Goku's "OOC" moments are compensation

[Saturnine]

I think Toriyama insists on emphasizing Goky's selfish traits so much in recent arcs in order to cancel out his overly heroic image he didn't like. Toei has been portraying Goku that way for years, even more so when GT came around and they didn't have to worry about any Toriyama intervention. The FUNi dub made it even worse, so now most Western audiences actually think this current Goku is OOC simply based on how used they've gotten to the heroic Goku.

I would say Toriyama's strategy is succeeding brilliantly, if only judging by the butthurt of South American macho fans and American Superman fans. I only wonder if Toriyama isn't taking things a little bit too far to drive the point home. It's going to take a lot for many fans to overcome their cognitive dissonance as it is, and many will never accept what in their perception is this "new Goku".

[ekrolo2]

I know what Goku's actual personality is and the 0 amount of fucks he showed in the latest episode is way too far even for Toriyama's Goku. Instead of being genuinely remorseful, he's acting like a bitchy little kid when he says stuff like "Yeah yeah, Beerus and Whis gave me an earful about it already!" when Gohan points out he's effectively pre-murdered 11/12ths of the multiverse.

The only way they can salvage him is if they try to pass this off as him naively believing Zeno won't go through with this destroying rule, but if Goku stays like even after that then we've got nothing to talk about: he's an indefensible piece of shit.

[TheMikado]

The extent to which Goku was over presented as a hero is myth. Much of the elements of his carefree attitude survived, but Goku in both media got serious when the situation called for it. The voice, tones, and music certainly make Goku appear more heroic but not an entirely different character.

Problem is that "herioc non asshole Goku" is what made this an international success and it may turn off the same audiences that brought it internationally success.

[sintzu]

It's not really a good idea to make your character so selfish that he's unlikable.

Goku wasn't perfect in the original but he clearly cared about people and his friends (in his own way), Super's Goku just doesn't care about anyone.

Multiple characters told him the death of trillions would be on his hands but he's like "OK", "whatever". That's nothing like the original Goku. That's the reason some fans just want him gone and replaced by anyone. You know things are bad when Vegeta of all characters is more heroic than Goku.

[Saturnine]

The extent to which Goku was over presented as a hero is myth. Much of the elements of his carefree attitude survived, but Goku in both media got serious when the situation called for it. The voice, tones, and music certainly make Goku appear more heroic but not an entirely different character.

Problem is that "herioc non asshole Goku" is what made this an international success and it may turn off the same audiences that brought it internationally success.

Well, you may be right. FUNimation with their dub definitely contributed more to this perceived mischaracterization of Goku than Toei themselves did. Like the speech he made when asking Kuririn to spare Vegeta back when they first fought him on Earth. FUNi made it about forgiveness, second chances and other sentimental stuff like that, while in the original he only wanted Vegeta around to have someone strong to fight.

I know what Goku's actual personality is and the 0 amount of fucks he showed in the latest episode is way too far even for Toriyama's Goku. Instead of being genuinely remorseful, he's acting like a bitchy little kid when he says stuff like "Yeah yeah, Beerus and Whis gave me an earful about it already!" when Gohan points out he's effectively pre-murdered 11/12ths of the multiverse.

The only way they can salvage him is if they try to pass this off as him naively believing Zeno won't go through with this destroying rule, but if Goku stays like even after that then we've got nothing to talk about: he's an indefensible piece of shit.

To be fair, he's done his fair share of more or less indefensible things, such as sparing Piccolo, sparing Vegeta, sparing Freeza, giving Cell a Senzu, not destroying Majin Buu right off the bat when he could, and finally, not fusing with Vegeta against Kid Buu even though it would have guaranteed victory. Some of these decisions had good consequences in hindsight, some didn't. I think this time it's the same exact shit, but we're just judging Goku more harshly because of the magnitude of the consequences. He probably doesn't realize it himself - mortal brains aren't calibrated to understand tragedy on such a huge scale. Hell, most real life people can't even fathom what a million deaths mean, after all it's "just a statistic", as it were. Of course I'm not defending Goku here, he did feel like an utter asshole. But I personally think he's a better character for it. We started disliking Walter White after a certain point too for things he did, but it just added to his complexity.

