The Official Goku/Justin Chatwin Thread

[tekken]

that quote was to explain the super saiyan look, not goku himself.

"...when I came up with the Super Saiyan idea, I thought that his appearance should also change to show his power-up. In terms of design, his expression looks more like an enemy..."

i guess akira was not fond of white people...sike, i probably just interpreted that quote wrong. but still man. read that interview.

 

[DorkyFresh]

I have no problem with seeing him as an asian but fact is fact, many anime animators have said that they look to AMERICAN WHITE PEOPLE for inspiration in there characters and that is the reason for the wide eyes we see. I mean that is just common knowledge.

so you mean to tell me that every character in ALL anime that has big eyes are white? tell that to the people who animated this character who is CLEARLY Asian...

Express your opinion all you want but Goku looks american and i bet if you polled it i would have the majority backing me up.

first off, don't tell me to express my opinion when you first practically told me to shutup. second, there's no need for a poll here since it's obvious most people here think Goku looks white....it's no coincidence that most of the people here speak ENGLISH. i guarantee you that if you polled a message board that spoke mostly Japanese or Chinese that the majority would vote that he looks Asian. DUH...

Grab me a screen cap from the show where he looks even slightly tan and then we can debate, til then i stand by my opinion.

not all Asians are tan.....and i will continue to debate this issue regardless of if you're involved or not.

No more tan than a caucasian kid that gets plenty of sun. Again, fitting of either asian or caucasian ethnicity. Theories galore.

skin color may match a white person who stays in the sun long enough, but until the late 90's i had never seen a white person with pitch long black spikey hair and black eyes, however.....Asians have black hair, black eyes and have been wearing their hair long and spikey since Asian pop stars started doing it in the 80's.

 

[Dedpool]

read..
http://www.stormpages.com/ssjsean/ati.htm

-"...focus on China..."
-"The Monkey King, known in Japan as Saiyuki, or "The Journey west," is a legend known to nearly every Asian child as the archetype of the quest story"

why have the main character be white for asian boys? why have a white kid as the main character while focusing on China? from my speculation, his intention was to make goku chinese. the only reason why he was an alien from another planet was to explain why he looked human, but had a tail, and was not fully monkey. that was just a weird coincidence with superman; i don't think he meant to do that. there is little to no western influence with dragon ball; he already did that with dr. slump.

accept defeat!!!

This isn't a competition. I'm just as anxious to know the truth as you are.

...And that says absolutely nothing. “Focus on China” means the story was set in a cultural Chinese background. Not one word about Goku/Kakarot. And I’ll repeat myself, just as Sun Wukong is asian, Superman is caucasian. He’s based on both characters, so how are we supposed to know?

This is what I’m talking about when I say suffering.

 

[RED-RAIN]

no influence eh?
then why would he outright say that westerners were his artistic inspiration?
im not trying to dissuade people from their opinions...you have just proved my point in the above post..you really want your opinion accepted huh? it's great that we can all argue on here till we are blue in the face, but the fact that the man himself has said that he is merely saiyan, and as i said before, pretty much void of race obviously hasnt sunk in..we are all correct.. some of us just like to argue a little more than others - me included!!

 

[tekken]

how is based on superman? clarify, let me see some sources. then i can consider him being white. in the interview, the only reason why he was an alien was to explain why he wasnt full monkey, but only had a tail. that's it. that's the ONLY superman-like thing he has, and he probably didn't mean to.

 

[RED-RAIN]

do your own research, lazy bones

 

[DorkyFresh]

He does not look asian, in that pick, hell I would say my kid brother is more tan than that.

obviously you haven't seen many Asians.......not all Asians are tan. many are just as pail as Michael Jackson.

