Goku's role/usage in Dragon Ball Super

[Avok]

Cool. Fairly even split so far... Are you partial to the LA dub or the manga? How much did that dub alter Goku's personality?

I think they did a really good job.

[nite_jay]

Oh. I just realized they mixed these threads.

Anyway, I don't see Goku's character to bothersome. Yes I would have liked if they kept his progression from BoG, the Boo arc, etc. but I also realized that I'm watching a Japanese kid's 9AM cartoon, so of course they are gonna try and get some easy laughs with him being dumb every once in a while.

[kinisking]

I remember back in the hay day, people hated how childish Goku was in GT. They didn't like how his grown maturity just went out the window. Now all the sudden it's a good thing? I swear it's basically ok to do the strange and bizarre if the highly praised "Canon" ideal does it. Any flaw comparable from the old toei days is suddenly alright if it potentially went by word of god.

Who the hell actually says it's a good thing? A vast minority of people.

[Regarder]

He's pretty old now, so maybe Goku is just getting senile.

[TheMikado]

He's pretty old now, so maybe Goku is just getting senile.

That would be a strong argument if we didn't learn that Saiyan stay young for a long time.

[Cipher]

Last episode was really a nadir for Goku's characterization.

I find I'm waffling constantly between wanting everyone to keep in mind that Toriyama's Goku has always been carefree and simple (and occasionally dangerous when he's bored), and acknowledging that the manga truly stopped playing his cluelessness for jokes as early as the Piccolo arc. What we're seeing now doesn't mesh.

While both the manga and original run of the anime did continue to get some comedic mileage out of Goku, it was nearly always situational, and at the expense of characters who have to deal with him (the driving episode, the brilliant bit of filler with Tao Pai Pai in the Cell arc), rather than at the expense of Goku himself. Those moments also tended to not occur in the middle of tense situations.

We're in the middle of a doubly bad writing situation where the series has hindered itself by situating stories in the middle of a ten-year timeskip — we know exactly what Goku's final arc looks like, and that his last hurdle is boredom destined to be healthily channeled into Oob, so what of consequence can happen in between if the series won't direct extremely conscious effort into new character issues? — and on top of that no one seems to be willing to write Goku accurately on an episode-by-episode basis.

[pacz360]

The writers for super don't know how to treat goku character there basically having him act like hes luffy 2.0for fuck sakes.