Characters / Dragon Ball: Son Goku – Tropes A-C

Dragon Ball Main Character Index
Major Characters
Son Goku (A-C | D-H | I-O | P-Z) | Bulma | Krillin/Kuririn | Piccolo | Son Gohan | Vegeta (A-D | E-N | O-Z) | Future Trunks | Allies | Families & Friends (Chi-Chi | Androids 17 and 18 | Trunks and Son Goten | Mr. Satan/Hercule) | Fusions

Back to Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, or Dragon Ball Super.

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A

• Accidental Hero: Goku tends to make dumb decisions that work out splendidly later on, among them being:
  • In Dragon Ball, he lets Piccolo live when he has him dead to rights. In Dragon Ball Z, he lets Vegeta live when he has him dead to rights. They both become two of his greatest allies.
  • Goku recognizes Gohan's potential and very stealthily guides him to be the one to defeat Cell. At the moment, it's monumentally stupid to send a child out to fight the Big Bad and expect them to finish the job, regardless of whether or not you know they physically can. This leads to him having to conduct a Heroic Sacrifice to save everyone, which doesn't even really work because Cell comes back even stronger than before and kills Trunks — only to spur Vegeta into an unexpected rage that gives Gohan the chance to win the fight for real.
  • When Kid Buu destroys the Earth, instead of saving his sons, Present Trunks, or Piccolo, Goku saves Hercule, Dende, and the dog Bee. And saving Hercule is, in multiple ways, the absolute key to allowing him to use a Spirit Bomb to defeat Buu.
  • When Beerus comes back to Earth, Goku just waits and watches him fight everyone else — but this allows Beerus to Dope Slap Bulma, triggering another unexpected fury from Vegeta that becomes his first encroachment into God-tier power.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, King of All Cosmos Zen-Oh had previously expressed a desire to hold a martial arts tournament between all 12 universes but never got around to it. Goku reminds him of it several story arcs later, thinking it would be fun. Only Zen-Oh's plan is to destroy the eleven losing universes, and their inhabitants immediately laid into Goku for being so heartless. Vados points out that if Goku had not intervened, Zen-Oh would have just destroyed every universe, no questions asked, and Android 17 ends up wishing for the erased universes to come back and thus saving the entire multiverse as well as boosting Universe 7's mortal level.
• Accidental Murder: He kills Grandpa Gohan one night when he becomes a Great Ape. He doesn't find this out until years later when he's fighting Vegeta during the Saiyan arc.
• Accidental Pervert: As a kid, he was completely unable to differentiate between males and females by sight, leading to several of these moments where he pats them by their privates. He once removed Bulma's panties, and is (comically) horrified that she doesn't have male parts. He also softly kicks Chi-Chi in the same area only for her to (understandably) push him off his Nimbus.
• The Ace: He learns techniques just by watching them once or twice, and becomes immune to them since he knows how to counter them. Goku eventually becomes the strongest man in the world, and surpasses all his masters. He's also able to defeat members of his race and kill seemingly invincible aliens and monsters.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • His tail is so sensitive to touch that grabbing it saps him of all his strength. He eventually manages to train himself out of that weakness, though. Eventually, he loses it forever, unless you count the events of GT.
  • He also doesn't have a good history as far as paralysis-inducing techniques (more specifically, the telekinetic kind) are concerned, allowing people like General Blue, Tien, and Frieza to nearly defeat him.
• Action Dad: Even after Goku becomes a father, threats still come to Earth (in fact, more of them), so he has to keep training to make sure he was powerful enough to stop it. Though, considering his Blood Knight tendencies, he'd have done so even if that wasn't the case.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • He suffers a mild case of this. Toei tends to portrayal Goku as more heroic than his manga counterpart. Goku is still a good person in all media, but Toriyama's version of the character is more recklessly fight-happy, self-centered, and prone to overconfidence. His level of childishness also varies. The English dub tends to downplay his immaturity and make him fun-loving while being somewhat dense and clueless, while Toei sometimes play up his childishness and naivety for comedy. The manga version of Goku can be childish and very laid-back, but is mostly serious. Super cut the difference by making him closer to Toriyama's version of the character by upping his selfishness and immaturity compared to Z. The English dub of Super tones down the immaturity, but makes him more self-centered.
  • The manga adaptation of Super has him solely dependent on fighting strong rather than smart. Manga!Goku has him solely reliant on raw power and new transformations to simply power through his opponent, most notably when he battles Jiren, rather than focus on different strategies and tactics like his anime counterpart did. Ironically, this brings him closer to Vegeta's Cell-Era personality.
  • Goku is less merciful towards his enemies in GT and the non-serial movies. Unlike his adult canon portrayal, Goku kills almost every villain he faces. This can be justified since Toei emphasizes Goku's heroic traits more, thus making him take his battles more seriously.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In the original manga and anime, his first attempt at the Kamehameha Wave only results in a small energy beam that's only strong enough to destroy Bulma's car. In The Path to Power, however, he attempts a Wave-Motion Gun that obliterates a good chunk of the Red Ribbon Army's armada.
  • Goku in general tends to be even more badass in the movies than he was in the original manga and anime. His Idiot Hero qualities are also downplayed quite a bit in the films. He's more of a serious fighter who will not go easy on the villains.
  • The movies give a lot of love to Super Saiyan 3 Goku with him soundly overpowering big Janemba in Fusion Reborn and saving the day with Dragon Fist in Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon. Sadly Dragon Fist despite being awesome has yet to be made canon.
  • The Super Saiyan God form gets this treatment in Dragon Ball Super. It's a weaker and slower but less stamina-consuming alternative for Super Saiyan Blue. The form never really pushes Beerus anywhere close to his full power, whereas in the movie, by comparison, Beerus used 70% of his power.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Zigzagged. Super ramps up his naivety and cluelessness, especially during fights. Even in the original manga, Goku displays his Awesomeness by Analysis and intelligence during fights when things get too serious. While he does show that once he focuses on something, Goku can tell how his opponents' techniques work, and knows how to counter them accordingly, such as Hit's Time Stands Still abilities.
  • When he arrives on Namek, Goku lectures Recoome and Jeice on the fact that they let their guard down at very inopportune moments. However, in Resurrection F, he goes down to a simple blaster shot after doing the exact same mistake.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Aside from his pride as a Saiyan and his desire to fight strong opponents, Goku has none of the negative traits associated with Sun Wukong (the original Son Goku) from Journey to the West. Sun Wukong was an absolute merciless Jerkass whereas Goku does try to spare his enemies rather than kill them as an adult than when he was a kid (with the exceptions of the Androids, Cell, and Majin Buu). The original Sun Wukong came to the banquet of the gods uninvited and repeatedly pissed them off unprovoked, whereas Goku only gained the ire of the Gods of Destruction and Creation (Supreme Kais) simply because he wanted to have a fighting tournament to face every opponent in each of the 12 universes and was perhaps a bit too chummy with Grand Zeno for their comfort.
  • Toriyama is on the record as saying that he feels the anime adaptation is this; originally, in the manga, he intended for Goku's Blood Knight tendencies to make him seem like a darker figure, describing him as someone who only incidentally did good things while seeking fights.
  • The early dubs of DBZ take this trait even further, changing Goku's dialogue to make him seem even more selfless than he really is. It's only until the release of Kai where his character more closely aligns with his manga counterpart.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Some interpretations make him smarter than the Book Dumb fight magnet he usually is, like how he properly uses the word resilient in GT when reasoning why his child body couldn't properly handle Super Saiyan 3.
• Adaptational Jerkass: To a massive extent in Super.
  • Goku in the anime is much more selfish and inconsiderate of other people's feelings. He hired Hit to kill him without for a second thinking about how this might affect his loved ones if the assassin succeeded, and never even thinks to apologize to his sons for the event. Not to mention the massive Lack of Empathy he shows towards the other universes in the Tournament Of Power Saga. The list honestly goes on and on...
  • Goku's treatment of his son is noticeably harsher in the Super manga if not borderline emotionally abusive. When Gohan is unable to partake in the Universe 6 Tournament, Goku outright calls him a "little shit". While in the anime, he was actually accepting of Gohan's decision.
  • A minor case in how he defeats Frieza the first time: In the manga, after Frieza backstabs him, and tried to kill him with the energy Goku gave him, he is visibly shaken and frowns to having to finish him. In the anime, he stares in contempt after the fact, and isn't as broken up.
  • In Battle of Gods, Goku arrogantly boasts about the power of his Super Saiyan 3 form to Beerus before getting thoroughly humiliated by the god of Destruction, which is very different to previous occasions showing him to be more respectful of his enemies and humble about his power. It's even more damning when a very similar scene happened when Goku was 14, where Mr. Popo and Kami showed him how dwarfed by their power he was after his defeat of King Piccolo got to his head, and the rest of the series showed him being humbled by this experience.
• Adaptational Species Change: Sun Wukong was a monkey born from a stone with various powers (which included his hair). Son Goku is an alien whose homeworld was destroyed by Frieza.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • Sun Wukong had various powers, such as the ability to shape-shift into 72 different forms, and his hair can change into anything. Goku, while being a Human Alien, could adapt to his opponents' abilities, and a Genius Bruiser that analyzes how his opponents fight. While his hair doesn't have any magical properties, he has the ability to transform into different forms, the first being his Oozaru form that required the use of his tail, and the second being various Super Saiyan forms.
