>But there are tons of happy-go-lucky mc's! Without the depth of Goku >But there are tons of edgy toodeep4u mc's Without the whimsy of Goku He struck a perfect balance. He was never edgy, but he was never the messiah. He felt human. Everything he did made sense as a flawed, humanistic individual. Yes, he was a shit father, husband, person in general. Plenty of people are. Its relatable. An MC who is allowed to be outclassed. Not just 'oh, this jobber got a new irrelevant powerup'. I mean, that does happy in DB, all the time, but GENUINELY outclassed like he was by Cell and Gohan. Sure, he got unoutclassed later, but that's simply because he is TOO relatable, TOO likeable, TOO good a character. Part of it is the world of Dragonball. Another MC tries to do what Goku does; pawn his son to a villain, not see his wife at all for years at a time, teleport people to planets with life on because "haha, at least its got no one I like on it", die repetedly, and that's a big deal. Maybe even story over. But not Dragonball. Dragonball is a magical world. The balls enable this. He just comes back.
I don't see any mangaka ever being capable of making a character as genuinely nuanced and human as Goku, as much of his characterization was, essentially, on accident. He stuck around beyond when he's supposed to, time and time again. He keeps running into other Saiyans who casually get Supersaiyan as children, or within a few days of meeting him, despite how hard it was for him to achieve. Characters who logically should be more talented, better, beating the bad guys. But they don't, because they're not Goku. They're not relatable like he is. They never will be. No one will.
>edgy Anyone else notice people overuse this word too much recently? I can't take anyone who uses it unironically seriously anymore.
Jonathan Rodriguez
Literally Luffy.
Aiden Fisher
Not reletable. Goku is a family who struggles to balance his struggles with his family life, who has actual goals in his life beyond 'find the next fight lol', who fucks up and keeps trying anyways, who's son was the special chosen one with a billion potential but beat him with hard work anyways.
Luffy is a mary sue reincarnation sun god or some shit and a selfish asshole
Daniel Lee
Yeah. The simple fact that Goku grew up already makes him more unique than 99% of shounen protagonists. And even the characters that followed after him can't compare.
I watched the first 15 episodes or so of DBS to see what the hype was about and Goku didn't seem very likable.
Alexander Reed
You're supposed to start with the original Dragon Ball
Owen Moore
I mean imagine being luffy's opponents and hitting him and he doesn't even fucking care because he's made of rubber and you have to be all like "Wow luffy, you're so strong" when he's fucking basically immune to being punched and all you can do is punch. Being enel and hitting people with lightning and then this fucker comes at you like "damn, my training really helped in this fight v a guy who can't fucking harm me" Being kaidou and beating him like 16 fucking times in a row without even trying and he just gets up and his fruit just lets him win anyways because oh shit he's basically jesus! Goku never had this kind of retarded shit. He got buff, then he got buffer.
Ian Jackson
>Senileyama Discarded.
Gabriel Foster
The biggest thing in Dragon Ball that I've rarely ever seen nuShonen replicate is the fact that there's almost no plot armor for Goku. He loses ALL THE FUCKING TIME, and more often than not doesn't even get final win to redeem himself. More importantly, there's never a mid-fight upgrade that lets the MC's win. The villain is NEVER a push-over who dies just because Goku got his new power-up. There's always some twist or final fuck you hidden up their sleeves to deny the protagonists the win to the point that at the very end it's usually nail-bitingly close to avoiding complete doom. The last straight win for Goku was probably Piccolo Jr. He straight up lost against Bejita and had to be bailed out by a midget and his own son. Frieza was also kind of a straight up win but Frieza took down the entire planet with him and almost killed Goku along with it. Cell outclassed Goku completely and his heroic self-sacrifice didn't do shit. He couldn't handle Buu and the spirit bomb was Bejita's idea. DBS is even worse, I think there's not a single arc where he actually beats in the antagonist straight up, not a single one.
You can argue the Dragon Balls remove the stakes, but not even that is not always the case (ie. Piccolo dying, or entire planet threatening to get blown up when they didn't know where New Namek was yet).
Elijah Russell
>More importantly, there's never a mid-fight upgrade that lets the MC's win UI Fusion
Alexander Evans
He’s asexual, no one relates to that
Owen Bell
>Yes, he was a shit father, husband, person in general. No he wasn't. You got memed.
Levi King
UI jobbed you retard Movie was literal filler
Jacob Jones
I have read all of DB, DBZ and some of super. He has consistently been a terrible person his entire life in the manga. >Anime Not-canon
Jose Rodriguez
Nope. Cease the shitposting at once.
Hudson Reyes
Anime shitter, you know I'm right.
Kayden Barnes
cringe
Kayden Scott
I said stop.
Justin Sullivan
So have I. You got memed so hard that you believe the memes over the source material. Memes are not canon.
