Son Goku, is one of the faces of the hero with thousand faces, IMO one of the greatest of all personification of the myth, from the perspective of someone from Latin America.
> Son Goku, is one of the faces of the hero with thousand faces
Son Goku from Toriyama is probably one of the best adaptation of the legend of Sun Wukong [1], one of my other favorites is Jan Kugo from Starzinger [2] and of course The Monkey from no other than the master Osamu Tezuka [3]
EDIT: it definitely also fits the definition that Campbell gives of the hero
孫悟空 is how it's written in both Traditional Chinese and Japanese. That's Son Gokū, as read in Japanese. For some reason it became Sangoku in France. While we're on names, did you know all names fell in themes. Vegetables for the saiyans (saiya-jin, vegetable in Japanese is yasai). Goku is Kakarot (carot), Vegita (vegetable), Raditz (radish), etc. Underwear: Bulma (bloomers), Trunks. Chinese(ish) foods: Yamcha (yumcha), Tenshinhan (tenshindon), Chaozu (jiaozi), and many more themes.
Instruments:
- Piccolo
- King Piccolo's children: Banjo, Bell, Mandolin, Maraca, Marimba, Conga, Cymbal, Drum, Harp, Organ, Piano, Tambourine, Ukelele
Colors:
- Red Ribbon Army: General Blue, Tao Pai Pai (桃白白 white), Colonel Brown, Colonel Silver, General White, Captain Dark, Captain Yellow, Colonel Viiolet, General Copper
Cinderella:
- Bibidi, Babadi, Buu
Devil/Satan:
- Mr. Satan
- Videl (anagram of Devil)
The vegetable link yeah I knew, the clothing too (they were a bit more obvious), but not saiya per se, nor the other food named chars.
side note, imported mangas were my entry-point to non European languages, I went into a deep rabbit-hole to decipher the Japanese writing system. And the pair trunks/dragon was my first seed to solve that, except I didn't really know how they were spelled there torankusu / doragonu so it took a little while to associate consonants with vowels.
I also didn't realise as a western kid that Dragon Ball is set in a Taoist / Buddhist universe. The way the gods, afterlife, etc work in Dragon Ball, the way you can get super powers through training is extremely related to buddhist / taoist mythology.
How?? The Monkey King is a trickster and quite frankly, mean to a lot of people. Goku is the exact opposite. The only thing they have in common is the extending rod that Goku would fight with as a child.
Watch the original episodes, he is very much like a trickster monkey. Then he matured into what people remember him as and became very different, but he didn't start that way.
The original Wukong [1] flies on a "golden cloud" (does that rings a bell?) and uses as a weapon a growing stick (Ruyi Jingu Bang, transliterated in Japanese as Nyoi Bo, the name used in the Dragon ball anime and manga) that obeys to voice commands
In Dragon ball the golden headband (that can shrink as a form of punishment) is missing, replaced by a regular red headband that sometimes Goku wears
EDIT: of course I forgot the most important one: Goku can become a monkey. Wukong is a monkey, the monkey king.
In Journey to the west Sun Wukong learns to behave and start following a path of spiritual growth and wisdom that, at the end of his journey, leads him to become enlightened and a Buddha himself.
Much like Goku in Dragon ball, where trough the training and by following his master's teachings, he becomes a warrior with a noble heart that values friendship over everything else.
After that, I agree, it's simply about becoming stronger and stronger.
I didn't watch the episodes, I read the 16th century book Monkey, translated into English by Arthur Waley. Supposed to be a pretty faithful translation, which is why I was surprised by your comparison of Sun Wukong and Son Goku.
> and quite frankly, mean to a lot of people
> Goku is the exact opposite.
How? How abandons his family to train or fight enemies. He puts everything at risk just for a good duel. He helps the enemy recover or throws his son out there just to see a good fight. Just because he's the MC and portrayed in a positive light...
He might be a popular character but definitely not nice.
Especially when you get into DragonBall super when he goes against what everyone is telling him to do and challenges super God to a fight, starting something that could have led to the death of multiple universes. And when he allows frieza to do whatever as long as it doesn't effect earth. He's very selfish in a lot of ways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces