Movie: Dragonball

[UChessmaster]

Then please enlight me, how do you know if a person is asian-ish by looking at him? without counting common asian characteristics "OH he has ONE thing asian ppl have, clearly an asian!"

For the record, i didn`t started the whole yello-ish white thing.

But i know for a fact MOST asians have small height, have you heard? it`s called genetics.

I`ll repeat, the ONLY thing that points at asian-ish looks is his hair and eye color, not enough to call him asian. But hey! me saying goku`s not asian because he doesn`t has asian characteristics is stereotyping now.

[animus]

I didn't say he was asian, all I said was saying he was white just because he wasn't short and because of his skin color was ridiculous.

And yes, that's what stereotyping means, btw.

[UChessmaster]

I didn't say he was asian, all I said was saying he was white just because he wasn't short and because of his skin color was ridiculous.

And yes, that's what stereotyping means, btw.

Saying he`s asian because his hair is black is just as ridiculous don`t you agree? Actually saying he`s asian even thoguh he`s an ALIEN sounds elitist to me, wich is why im answering to whoever claims him to be an asian.

If i stereotyped and anyone felt offended i apoogize, that was certainly not plan.

[Buffalobiian]

Race can be used to describe both species/subspecies as well as humans of different origins, ie ethnic race.

As for the current argument, take a picture of Goku in non SS form and ask people who know anything about him what nationality he is. See how many name an Asian country. I think that pretty much sets it straight.

If the majority say he's Asian (which I would expect), then for whatever reason, he obviously looks Asian.

[UChessmaster]

Race can be used to describe both species/subspecies as well as humans of different origins, ie ethnic race.

As for the current argument, take a picture of Goku in non SS form and ask people who know anything about him what nationality he is. See how many name an Asian country. I think that pretty much sets it straight.

If the majority say he's Asian (which I would expect), then for whatever reason, he obviously looks Asian.

A thousand years ago the majority of people agreed earth wasn`t round, how does that goes?

I don`t know... i just don`t see whats so asian about him.

[Animeniax]

Wow didn't XanBcoo ask us to drop this a couple pages back?

It is interesting though, and I do enjoy discussing it.

Goku is tall for an Asian, but beyond that stereotype there are taller Asians out there (Yao Ming, the entire Chinese Olympic basketball team). Otherwise he has the characteristic hair, eye color, and even skin color of an Asian. If you look at many Japanese, they have very pale white skin. In many Asian countries, light to white skin is favored. Pretty much all the characters have white skin, but that's just a result of the animation.

To be clear, when I say Asian, I mean that he descends from the mongoloid subspecies of the human species. As stated earlier, there are 3 subspecies, mongoloid, negroid, and caucasoid. Between the 3, it is clear that Goku and kin are mongoloid, or more commonly, Asian. Not that they come from Asia, but on a census form they would mark "Asian or pacific islander" as their race.

[UChessmaster]

Wow didn't XanBcoo ask us to drop this a couple pages back?

It is interesting though, and I do enjoy discussing it.

Goku is tall for an Asian, but beyond that stereotype there are taller Asians out there (Yao Ming, the entire Chinese Olympic basketball team). Otherwise he has the characteristic hair, eye color, and even skin color of an Asian. If you look at many Japanese, they have very pale white skin. In many Asian countries, light to white skin is favored. Pretty much all the characters have white skin, but that's just a result of the animation.

To be clear, when I say Asian, I mean that he descends from the mongoloid subspecies of the human species. As stated earlier, there are 3 subspecies, mongoloid, negroid, and caucasoid. Between the 3, it is clear that Goku and kin are mongoloid, or more commonly, Asian. Not that they come from Asia, but on a census form they would mark "Asian or pacific islander" as their race.

I enjoy it too, this argument is far better that the movie imo, as for your argument... i can live with that.

[Buffalobiian]

A thousand years ago the majority of people agreed earth wasn`t round, how does that goes?

A thousand years ago the majority of people agreed earth wasn`t round. It means (from our perspective), it looks flat. That hasn't changed. We now know that Earth is a round planet that looks flat to our eyes.

Until Goku reached young adulthood, the majority of his friends agreed he was human. It means he looks human. Most would agree, an Asian human. We now know Goku as an alien who looks like an Asian male.

[XanBcoo]

I could see the point I guess with Piccolo after Pickle (he is green and shit), Gohan (which means rice in Japanese), seems to follow the trend that a lot of the names are related to food.

A Piccolo is a musical instrument, like a flute. King Piccolo's henchmen were Tambourine and Piano.

Krillin is "chestnut", Oolong is Oolong tea, Emperor Pilaf is named after Rice Pilaf, Radditz (raditsu) is Radish, and Nappa means "Cabbage". There's probably a few more I'm forgetting. But yeah, most of the names in Dragonball are puns, and most are themed. Bulma's entire family is named after underwear, for example, The Ginyu Force are dairy products, and all Saiyans are named after Vegetables.