  • The Super manga and anime handle Goku's abilities differently, in particular the Super Saiyan God and Blue transformations.
    • In the anime, they introduced Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken, which adds the multiplicative power of the Kaioken with its usual dangers, and the Super Saiyan God form doesn't appear after the Battle of Gods arc, with the implication that Goku either can't use it anymore, or chooses not to. Subverted however, when Goku breaks out Super Saiyan God several times in the Tournament of Power as his fastest form, even throwing in the God-to-Blue switch tactic against Dyspo, if only that one time.
    • In the manga, however, Goku more regularly uses the God form. Instead of using the Kaioken, Goku/Vegeta uses "Completed Super Saiyan Blue", which lets him use the form in full power, though with similar drawbacks to SSB Kaioken. Additionally, Goku uses a weaker version of Beerus' Hakai technique while he has yet to do so in the anime.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Goku doesn't have any magical abilities associated with Sun Wukong, nor does his hair. This is sidestepped with him being a powerful alien warrior with various transformations and ki-based attacks.
  • Not Goku, but his Ultra Instinct "Omen" transformation when battling Jiren for the first time. In the anime, he was able to momentarily hold his own against Jiren, managing to counter Jiren's hits for several minutes and even land a good hit on him before it gave out. In the manga, he could only dodge one punch from Jiren before it gave out.
• Adaptive Ability:
  • He is shown to gain immunity if a technique is used on him more than once since he knows how to counter them thanks to his supreme observation. This can best be seen in his battle against Cell where all of Cell's copied techniques have no effect on Goku since he'd seen them all before. In Super, when he has his rematch with Hit, he outright tells Hit that his Time-Skip won't work anymore. He later learns to counter Hit's invisible shockwaves after experiencing how they work.
  • Throughout his fight with Beerus, Goku's body adapts and evolves, going beyond godhood, to the point that he kept his god powers even after turning back to a normal Super Saiyan.
• Adorably Precocious Child: As a kid. By the age of 12, he was living by himself in the wilderness and traveling the world.
• Advertised Extra:
  • Bojack Unbound and Broly – Second Coming are pretty guilty with this. Goku is shown prominently on promotional posters for both movies but because he's dead, he has very minimal involvement. Bojack has Goku briefly teleport out of Other World to save Gohan from being killed by Bojack and give him encouragement to beat him. In Second Coming, he descends down and assists Gohan and Goten to defeat Broly. Even then, it's debatable if he actually was there or not.
  • In Wrath of the Dragon, Goku is front and center on the promotional poster while most of his screentime is only during the final fight. The movie focuses more on Gohan and Videl in the first half and Tapion and Trunks in the second half. While Goku does eventually kill Hildegarn, that makes him a Non-Protagonist Resolver. This is even more noticeable in the movie's Japanese name, "Dragon Ball Z: Dragon Fist Explosion!! If Gokū Can't Do It, Who Will?", clearly putting focus on Goku over anyone else.
  • In Super Hero he's on the cover alongside everyone else, and he was even among the first revealed characters, but he plays no role in the movie at all.
• Aesop Amnesia: If Resurrection 'F' is any indication, Goku still hasn't learned his lesson in the following:
  • Not giving murderous villains like Frieza a Last-Second Chance just so he can get a rematch and a better challenge. In Super, he spares Frieza again because he sees him as too pathetic to kill.
  • Giving super powerful villains a Senzu Bean for the sake of having a good fight. It's especially bad when you'd think he'd learn after literally dying from Cell's self-destruction only to give Moro (a villain even worse than Cell in terms of atrocities) the same kind of mercy he gave to the bio-android.
• Afraid of Needles: He can face certain death any day of the week, fight all manner of world-destroying supervillains, and laugh it off... and yet, when it comes to getting shots, he's a chicken.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: As a child, Goku got patted on the head by Master Roshi and his grandfather. He gives these affectionate gestures to Gohan, and later Goten and Pan. This seems to be his version of a hug since Goku rarely embraces his sons and granddaughter (with the exception of carrying them as children), but gives these quite openly and warmly.
• All-Loving Hero: Forgives enemies? Most story arcs involve this. He does not hold grudges period. Turns enemies into friends? This is how he makes friends. Once the fight is over, anyone, even last season's enemies, are affectionately embraced as friends if they can stop trying to kill him and his crew or take over the world long enough. Purehearted? He has a flying cloud to prove it.
  • Goku himself explains this even further to Merus, saying that the reason he spares villains is because he values their lives and that should they rise up again, he'd fight them as many times as he'd have to and expresses hope that during those repeated battles, they would finally have a change of heart and redeem themselves.
  • This aspect of his personality is heightened in the early English dubs, particularly in the scene where he lets Vegeta go.
  • One of the biggest (if not the biggest) misconceptions about Goku's character actually comes from the sub purists: the claim that this part of Goku's character was made up for the dub and was never there in the manga (which is absolutely not true in reality. Goku was already this trope even without the dub add-ons, making any Adaptational Heroism a very Downplayed Trope.)
• All Your Powers Combined: His signature technique, the Spirit Bomb, is an energy attack that combines the life energy of every living creature on a planet and even beyond into one big ball. In GT, he gathers energy from across the universe. He also becomes a Super Saiyan God by absorbing the energy of his sons, unborn grandchild, his rival, and his rival's son.
• Almighty Janitor: He'd merely be a lowly soldier if he was raised a Saiyan. That said, he becomes one of the most powerful beings in the universe (even becoming a Physical God as of Battle of Gods). For the people of Earth, he is this as well. Outside of the martial arts community and other circles, the general public doesn't know who he is. In Super, when Mr. Satan attempts to get Goku to fight an alien in front of bunch of regular people, everyone, including the aliens, are dismissive towards him because he looks like a country bumpkin. It didn't help that Goku was wearing his farmer's outfit at the time, making him an Almighty Farmer.
• Alternate Identity Amnesia: Goku has no memory of his time as a Great Ape. It's not until he sees Vegeta transform that he realizes that he's the monster who killed his grandfather.
• Always Late: Goku has a bad habit of only being able to reach the battlefield in time to save his friends from being utterly annihilated.
• Always Second Best: Mr. Popo spells this out to Goku during their first meeting, calling Goku out for thinking he's the greatest in the world after defeating King Piccolo. As he puts it, no matter how strong Goku becomes, there will always be someone stronger than him. Beings like Perfect Cell, Beerus, Whis, Jiren, and Broly would go on to prove Popo right.
• Always Someone Better: Goku has this dynamic with all of his friends. During his childhood and teen years, he serves as the 'someone better' to Yamcha, Krillin, Tien, and even Piccolo. As an adult, this gets reversed on Goku where he is the underdog compared to the other Saiyans, especially Vegeta, since they lived on planets with higher gravity and believed Goku would never catch up no matter how hard he tried on Earth. Once he reaches Namek, he becomes the 'always someone better' to Vegeta for the rest of the series.
• Amazon Chaser: Despite Chi-Chi being harsh and sometimes overbearing on him, Goku likes her this way. Vegeta lampshades that weak women are not suited for a Saiyan.
• Ambiguously Human: Before Goku was revealed to be a Saiyan, no one was sure if he was human or not. He looked like a normal human, except he had a tail, and had superhuman strength and the ability to turn into a giant ape. He himself lampshades this during his fight with King Piccolo, who's in shock that a human is dominating him in a fight:
  Goku: I have a tail, y'know. Maybe I'm not human after all.
• Ambiguous Situation: Goku tells Piccolo he could have most likely defeated Buu in his Super Saiyan 3 form, but whether this was true causes some serious doubt for a few reasons. Mainly, his first bout against Buu is largely Buu simply playing around and taking the fight much less seriously than Goku, and yet the two seemed to be about even. Secondly, the stamina drain of Super Saiyan 3 affects him greatly in a fight much more than he anticipated and seeing how a full powered fight between them both would have prolonged things— it causes major doubt on whether or not Goku would win.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: In Japanese, Goku (no matter his age) is portrayed as a highly goofy, Book Dumb hero voiced by Masako Nozawa speaking in a young boy's voice and affecting a Simpleton Voice accent, with his Dragon Ball incarnation forming the basis of his character. In English dubs, Goku's adult DBZ incarnation is the basis of his character, and adult Goku is always voiced by adult men speaking with a standard American accent. Earlier dubs portrayed Goku as more of a serious superhero, but he retained his male voice actors even as later dubs would skew more faithful to the Japanese and play up the silly side of his personality.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: From all the adventures the main characters had in the first series, everyone thought that our main hero Goku was just a human with ridiculous strength, a monkey tail, and the ability to turn into a giant ape. Just a coincidence, right? Wrong! In Z, Goku's long-lost brother, Raditz, shows up from outer space to reveal that he isn't human, but instead an alien from a ruthless warrior race sent to destroy every life on Earth. Raditz tries to convince him of this by kidnapping his only son and demanding Goku pile up 100 dead Earthling, but it doesn't fly because Goku got his amnesia as an infant and thus doesn't remember his prior wilder side in the first place. He ended up despising his own race so much that, during the final battle on Namek when Frieza calls him a hypocrite for being mad about him murdering Krillin when the Saiyans were an entire race of murderers. Goku's only response was:
  Goku: They paid for their mistakes.
