Do you the find the pushback against Goku being the hero to be odd?

[WittyUsername]

It seems like this has been a prominent talking point in the fandom for years. The idea that Goku hogs the spotlight from the other characters, especially the likes of that Gohan and Vegeta, and that these other characters should get to be the heroes every now and then. The question is, do you agree with these sentiments, or do you find them silly?

To be clear, it seems like these sentiments began because of the Boo arc, where a common talking point is that Toriyama was forced to bring back Goku due to fan outrage, even though in actuality, he brought back Goku because he thought that Gohan didn’t make for a good protagonist. This also seems to be a common point of criticism against stuff like GT and (of all things) Resurrection ‘F’, where people are upset that Goku gets to be the one who kills the bad guys.

[DBPirate]

Yes, I find this to be a bit of a weird take. Goku's the soul of Dragon Ball. Without him, the series would lose something and possibly fade into irrelevancy.

[precita]

I think it's because back in DBZ, after Goku vs. Freeza, it was expected for him to take a backseat, and for the most part he did until the tail-end of the Boo saga.

Goku really does nothing in the Cell saga when you stop to think about it. He loses to Android 19 quickly and sits out the entire rest of the saga when all the other Androids and Cell are out. Then he just fights Perfect Cell briefly to test him for Gohan and that's pretty much it. It's the same in the Boo saga, aside from the fight with Yakon and Majin Vegeta, he does very little till the tail-end after Gohan loses.

DBZ had perfect balance with Gohan, Krillin, Vegeta and Piccolo getting a ton of focus. Now it seems like only Vegeta remained relevant, and the rest of the cast is now pushed to the roles Yamcha, Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu had in DBZ...which is just to be fodder and extremely minor roles.

[kyppk]

I'm torn, on one hand Dragon Ball is Goku's story and it isn't exactly surprising that, as the main character, he is involved with almost every pivotal fight while also having the fights with the most screen time, but on the other I would like to see minor characters used more often than they are now.

I would say the problem, if it could be called that, is that there isn't something like the World Marital Arts Tournament to facilitate fights where all the minor characters can participate in low stakes, friendly matches with the big leaguers. There are a few tournaments like ToP and Champa's thing, but neither are low stakes enough that you could, for example, have someone like Yamcha show up again and fight someone of similar capabilities or a base Goku who wants to have some fun.

[precita]

As an aside I actually liked that Goku actually killed Freeza in Movie 15. As we know Freeza survived Namek and Trunks winds up killing him, and I always wanted Goku to kill Freeza for good.

Seeing Goku immediately kill Freeza after Whis turned back the clock with no mercy really was something, and Goku now actually killed Freeza for real. Of course...now Freeza is alive again...but that's besides the point. It proves Goku would kill Freeza 100% if he knew he was a danger to Earth, which he was.

[jjgp1112]

I honestly think the Goku pushback is more of a western thing...for reasons of varying validity, American just aren't as fond of Goku and tend to favor Vegeta and Gohan. In Japan, Goku is King.

At the end of the day, it's Goku's story. Even Gohan's big moment in the spotlight was tied to Goku.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I think it's less pushback against Goku being the hero and more him having all the most glorious moments on the show, to the point where other characters don't get moments to shine that really ought to be theirs. I think a perfect example of this is the end of RoF: Goku stole what really should have been Vegeta's victory. There are other moments like that, but that's the one that easily tops the list for me, and that was the most common refrain among people I talked with about the movie: "That was SO Vegeta's kill!"

I'll say this, though: Goku is so damn likable. For many other characters with less likability, stealing moments of glory like that is potential shark-jumping material. But because Goku's so damn likable, what might otherwise be show-ending outrage is downgraded to just "pushback."

[WittyUsername]

As an aside I actually liked that Goku actually killed Freeza in Movie 15. As we know Freeza survived Namek and Trunks winds up killing him, and I always wanted Goku to kill Freeza for good.

Seeing Goku immediately kill Freeza after Whis turned back the clock with no mercy really was something, and Goku now actually killed Freeza for real. Of course...now Freeza is alive again...but that's besides the point. It proves Goku would kill Freeza 100% if he knew he was a danger to Earth, which he was.

As much as I dislike RF, I never had a problem with Goku being the one to kill Freeza. If anything, I much preferred him being the one to do it over Vegeta. I never understood this idea that Vegeta “deserves” to kill Freeza. I think it’s far more thematically fitting for a low class member of the race Freeza wiped to be the one responsible for his downfall, rather than the formerly evil prince of the race. Plus, Freeza makes for a perfect polar opposite of Goku.

[TheBlackPaladin]

As an aside I actually liked that Goku actually killed Freeza in Movie 15. As we know Freeza survived Namek and Trunks winds up killing him, and I always wanted Goku to kill Freeza for good.