[SaiyanGod117]

This is all Toei's doing, just look at the recent movies BoG and RoF, Toriyama wrote himself, then look at Super you can see the difference. Some people thinks it's because of Toriyama's statement of how Toei portrayed Goku in the anime, I don't think so. Because that comment was made almost 20 years ago. I think it's because of commercial purposes, they seems to think Goku is more appealing this way to the kids.

[ekrolo2]

To be fair, he's done his fair share of more or less indefensible things, such as sparing Piccolo, sparing Vegeta, sparing Freeza, giving Cell a Senzu, not destroying Majin Buu right off the bat when he could, and finally, not fusing with Vegeta against Kid Buu even though it would have guaranteed victory. Some of these decisions had good consequences in hindsight, some didn't. I think this time it's the same exact shit, but we're just judging Goku more harshly because of the magnitude of the consequences. He probably doesn't realize it himself - mortal brains aren't calibrated to understand tragedy on such a huge scale. Hell, most real life people can't even fathom what a million deaths mean, after all it's "just a statistic", as it were. Of course I'm not defending Goku here, he did feel like an utter asshole. But I personally think he's a better character for it. We started disliking Walter White after a certain point too for things he did, but it just added to his complexity.

There's a point where your character repeating the same shit over and over doesn't add to their complexity, it means stagnation and Goku's actions, and I mean ALL of them after the Cell arc are already indefensible for me. Him choosing to remain dead was his admitting his retarded Saiyan logic does nothing but bring harm to people, once you have him admit that, it's pretty indefensible when he just repeats the same mistakes over and over. This is just the latest and greatest example: all Goku's character is, is a selfish prick. Its not fresh, its not interesting, and I'd bet both my arms and legs that Toriyama just writes him like this because if he had a protagonist who wasn't up his own ass, he'd have to actually "LE GASP!" think about how to escalate a conflict beyond "LOL SAIYAN LOGICZ!"

[Saturnine]

Multiple characters told him the death of trillions would be on his hands but he's like "OK", "whatever". That's nothing like the original Goku. That's the reason some fans just want him gone and replaced by anyone. You know things are bad when Vegeta of all characters is more heroic than Goku.

And the discrepancy is going to be even greater when FUNi gets to dubbing this scene. Compare the "I am the hope of the universe" speech from back when he fought Freeza to this current "I'm casually dooming quadrillions" thingy. Ha! Well guess FUNi did this to themselves, really.

But before we all jump on the "Goku is an asshole" bandwagon, think of this: the winner gets a wish from the Super DBs. I'm positive Goku will be the winning warrior, as he's the strongest out of them all (well, without the Kaioken he might be slightly inferior to current Vegeta, or maybe not), and his wish will definitely be to restore all the lost universes. Even if he wouldn't think to do it of his own accord, he will be implicitly pressured to do this by at least Beerus, and perhaps all other GoDs and angels, so he'll do it. Which means - his biggest current responsibility is to do what he does best - to fight and win. Pretty neat setup if you ask me.

To be fair, he's done his fair share of more or less indefensible things, such as sparing Piccolo, sparing Vegeta, sparing Freeza, giving Cell a Senzu, not destroying Majin Buu right off the bat when he could, and finally, not fusing with Vegeta against Kid Buu even though it would have guaranteed victory. Some of these decisions had good consequences in hindsight, some didn't. I think this time it's the same exact shit, but we're just judging Goku more harshly because of the magnitude of the consequences. He probably doesn't realize it himself - mortal brains aren't calibrated to understand tragedy on such a huge scale. Hell, most real life people can't even fathom what a million deaths mean, after all it's "just a statistic", as it were. Of course I'm not defending Goku here, he did feel like an utter asshole. But I personally think he's a better character for it. We started disliking Walter White after a certain point too for things he did, but it just added to his complexity.

There's a point where your character repeating the same shit over and over doesn't add to their complexity, it means stagnation and Goku's actions, and I mean ALL of them after the Cell arc are already indefensible for me. Him choosing to remain dead was his admitting his retarded Saiyan logic does nothing but bring harm to people, once you have him admit that, it's pretty indefensible when he just repeats the same mistakes over and over. This is just the latest and greatest example: all Goku's character is, is a selfish prick. Its not fresh, its not interesting, and I'd bet both my arms and legs that Toriyama just writes him like this because if he had a protagonist who wasn't up his own ass, he'd have to actually "LE GASP!" think about how to escalate a conflict beyond "LOL SAIYAN LOGICZ!"

