Son Goku: protagonist of Dragon Ball, trained alien warrior and, of course, a pretty powerful guy. But how powerful, really? Hardcore fans can tell you that there is no one who can beat Goku in a fight.
But consider this: Tony Tony Chopper is my sweet son and therefore he would beat Goku because I said so.
One eternal question spans all of pop culture: “Who would win?” That’s why we’re devoting an entire week to the debates that have shaped comics, movies, TV, and games, for better or worse. Get ready for Polygon Who Would Win Week.
Since the 1980s, fans have indulged in the excitement of discussing Goku and his strength. As well as being highly influential on other manga and anime, Dragon Ball was one of the first Japanese series to gain popularity in the West. First spread through fan-translated bootlegs and shipped manga, it eventually aired on American television in the late 1990s, though it had several false starts before finding success. Throughout those years, anime found its western audience, but it was still not as popular as it is now.
That’s probably why fans first wanted to defend their leading man over characters from the most popular comic strips and TV shows of the day. One of the absurdities of the argument, of course, is that just because a character is very powerful, that doesn’t mean the media is inherently good. But Goku’s strength is a key focus of the Dragon Ball stories. Like many shōnen protagonists, he is constantly facing stronger and stronger enemies and, in turn, getting stronger. Dragon Ball gives strength a simple numerical metric in the form of power levels – you may have heard of that time Goku went over 9000.
The manga and anime’s emphasis on Goku being very, very strong made him a constant source of interest for the community as well. And fans in the 90s and 2000s latched onto Goku and his power as an emblem of their niche. “Goku vs. Superman,” for example, became a classic showdown. Since they are both powerful beings originating from different planets, it makes sense as a comparison. But Superman, one of the most popular and well-known comic book characters of all time, needed no defense. Goku, on the other hand, was part of a new wave. And nothing inspires more passion than a fandom that perceives itself as an outsider.
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In 2002, Wizard magazine ran a front-page hypothetical fight between Goku and Superman titled “East vs. West.” (Goku won). A popular webcomic took over in 2003 and expanded the rivalry. As Dragon Ball increased in popularity and the online fandom grew in influence, fans began to target any creation that favored Superman. A 2009 video showing the American hero winning gained millions of views, but also a 75% dislike rate and a wave of angry comments.
Since the 2010s, this trend of evangelizing Goku has become a joke stereotype, fueling his popularity as a meme. Dragon Ball fans are no longer the underdogs. Since anime and manga have basically become mainstream, and Dragon Ball is one of the most well-known and influential among them, the script has changed. People, particularly fans of other anime series, began to poke fun at Goku Stans’ perceived tendency to jump into their discussions to talk about Goku’s strength relative to every other protagonist in the conversation, regardless of any other subjective considerations. of quality or enjoyment. .
It helps that the joke is still backed up by actual behavior. To this day, it’s easy to find fans who respond to the meme with overly serious explanations of how powerful Goku is, which only intensifies it in turn. After all, nothing provokes more online ridicule than seriousness.
On the other hand, as the Japanese media has become more popular, there are those who try to exclude others based on their arbitrary feeling of superiority. According to the keepers, people aren’t “true fans” if they haven’t seen “the classics” or if they prefer genres other than shōnen. With shōnen so often focusing on the strength of the protagonist, there is a noticeable overlap between these guardians and those that focus on Goku’s power above all else.
But the inherent humor of provoking those who constantly proclaim Goku’s strength is an easy counter to that kind of vigilance. All people had to do was confidently assert that actually anyone could take on goku. He clashed with another meme, the “Your Favorite” format, which allowed people to send requests to see characters in any number of weird situations; “Your favorite could beat Goku” accounts surfaced on both Twitter and Tumblr. They allowed people to make the claim that anyone and everyone could reign triumphantly over him, no questions asked.
Characters that are popular with women, such as sailor moonor those of mainstream modern anime, like my hero academia and jujutsu kaisen, prove to be the most popular posts and the most controversial among certain Dragon Ball fans. But people who disagree or demand explanations about exactly how they would pull it off just make the joke funnier by falling for the bait.
We live in a post-Goku era. Anime is widely accessible from dedicated online platforms like Crunchyroll and major streaming companies in general like Netflix. He no longer needs to defend himself as a niche hobby, so he no longer needs an all-powerful Goku. And the wider availability of non-shōnen series and movies means the focus on the force has faded as well. On the contrary, the minority of fans who continue to take the plot too seriously tends to fall out along with the growing popularity and variety of those anime.
But others have been able to appropriate the meme because of the inherent comedy of the overly serious internet commentary that fuses the strength of the protagonist with the quality of the story, making it a weapon against surveillance in general. It’s a brave new world where anyone can defeat the Saiyan, thanks to the power of one’s conviction. That’s the liveliest of all.