Seeing Goku immediately kill Freeza after Whis turned back the clock with no mercy really was something, and Goku now actually killed Freeza for real. Of course...now Freeza is alive again...but that's besides the point. It proves Goku would kill Freeza 100% if he knew he was a danger to Earth, which he was.

As much as I dislike RF, I never had a problem with Goku being the one to kill Freeza. If anything, I much preferred him being the one to do it over Vegeta. I never understood this idea that Vegeta “deserves” to kill Freeza. I think it’s far more thematically fitting for a low class member of the race Freeza wiped to be the one responsible for his downfall, rather than the formerly evil prince of the race. Plus, Freeza makes for a perfect polar opposite of Goku.

I don't disagree with your reasons for liking that Goku killed Freeza, I guess my response to that would simply be that we as viewers already got to feel that satisfaction when Goku killed (well, OK, defeated) him on Namek. He not only already had that satisfying and thematically appropriate victory on Namek, but that victory was also unquestionably his, unlike RoF. It doesn't even feel like "his" victory in RoF. Goku put up a good fight, but in the end, it was Vegeta who had Freeza up against the (metaphorical) ropes. It felt like Goku was taking credit for something that Vegeta had done. It really goes back to what I was saying--Goku is a damn likable character, but he hogs what could easily be other people's time in the spotlight.

Put another way, if I was parodying the scene, then for Goku's final ki blast against Freeza, I would just have him yell "YOINK!" at the top of his lungs.

Secondly, since Goku already had his thematically appropriate victory, Vegeta's victory would have still been thematically appropriate because the Prince was finally avenging his planet, his race, his father, and himself. The cherry on top is that this is the redeemed Vegeta we're talking about, not the morally ambiguous/pretty-much-still-evil Vegeta that fought Freeza on Namek.

[MasenkoHA]

I never understood the complaint that a main character can "hog the spotlight" there's a difference between "this is suppose to be an ensemble show but one or two characters takes all the spotlight" (most crappy 80s and 90s sitcoms when they find their breakout character) and "no shit the main character gets the primary focus"


Vegeta is practically co-main character by Super anyways. If anything people should be mad that Vegeta took screen/panel time from other characters. Gohan being a nothing character in GT and Super is a bit weird, not just because he was poised to be the main character for the final arc of Dragon Ball but because he's still the main character's son. He might as well be Yamucha's younger brother at this point. But a scholarly character doesn't have much room for screentime in a fighting series.

[Matches Malone]

I don't think it's a ,issue of Goku being the hero as much as it is him taking away all the spotlight, something that we can now say about Vegeta as well. No one really complains about this in the original manga because everything was balanced. Goku was the hero but the others got to shine as well. That wasn't the case in GT and Z's movies, where Goku basically did everything himself. Now it's both Goku and Vegeta taking everything up. Vegeta may not be the "hero", but he's without a doubt making sure no one else sees anything beyond the average Freeza henchman. Look at the champa arc, he literally kicked Piccolo out of the ring to get back at Frost.

I actually liked that Goku actually killed Freeza in Movie 15. As we know Freeza survived Namek and Trunks winds up killing him.

I always thought someone from the royal bloodline killing Freeza was a more fitting end for him. Trunks accomplished what both his father and grandfather failed at.

[TheSeductiveTomato]

I honestly think the Goku pushback is more of a western thing...for reasons of varying validity, American just aren't as fond of Goku and tend to favor Vegeta and Gohan. In Japan, Goku is King.

At the end of the day, it's Goku's story. Even Gohan's big moment in the spotlight was tied to Goku.

I feel like Goku being dumbed down to simple minded manchild with zero attention span who can't shut the hell up about training and fighting for 2 minutes plays a significant role in diminishing his popularity.

I understand the fatigue over the character and the predictable nature of him saving the day every single time, but Super has done way more with the side characters than Z. Tien, Krillin, and even Roshi have been called off the bench. Gohan and Piccolo had some good moments in the ToP. They even brought 17 back and gave him a larger role than to be expected for someone that had no major story appearances in years, not counting GT. All we need is for Yamcha to finally win a fight and for Chiaotzu to actually participate in one and just about everybody has officially been dusted off.

I'm fine with DB being centered around Goku but I do think some side stories would help with the fatigue. One-off specials similar to the Trunks and Bardock specials (the latter of which deserves a remake to fit the new canon) would be a great start.

[Matches Malone]

I feel like Goku being dumbed down to simple minded manchild with zero attention span who can't shut the hell up about training and fighting for 2 minutes plays a significant role in diminishing his popularity.

Definitely. In the original run Goku was very likable, so even if he got too much screen time, you were at least watching someone you liked. I can't emphasize enough how much I dislike the current version of Goku we have, and this is coming from someone who considers Goku his favorite character in the original run (1984-1997).