Well, at least you're not saying it's only a Super thing, this intellectual honesty is appreciated.

But think about it this way - FUNi's ultra-heroic portrayal of Goku wasn't good either, it was in fact amazingly cringeworthy at times, especially when he went full ham and condescending against his enemies. Take his speeches against Freeza, Kid Buu and later, Omega Shenron. This is as far away from Goku's actual character as it can get. While the selfish Goku isn't a perfect character by any means, I think I'd take him over the generic hero FUNi turned him into. While objectively speaking, a balanced mixture of these two portrayals would probably make the best and most appealing protagonist, keep in mind that Goku having flaws lets other characters shine and clean up the mess he creates. In GT Goku always did the right thing and never made mistakes, responded to threats with a full sense of gravity, all the while throwing condescending speeches left and right. He was essentially a Mary Sue - aided by him being basically deified in the ending. It's only natural the series had zero room for the others to do anything with such a perfect protagonist. Even Vegeta lost the trait that defined him up to that point - his willingness to surpass Goku, and existed only to lick his boots basically.

So if anything, this selfish Goku has the advantage of not being the end-all, unbeatable protagonist that he was never meant to be, but was played up to be by FUNi and even Toei themselves (to a lesser extent).

[sintzu]

The winner gets a wish from the Super DBs. I'm positive Goku will be the winning warrior, as he's the strongest out of them all.

His biggest current responsibility is to do what he does best - to fight and win. Pretty neat setup if you ask me.

That doesn't make what he did any better but that's probably what will happen.

If he wins (he probably will) then he won't learn anything, it'll show him that he can do anything and winning a fight will fix it. hopefully the winner will be someone who cares about more than himself.

[ekrolo2]

Well, at least you're not saying it's only a Super thing, this intellectual honesty is appreciated.

But think about it this way - FUNi's ultra-heroic portrayal of Goku wasn't good either, it was in fact amazingly cringeworthy at times, especially when he went full ham and condescending against his enemies. Take his speeches against Freeza, Kid Buu and later, Omega Shenron. This is as far away from Goku's actual character as it can get. While the selfish Goku isn't a perfect character by any means, I think I'd take him over the generic hero FUNi turned him into. While objectively speaking, a balanced mixture of these two portrayals would probably make the best and most appealing protagonist, keep in mind that Goku having flaws lets other characters shine and clean up the mess he creates. In GT Goku always did the right thing and never made mistakes, responded to threats with a full sense of gravity, all the while throwing condescending speeches left and right. He was essentially a Mary Sue - aided by him being basically deified in the ending. It's only natural the series had zero room for the others to do anything with such a perfect protagonist. Even Vegeta lost the trait that defined him up to that point - his willingness to surpass Goku, and existed only to lick his boots basically.

So if anything, this selfish Goku has the advantage of not being the end-all, unbeatable protagonist that he was never meant to be, but was played up to be by FUNi and even Toei themselves (to a lesser extent).

Goku being a selfish shithead is a fine example of how you don't do it for me. The reason other selfish pricks like Elric and John Constantine and Walter White work is because the series doesn't shy away from showing them at their worst or glorifying them or even pass them off as good people. Their stories know what kind of people they are and they don't shy away from that. Goku never gets this. No matter how much he fucks up, the cast will always rally behind him and see him as the one and only hope.

Leave you family for 7 years? No one will give a fuck long term. Send Gohan to probably get killed by Cell? No one will care long term. Let Vegeta go so he can come back and murder everyone, thereby pissing on everyone's efforts from the whole Saiyan arc? No one will care long term.

Goku's selfishness comes off as less of an artistic choice and more of an easy way to write an idiot protagonist so Toriyama has the easieest avenues available at all times to escalate the conflicts. Instead of, y'know, figuring out how say Goku Black can survive getting his shit beaten by Blue Goku when he invades the present through inginuity or cunning instead of Goku being a drooling moron.

[Doctor.]

