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I work as a substitute teacher. Today, I went to teach a grade 5 class. I met a kid who I later found out was a) half-Japanese, b) spoke Japanese fluently, and c) Was raised there until grade 3. So, he seemed pretty legit.
When I commented that I had heard (for years) that Goku was supposed to sound like a "hick/hillbilly" in Japanese, he answered: "Not at all. He speaks Yakuza Japanese." "What?" "Yeah...like he talks like a gangster. That's what makes him so funny." He explained that, in Japanese, Goku pretty much talks completely in that type of slang ("Yo pops"). I told him that for years I've read (on forums) or heard from 1 friend who studied Japanese, that Goku's supposed to be a "hick". He was adamant. "Trust me. I'm Japanese. I know all the accents. Goku's appeal is that he talks like a Yakuza gangster around people...not even close to a "hillbilly"."
Can anyone confirm this for me? My entire lifetime's image of Goku completely changed when I heard that. Honestly, it made the character 50x times cooler for me.
If this is true, then the English dub Goku isn't even close to the original one.