[MCDaveG]

I kinda liked in the original run, that he was pretty likeable character with great supporting cast. In early Dragon Ball, you were rooting for him overcoming the obstacles and I liked how Vegeta, Trunks or Gohan got spotlight in Z arcs. End of Z with him finally destroying Buu was epic and then it got kinda stale... Now it's just Goku, Vegeta sometimes gets near Goku's powerlevel and that's it... Goten and Trunks are basically Gotenks that gets shoehorned in as a comic relief, I like Gohan and his character that he simply has other interests than fighting (thanks to his horrible childhood with which Chi-Chi helped a lot I guess), so I was happy for him to be part of the TOP.

But I don't know, the stakes in power are so high now, that it's hard to use the other characters, so it is just Goku now, pulling some new transformation out of his ass and still, as SSJ God was kind of novelty after the hiatus, I am still a fan of just regular SSJ forms that I grew on and I am not much fan of the new ice cream looking transformations:



But still, Goku is the main character... I'd just love some more creativity put into Dragon Ball and not just rethreading the Buu arc by recycling Fusion and adding more and more transformations and raising the power more. This formula was great in the original run, but now it needs something more fresh. Just please, don't ever do something like changing how the powers work, ala Saint Seiya Omega, that took the Cosmo (Chi, Ki) and divided it in natural elements like Pokémon... that was bad, seriously.

[90sDBZ]

I honestly think the Goku pushback is more of a western thing...for reasons of varying validity, American just aren't as fond of Goku and tend to favor Vegeta and Gohan. In Japan, Goku is King.

At the end of the day, it's Goku's story. Even Gohan's big moment in the spotlight was tied to Goku.

I've never gotten the impression that western fans don't like Goku. Many of them look up to him as an idealistic hero and role model. You have a point about Vegeta's popularity though, Western fans definitely love him.

Gohan is a more complicated case, with western fans loving him until he gave up fighting, at which point they seem to lose respect for him.

[Psajdak]

Its not just Goku in Dragon Ball...

Most of Toei anime has central MCs hogging most of spotlight, even if they arent the only main characters...

Pink Precure (plural), Pegasus Seiya, Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon, Monkey D. Luffy, etc...

[TheGreatness25]

I find it as silly as if someone were to complain that Batman takes too much of the spotlight in a Batman movie or Iron Man takes too much spotlightb in an Iron Man movie. I mean, why can't War Machine beat the main villain?

I'm surprised at the arguments I see in this thread -- I thought it would be more anti-Goku, to be honest. I've always said that Goku is the main character of Dragon Ball, so I have no problems with it. The enure point of the story is that Goku overcomes everything, and if he doesn't, he'll work like hell to do it next time. So, it's no surprise to me that Goku... does what he does, and overcomes.

[JewyB]

I have no issue with Goku getting the spotlight, the issue is more poor use of minor characters. Of course Goku is the hero of the show, its his show, its who its always been about, whenever Goku went away, there was no story to tell.

This kinda changed in Z though, to whenever Goku wasn't around, we got these fun stories involving all the minor characters while Goku ran or trained or whatever. Now in Super when Goku and Vegeta train we skip everything else until we can focus on Goku again.

This worked for early Dragon Ball because we had a smaller cast that were there to support Gokus story, they were Gokus friends. After the cast got bigger and they gave us more time with the characters by themselves, it was just a bad decision to take that kind of stuff away.

It is the Goku show, always has been(astronaut meme), always will be, but absence makes the heart grow fonder or something i guess?

[precita]

The problem is since Dragonball's revival the focus is almost entirely on Goku/Vegeta:

Beerus movie/arc = Basically just Goku, with Vegeta pampering Beerus for the first half

Freeza arc = Goku and Vegeta are the main focus, Gohan/Krillin/Tenshinhan/Roshi get some fodder. Piccolo is kinda shortchanged in both the movie and Super's adaption. Gohan is weak again for no reason.

Universe 6 tournament = Goku and Vegeta. Vegeta gets THREE WINS in a row, and Piccolo does very little but lose after the fight with Frost. Boo falls asleep.

Zamasu/Goku Black arc = Goku and Vegeta again with Future Trunks

TOP = Goku and Vegeta still get the main focus, but at least this arc did give everyone else something to do

Broly movie = Goku and Vegeta again


Every arc since the revival has just focused on Goku and Vegeta and it's really gotten tiring. Gohan went from being co-star in DBZ to minor supporting character, Piccolo is basically a mix between support character, and then everyone else from Trunks/Goten, Krillin, Boo, the other humans are basically irrelevant.

[Matches Malone]

The problem is since Dragonball's revival the focus is almost entirely on Goku/Vegeta:

BOG and Broly are the only stories that make sense focusing on Goku and Vegeta, every other arc shouldn't have, as there were plenty of chances in them to include the others.