Saying "white boys" is not racist. Saying that black people have curly hair is no more racist than saying black people have black skin.

Also Goku's skin color isn't really a discernible characteristic. He's as pale as any non-Asian-looking character. But if you want to consider him Asian, go ahead. There's no reason not to.

[Lucifus]

Goku doesn't look asian....the vast majority of anime characters can't pull off asian.

And this movie was garbage. It actually put me into a state of depression and killed my day. Jesus, I want someone to assassinate Chatwin.

[Psyke]

I thought it was pretty well known that most Dragonball names are puns of some sorts. Oolong, Yamcha and Puar are all related to Dim sum and tea, Satan's daughter is Videl (Devil), etc.

[XanBcoo]

I thought it was pretty well known that most Dragonball names are puns of some sorts. Oolong, Yamcha and Puar are all related to Dim sum and tea, Satan's daughter is Videl (Devil), etc.

Yeah, sorry I didn't mean to get off track. I just wanted to clarify that Piccolo's original posse was music-themed and I got carried away naming puns.

My favorite ones were Gohan's classmates in high school, only because it hit me years later. Sharpner and Ireza .

[Buffalobiian]

So was Bardock a name made up by the studios then? I can't make anything out of it.

[Shadow Skill]

He's asian, his anime drawn skin is not exactly white. Unless his pigments changed to that beige/tan-pinkish colour from years of training and gaining muscles. :P

His eyes don't exactly scream out "Caucasian".

So he's asian, case closed. :P

I'm quite sure Japanese language has gone through some changes since 20 years ago. Less slang back then. :P

A lot of Japanese courses tend to teach Japanese with slang now... which I think pollutes the minds of those to try to learn the language. Best advice, find a 60 y.o teacher who's Japanese and get lessons. :P

[darkshadow]

Until Goku reached young adulthood, the majority of his friends agreed he was human. It means he looks human. Most would agree, an Asian human. We now know Goku as an alien who looks like an Asian male.

Actually, not at all. Bulma was scared shitless by his tail, Oolong wondered if he was an alien after the whole oozaru stuff, And one of them said "this kid is definitly not human!".

And really Goku doesn't look asian at all, when talking about anime with its LACK of clear definition in art, the only way to determine an ethnicity is by stereotyping the character.
And so far only Mai ( and perhaps Yamcha) looked asian.

[animus]

Now that I think about it, I had thought Chi Chi was just a name that sounded Chinese but in fact it's slang for tits, isn't it?

[Animeniax]

A lot of Japanese courses tend to teach Japanese with slang now... which I think pollutes the minds of those to try to learn the language. Best advice, find a 60 y.o teacher who's Japanese and get lessons. :P

That's a bad idea. Japanese is one of the most evolving languages, as they often adopt words from other languages, make expressions old-fashioned and obsolete, and shorten words and combine them into new terms.

If you learned the classical language from an outdated source, you would not be able to converse in the real world. Girls would call you kakko warui, and most Japanese under 40 would just not understand you. Also, the language in anime and other media would sound weird to you.

@animus: I doubt it. Were there any other characters with slang anatomical names?

[Psyke]

Chi (or Qi) is actually a pretty common name for Chinese girls.

[XanBcoo]

His eyes don't exactly scream out "Caucasian".

Every one of Akira Toriyama's characters have the exact same eyes, no matter where they're from. They're cartoon eyes and don't really scream out "asian" either. There were actually some characters had very Asian looking eyes, like General Tao, and Goku looks nothing like them. I have no doubt that Toriyama probably envisioned Goku as a Japanese kid, but there's nothing in his design to confirm it, and nowhere in or outside of the show is it ever stated. These arguments are just going to keep going in circles.

Edit: But don't get me wrong. Chatwin was the worst possible actor to portray Goku. That's obvious.

I'm quite sure Japanese language has gone through some changes since 20 years ago. Less slang back then. :P

Every generation of every language has its 'slang". It's just not a slang you would be familiar with.

So was Bardock a name made up by the studios then? I can't make anything out of it.

I remember reading that it meant "potato" or "root" or something. I really have no idea, someone who speaks Japanese would have to make a guess . It's annoying because the American studios romanized a lot of the names improperly, so "Buruma" became "Bulma" instead of 'Bloomer". Bardock could just be a weird romanization of some Japanese word.

[darkshadow]

Every one of Akira Toriyama's characters have the exact same eyes, no matter where they're from. They're cartoon eyes and don't really scream out "asian" either.

Mai's eyes are different from bulma's or chi chi's. She is also the only one that resembles an asian somewhat ( stereotyping).