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Time of India
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Dragon Ball: Why Goku is a more complex character than most fans realize
Goku isn't simply a powerful martial artist — his unusual upbringing, determination and emotional intelligence together make him one of anime's most underrated heroes. Anime has a weird visibility problem in this country. When folks talk about the medium, Dragon Ball is usually the first title to leap into view. This mythical Japanese franchise has enchanted players for years across the globe, especially in the United States and United Kingdom. At the center of this world is Goku, a Saiyan warrior from the alien race that nearly exterminated Earth's population in their quest for conquest whose love of the fight ensures that it stays wild and free. This indomitable spirit protects the universe. Though fans love Goku for his kindness, his strength, courage, and adherence to a warrior's code, just as many hate him for the same reasons. Some say that he's unreasonable in his demands on his children, whilst others label him an absentee father. Most people think that he's a man-child or an idiot. On the surface, Goku may seem like your typical loud, goofy, strong guy. Take a closer look and you will see that he is a far more fascinating figure than the average person ever learns him to be. Goku's difficult childhood shaped who he is Goku's childhood was actually quite unusual. His biological parents were murdered soon after birth and he was instead raised by a gentle old hermit named Grandpa Gohan. Tragically, that meant that on a full moon one night, Goku accidentally killed Grandpa Gohan in a rage, unaware of the powers he had hidden deep within him. After that, Goku was pretty much cast out into the wild to fend for himself until he ran into Bulma and started his first real adventure. He never enjoyed a normal childhood, never had a proper education, and was never taught or expected to know how to act in human company. It's a childhood, like the first three years of everybody's life, that would screw up anybody — superpowered child of Krypton or not. Goku's idea of love and family is unusual For someone with Goku's unusual childhood, it's only natural that Goku's expressions of love would be strange to the outside world. Rather than holding his kids close in a paternal embrace or telling them they're amazing and worthy of love like any other dad, Goku creates a family structure through combat and demanding training regimes. He chooses to name his son Gohan, after his grandfather, and puts him through brutal training to make him stronger—not because he's evil, but because that's what he personally was raised to do. That's cause enough for some fans to write him off as a 'bad father,' when it could just as easily be the only way he knows how to form an emotional bond. His parenting style is clearly abusive, but as you dive into his backstory, it makes him a much more relatable human. Goku's relationship with Chi-Chi is complicated Goku's marriage One other major grievance that people love to toss at the show is how terrible Goku's marriage is. His wife Chi-Chi is perpetually stressed out by Goku's harebrained schemes — like bringing the couple's children into dangerous, mortal combat. We wonder if Goku seems not to understand why she's so angry. In Dragon Ball Super, Goku needs to explain what kissing is — despite being a married man with two children. Like with Goku's introduction to King Kai , this tragic moment caught most fans off-guard and sparked concern over Goku's emotional IQ. Again, this could only be the result of a dude who didn't learn all the relationship skills that all the other guys were supposed to learn. Is Goku 'Dumb' or just innocent? Make no mistake, there are still occasions where Goku will be a complete goof. Sure, he can be socially tone deaf at times. Okay, he does go a little overboard on day-to-day combat. That doesn't mean he's an idiot. For one, Goku is a genius tactician on the battlefield, constantly designing new attacks, outsmarting opponents, and even creating new martial arts styles. Maybe his persona seems so juvenile, because he was never allowed to be a youth himself. In fact, some fans have taken up the idea so seriously that they've even argued — again, unofficially, of course — that Goku's behavior indicates that he's on the autism spectrum. Whether or not that even is true, it's clear his brain just works differently. Goku's simple personality hides a deep backstory We're all familiar by now with the justifiable expectation that almost every anime hero worth their salt (or pepper) has a deeply, darkly tragic backstory, but you really can't get more under-the-radar than Goku's. His choices—from how he chooses to raise his children to how he relates to and treats his wife—are certainly wrecked, but they are based on a lifetime of pain, survival, and self-teaching. So the next time your friend or co-worker gets on Goku's case about being an idiot or a bad father, maybe start with the line that OK, he's no paragon of virtue, but hey, at least he's doing the best with the hand life dealt him. Goku is more than just a fighter He is a symbol of hope, perseverance, grit and the universal spirit of never stopping becoming a better version of yourself. His journey is a powerful reminder of the deep bonds of friendship and loyalty, and the lengths we go to in order to protect and serve those we love. By creating a character with such an indomitable spirit, Toriyama may have unwittingly provided the blueprint for inspiring generations of fans to become better people in their own lives. On the subject of saving the world, Dragon Ball fans just love Goku because he's brutal and good and never lets the Earth down. There's a lot more to this superhero than his super flying powers and ability to scream people to death. Goku's emotional immaturity, weird origin story, retarded people skills, trauma with human interaction, formed to create perhaps the most rad anime character ever created — not just a fighter, but a fighter for development. Check out our list of the latest Hindi , English , Tamil , Telugu , Malayalam , and Kannada movies . Don't miss our picks for the best Hindi movies , best Tamil movies, and best Telugu films .