The only way they can salvage him is if they try to pass this off as him naively believing Zeno won't go through with this destroying rule, but if Goku stays like even after that then we've got nothing to talk about: he's an indefensible piece of shit.

Don't worry, I can picture the ending of the arc now. U7 loses in the final, the Omni-Kings charge up to destroy U7. Goku pulls a time ring out of his ass and goes to another timeline where he fights with his alternate self for the rest of his life.

[TysonWine]

It's not really a good idea to make your character so selfish that he's unlikable.

Goku wasn't perfect in the original but he clearly cared about people and his friends (in his own way), Super's Goku just doesn't care about anyone.

Multiple characters told him the death of trillions would be on his hands but he's like "OK", "whatever". That's nothing like the original Goku. That's the reason some fans just want him gone and replaced by anyone. You know things are bad when Vegeta of all characters is more heroic than Goku.

Even worse is when his selfishness is always covered in naivety. If they want to show a selfish, battle thirsty Goku, that's fine. He's always been that way. From the beginning when he let Vegeta live, to the end when he wanted to spare Frieza a second time so they could fight again. Just don't hide it through naivety, which is what's being done in Super. He's so naive there's no self reflection, and peer reflection clearly means little as Beerus threatened to destroy him over the danger his naive nature could cause. This kills any potential character development down the road.

I have NO problem with Goku being selfish. Imperfections make a character worth watching, but if that's who he is then let him be just that. Don't hide or disguise it through humor or naivety every time. It makes him look amoral, and makes the characters around him seem unrealistic when they don't respond accordingly.

Toriyama says Goku has "poison" in his character. That's fine...let it out and more importantly, make it mean something.

[HeroR]

It's not really a good idea to make your character so selfish that he's unlikable.

Goku wasn't perfect in the original but he clearly cared about people and his friends (in his own way), Super's Goku just doesn't care about anyone.

Multiple characters told him the death of trillions would be on his hands but he's like "OK", "whatever". That's nothing like the original Goku. That's the reason some fans just want him gone and replaced by anyone. You know things are bad when Vegeta of all characters is more heroic than Goku.

Even worse is when his selfishness is always covered in naivety. If they want to show a selfish, battle thirsty Goku, that's fine. He's always been that way. From the beginning when he let Vegeta live, to the end when he wanted to spare Frieza a second time so they could fight again. Just don't hide it through naivety, which is what's being done in Super. He's so naive there's no self reflection, and peer reflection clearly means little as Beerus threatened to destroy him over the danger his naive nature could cause. This kills any potential character development down the road.

I have NO problem with Goku being selfish. Imperfections make a character worth watching, but if that's who he is then let him be just that. Don't hide or disguise it through humor or naivety every time. It makes him look amoral, and makes the characters around him seem unrealistic when they don't respond accordingly.

Toriyama says Goku has "poison" in his character. That's fine...let it out and more importantly, make it mean something.

Given how Goku usually ranks in popularity polls, it's only the vocal internet fans that finds him unlikable. Then again, Vegeta ranked high when he was a complete ass in the Android/Cell Saga, so characters being jerks isn't a big turn off like some people think.

And Goku does cares about his friends in Super. He said he would win for his universe no matter what. He just doesn't care much about the other universes and honestly, neither does anyone else. Gohan said he's fighting for his family, the rest of the universe isn't really a factor to him, let alone the multiverse.

[lord godly da don]

FUNi's ultra-heroic portrayal of Goku wasn't good either, it was in fact amazingly cringeworthy at times, especially when he went full ham and condescending against his enemies. Take his speeches against Freeza, Kid Buu and later, Omega Shenron. This is as far away from Goku's actual character as it can get. While the selfish Goku isn't a perfect character by any means, I think I'd take him over the generic hero FUNi turned him into. While objectively speaking, a balanced mixture of these two portrayals would probably make the best and most appealing protagonist, keep in mind that Goku having flaws lets other characters shine and clean up the mess he creates. In GT Goku always did the right thing and never made mistakes, responded to threats with a full sense of gravity, all the while throwing condescending speeches left and right. He was essentially a Mary Sue - aided by him being basically deified in the ending. It's only natural the series had zero room for the others to do anything with such a perfect protagonist. Even Vegeta lost the trait that defined him up to that point - his willingness to surpass Goku, and existed only to lick his boots basically.