Jonathan Martinez
>Killed his adotptive parent >Abandoned his wife and also all of his children repeatedly all the time and he's not even sorry except that one time he was >Is the reason fusions fail to get shit done because he's too busy fucking around to get win >Hogs all the senzu beans >Made his son fight a vore monster to death because he couldn't be bothered >His son he had raised by a reverse-vore monster >Which he did without telling his wife >Or his son >Or the monster >Barely even spoke to his second son ever and what he did was pretty much 'go fight this bubblegum' and 'wow you lost to the bubblegum, you suck' >Learned how to instantly travel interstellar distances >Never taught anyone else to do this for no apparent reason, even though it would save lives
Dominic Murphy
>shitposting Yup.
Blake Richardson
That all actually happened.
Daniel Long
...in my Headcanon.
Jaxson Jackson
>Killed his adotptive parent On accident. He didn't put 2 and 2 together until his fight with Ozaru Bejita more than a decade later, he felt terrible about it. >Abandoned his wife and also all of his children repeatedly all the time and he's not even sorry except that one time he was He's self aware about how he attracts trouble to earth so he chose to stay dead so his family would be happy. >Is the reason fusions fail to get shit done because he's too busy fucking around to get win Bejita is the one who fucks around, he let Cell get away, let Frieza transform, etc... >Hogs all the senzu beans He shares them all the time, stop shitposting. >Made his son fight a vore monster to death because he couldn't be bothered He made him fight because it was the last resort to win. Goku COULDN'T beat Cell so he had to give up knowing Gohan was stronger than him and he was right. >His son he had raised by a reverse-vore monster He sacrificed himself for that son. The only reason he died in the first piece was to stop his psychopathic brother from murdering him. Piccolo kidnapped Gohan too, Goku couldn't do anything after dying. >Which he did without telling his wife >Or his son >Or the monster So you are shitposting then. >Barely even spoke to his second son ever and what he did was pretty much 'go fight this bubblegum' and 'wow you lost to the bubblegum, you suck' The bubblegum was genociding the human race so there was no time for family bonding. >Never taught anyone else to do this for no apparent reason, even though it would save lives He told them how Shunkanido works.
Caleb Price
>He's self aware about how he attracts trouble to earth so he chose to stay dead so his family would be happy. What about DB's canon ending?
Charles Moore
What with it? He goes to train his sucessor.
William Brooks
He stays in Earth to train a sucessor since the new generation of fighters are not fit for the task. Gohan is a pacifist, Goten and Trunks lack the discipline.
Adrian Williams
No, in actual canon. Goku is a monster. He's not actively malicious, but he's absolutely ignorant to the point of complete recklessness. Imagine a drunk driver plowing a mack truck through a schoolyard on his way to deliver the cure for cancer to a local hospital. That's Goku.
Julian Johnson
>Can teleport from death to life >Doesn't >Not even on his suns birthday
Tyler Williams
>more shitposting Cease I said.
Goku can't teleport from the afterlife after he died though. Otherwise all the dead yadrats would do that.
Joseph Campbell
>Can teleport from death to life Movie filler. He only gets a day on Earth thanks to Baba and even then his body has a time limit to remain "alive".
Nathan Cox
Luffy has practically nothing in common with Goku beyond superficial.
Goku is an open book of a person. He's completely earnest has no hidden issues. He does martial arts because he genuinely enjoys fighting and training. He's aware that sometimes his selfish desires come into conflict with responsibilities he accumulated during his life, admits it, but regularly chooses the selfish option anyway, because he's not perfect. Goku gives no fucks whatsoever about external validation, and has no desire to prove anything to anyone. Goku has some substantial headstart in terms of talent and natural abilities over muggles, but compared to real monsters of his universe, or even his own son, that's barely anything, and while he has some exceptional mentors, he gains their attention by impressing them with his existing ability and merit.
Luffy's life and goals, meanwhile, are defined by a series of traumas, which force him to seek external validation in the hopes that once the world recognizes him as the Pirate King, nobody would dare to fuck with him and his friends anymore. Luffy is the Chosen One to the very high degree, several of the most important and powerful people in the setting are his blood relatives or mentors (and of all his mentors Raleigh is the only one whose mentorship he earned), his power is super special, and beyond that he may be literally guided by destiny. Also, while the story makes nods to Luffy being selfish, that is never allowed to actually impact the plot, he is only allowed to do something really fucking dumb for comedic effect, or when that makes him look more virtuous.
Justin King
Reminder that Goku is THE hard work MC. >B-But Saiyans are OP! Irrelevant. Goku is a nobody for the standards of his race. A worthless weak shitter who is now at the level of the Gods through nothing but hard work all day every day.
Jacob Hernandez
It'a actually funny how the strongest MC in shounen and the one with the most power ups only behind Ichigo is actually the least special of them all.
Wyatt Young
Also gets the super rare and pwerful conquerors haki because he just does okay
>Strongest mc in shonen Oh little lamb
Lincoln Carter
>But Saiyans are OP! Even that is a lie. Saiyans relied a lot on the Ozaru forms and their tails were weakpoints anyone could exploit. They really were not that strong.
Evan Ramirez
There's no one stronger is there?
Jace Howard
I remember in 2013 I thought Dragon Ball threads were shit, I had no idea how shitty a thread could get back then.