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
James Gunn's new Superman is more human than alien god – but can he still inspire awe?
In the 1960s, Marvel comics made its name by dragging superheroes down to street level. Peter Parker worried about his homework. The Fantastic Four bickered like flatmates. Even the Hulk, a walking nuclear tantrum, was really just a green and muscular guy having a bad day. Over at DC, though, the heroes remained clean, polished and largely unbothered – moral titans gazing down from above, solving problems without ever really having any of their own. Superman was the prototype of that ideal: an all-powerful alien whose only weakness was a glowing space rock and an unshakable sense of duty. He wasn't like us – he was better than us. And that was the point. When Margot Kidder's Lois Lane first meets the man of steel in 1978's Superman, she is almost impossibly awestruck by the presence of this walking, talking, flying god. Lois's wide-eyed vulnerability is a stark contrast with the condescension she doles out to his alter ego, Clark Kent. The two sides of the Last Son of Krypton might be exactly the same person, but it's virtually impossible for anyone to recognise them as such, because one radiates impossible power while the other can barely hold on to his briefcase. For those of us brought up on the 1978 version of Superman, the sight of him squirming in the face of a mildly probing interview by Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) in the first full trailer for James Gunn's Superman is like watching a Greek god forget his lines in a school play. Rather than a morally upright, granite-jawed colossus watching over us like Jesus in a cape, this new David Corenswet-essayed take on Kal-El is one who is less a saviour from the stars than a disbelieving schoolboy who can't quite understand how he's getting aggravation for rescuing a cat up a tree. Zack Snyder briefly gave us a glimpse of a Superman who is not always the world's favourite superhero in Man of Steel in 2013, but by the time we got to 2016's execrable Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, all those intriguing undertones about divine power and human frailty had dissipated. The fact that Gunn is picking this concept up and running with it tells us that he clearly wants to bring us a Superman who inspires awe once again; though there will be no return to Christopher Reeve's effortlessly noble, flawlessly statuesque Man of Steel. This time around, it's less about the idea of Superman as an extra-terrestrial trying to work out how to be human, and more about Kal-El as a guy who is just as human as the rest of us – but just happens to come from outer space. Might the bad guys of Gunn's film – Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor and Angela Spica's Engineer – help Superman find his place in the moral architecture, by showing him why rules matter? In the comics, the Engineer is a member of the Authority – an antihero crew parachuted into DC from the WildStorm imprint in the late 1990s. This morally ambiguous squad of powerhouses believe the world is too broken for compassion, and too far gone for the sense of truth, justice and the American way espoused by the Man of Steel. Where Superman sees hope, they see a target. Where he wants to protect, they want to improve – violently, if necessary. It's not yet clear if other members of The Authority – trenchcoated brute Midnighter or the unhinged, solar-powered demigod that is Apollo – will appear in Gunn's Superman. But the arrival on screen of these most morally unhinged saviours might be just what our boy needs to see the light. Could such ethical tension – a fundamental clash between idealism and pragmatism – be the emotional backbone not just of this film, but of Gunn's new DCU at large? Either way, it's clear that DC's big cheese is less interested in the Superman who flies above us and more the one who stumbles among us. This new Man of Steel is primed and ready to save the world … even if he's starting to suspect that being human might just be the hardest part of the whole gig.