So if anything, this selfish Goku has the advantage of not being the end-all, unbeatable protagonist that he was never meant to be, but was played up to be by FUNi and even Toei themselves (to a lesser extent).[/quote]

I totally agree the dub made Goku some generic unoriginal cardboard cut out even when he himself contributed to the problem like cell arc he could have prevented all of it by killing Gero before he finished making the androids but he didn't he was selfish and wanted to test his strength even though he knew that they were dangerous because some one from the fucking future ( trunks ) told him so

Point is Goku is not some guy who fights for justice or peace ( unless you're a really strong person who also want to destroy or takeover earth ) if he was he would be a cop like kuririn or a custom crusader like gohan but no that doesn't get his fight boner hard enough

[sintzu]

He's so naive there's no self reflection, and peer reflection clearly means little as Beerus threatened to destroy him over the danger his naive nature could cause. This kills any potential character development down the road.

The reason they do this is because they have 0 intrest in developing Goku. They want Goku to have a set unchangable character throughout the entirty of Super.

[Ki Breaker]

He's so naive there's no self reflection, and peer reflection clearly means little as Beerus threatened to destroy him over the danger his naive nature could cause. This kills any potential character development down the road.

The reason they do this is because they have 0 intrest in developing Goku. They want Goku to have a set unchangable character throughout the entirty of Super.

That's great and all but why have that unchanging character to be this disaster

[sintzu]

Gohan said he's fighting for his family, the rest of the universe isn't really a factor to him, let alone the multiverse.

What's going on isn't his fault so why should he ?

That's great and all but why have that unchanging character to be this disaster.

That's a good question. I guess it shows what little care the writers have for him.

[HeroR]

Gohan said he's fighting for his family, the rest of the universe isn't really a factor to him, let alone the multiverse.

What's going on isn't his fault so why should he ?

That's great and all but why have that unchanging character to be this disaster.

That's a good question. I guess it shows what little care the writers have for him.

It isn't about fault. Getting on Goku for not feeling sorry for the multiverse is a little strange when no one else does. The destruction of the multiverse isn't even the reason why most people are even mad at him.

It has little to do with the writers. The outline was created by Toriyama. If he wants to developed Goku, that's up to him, not Toei. And Toriyama went on record saying that Goku can be extremely selfish and we see it in EOZ where he takes off with Uu with no notice. The fandom was fooling themselves if they though Goku was going to angst over universes he has no personal connection to being destroyed. He cares about his universe and the people he knows. Everyone else is secondary. If he finds a way to save everyone, he will do it, but it isn't his primary concern. His first concern is making sure U7 isn't erased.

[Araki]

This is all Toei's doing, just look at the recent movies BoG and RoF, Toriyama wrote himself, then look at Super you can see the difference. Some people thinks it's because of Toriyama's statement of how Toei portrayed Goku in the anime, I don't think so. Because that comment was made almost 20 years ago. I think it's because of commercial purposes, they seems to think Goku is more appealing this way to the kids.

Uh, actually, Toriyama repeated that statement almost word by word when doing interviews for Battle of Gods. Besides, if he was unhappy with Goku portrayal in Super, i'm pretty sure he would complain about it. You're forgetting the mistakes Goku commited in RoF AND didn't learn anything in the end. People should stop this "whatever i don't like is on Toei" nonsense.

And to think that would make Goku more popular among kids is ridiculous, they dig generic superhero shonen protagonists. Anyway, i could bet Toriyama is very happy to see "righteous GT superhero Goku" gone from the animation.

[lord godly da don]

I love selfish Goku it's his most endearing trait without it dragon ball wouldn't have lasted this long even though I hated Goku as a child for all the stupid shit he did he have grown on me because I understand him now Goku is a pure blooded saiyan a race of battle hungry warriors only thing that makes Goku feel alive is death matches with people who are stronger than him that's why he wanted the no killing rule removed from u6 vs u7 tournament that is why he wanted to spare freeza again that's why he so bored after almost being killed by black and zamasu Goku is a fighting junkie who would put universes on the line if it meant he'd have amazing battles he loves this shit and so do I that's what makes him awesome is his fight boner don't castrate Goku