• Amnesiac Villain Joins the Heroes: Before the series began, according to Roshi, Goku was an Enfant Terrible hellbent on destroying all life until he hit his head on a rock and lost many of his Saiyan traits (Blood Knight tendencies notwithstanding).
• Anchored Teleportation: Goku's Instant Transmission technique works by focusing on another individual's ki signature and teleporting to their location.
• Angrish:
  • After Frieza murders Krillin before his eyes, Goku becomes so stricken with anger and grief that he can barely form a sentence.
  • In Super, when he's told by Goku Black and Future Zamasu that Black murdered an alternate version of Goten and Chi-Chi after taking his body and killing him with it in front of his family, Goku is so angry that he can barely talk and can only say how pissed off he is before beating the shit out of both of them.
• And This Is for...: When he fights Nappa, he does this for all of his friends whom Nappa killed.
• Angst? What Angst?: In-Universe
  • Bulma asks Goku how he can be so happy when he tells her that he was abandoned in the woods, his grandfather died, and he was left alone for several years.
  • While everyone else is worried about the Cell Games and the possible end of the world, Goku is very chilled and chooses to spend his time hanging out with his family instead of training. This, naturally, has everyone worried.
  • Beerus continuously lays into Goku for his willy-nilly attitude towards the universe's possibility of being erased if they lose the Tournament of Power. He orders Goku to panic or emote something other than excitement.
• Animal Battle Aura: His aura sometimes takes the form of a Great Ape, like the punch he uses to kill King Piccolo. The canon questionable Dragon Fist takes the shape of a giant golden dragon.
• Animal Motifs: Although all Saiyans have the monkey motif, Goku embodies it the best. As a child, he would sometimes mimic a monkey's movements like running on all fours, swinging from trees, and grabbing objects with his feet. He also has the monkey's playful and mischievous nature, but can become quite violent when enraged.
• Animal-Themed Fighting Style: In Jackie Chun and Goku's 21st World Martial Arts Tournament match, Jackie uses Drunken Boxing to surprise and confuse Goku. Goku responds with his "Mad Dog" and "Crazy Monkey" techniques which have him imitate a wild dog and monkey respectively to catch him off guard.
• Anime Hair: A big mane of spiky black hair that even manages to maintain its shape underwater. In the Piccolo Jr. Saga, he even used his hair as a Distinguishing Mark to his friends.
  Goku: Now do you recognize me? Who else but me has hair like this?
  • Typically in video game media, characters familiar with Goku who encounter one of the Saiyans with the same hairstyle (Bardock, Goten or Turles) will comment on it, indicating that the hairstyle indeed is how they identify him.
• Anti-Hero: Goku in the early series was originally supposed to be a selfish hero who only grew stronger to fight strong people rather than to protect others. Some of his more heroic qualities were heightened in the Dragon Ball Z anime adaptation and he slowly became more of an Ideal Hero as the manga went on. It's only his Blood Knight tendencies that can override his common sense and make him even remotely close to being an anti-hero.
• Anti-Anti-Christ: As revealed in the Saiyan Saga of Z (before Dragon Ball Minus revisioned it), he was sent to Earth as a baby to prepare it for the Saiyans' invasion. One instance of blunt-force trauma later, and he becomes the good natured, if somewhat dim-witted, Blood Knight that we know.
• Arch-Enemy: While Goku is the poster boy for pulling Defeat Means Friendship on his former foes, there have been several villains who have earned him overwhelming hatred.
  • King Piccolo. His act of murdering Krillin drove Goku into an unstoppable rage that the boy had never ever felt in his life before. This was one of the few times Goku was driven to stop a villain by any means necessary, and never took any thrill from his fight against the Demon King. While King Piccolo's son, Piccolo Jr. initially inherited the title, his begrudging respect that he and Goku held towards one another and the fact that he was far less evil than his father, made it so that this dynamic dropped and switched to being The Rival and later friend.
  • Frieza would be the No. 1 contender for this title, where Goku would never end up hating anyone as much before or since. Much like King Piccolo, Frieza murdered Krillin in cold blood (along with attempting to kill Piccolo and Gohan, while also killing Vegeta), which once again drove Goku into an unstoppable rage that pushed him into turning into a Super Saiyan for the first time. The feeling would be very mutual on Frieza's side, coming to resent the Saiyan for daring to defeat him. Their hatred for one another would last for years, with even death not being able to keep each other apart. Frieza would return again and again to take another opportunity to take revenge on Goku.
  • Zamasu/Goku Black. The one person able to draw out a level of hatred from Goku to the same level as Frieza. What cemented Goku's hatred was Goku Black revealing that after stealing Goku's body, Black proceeded to kill Goku followed by Goku's family Chi-Chi and Goten. Zamasu/Goku Black become one enemy who Goku could never ever forgive and his fight with the Mad God dropped all thrill seeking and became deadly serious.
• Artistic License – Sports: Him training with weighted clothing is based off a real life concept called Hypergravity Training, which involves doing basic Calisthenics while wearing extra weight. That said, real life weighted clothing can't be anywhere near as compact as his shirt, wristbands, and boots, and you can't wear them as commonly as sneakers (it's best to just wear them during actual training, instead of like street clothes, else your center of gravity will be altered).
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: At the end of GT, he fuses with the dragon Shenron and the seven Dragon Balls to leave Earth, though he makes a visit 100 years later.
• Asleep for Days: During the Cell Saga. Even with the medicine Trunks gave him for the heart virus, Goku is nonetheless asleep for ten days.
• Assassin Outclassin':
  • The Red Ribbon Army hires Mercenary Tao to take him out and steal his Dragon Balls. Goku survives the first fight, and later beats Tao in a rematch.
  • He did this again in Super when Hit is hired to kill him; he is temporarily put down, but manages to restart his own heart with a well-timed ki blast and return to beat Hit up. It's eventually revealed that the crazy bastard hired Hit himself so he can fight him at his absolute strongest, making this an Invoked Trope.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Beerus names Goku captain of the U7 team for the Tournament of Power purely based on Goku being the strongest mortal fighter in his universe. Vegeta is not happy about that. However, Goku relents this title to Gohan, although Goku is still stronger than him.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • As a kid, the Kamehameha fell into this. It greatly drained Goku's stamina and became progressively weaker every time he used it within a short time span. As a kid, he often uses it as his ace in the hole or as a desperate attack. It is not until he becomes a teenager that he can use it without any ill effect.
  • The Spirit Bomb. It takes a long time to power up and can cause serious damage if not used correctly. Goku once refused to use it because he thought it couldn't even kill his opponent, Kid Buu.
  • The reason why Goku never uses his Ultra Super Saiyan form. After demonstrating it to Gohan, he quickly sees the Fatal Flaw in the form. It's too slow and power is pointless if you can't even hit your opponent.
  • The Super Saiyan 3 form, while giving him immense amounts of power unmatched by any other forms, gives him a very strict time limit on how long he can stretch out a fight before he's drained of all his strength. The strain the form has on his body is so heavy it's not even really meant to be used outside of the afterlife.
  • The Super Kaioken is the fusion of Super Saiyan Blue and the old Kaio-ken. Since it is an incomplete technique, the power jump only lasts a few minutes and can kill Goku if performed incorrectly. However, as of the Universal Survival Saga, Goku has shown greater mastery of the technique.
  • The manga version of Super Saiyan Blue is more powerful than its anime counterpart but comes at the cost of being a major energy drain. You lose 90% of your power if you transform too many times and its full power can only be maintained for a short time. Goku fortunately finds workarounds for these in time for his final fight with Fused Zamasu in the form of Completed Super Saiyan Blue.
  • Ultra Instinct. It allows the body to react on its own without wasting time for neural impulses to travel from the brain to the muscles. However, it also drains Goku’s energy and the mastered version causes severe damage to his body and he's completely incapable of accessing it of his own free will until he finds the needed trigger for it when fighting Moro, which turns out to be opposite to what causes a Super Saiyan transformation to come out^{What this means}Goku is told by Merus he needs to remain calm in face of a jarring shock to his emotions. From then on, Mastered Ultra Instinct is stated to require Goku to be perfectly calm when using the transformation..
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Learns the Kamehameha by watching it used once along with the After Image Technique (he manages to improve upon it after seeing it used a second time with a double), Solar Flare, and King Chapa's Hasshu-ken (Eight-Arm Fist). Somewhere along the way, he also copies Krillin's Destructo Disc. In Super, he learns how to counter Hit's Time-Leaping ability by learning Hit's movements for the next 0.1 seconds.