I dont care anymore, I have my opinion and every one else i talk with thinks he is white so you can go on your merry way thinking he is asian .

obviously not, because you're talking to us, and there are few of us who think he looks Asian. i also bet that the people you talk to who think he looks white speak ENGLISH and are most likely white themselves! if you talked to a person who spoke an Asian language i'd bet they'd think Goku looks Asian.

as for me going on my merry way...i will go on thinking that Goku should look like an Asian because he was obviously meant to be an Asian hero for the Asian community before the show reached American shores. if you can't realize that then that's on you. i will be merry in my opinion because i'm not threatened by differing opinions the way a lot of you seem to be.

do your own research, lazy bones

nothing personal, but after you claim something, when someone else asks for proof and you say "do your own research"....that means you're either dodging the topic or haven't done the research yourself.

also....even if he drew elements of Goku's life and powers on Superman, there's no evidence pointing towards Akira basing Goku's ethnicity on Superman's.

 

[RED-RAIN]

nicely said

 

[Dedpool]

how is based on superman? clarify, let me see some sources. then i can consider him being white. in the interview, the only reason why he was an alien was to explain why he wasnt full monkey, but only had a tail. that's it. that's the ONLY superman-like thing he has, and he probably didn't mean to.

I’ll look for textual proof in an interview or something, but it’s a pretty widely known fact that Toriyama's admiration of Superman was a big part of his inspiration to create Goku.

For now, let’s look at the basics, Goku is an alien from another planet, sent away to Earth at the moment of his home planet’s destruction. He is found and raised by a good man with strong morals, and eventually finds out that he is an alien in his late adolescence/adulthood.

Most of his stories revolve around defending the Earth from alien, technological, or magical villains that attempt to destroy/conquer the planet. Pretty obvious where Superman inspires his character.

It's not that I don't want Goku to be Asian, I think it'd actually make more sense that way. The Japanese do deserve their own Superman. I just don't like to make a decision based on personal preference and call it fact.

 

[tekken]

from my research so far, dragon ball is influenced by the monkey king and drunken master(jackie chan movie). that's all i know.

apparently he meant for dragon ball to be a weird comedy, but ended up becoming an action story. i guess he just came up with dbz out of his butt to please his fans. by the time he did dbz, dragon balls are almost irrelevant, and the monkey king reference was little to none.

but i STILL think goku's asian. because i'm asian. asians stick together.

 

[Dedpool]

Here's something else I just thought of. Could easily be coincidence, though. One of Goku's first big challenges are three alien survivors from the same planet he is, bent on taking over Earth. Practically identical to the summarical plotline of Superman II. Just something to nibble on.

A big percentage of Superman's fans are people that got into his story through the films. It's likely Akira Toriyama was one of those people, as he began writing Dragon Ball only a couple of years later.

but i STILL think goku's asian. because i'm asian. asians stick together.

lol

 

[DorkyFresh]

but i STILL think goku's asian. because i'm asian. asians stick together.

YELLOW POWER!!! t: i say we petition for an Asian smiley....hehe, j/m

 

[Dedpool]

YELLOW POWER!!! t: i say we petition for an Asian smiley....hehe, j/m

I'll tell you one thing. It's a crime we don't have a yin-yang smiley.

 

[DorkyFresh]

we can't have that....it'd be too Asian for most Western posters. although, if all these people are saying that Goku having big eyes means he's obviously white.......then i guess most of our smileys would technically be Asian

 

[Dedpool]

we can't have that....it'd be too Asian for these Western posters. although, if all these people are saying that Goku having big eyes means he's obviously white.......then i guess all of our smileys would technically be Asian t:

Ohh, wait a tick. We do have an Asian smiley!

 

[DorkyFresh]

ohhhhh dang! i think i'll be using that a lot more often! hehe....thanx, Dedpool!

 

[Dedpool]

They even got his eyes right, heh. Yes, that is one of our more ingenious smilies.

 

[RED-RAIN]

well, i wont take that personally, cause that would normally be expected...but fact is, im not chasing the old interview up cause quite frankly, being a single parent, i barely have time to discuss on here, let alone find "proof"...no offense dorky fresh, i just dont have the time id like to chase these things down for you guys...there was no dodge..

