Hikaru Utada's son finds rare pronoun change in Dragon Ball manga

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/intere ... er/.234038

While Hikaru Utada and her son were reading Dragon Ball volume 21, he said "Goku said 'Ore'" once before turning Super Saiyan, rather than 'Ora', which Goku generally refers to himself as.

This was unchanged between the 1990 and 2024 printings of the manga volume.

In the Kōjien 4th Edition, “Ore” is a gender-neutral pronoun, often rendered as “I,” “me,” or “my” in English and used when referring to oneself to those above and below them in social structure.

"Ora", also a gender-neutral personal pronoun can be used as "I," "me," or "my" in English and dates back to the Edo Period as a shorthand for the personal pronoun "Oira." "Ora" can be used as an alternative for "Ore" but is still used by men and women.

Utada's tweet currently has over 56,000 likes, 57,000 retweets and 1,300 comments.

Some commenters think Goku using "Ora" indicates his only selfish request, and others suggest it comes up again in volume 27 just after Goku turns Super Saiyan for the first time.

This detail was new to me as I don't currently speak Japanese.

Thoughts on this?

[Yellow Flower King]

Hikaru Utada is so awesome lol. Also they go by they/them pronouns, they are casual about their pronouns so she/her is okay but do try to keep that in mind.

[JulieYBM]

The use of 'ore' is either a typo or something done intentionally to show Gokuu speaking with intentionality for a specific moment. It's a nice catch on their part.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Hikaru Utada is so awesome lol. Also they go by they/them pronouns, they are casual about their pronouns so she/her is okay but do try to keep that in mind.

Your right, that was my mistake, I should have used they/them, but it's nice that Utada is patient with accidental slip-ups like that. I'll be more careful next time.

[Zebra]

Toriyama was just inconsistent on Gokuu using "ore" and "ora". For instance, Gokuu tends to flip-flop between saying "ore-tachi" and "ora-tachi" when grouping himself with other characters.

[BernardoCairo]

The first time Goku transformed into a Super Saiyajin, Toriyama made a point of showing that he had transformed into a different person, so to speak (different eyes, speech bubbles with different shapes, etc.). This could be part of that, or just a typo. But either way, very cool!

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

According to former Toriyama editor Yuu Kondou, this is either a slip up or misprint from sides (Toriyama and himself).

https://xcancel.com/NazChris_dj/status/ ... 9127783459

[M16U3L2015]

Even if it wasn't intentional on Toriyama's part, it's still very interesting, since a simple mistake added a bit of depth to Goku's transformation at that moment.

I like it when unintentional mistakes add some substance to a story.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Some of the Japanese fans in the replies pointed out a couple other instances of Toriyama letting an ore slip into Goku's speech instead of ora. Thought you guys might find that interesting.

Chapter 365



This is fixed in the kanzenban. I'm not sure if it was also fixed in the tankōbon. Would be great if someone could check.



Chapter 517



This one still exists in the kanzenban.