  • On the flip side, Goku is also an expert at analyzing the battle strategies of his opponents and figuring out logical weaknesses and openings. This is most visible in his fights with Frieza, who's about equal to him in terms of power but never bothered to develop the same understanding of combat that Goku has.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite Goku being clueless about love and affection in general, he does have feelings towards his wife. He even tells Vegeta that he likes Chi-Chi for being headstrong. In the anime version of Z, after getting over his illness, he happily swings Chi-Chi around to show that he's well and hugs her after coming back to life at the end of the Buu Saga. In Super, when he's sick with Delayed Onset Ki Syndrome, he didn't want to tell Chi-Chi about his illness because he didn't want her to worry. And when Goku Black brags about murdering his family, he loses it and attacks both Black and Future Zamasu.

B

• The Baby of the Bunch: Of the original core group, Goku is the youngest and least mature. He's babied to the extent that Bulma worries about him the most. He's still the strongest and most competent of the bunch in terms of fighting.
• Backup from Otherworld:
  • After giving his life to stop Cell from blowing up the Earth, Gohan and the others lose hope after Cell returns stronger than ever, kills Trunks, mortally wounds Vegeta, and breaks Gohan's arm. None of them put up any resistance when Cell declares that he's going to blow up the solar system. Then, Goku uses King Kai to speak to Gohan from the Otherworld to encourage, comfort, and restores his son's faith in himself. He spends the entire Beam-O-War with Gohan, mentally guiding him to victory to the point that his spirit appears alongside Gohan during his final showdown with Cell.
  • In Bojack Unbound, Goku teleports himself out of the Otherworld for an instant and kicks Bojack in the head to save Gohan and give him words of encouragement before leaving again.
• Back to Base Form: Despite the many transformations he gains, some of them fail to defeat his opponent, but somehow Goku was able to fight without them or with just his regular Super Saiyan transformation with special mention going to Super Saiyan 3 and Ultra Instinct who both failed at defeating the Final Boss of the arcs they were introduced in due to being too taxing on his stamina.
• Badass Adorable: Throughout his childhood. Even after growing into an adult, he remains an endearingly innocent and kind-hearted boy in the body of a grandfather by the end of it. This is reinforced in the anime where he perpetually keeps the voice and mannerisms of his child self (in the Japanese original), and isn't completely lost in dubbed versions where adult Goku is voiced by a man.
• Badass Boast:
  • In response to Jeice and Burter claiming to be Goku's worst nightmare, his simple but blunt reply is, "I'm not scared of dreams".
  • In Super, after learning that in another timeline, Goku Black murdered his family in cold blood after stealing his body with the Super Dragon Balls, Goku loses it and pounds on Goku Black. When Future Zamasu tries to intervene, Goku beats him up too while screaming this at him:
    HERE'S WHAT I THINK OF YOUR IMMORTALITY!!!
• Badass in Distress:
  • Subverted near the end of the Red Ribbon Army Saga. Goku's friends thought he was in distress since he was attacking the Red Ribbon Army's base head on and rushed to help him. By the time they arrived, Goku already took care of the entire army without taking any real injuries.
  • When Goku comes down with his heart virus, he is helpless against Android 19 who beats the mess out of him and begins to drain his energy. Goku's friends rush to save him, but are blocked by Android 20. He is eventually rescued by Vegeta, who scolds him for fighting when he was sick. Until he's well, his friends have to protect him from the androids.
• Balloon Belly: Occasionally after eating a big meal such as when he ate a massive dinner bought from Master Roshi's prize money from the tournament.
• Barbarian Longhair: As a Super Saiyan 3, his hair becomes longer than his brother's.
• Bash Brothers:
  • During the Tournament of Power, he and Vegeta, after breaking their limits and getting power-ups, finally decide to do this rather than take turns and double-team Jiren; Whis notes that their coordination isn't perfect, but this actually works to their advantage by confusing Jiren and throwing him off.
  • They are also this in the Non-Serial Movie, The Return of Cooler, fighting off against a whole army of Meta-Coolers!
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Though it was claimed way back during the Namek Saga that Goku couldn't breathe in space, in Battle of Gods, he fights Beerus in orbit above the Earth with no protection without any problems, most likely because of his newfound godhood.
• Batman Gambit: Goku, of all characters, manages to pull one off against Cell in the climax of the Android Saga. When he finds out that his son is indeed stronger than him, and still had extra reserves of power, he sets up a situation so Gohan will unleash that power against Cell. He volunteers to fight Cell first and gives it everything he has before he gives up, and then lets Gohan fight against him after he manages to study both Goku and Cell's fighting styles. Goku expects Cell to push Gohan to his limits so he'll unleashed his hidden power, which is exactly what Cell does and Gohan becomes the first ever Super Saiyan 2 in the series and proceeds to hand Cell his own ass on a platter. The only thing Goku didn't expect was that Gohan would get cocky and not finish Cell off immediately, or that Cell would blow himself up when he knew he was going to lose.
• Bearer of Bad News: Is the one to inform everyone that Gohan and Vegeta were killed by Buu.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He wanted a multiverse tournament with all twelve universes despite Beerus and Whis warning him that reminding Zeno of the tournament wasn't a good idea given how unpredictable Zeno is. He gets his wish and the entire multiverse is threatened with destruction, including his own universe if they lose the tournament.
• Being Good Sucks:
  • While Goku is usually the paragon for Good Feels Good, he does have a moment like this after Frieza is defeated. He really, really, wants to leave Frieza to die after he's cut to pieces on his own energy disc, but Goku's morality won't allow him to ignore a call for help, even from an evil monster like Frieza. He eventually gives in to his conscience and gives Frieza enough energy to escape the exploding planet. For several minutes afterwards, Goku is noticeably glum, as if asking himself why he saved Frieza, while Frieza spends that time mocking him for his mercy before trying to stab him in the back.
  • He has another moment near the end of the Buu Saga. After Kid Buu unleashed an energy ball powerful enough to destroy the Earth several times over, Goku and Vegeta rushes to Gohan, Goten, Trunks, and Piccolo, who are still unconscious after being absorbed by Buu, to teleport them off the planet. On his way, Goku sees Mr. Satan and Dende. On instinct, he grabs them and wasted too much time to save his sons and have to be saved by the Supreme Kai. Vegeta chews him out for saving them instead of their children, and Goku has nothing to say for himself.
• Berserk Button:
  • It didn't happen often, but when he was a child, calling Goku weak caused him to lose his cool. This is seen when King Piccolo disregards his power, which made Goku charge him and knocked Piccolo on his butt. Another example is when Mr. Popo mockingly calls Goku weak and wonders if he actually beat Piccolo just to rile him up. He becomes noticeably careless and reckless when this button is pressed, but thankfully gets over it after training with Kami.
  • Utterly one-sided "fights" that devolve into Cold-Blooded Torture really push his buttons, both as a hero and as an honorable warrior. This is a big reason why he's such a black sheep among his species and has such a distaste of them in the Saiyan arc: he sees them as murderers and thugs who target and slaughter weaker people who cannot possibly defend themselves, rather than warriors who fight for honorable sport or a true challenge and test of their skills as fighters. He even objects to Freeza killing a wounded Vegeta, despite 100% agreeing he deserves death, simply because Vegeta was harmless at that point.
    Goku: Hey! Vegeta could barely even move, let alone defend himself! There was no need to kill him!^note Viz manga translation
• The Berserker:
  • After rampaging as a Golden Great Ape, Goku transforms into a Super Saiyan 4 and his attitude when fighting has completely changed-he is more ferocious and fights in an animalistic style, as shown by the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown he inflicts on Baby.
  • Also in Dragon Ball Heroes, Goku reached a form called Super Saiyan Berserk where he is corrupted by the dark energy of Cumber/Kanba.
• Best Friends-in-Law: He and Mr. Satan become good friends following the Buu saga, and are in-laws after their children get married.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Goku is a very easy-going and kind person who tries to be polite and friendly to everyone, but you do not want to piss him off. Frieza found that out the hard way.
  • When he was a kid, Goku was far less forgiving towards his enemies. He kills almost anyone who harms his friends and chased foes who were retreating.
  • This is best seen against Frieza where Goku not only physically beats the tyrant within an inch of his life, but breaks him mentally by shattering his pride and then sparing him so he can suffer with the knowledge of losing to a lower being. The psychological damage he inflicted on Frieza left him permanently scarred to the point that he has waking nightmares about Goku, even as he suffers in Hell.
  • His fit of rage against Goku Black and Zamasu in the future is another moment where this side of him can be seen at its fullest. Goku goes utterly mental after they both rub in his face that they slaughtered his family for kicks, and are briefly forced back as Goku proceeds to beat them savagely.
  • Similarly, when Jiren -disgusted with the notion of The Power of Friendship- attempts to attack and kill Team Universe 7's members and spectators in the stands, Goku goes ballistic with rage and brutally and quickly beats Jiren into the ground so badly the Pride Trooper momentarily concedes and readies himself for defeat.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Because of how naive and childish he was, he had no problem playing hide-and-seek with his enemies, choosing to eat over fight, or just act like a goofball in the middle of a battle. Despite this, he still kicked his opponent's butts and let's not get started on what happens when he is serious. This is Downplayed when he is an adult since most of his silly moments happens outside the battlefield. When he fights, he usually drops all the silliness.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • It was originally believed to be impossible to combine Super Saiyan and with the Kaio-Ken since the Kaio-Ken puts a lot of stress on the body and a regular Super Saiyan is stressful enough.^note For the record, this was only depicted once in Dragon Ball Z—during a filler tournament in which Goku had the advantage of his body already being dead. Goku not only makes the combination work^note in what can be safely be considered canon, he did it with Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan since the form requires a peaceful mind and near perfect energy control to use. Said form is so powerful and fast it goes beyond the impossible again by allowing Goku to outpace Hit while Hit has time frozen.