Jason Long
Hey man there's a reason the memes actually stick instead of being brushed aside as complete nonsense. You don't see people running around saying "Chichi is a tranny", "Garlic Jr. Is a bad boyfriend", or "Bulma liked eating rotten bananas". It's nonsense that doesn't make sense with zero basis in canon. Goku's recklessness on the other hand is so grounded in canon that it's the basis of the Chi-Chi nagging bit. She'd just seem like a crazy bitch if it weren't for the fact that its meant to be very clear that Goku is retarded.
Julian Gray
DBS threads are the best threads on the whole board.
Saiyans had the potential but they squandered it since they're all retards. Saiyans were complacent and NEVER trained so they stagnated. Yamcha could solo all of Planet Vegeta if he wanted right now.
Goku is not OP because he's a Saiyan is because he grinds like a motherfucker and most importantly he trains correctly. >Goku Goes to train with Whis alongside Vegeta. >Tien Holed up on some random mountains "training" with Chiaotzu, It has NEVER been about my race > your race. It has always been about training properly and diligently under people who know their shit. And Goku and Vegeta are the only ones on Earth who still do that. I mean, look at Jiren. He's just a generic gray and he's literally stronger than the Gods. Why? Because he single-mindedly focused on getting stronger.
Dominic Davis
DB actually has the most sensible take on the role of hard work in shonen ever. It admits that you have to have at least some degree of inborn talent if you want to play in the big leagues, but talent can only carry you so far. And importantly, it is not enough to train hard in DB, you also need to train smartly (Vegeta is the one who thinks that harder=better, and that constantly leaves him behind).
Christian Gonzalez
misconceptions aren't Canon. Last warning btw.
Ayden Gonzalez
A lot of isekai are shonen and their mc's tend to be multi-versal +. Ainos Vongliglad or whatever the fuck is just plainly shonen and he's conceptual to the point Goku wouldn't be able to harm him at all. DB loses to a lot of verses because of its near lack of hax and plenty even ignoring that can destroy more planets and the like.
Chase Stewart
I mean fighting Shounen of course. I doubt most Isekai or others could be considered that.
Liam Gutierrez
Then you moved the goalpost and I don't care enough to figure out what the fuck you mean by 'fighting shonen'. You said shonen, he's not the strongest in shonen.
Anthony Kelly
Everyone knows what shounen means, even more in this board. People don't call isekai fans shounenfags do they?
Noah Ortiz
I don't care what a million wrong people say. Yea Forums does not dictate genre meanings. Next time just say what you actually mean to begin with.
Samuel Baker
>It has NEVER been about my race > your race Never really was. The strongest entities have always been either really old, talented, genetic freaks of nature or engineered on a lab so the race of them was never a factor.
Ayden Parker
Genetics freaks BECAUSE OF RACE Engineered in a lab BY COMBINING RACES
Jack Flores
Why the Hell did they get so attached to the waffle nigger? I can understand why they would get fucked up about my presence given the damage I've done to their credibility is matched only by their own foolishness, but what did he do to gain their attention?
Michael Perry
Anyone can be born a genetic freak though, see Frieza for example.
Henry Brooks
>BECAUSE OF RACE No... they're freaks by luck. Frieza and Broly are freaks but their races are full of jobbers and useless fodder. >BY COMBINING RACES Guess who did that? A normal human.
Jeremiah Lewis
>Emperor Frieza Blows up Planet Vegeta (which has 10×Earth's gravity, so therefore it holds 10×greater mass than Earth), with one finger. Instantly BTFOs all sub-galactic series as easily as he blinks away a mountain on Namek. Can breathe in space, so he can blow up the planet against anyone who can't, as shown in ResurrectionF. >Beerus the Destroyer CASUALLY busts universes. Can kill permanently by erasing their very existence. -This BTFOs immortalfaggots or people who can't die. He is confirmed to be immune to gag characters tricks such as Arale's, so he BTFOs and can kill toon characters as well. >Fused Zamasu (Completely) Immortal. Travels through wormholes. Can either make more of himself or turn into an eldritch version of the multiverse itself. Cannot be killed, and even if someone were to try and rewrite reality to remove his JACKED body entirely, he can escape with his time ring. BTFOs reality warpers. >Jiren Even stronger than Beerus. Can walk through FROZEN TIME through sheer physical strength. Shakes an INFINITE void merely by powering up. BTFOs time freezers, literally breaks through abstract physical concepts like cardboard. >Broly Punches through spacetime itself, literal dimension buster. Learns as he fights. >UI users and angels Has a reaction time of literally zero. Giga-hyper-mega FTL speed. Unconsciousness literally makes them stronger. Hallucinations and blocking out senses don't work. Angels can turn back time too. They BTFO sense dampeners and sneak attackers. >Moro and FSF users Their opponents get weaker as they fight them. Moro can copy up to three abilities permanently. He's adept in magic to the point where he can drain an entire world from outer space with one hand. WILL eat whatever magic or energy is thrown at him. This BTFOs all other magic users. >Gogeta Explicitly stronger than the Omni-King (Creator God of all of reality)