 

[Hush]

so you mean to tell me that every character in ALL anime that has big eyes are white? tell that to the people who animated this character who is CLEARLY Asian...

first off, don't tell me to express my opinion when you first practically told me to shutup. second, there's no need for a poll here since it's obvious most people here think Goku looks white....it's no coincidence that most of the people here speak ENGLISH. i guarantee you that if you polled a message board that spoke mostly Japanese or Chinese that the majority would vote that he looks Asian. DUH...


not all Asians are tan.....and i will continue to debate this issue regardless of if you're involved or not.


skin color may match a white person who stays in the sun long enough, but until the late 90's i had never seen a white person with pitch long black spikey hair and black eyes, however.....Asians have black hair, black eyes and have been wearing their hair long and spikey since Asian pop stars started doing it in the 80's.

Ok Just to clear things up i said MANY animators not ALL. Another thing the tan issue came from another poster on the previous page, im sorry for being rude earlier but I was just trying to make a stance well placed before i got hit by, as I suspected, large comment from you. I have again NO problems with him being ASIAN it just to me clearly looks like he is WHITE/AMERICAN. Iknow not all asians are tan but i mean none are as whit as Goku, let me re-phrase that, none taht I have seen are as white as him. I read the comment on animators using influence from white/americans in Anime Insider many years ago just to validate my source. In anycase you have your opinion and i will have mine.

 

[DorkyFresh]

Ok Just to clear things up i said MANY animators not ALL. Another thing the tan issue came from another poster on the previous page, im sorry for being rude earlier but I was just trying to make a stance well placed before i got hit by, as I suspected, large comment from you. I have again NO problems with him being ASIAN it just to me clearly looks like he is WHITE/AMERICAN. Iknow not all asians are tan but i mean none are as whit as Goku, let me re-phrase that, none taht I have seen are as white as him. I read the comment on animators using influence from white/americans in Anime Insider many years ago just to validate my source. In anycase you have your opinion and i will have mine.

i appreciate you responding in a more respectful manner, but lemme help you with your lack of exposure to light-skinned Asians...

...there, now you can't say that Goku is white based on skin color alone....since those Asians are clearly lighter skinned than Goku.

 

[RED-RAIN]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-B6ZX9YfZQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c2xp2CmfQI

lets lighten up a little...

 

[X Knight]

well....I can bridge the gap between asian and white.......I'm half and half.........lol. so, maybe goku is half-asian / half-white like me.......lol.

 

[Hush]

i appreciate you responding in a more respectful manner, but lemme help you with your lack of exposure to light-skinned Asians...

...there, now you can't say that Goku is white based on skin color alone....since those Asians are clearly lighter skinned than Goku.

Thank you again for the source and picture but i was just engaging the poster that said SINCE Goku had been shown as tan that he was asian that was what i disagreed with not that there arent ANY light skinned asians. I handt seen any as well, but someone had pointed out that since he was Tan in some pics he had to be asian, that is just ridiculous, and i think you will agree. Sorry if that point never got out properly. I still think Goku is of American/White ethnicity but i recognize that he could possibly slightly be of ASIAN ethnicity as well.

 

[Legion]

I agree with dorky fresh that there are light-skinned asians.

Also the above picture of the "asian looking character" is from the anime movie "Akira" which is more mature and the characters depicted more realistic.

Dragon Ball is more childish and the characters don't really look like real people, they have alot of features that make them look square. The big eyes, mostly the heroes, are to make them seem more innocent. Goku is very innocent and naive. The villians eyes are smaller and sharper. When Goku transforms into super saiyan, his eyes change and they look more like that.

Also there was little time between the running manga and the start of the anime. So Toriyama was busy writing the manga and not that involved in the production of the anime.

His colored pics of Goku are alittle more tan than the anime version.

 

[craigdbfan]

Not trying to fuel this argument but Heres a couple of pictures of Dennis Oh and Daniel Henney who I personally think could pull off the part of Goku (although I should point out that I don't have a problem with Justin Chatwin as Goku)


Daniel Henney

Dennis Oh