  • Goku does it again when he acquires Ultra Instinct, a legendary state only spoken about among the Gods. When he masters the form, all of the Gods stand up in respect at the state. Moreover, in the next episode, Goku competes with and soundly defeats Jiren, a being so powerful and skilled he defeated his universe's God of Destruction Belmod. That said, this is downplayed as Goku only mastered the state in the sense of using it once in it, he literally can't do it at will and it's a Defense Mechanism Superpower.
• Big Damn Heroes: Is an absolute pro at this. Whenever things look like they’re at its most grim, Goku will usually appear out of nowhere and save the day (or least give the heroes a fighting chance). He saves Krillin seconds before Blue would have crushed his head in with a rock and he stops Drum from killing Tien after he arrives to fight King Piccolo. In Z, he arrives just in time to save Gohan from Nappa, arrives on Namek minutes before everyone is killed by the Ginyu Force, and recovers a little before Frieza can give Vegeta the killing blow (although Vegeta gets killed anyway since he mouths off to Frieza). In the Cell Saga, he rescues Tien and Piccolo after they are both get mortally wounded by Cell and in the Buu Saga, he teleports within seconds of Kid Buu blowing up the Earth. It got to the point that Goku's friends lampshade this tendency of his.
• Big Eater: A Running Gag with him. Most infamously, after coming in second during the first World Martial Arts Tournament, Master Roshi (the winner), decided to cheer him up by treating everyone to a big dinner. Goku's bill wound up costing Roshi all the prize money, and he would've eaten more if the restaurant hadn't run out of food! As it turns out, all Saiyans are like this. Vegeta and Gohan can eat just as much to the awe of the humans, Namekians, and gods they hang out with. In Super, we see him with a pile of plates and bowls large enough to feed at least ten people, and Chi-Chi is worried because this is less than half of what he usually eats.
• Big Good:
  • Takes this role in the Cell Saga and parts of the Buu Saga. He tells the others about the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, trains Gohan to surpass him, chooses a new Guardian of the Earth to revive the Dragon Balls, and spiritually guides Gohan after he is killed. After being revived for a day, he chooses to teach Goten and Trunks the Fusion Dance instead of killing Majin Buu himself, saying that it isn't his place to interfere with the living. He is also the one to finally kill Buu after collecting energy from everyone on Earth.
  • After being absent from this role in Super, Goku become the Big Good for the Universal Survival Saga. Although it was Goku's selfish desires that prompted Zeno to create the Tournament of Power that ends with the losing universe being destroyed, he indirectly saves at least one universe since Zeno was planning to destroy the eight lowest ranking universes and winning the tournament means that an originally doomed universe would be spared. He's also the captain of the U7 team, before he gives that honor to Gohan, and personally picks the team members and recruits them. He's so efficient at it that U7 is one of the few universes to have a complete team with time spare, at least until Buu falls asleep again.
• The Big Guy: When he's not in a leadership or main character role, he becomes this since he is one of the most powerful beings in the universe and is considered the 'heavy hitter' alongside Vegeta among his group of friends.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Goku is a Saiyan who are Human Aliens who are insanely aggressive and love to fight, have tails, can transform into giant apes in the light of the full moon if they still have their tails, and can transform into Super Saiyans that changes their hair and eye colors while also greatly increasing their strength and speed. If they are pushed close to death and recover, they increase their strength. Despite this, they can interbreed with humans, creating even more powerful hybrids. In Goku's case specifically, he has an enhance sense of smell, hearing, and sight.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep: Downplayed. After Freeza backstabs him, he counters by blasting him with a powerful energy. After it seems he killed Freeza, Goku's hand is visibly shaking, and we get a close-up of his conflicted and almost sorrowful expression.
• Blood Knight: The extremely rare unambiguously heroic version. He lives for the thrill of the fight and is always looking for stronger opponents to battle. During Goku and Chi-Chi's first "date", when Chi-Chi explains that "the boy is supposed to think of the most pleasurable thing to do and then try to coax the girl into doing it with him", naturally Goku's response was to start fighting with her. Even when he's on the brink of death, he's always having fun, and seemingly insurmountable odds only EXCITE HIM MORE. He also only fights opponents who are willing (most of the villains), and only kills as a last resort. This was also his primary motive in sparing Vegeta's life at the end of the Saiyan Saga in the manga, original anime, and Kai dub, which he even admits was selfish. He also expresses a wish (later granted by Yemma) to see Majin Buu reincarnated as a good guy just so he can fight him again. In Super, he went so far as to put a hit on himself so Hit, the legendary assassin of U6, will come to use his full power to fight him since he wasn't allowed to use his killing techniques at the tournament.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • As a Saiyan, it's in his blood to love fighting and combat, which has caused him to make poor decisions. Sparing Vegeta's life after their battle so he can fight him again, sending his son to fight Cell, and even giving a Senzu Bean to Cell so that Gohan gets a fair match against him. In Battle Of Gods, when Goku's morality is questioned because of his love of fighting, Master Roshi calls Goku kind-hearted but questions his righteousness. At the same time, he doesn't go looking for these kinds of situations, and is content to live a quiet life in the countryside, albeit one involving a lot of physical training. He seems to be aware that these situations find him, though.
  • In fact, it actually goes both ways. Most Saiyans native to Universe 7 are Chaotic Evil Blood Knights that can be incredibly cruel in their desires for combat. Compared to that, he's practically a saint (since, no matter how much of a Blood Knight he can be, he still harbors compassion for those close to him).
• Blue Is Heroic: Although he's usually represented by the color red or orange, his signature techniques, the Kamehameha and Spirit Bomb, are blue, and his wristbands, belt, and undershirt are colored blue as well. There is also his Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan that turns his aura, hair, and eyes blue.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He loves to fight more than anything, is somewhat rude without meaning to, is not the brightest person in the world because he lacks a formal education, and grows up to have a bodybuilder's build. He is also one of the most fun-loving, friendly, and happiest people in the series. As a child, he was even more this trope since he had no problem beating up people weaker than him with a huge grin on his face. He only mellowed after training with Kami.
• Book Dumb: He grew up without a formal education, aside from learning basic reading and math while training with Master Roshi for a year. Before that, he thought 14, not 12, came after 11, and afterwards it's revealed during his fight with Ninja Murasaki that he still can't count past 25. Even as an adult, he still comes off as an idiot, even before factoring in the English dub making him sound reasonably smarter (it doesn't help that in the original dub, he speaks like a Japanese hick). As an adult, though he still can be naive and a little too willing to trust others, what keeps him from being an Idiot Hero is that he can show surprising wisdom, and it's clear that his intelligence is focused on combat. When it comes to fighting, he's a genius, able to point to pick up on the strengths and the flaws of various techniques, outthink his opponents with good strategies, and he can learn and invent new techniques with relative ease.
• Book Ends: As far as non-ape transformations he gains before becoming a Physical God, his last (Super Saiyan God) most closely resembles Kaio-Ken (his first). If you put the ape into account, this also works for GT Goku, as Super Saiyan 4 is more ape-like than other Super Saiyan forms (and requires control of a golden ape before it can be attained).
• Boring, but Practical: In one of Toriyama's interviews, he says that after Goku's battle against Beerus, he reached the conclusion that it is overall better to just train his base and Super Saiyan forms to become stronger instead of relying on transformations since Super Saiyan 2 and 3 are little more than extensions to the normal Super Saiyan form that ultimately drains more energy in the long run. In Super, the transformations Goku uses regularly are his Super Saiyan form and his Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan form, which is just Super Saiyan merged with godly energy. He does use Super Saiyan 2 and even goes Super Saiyan 3 to showoff to Future Trunks, but Super Saiyan 2 is treated as an in-between transformation that Goku uses when he wants to test opponents who surpass him as a regular Super Saiyan.
• Born Winner:
  • He can learn and become immune to techniques after seeing them a few times, and is born with almost unlimited fighting potential that allows him to surpass even the Saiyan Prince, who is said to be the greatest Saiyan ever born - the key word there being potential. By Super, he is the strongest mortal in Universe 7 and is equal to Hit, the strongest mortal in Universe 6.
  • According to Toriyama, a Saiyan's ease of going Super (as well as their natural fighting prowess in general) is because of how many of the Saiyan-exclusive S-Cells comprise of their genetic makeup. Goku just so happened to gain a pretty good amount of S-Cells from Bardock and Gine, and that's part of why he's the first Super Saiyan in millennia.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Most of his arguments with Chi-Chi regarding Gohan's education and training. While Chi-Chi is right that Gohan should have a life outside of fighting, Goku is also right that someone needs to watch over the world in case something happens to Goku.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: In the anime, Goku lived for some amount of time with a colony of monkeys. The reason for this was because they used their tails for almost everything they do, and Goku's tail was his biggest weakness. By the time he returned to his friends, he was just as strong with his tail as with the rest of his body.
