Kanji, Goku and ゴクウ

[Chuquita]

What language-related reasons could be behind why

Spoiler:

Black Gokû is written in katakana ゴクウブラック instead of in kanji 悟空黒?

Prior to the introduction of this character I've never seen Gokû's name not written in kanji before. I do know that katakana is used for foreign words or words that there isn't kanji for (like why Vegeta is written as ベジータ because it comes from an English word.).

I looked up different kanji that are pronounced "goku" here: http://rut.org/cgi-bin/j-e/dosearch?sDi ... &BG=b&S=26 and you get adjectives like "very" and the nouns "words/phrases" and interestingly "jail/gaol/prison".

Does anyone else think there's a deeper meaning to using katakana instead of kanji for this upcoming character's name, or do you think they used katakana only because they thought it looked cool?

[Konig]

As for the "Black" in "Black Goku", I think they adopted it for its "coolness" factor. "黒" means black, but it has its own Japanese Pronunciation (kuro). "ブラック", on the other hand, is the English word "black" written in katakana (pronounced burakku), and follows a recurring "habit", in Super, of anglicizing transformation names, such as "ゴールデン" (Gōruden) in Golden Frieza or "ブルー" (Burū) in Super Saiyan Blue, instead of using "金" and "青" (gold and blue in kanji).

"Goku" written in katakana, however, is a bit strange, and since Japanese does not use spacing between words, it looks like "ゴクウブラック" might be a single word, "Gokuburakku" or "Gokublack", instead of two separate words.

However, since I know only the very very basic of Japanese, I might be wrong.

[Cetra]

It is nothing uncommon that when making up names or titles you fully "katakana-fy" it for this one specific thing, character, whatever. I know that from a lot of video games. In Kingdom Hearts for example the character "Sora" is also written in katakana, even though Sora is an actual Japanese word.

[Marco Polo]

I don't know the meaning but I'm sure it has a deeper meaning.

I also think there's a reason why it's Goku Black, and NOT Black Goku (like many people seem to call him). We had names like Perfect Cell, Majin Buu, etc. before in the series. Not Cell Perfect and Buu Majin. It has to mean something.

[Chuquita]

I think the name order means something too. Having it be after his name makes me think the emphasis is on "Gokû" and not on "Black".

[Sodhi]

Toriyama said that, "Well, you can probably imagine what he’s like just based off the name". I am guessing that his appearance is literally of black goku. I think its written as goku black because to tell us that its not our goku but other one. Our goku will not become black.

[PMD]

I think the name order means something too. Having it be after his name makes me think the emphasis is on "Gokû" and not on "Black".

Having Future Trunks back, and his fight against the Red Ribbon, it could be General Black rising in the future and creating new androids, and that could be "Goku Black".



Sorry, my theories are very lame and lazy.