ball in general, evolved from one of Akira Toriyama's earlier one-shot series called Dragon Boy. In this story, the protagonist looks similar to Goku, but has a pair of wings. The original inspiration were Hong Kong action cinema, including those by Bruce Lee such as Enter the Dragon and by Jackie Chan such as Drunken Master ; Toriyama said he had a young Chan in mind for a live-action Goku, stating that "nobody could play Goku but him." Goku uses a variety and hybrid of East Asian martial arts styles, including Karate and Wing Chun.
Bulma and Goku were the first pair of characters which were introduced in the manga and Toriyama stated that he subsequently introduced other characters in pairs because "that way, I'm able to explain the characters and their relationship to each other through their interactions. In my case, I feel that it isn't good to insert too much narration. I suppose Goku and Bulma are representative of that." He further added that "as a child, Goku doesn't know anything , so without Bulma, he'd be a character who didn't say anything." Toriyama mentioned Torishima wanted Goku to form a relationship with Bulma, but this was never applied to the series. With the conclusion of the Cell arc, Gohan was intended to replace his father as the protagonist, but Toriyama later decided that Gohan was unsuitable for the role. According to Toriyama, Goku is more of a selfish person than a hero as his main interest in the story is to fight strong opponents rather than protecting the innocent. As a result, Toriyama was angered when the anime adaptations of Dragon Ball started portraying Goku as more heroic than his manga counterpart. Toei kept portraying Goku as a more heroic figure, especially in the anime sequel Dragon Ball GT where he often rescues his granddaughter Pan as producer Kōzō Morishita was influenced by the 1997 film Titanic.

Design

The character Goku is based on Sun Wukong, the central character of the Chinese novel Journey to the West. To be creative with the idea of Sun Wukong, Toriyama designed Goku as a human boy with a monkey's tail, rather than a complete simian, because the tail would give the character a distinguishing feature. He later stated that the tail was a pain to draw, hence why he had it get cut off early on. Toriyama did not initially plan to make Goku an alien, it was not until the introduction of fighters from other planets that he established him as a Saiyan. Goku was given the ability to teleport to any planet in seconds, so that Toriyama could increase the pace of the story.
Wanting the series to have a Chinese appearance, Toriyama used the color of the robes worn by Buddhist monks for Goku's dōgi. During the early chapters of the manga, Toriyama's editor Kazuhiko Torishima commented that Goku looked rather plain. Toriyama had given him simple clothes on purpose because it was a fighting manga, so to combat this he added several characters like Master Roshi and Krillin, and created the Tenkaichi Budōkai to focus the storyline on fighting. To defy the assumption that Goku would win the tournaments, Toriyama made him lose the first and second but win the third.
Toriyama's editor was initially against having Goku grow up, saying it was uncommon to have the protagonist drastically change in manga, however, he gave in when Toriyama threatened that he would not be able to continue the series if the character did not. Toriyama later stated he had him grow up as a means to make drawing the fight scenes easier.
When Toriyama thought up the Super Saiyan concept during the Frieza arc, he felt the only way to show Goku's massive power-up was to have him transform. Initially he was concerned that the facial expression looked like that of a villain, but felt it was acceptable since the transformation was brought about by anger. The Super Saiyan form spared the trouble of coloring Goku's hair all the time for the standard black-and-white manga pages. This was the reason for the Super Saiyan form having blonde hair, because it was easier to draw for Toriyama's assistant who spent a lot of time blacking in Goku's hair. Goku's piercing eyes in Super Saiyan form were inspired by Bruce Lee's paralyzing glare. For the Dragon Ball Z anime adaptation, character designer Tadayoshi Yamamuro used Lee as a reference, stating that, when he "first becomes a Super Saiyan, his slanting pose with that scowling look in his eyes is all Bruce Lee."
Dragon Ball GT chief character designer Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru said he agonized over designing Goku's Super Saiyan 4 appearance, which was the idea of the show's producers, questioning whether it was necessary to go further with the transformations. Because Super Saiyan 4 is brought about while in a Saiyan's Ōzaru form, he made the hair more "wild" and covered Goku's body in red fur. There was only a single final draft of the character, although Nakatsuru did consider making the hair blonde, he ended up choosing black as it provides more contrast with the red fur.
During the plans of the final story arc of Dragon Ball Super, it was decided that Goku should have another transformation: The Ultra Instinct. The concept was that the Ultra Instinct would be completely different from Goku's previous Super Saiyan transformations.

Voice actors

In the Japanese version of every Dragon Ball anime series and subsequent related media, Goku has been voiced by Masako Nozawa. Toriyama selected Nozawa upon hearing her audition sample, remarking that only Goku could sound like that. Nozawa stated that she was ecstatic when she got the role because she had always wanted to be in one of Toriyama's works. She said she had to be mindful of the fact that Goku grew up in the mountains and did not know much of the world. Despite having to voice Goku, Gohan, Goten and Bardock, Nozawa says she is able to instantly get into the respective character upon seeing their image.
Nozawa explained that she did not read the manga so that she would not know what was coming in the story until recording, making her reactions the same as Goku's. Nozawa said that she liked young Goku with his tail because he was cute, and stated that the character was still the same even at the end of the series.
In the numerous English versions, Goku has been played by different actors because different companies produced the dubs, by reason of changes of automated dialogue replacement companies and recording studios, or due to actors quitting:
  • In Harmony Gold's very brief dub of the original Dragon Ball series, along with the movies Curse of the Blood Rubies and Mystical Adventure, Goku was voiced by Barbara Goodson.
  • In Funimation's initial dub of the anime, Goku was voiced by Saffron Henderson in the first 13 episodes of the original Dragon Ball series and the movie Curse of the Blood Rubies, and by Ian James Corlett and Peter Kelamis in the first 67 episodes of Dragon Ball Z and the movies Dead Zone, The World's Strongest, and The Tree of Might.
  • In Funimation's in-house dub, Goku as an adult has been consistently voiced by Sean Schemmel throughout the entire Dragon Ball franchise, while Kid Goku was voiced by Ceyli Delgadillo in the movies Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle and Mystical Adventure, by Stephanie Nadolny in the original Dragon Ball series, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Daima, the movie The Path to Power, and various video games, and by Colleen Clinkenbeard in Dragon Ball Z Kai, Dragon Ball Super, the movies Curse of the Blood Rubies, Broly, and Super Hero, and various video games.
  • In AB Groupe's dub of the anime produced for Canadian and European broadcast, Goku was voiced by Peter Kelamis again and later by Kirby Morrow in episodes 123-291 of Dragon Ball Z, by Zoe Slusar as a child in both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT, by Jeffrey Watson as an older teen in Dragon Ball, and by Jeremiah Yurk as an adult and Super Saiyan 4 in GT.
  • In Bang Zoom's dub of the first 27 episodes of Dragon Ball Super produced for Toonami Asia's broadcast, Goku was voiced by Lex Lang as an adult and Philece Sampler as a child.