• Break Them by Talking: His battle against Frieza after he becomes a Super Saiyan is half Roaring Rampage of Revenge and half this, surprisingly enough. He trash-talks Frieza during the whole battle, mocking his strength all the time, something that is definitely not usual for him at all. And the final blow which he intended to end the battle with is a deliberate, armor-piercing "The Reason You Suck" Speech to utterly obliterate Frieza's pride. Even when compared to all the physical punishment he receives during the fight, for Frieza, that speech is probably the absolute worst part of the Humiliation Conga. And that's exactly what Goku is going for, since he understands that destroying Frieza's ego is a more fitting punishment than just killing him.
  Goku: The fact is, I don't see the point in fighting you any more. Your pride is already shot, and in the end I guess that's good enough for me. You were so sure of your own power that you never imagined anyone in the universe could bring you down...especially a Saiyan. Heh. Now you know what failure feels like. See, I don't need to keep fighting you because I've already won. So go crawl off someplace and hide; I don't really care.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: If it doesn't relate to fighting or getting stronger, Goku has no interest in it. A lot of arguments with Chi-Chi, if it's not about Gohan studying or fighting, is about him not getting a job and supporting his family, despite having the skill sets to do many jobs even with his lack of formal education. After coming back to life the second time, Chi-Chi finally manages to get him to work as a farmer. Even then, Goten asks why he doesn't do what Mr. Satan does and gets paid for fighting. Goku dismisses the idea, saying he likes the farmer job since he can ditch it at any time to train.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu:
  • With Piccolo's help, he manages to defeat his brother and save Gohan. It cost Goku his life and he learns that two more powerful Saiyans are coming to Earth to search for the Dragon Balls.
• Brought Down to Badass:
  • For the interim between the Champa Saga and the next arc, Goku is afflicted with Latent Ki Disorder as a result of using Kaioken x10 with Super Saiyan Blue, severely bottlenecking his power.
  • A similar situation occurs in GT; having been reverted to a child by the Black Star Dragon Balls, several of Goku's abilities are affected by his less developed form; he can't maintain Super Saiyan 3 for very long, and unless he goes Super Saiyan 4, he can't even use Instant Transmission properly. Nevertheless, he's still a powerful fighter and able to hold his own against the worst villains the universe has to offer, best shown in the Super 17 Saga, where he's able to effortlessly overpower both Frieza and Cell at once without even going Super Saiyan.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: One of his defining characteristics. His friends often comment on how he can be so powerful, yet also so gentle. This also sticks out since he is an unapologetic Blood Knight.
• Brutal Honesty: Goku is subtle about nothing. If anyone asks his opinion on something, he'll bluntly tell them what he thinks. He tells Piccolo that he stands no chance against Perfect Cell after he trained in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber for a year and he does it again when Piccolo asks if he stood a chance against Frost during the Universal Tournament. When cornered by Goku Black and Future Zamasu, Goku basically tells Future Trunks that they have no real chance of winning and the best they can hope for is to live long enough to come up with a plan. He's worse as a kid since he spoke his mind even when he wasn't asked, like repeatedly telling Bulma that she's weak and not a good person.
• Bully Hunter: One of the types of people Goku dislikes the most are those who intentionally abuse their power. When Krillin is put down by his former temple classmates for being a weakling, Goku tells Krillin to go all out when he fights them, when before, he tells Krillin to hold back to keep from hurting people. He also despise the Saiyans for being Space Pirates who commit genocide and wants nothing to do with his own race. Although Goku doesn't grow stronger necessarily to protect others, he does believe that being powerful gives you certain responsibilities, like not terrorizing those weaker than you (both Son Gohan and Roshi emphasized this lesson to him). Note that he extends this courtesy even to very evil people; he has no problem killing threats, but he absolutely cannot stand beating on opponents who can't defend themselves, seeing it as both cruel and pointless. When Frieza kills Vegeta, Goku agrees that he and the rest of the Saiyans deserved to die, but still yells at Frieza for torturing and impaling a then-harmless opponent. And even at his absolute angriest, against Frieza on Namek, he stops the beating when Frieza ceases to be able to put up a fight and even tries to spare him before Frieza forces his hand (contrast Gohan vs Cell).
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • After Goku brings down Muscle Tower, the Red Ribbon Army knows precisely how powerful he is. It didn't stop them from sending troops and their generals to kill him. It all comes to a head after they hire Mercenary Tao to kill him. Tao killed one of Goku's friends. In turn, Goku went after all the Dragon Balls and takes out the Red Ribbon while he's at it.
  • Despite knowing that he is no longer a match against Goku, Frieza still attacks him. First with an energy disc that's inspired by the person he brutally murdered, which sent Goku into his Unstoppable Rage to begin with. Then, Frieza tries to shoot Goku in the back after he gives him some of his energy to escape the exploding Namek. Goku loses his temper and fries him. Even with all of that, Frieza is ready for another round after being rebuild into a cyborg. He ends up dying after bullying another dragon.
  • In Resurrection 'F', Frieza's men see Frieza taking on the Super Saiyan again as this. Tagoma tells Frieza point-blank to leave Goku alone. He didn't live very long after speaking up. In the Super storyline based on the movie, Tagoma manages to survive, but is tortured to insanity by Frieza for four months.
• Burning with Anger: When he's forced onto a platform floating below the Tournament of Power's arena, and Jiren bombards him with burning ki punches, Goku holds off the assault with his own punches and gradually switches to offense until one of his own land. After this, he lets out a massive roar and releases all of his ki at once - this forms a galaxy of ki as large as the arena itself, which releases steam due to its own intense heat.
• But Now I Must Go: He pulls this more than a few times. In his childhood, he leaves his friends several times to either train, to look for the Four-Star Dragon Ball, or go after someone. He also leaves behind the people he saves like Suno and Upa, some of whom never see him again. At the end of the Cell Saga, Goku chooses to stay dead since most of the villains in Z came to Earth because of him. GT ends with Goku disappearing for one-hundred years.
• Butt-Monkey: Goku himself has had his fair share of pluckiness over the course of the entire series, often occurring when neither Krillin or Yamcha are present. In fact, one of his first mishaps involved falling off a cliff as a toddler and nearly dying from the impact to his head. A scene later in the DBZ series involved Goku having his hand trampled on by a herd of elephants, and the GT series amps up Goku's abuse. Fortunately, Goku's brick-tough nature usually lets him shrug it all off.
  • There was an entire week's worth of filler devoted to making Goku the Butt-Monkey. He got hit by lightning, beaten by a doll dummy, and constantly owned by Popo. It was a good thing none of his friends were around to show how bad he was at predicting movements.
  • Because Goku is the only character not Demoted to Extra in GT, he gets hit with the butt monkey status. Such misery he suffers include being boiled, tickled, steamed, and frozen into a block of ice just to name a few. He also gets no respect from his granddaughter who constantly yells at him for his immaturity. And let's not forget that the entire series is kickstarted with Goku being turned into a kid and no one in the galaxy takes him seriously.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Although scenes of Goku even showing a basic understanding of sexuality are scant to none, his bargaining with Old Kai indicates that Goku believes this to be the case. He agrees to let the ancient Shinjin kiss Bulma, and when questioned by an enraged Vegeta as to why he didn't offer up his own wife, Goku reasons that Chi-Chi has a flatter chest compared to the more well-endowed Bulma.

C

• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Raditz's Cain. Raditz comes to Earth to force Goku into becoming a Space Pirate and goes as far as to kidnap his own nephew to do it. When Goku still refuses to join, he tries to kill him. After Goku grabs his tail and is poised to have Piccolo kill him, he pleas for his life, using Goku's own good nature against him. As soon as Goku let go of his tail, he kicks him and brutally crushes his ribs.
• Call to Agriculture: As seen in Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! and the first episode of Dragon Ball Super, Chi-Chi makes Goku take a job as a farmer so they can earn money for the household. While he doesn't enjoy it and he would rather train more, he still manages to be competent, although lazy at it.
• Came Back Strong: As a racial trait of being a Saiyan, Goku can become stronger from coming back from near death. In the times he is killed, he goes up several noticeable levels. The first time, he went from being overpowered by Raditz to wiping the floor with Nappa and fighting almost equally with Vegeta. When he is semi-revived in the Buu Saga, he goes from being weaker than Cell to fighting toe-to-toe with Majin Buu.
• Came from the Sky: Arrived on Earth in a space pod. Grandpa Gohan even names him after the sky since the Ku in his name can be read as sky.
• Can't Catch Up: In the Buu Saga especially, he shows frustration on how his friends and family depend on him to save the day because they simply can't keep up with the ever growing power of new threats. Those who can like Gohan, Goten, and Trunks are too lazy to keep training, adding to his annoyance.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Despite the insistence of his comrades, Goku refuses to kill Piccolo at the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament for several reasons; Kami and Piccolo can't live without each other, killing his opponent would disqualify him from the tournament, and he saw Piccolo as a Worthy Opponent who could keep him on his toes.
• Cast from Calories: Part of the reason he's such a Big Eater. In early stories, Goku would often be weakened by hunger to the point of uselessness. As he grew, his stamina increased and this became less of a problem.
• Catchphrase:
  • Has several in the Japanese version. He frequently stops what he's doing to announce "I'm hungry", especially in early arcs where he does it about Once an Episode. When someone does him a favor, he says "Thank you!" in Gratuitous English. He also has a Signature Laugh.
  • There is also how he introduces himself. In the English dub, it's along the lines; "Hi! I'm Goku. I'm a Saiyan from Earth" or he will just say "Hi!" in a high pitch voice. His English dub also has a Signature Laugh that is noticeably a higher pitch than his normal speaking voice.
  • Whenever he's truly pissed off at a villain, he tends to say some variation of "I won't let you get away with this!"
• Category Traitor: Raditz outright declares him a traitor and disgrace to the Saiyan race for refusing to join the Saiyans' violent conquest of Earth. Nappa and Vegeta are also itching to kill Goku for this reason.
• Cavalier Competitor: He is this unless it's clear his opponent's evil is greater than their desire for a good fight.
• Cerebus Retcon: Goku was eventually revealed to be part of a race of alien warriors who conquer planets. The only reason he didn't wipe out humanity was because he suffered a head injury that made him friendly. It's later inverted in Dragon Ball Minus, which shows Goku's parents were actually quite loving and only sent him to Earth so that he would be safe from Frieza. He was still a rambunctious Saiyan child before he hurt his head, but he always had the capacity for goodness and was never assigned to depopulate Earth.
• Challenge Seeker: Goku loves to be challenged when he fights someone, rather they are friend or foe. Unlike other Blood Knights in the series, he wants to battle people who have a reasonable chance of defeating him since winning isn't his primary goal, but self-improvement. This can be a Fatal Flaw, since his pride on being self-reliant keeps him from asking for help, like him battling Piccolo during the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, refusing to be fused with Vegeta to kill Kid Buu, and fighting Frieza by himself when he returns stronger than ever. This last one leads to the Earth being destroyed. This comes up as a major flaw again in the Universal Survival Saga where he reminds Zeno of the promised multiverse tournament, despite Beerus and Whis telling him he should forget about it since Zeno is dangerous. This leads to the Tournament of Power where the losing universe gets their universe destroyed.
• The Champion: Goku serves as this the most frequently for his team. For the majority of the Sagas in Z, the pattern is Goku will be out of commission for some reason (dead, injured, ill), and the rest of the Z-fighters will have to hold off the Elite Mook to buy enough time for Goku to arrive/recover. Occasionally, other Z-fighters will take up the role, like Vegeta, Future Trunks, or Piccolo, but Goku is the most consistent Team Champion and always the hero's trump card.
• Character Development:
  • As a kid, Goku had no qualms about killing his enemies. As time progressed and he got older, he started to mellow out more. And even if he's made up his mind that his opponent needs to be killed, he will show some degree of mercy and regret to the villains.
  • He also gets Older and Wiser as the series progresses, especially during Z. He's still very much a Blood Knight but he mellows out considerably and tries to avoid taking a life if he can, and uses a lot more strategy in combat and training. He also gains a better understanding of the world and people around him, while still being goofy and kind of naive.
  • Goku used to hate that he had to rely on his friends and family to become stronger. By the end of Super, he's accepted that this was a stupid way to think and that it was only a miracle that Jiren was able to become as strong as he was by himself. Goku knew the whole time that he never would have even made it past childhood if he had no one to compete against and push him to succeed along the way, and he's fine with that.
• Chaste Hero: His friends are taken aback when they realized that Goku has successfully become a father. He didn't even know what marriage meant and thought it was something to eat just a few years ago^note the phrase Chi-Chi used was「嫁にもらいにきでくれな」, 'yome ni morai ni kidekurena'/'will you accept (me as your) bride?', with the parenthetical not being required in Japanese since it's already obvious to anyone who knows what a bride is.
  • Despite never seeming to understand anything sexual, he does appear to understand what masochism is for some unexplained reason, and gets grossed out by it any time he fights someone who enjoys getting hurt, such as when encounters Goku Black the first time and Broly in the first of his movies.
• Cheated Angle: Goku's hair always maintains that same shape no matter which angle you view him from.
• Cheerful Child: As a child, he is a relentlessly happy person despite most of the stuff that happens to him like the death of his grandfather at an early age and living alone in the mountains for a number of years.
• Chewing the Scenery: He has his moments. For example, after he mortally wounds King Piccolo:
  Goku: I won. (laughs) I DID IIIIIIIT!!
• Chick Magnet: Even as a young child, many girls found him sweet and lovable. Chi-Chi had a crush on him the moment she saw him and other girls like Suno also had feelings for him. In Z, Princess Snake showed interest in him and even Bulma admitted that she would have liked him to be her boyfriend. In Super, Helles, the Goddess of Destruction of Universe 2, called him beautiful.
• Childhood Brain Damage: It's stated that the reason why Goku doesn't share the violent nature of Saiyans is that he received a blow to the head while he was a baby. Although, it is hinted in Dragon Ball Minus that Goku inherited his good heart from his mother who was not fit for fighting because of her softness. (The difference apparently being an innate desire to massacre, and being more rambunctious than usual.)
• Childhood Marriage Promise: Goku promised Chi-Chi to marry her when they were kids, thinking marriage was a kind of food. When they meet again at the Tenkaichi Budokai and he finally learns what marriage is, Goku keeps his promise anyway and marries her.
• Child of Two Worlds: Literally! But even if his loyalty to Earth began as a product of a random head injury, Goku will still fight tooth and nail to defend it, even if he has to go against his fellow Saiyans. He comes to terms with his roots (and to some extent, with his fellow Saiyan Vegeta), in the Namek saga, becoming the legendary Super Saiyan in the process.
• Child Prodigy: Played With. When Goku was a kid, he was often hailed as a prodigy for not only his natural strength and talent for fighting, but his ability to learn advanced techniques after only seeing them once and being able to adapt quickly while fighting. Then, it's Subverted when he learns that he's a Saiyan and that he's actually a low-class warrior by his race's standards. However, this trope is Played Straight again when Goku's quick adaptability and natural talent far surpasses any in his race, even the Saiyan prince Vegeta who really is a child prodigy, to the point that his low power level compared to other Saiyans at the start of the series could easily be chalked up to him being raised on Earth and not fighting strong opponents like the other Saiyans.
• Child Soldiers: Although he wasn't sent to Earth to destroy it like originally believed, it isn't unusual for Frontier Babies to be sent out when they're no more than three. And despite his age, Raditz fully expected all life on Earth to be wiped out.
• The Chosen One: Played With. Vegeta firmly believes that one needs to be the Chosen One to become a Super Saiyan, something that should be achieved by him since he is the Saiyan Prince. After being beaten to near death by Frieza, he concludes that Goku is the real Chosen One destined to ascend and defeat Frieza. In Bardock's final vision in the TV Special, he foresees Goku challenging Frieza, and Goku is the first one to ascend to Super Saiyan in a thousand years and does defeat Frieza. Then Super Saiyan gets hit with Uniqueness Decay and any Saiyan can become one with the right amount of anger and power, and Goten and Trunks achieve Super Saiyan without even trying. Then the Chosen One idea is brought back in Battle of Gods where Goku becomes a Super Saiyan God and the soundtrack for the ascension is even called "The Chosen One", although any Saiyan can technically become a Super Saiyan God if their hearts are righteous and if they're six of them to perform the ritual. However, unique to Goku, he keeps the power of godhood even after the time limit runs out, something Beerus specifically notes, calling Goku a prodigy.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: He cannot bring himself to pass by someone in need. This is best seen when he gives some of his energy to Frieza after the tyrant pleas for his life despite not really wanting to help him and almost immediately regrets it. This is a trait he passes down to his eldest son.
• Clipped-Wing Angel:
  • After returning to life, Super Saiyan 3 becomes this. Because Goku has been dead for so long, he is no longer used to the limits of a living body, which isn't as durable and doesn't have the unlimited energy of his dead body. So when he is fighting Kid Buu, he rapidly loses energy and his endurance is terrible, which is an ill fit against the unlimited energy and regeneration of Buu. From the little seen of Super Saiyan 3 after the Buu Arc, Goku seems to have better control of this form, averting this trope.
  • Played With. As a Super Saiyan God, Goku can finally fight Beerus without going down in two hits. However, the transformation is extremely short-lived, burning out after only a few minutes. But, Goku absorbs the powers of godhood into his body and can still fight Beerus as a basic Super Saiyan. He still loses and Beerus was using only 70% of his power.
• Cloudcuckoolander: As a child, although he meant well, Goku's overwhelming naivety and unusual priorities could be very off-putting to other characters and make his choices difficult to understand, like him being unable to tell a female from a male without patting them and his inability to do simple math. At times, he seemed to lack common sense. He does gets better as an adult, but he still has his moments because of his fight obsessed personality. Beerus thinks he's nuts for challenging him to a fight despite knowing that he's the God of Destruction, Hit dismisses him as a young and naive fighter because he tells him his game plan before they fight, and Zamasu finds Goku downright annoying because he keeps begging him to spar. Possibly the craziest thing he has ever done is put a hit on himself so Hit would come and assassinate him, all so he can fight Hit at his best. However, his foes and even his friends are often surprised to find out that Goku isn't as empty-headed as he seems.
• Combat Compliment: Goku will always compliment his foes if they proved to be powerful. When fighting against Frieza during the first part of their battle, he tells Frieza how great he is, which Frieza surprisingly returns. After bowing out of the Cell Games, he spends several minutes telling Cell how awesome he is and how he never really stood a chance. He also praises Fat Buu for being so strong and tells Kid Buu that he fought well, even when he's about to kill him. When Beerus forced Goku's surrender in Battle of Gods, Goku tells Beerus that he's truly worthy of the title, strongest in the universe, and that he was no match for him even as a Super Saiyan God. In Resurrection 'F', Goku is impressed by Frieza's increased strength, saying how awesome Frieza was for catching up with him in such a short amount of time. When sparring with Future Trunks in the present timeline, he complimented his substantial increase in strength in the years that have passed.
• Combat Pragmatist: Despite his Honor Before Reason tendencies and preference for a fair fight, when the situation calls for it, Goku will put them aside and do whatever it takes to win. Highlights include poking someone in the eyes while performing his Rock-Paper-Scissors attack, punching King Piccolo while he was powering up, weakening Raditz by grabbing his tail, shooting Great Ape Vegeta in the eye, and one-shotting Recoome while he was in the midst of powering up his ultimate attack. Also, he's perfectly willing to bite an opponent to escape a hold.
  Goku: I saw an opening that screamed "attack"... so I did.
• Comically Invincible Hero: Early on, his absurd invulnerability is Played for Laughs most of the time. Not so much with Z, although it does show up at times like the Ginyu Fight.
• Combined Energy Attack: The Spirit Bomb / Genki-dama, which takes a little energy from all life on a planet and even from the sun. It later turns out that he can request a noticeably larger amount of energy - enough to exhaust the giver to a post-marathon degree - and this is what it takes to beat Kid Buu.
• Combo Platter Powers: In part thanks to Power Copying. There's Super-Strength and speed, flight, telepathy, telekinesis, energy blasts, force fields, Flashy Teleportation, Super-Senses, various transformations, creating flashes of light...
• Confusion Fu: As a kid, he was less predictable in his fighting style. He would randomly leave himself open, confusing his opponents, and sometimes danced around for no reason. This is mostly because Goku wasn't fully trained and tended to get overly excited when fighting. Though some of the time he did purposely mixed-up his fighting style, like his Crazy Monkey style (basically, fighting more like a monkey) and calling the wrong attack names, like saying paper and attacking with rock when using his Rock-Paper-Scissors technique.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back: After Frieza is sliced into quarters by his own energy disc, Goku had every intention of leaving him to die with the planet he destroyed. Then Frieza starts pleading for his life. For several seconds, Goku is frozen in place, conflicted about what he should do, and yells at Frieza for asking for mercy when he never gave it to anyone. After several more seconds, Goku gives into his conscience and gives Frieza enough energy to leave the planet. Unlike most examples, Goku immediately regrets it, given that Frieza is an Ungrateful Bastard who mocks him for his mercy and then tries to shoot him in the back.
• Contagious Heroism: After being forced into Enemy Mine situations with Goku; Yamcha, Tien, Piccolo, and Vegeta become more heroic and selfless characters, although it takes Vegeta a long time to reach this point. He's also able to spread this to Beerus of all people.
• Convenient Coma: He is left comatose for days as he recovers from his heart virus. During the time he's unconscious, Androids 16, 17, and 18 are loose, are more powerful than all the heroes outside of Piccolo, and they are completely undetectable. Cell also comes into the picture and is slowly eating cities to become stronger and absorb the androids, and can run and hide from the other Earth's warriors since he can suppress his energy. Krillin lampshades that if Goku was around, he could have teleported the moment they felt Cell's energy and have Piccolo kill him. Goku also had knowledge of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber that would have made the heroes stronger instead of leaving everything to Piccolo for several days.
• Costume Evolution: The original orange Gi uniform he receives from Master Roshi didn't have the blue short-sleeved undershirt or boots he later wears as an adult.
• Create Your Own Villain: In Super. Future Trunks' timeline shows that Zamasu would have continued to serve Gowasu despite his grudge against mortals for many years. Goku's meeting with Zamasu and beating him in a sparring match triggered the Supreme Kai's Start of Darkness, eventually leading him to start planning mass genocide of all mortals, starting with using the Super Dragon Balls to steal Goku's body, thus becoming Goku Black. However, considering the fact that Future Zamasu almost immediately jumped at the chance to join Goku Black in his plans, something similar would have happened eventually.
• Crotch-Grab Sex Check: When he was young, Goku had difficulty with the concept of males and females, so upon meeting someone, he'd check a person's groin, then triumphantly exclaim, "You're a boy/girl!". Luckily, he grows out of this by the time he's an adult.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: It is very easy to forget, given his laid back and childish demeanor, that he is one of the strongest beings in the universe and is currently the strongest mortal fighter in Universe 7. When he was a child, and to a lesser extent as an adult, fighting was more of a game than anything serious. He even referred to fighting as playing. However, when things go to hell, and his friends and family are on the line, he becomes one of the most dangerous and competent people in the series, even outside of fighting. This shows in his English VA, as the tone of his voice changes to show that he's dead serious, and his friends and foes note when his demeanor is different. Woe to the foe who pushes him to his Rage Breaking Point. This is Deconstructed later by Whis: Goku is too laid back for his own good.
  Whis: Relaxing too much is also a problem, as is your overconfidence with yourself. No matter how powerful you are, when you are empty on Ki, your body is still an incredibly fragile thing. You are too often complacent, caught unprepared and off-guard.
• Cruel Mercy:
  • He gives this as the reason why Vegeta shouldn't kill Ginyu after tricking him into body-jumping into a frog, pointing out that being trapped as a frog is punishment enough. Vegeta agrees.
  • He planned to do this to Frieza during their fight on Namek, beating the tyrant senseless and driving him to a Villainous Breakdown before deciding that, with Frieza's ego in shambles over having been defeated by a Saiyan of all beings, he's Not Worth Killing, outright telling him as such and ordering Frieza to "go crawl off someplace and hide" and continue to live with the shame of his defeat. Later, after Frieza lost his arm and entire lower body, he tries it again before flying away. It backfires both times: the entire reason Frieza lost his limbs in the first place is because he got hit with his own energy disc, and when Goku gives him some energy to at least survive, Frieza turns around and tries to kill him with it; by this point, Goku is done giving Frieza chances and blows him away, outright calling him a fool for not just walking away when he had the chance. Also, unlike in Resurrection 'F', where Goku spares Frieza because he sees him as a Worthy Opponent and wants to give him the chance to master his new Golden Super Mode so they can fight again, in Super, Goku only spares Frieza because, as far as he's concerned, Frieza is so pathetic that he's not worth the effort to kill. That time cost him a blast to the heart that nearly killed him and the destruction of Earth by Frieza being a Sore Loser. Only Whis rewinding time fixed things, and Goku wastes no time finally finishing Frieza off once he does.
• Crutch Character: And he's fully aware that he is one and even Toriyama seems to regard him as such to the point of finding more contrived ways to keep him from ending the saga sooner. He knows that, eventually, he will die permanently, and if the other characters haven't become strong enough to cope in his absence, there will be a huge problem. To that end, he starts trying to train others up to his level, which is why he didn't kill Majin Buu when he had the chance, choosing to teach Goten and Trunks the Fusion Dance, because he didn't want the new generation to think that they can rely on him to save the day, especially since he's dead in the Buu Saga until Old Kai revives him. However, the new villains inevitably are so overbearingly powerful that only Goku has the strength to beat them in the end. Doesn't help that his successors tend to be lazy about keeping up with their training, although he sees promise in Pan and Uub. There's even an alternate timeline, which Future Trunks comes from, that provides quite a frightening insight to what would happen if his friends depended on him too much. Androids 17 and 18 kill every protagonist with great ease and bring humanity to the verge of extinction. Pretty grim, isn’t it?^note In that case, it seemed that while the Androids may have been too powerful for even Goku to handle, Future Bulma seems to think that he'd still be able to do something about it, which is about the same thing. The main timeline itself proves this theory since despite being weaker than the Androids, Goku put systems in place so they didn't destroy the world, like telling everyone about the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, personally training Gohan to surpass him, choosing a new guardian to restore the Dragon Balls once Kami is gone, and rescuing falling friends by teleporting them to safety.
• Curb-Stomp Cushion: During his battle on Namek as a Super Saiyan against 100% full power Frieza in the anime; though Frieza manages to land several good blows and puts up a decent fight, he burns through his stamina too quickly to be a serious threat to Goku for long.
• Cute Bruiser: Was very much this when he was a kid. He looked like an eight years old and able to destroy armies with nothing but a magic stick.

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