Why is everyone so angry over Toyotaro then over the thing with Goku not knowing when Gohan and Goten were born then? What if this is Toriyama's suggestion?
No, I’m pretty sure this is strictly Toyotaro’s nonsense because of the context.
Here’s the thing. The scene that initially started this controversy in the anime? The context there was that Vegeta was being a Tsundere and refusing to go train with Goku because he wanted to be there for his second child’s birth. But, being Vegeta, he’s not exactly open with his feelings and he refuses to just SAY why it’s important to him, coming up with an excuse that “Bulma would never forgive me if I left now”
This seemed odd to Goku, because Bulma told him to take Vegeta along just before this, and he had to wonder why she would hold a grudge for not being around for the birth when Chichi holds no resentment to him for not being around for Goten’s birth. So he comments, before really thinking about it or how it might sound mind, “Really? I was dead when Goten was born”
Now, this sounds bad yes, but it’s a case of Goku speaking before thinking and not meaning anything wrong. A lot of people took it as Goku being dismissive of Goten and the importance of childbirth and being there for your family. And while I get people getting that impression from the word choice… with the context mentioned, it’s pretty clear he didn’t mean that at all, and he probably would have been a lot more understanding of Vegeta’s motivations from the start if the prince of all drama queens had just been honest with him.
It’s also clear that it wasn’t the intent on the writers to portray Goku in a negative light with that in regards to his parenting skills, or tear him down in favour of propping up Vegeta. You know why?
Because say what you will about their overall handling of Goku, there’s plenty of issues especially with how they overplay their “Lol, Goku’s an idiot” jokes, especially in the Future Trunks saga. But the Super anime frequently portrays Goku as a loving and supportive parent.
Goku spends plenty of time hanging out with Goten while he’s working and at home, and is physically affectionate towards him. He’s happy for Gohan and the life he’s leading, and despite how Goku would be happy if Gohan were to train and become a fighter again (And he has been visibly happy and supportive of Gohan doing so this saga), he fully supports Gohan’s scholarly ambitions and realizes how important they are to him. As shown in episode 30, when Goku was quick to shrug off Gohan not being able to take part in the tournament against universe 6 because of a conference, saying “Studying’s important too”.
Goku loves his granddaughter Pan and dotes on her a lot. He’s considerate of his family’s well being, and despite wanting to go train with King Kai to make sure he was prepared for future threats to the earth, at the start of the show he was ready to keep farming to support everyone, only leaving to train after Mr Satan gave the family plenty of money to support themselves.
He flew into a rage we haven’t seen from him since Frieza killed Krillin when Goku Black revealed he’d murdered an alternate version of Chichi and Goten. And to top it off, in episode 77 itself, Goku was very happy to take Goten along with him to train with Whis, showing he’s happy to spend quality time with his son.
For all the shows ups and downs with how it writes Goku, it has never tried to paint Goku as anything else but a loving and supportive father who does care about his children and family. So it’s clear with that scene given all this context, that there was never any intention to tear Goku down or imply he doesn’t consider Goten’s birth an important thing.
Keep in mind, despite not being around for Goten’s birth, he and Goten bonded immediately after meeting each other, and after Goku came back to life they seem to just have a perfectly normal father son relationship as though Goku’s always been around, no resentment or anything.
Whereas Vegeta, even though he has grown a lot as a person and loves his family, was still willing to up and leave them at the drop of a hat back at the start of the RF saga to train with Whis. Goku knows that while Vegeta is a good guy and loves his family, he’s still a bit self-obsessed and wouldn’t normally pass up an excuse to go training, especially if it meant risking Goku surpassing him again.
So Vegeta’s reaction was weird enough for Goku to comment on, and since Whis showed up very quickly after and Goku just wanted to get going to train, he didn’t dwell on why Vegeta was being so reluctant and against leaving at the moment. He might have caught onto why it mattered so much on his own, we don’t know because of how the scene played out.
It’s likely that Goku might have just assumed that simply being around for your family was the most important thing. Now, you can argue that it was inconsiderate for him to not realize that being around for your child’s birth is a significant thing to a lot of people, but really they didn’t KNOW the baby was going to be born that day (And by the looks of things, she might not have been if not for Whis speeding things up), there’s not indication that Goku wanted to be gone for more than the rest of the day, and Whis could always keep an eye on things with his staff and take Vegeta back if Bulma went into labour.
And, well, the significance of the whole thing might not have immediately occurred to Goku because Bulma told him to bring Vegeta anyway, so it didn’t seem like there was any urgency for Vegeta to stay.
Could this exchange have been written a lot better and differently? Absolutely, no arguments there. But as it is, I don’t think it’s really that bad, or that Goku really comes off as that dismissive of either Goten, or the significance of having a child. It was just a conversation that was handled awkwardly between the two because Vegeta wasn’t being open with his feelings.
The word choice is shaky, but with everything in context I never saw it in the worst possible light or framing Goku in a negative way on purpose. People say stupid things without realizing it or how they might be taken all the time in real life, I know I’ve been there, no real harm done in the long run.
The manga though? That’s a different case entirely, because the context of the whole manga points to a writer having a specific bias against Goku.
Looking back, the manga seems to portray Goku as dismissive of his children at best, indignant about them at worst. Almost every scene of Goku together with Goten from the anime? Not in the manga, I can’t even remember the last time they shared panels together. Even the scene at the very start of Super with Goten on the tractor had Goku looking a lot more annoyed with Goten after saving him from falling off a cliff.
And Gohan? Oh boy, you know that moment I brought up where anime Goku was supportive of his son being a scholar and being understanding of Gohan having to miss out on the U6 tournament because of the conference?
Well, in the manga, when Vegeta suggests having Gohan on the teams roster, Goku calls him crazy and dismisses Gohan as having become a total bookworm, and admonishing him for focusing on studying and how he lost his Gi. And later when he asks Videl why Gohan isn’t around to watch the tournament and she mentions the conference, Goku gets indignant and basically insulted Gohan for it, being offended at his own son for having a job and responsibilities to live up to and not just dropping everything to come see him beat people up.
Doesn’t exactly paint Goku as a supportive or caring father, now does it? Also, that scene of Goku flying into a rage over Goku Black murdering Goten and Chichi? Didn’t happen in the manga. Black just comments “oh yeah, I killed you” and Goku makes a comment about “Guess i’m going to have to avenge… myself” and doesn’t even consider what Black might have done to his family, his first real concern after finding out about his alternate self’s murder in the anime.
On the flip side of this, Toyotaro still finds the time to fill up the last two sagas of the manga with moments of Vegeta being a good family man with Bulma and both versions of Trunks. Sure, the anime does this too, but it gives every couple good moments and every father is given some scenes doting on their children.
But it’s notable that Vegebul is the only couple that gets any real shipping moments in the manga, and Vegeta is also given comparatively more prominence in the Future Trunks saga compared to the anime, in the process sidelining Future Trunks himself a good amount might I add. This includes being the one to fight Goku Black during every encounter, with Goku not even getting a real confrontation with him.
Heck, Toyotaro outright takes a moment from the last episode of the anime where Goten goes to hug Goku after the whole ordeal with Zamasu and Chichi comes over expressing worry over Goku’s state, and removes Goten and Chichi from the scene entirely to give that moment to Vegeta, Trunks and Bulma.
Not to mention the scene where a severely exhausted Vegeta to the point he should barely be able to survive any more attacks at this point, randomly powers up after getting angry and destroys TWO merged Zamasu clones instantly, when Goku after achieving “Perfected” Super saiyan blue, a much more powerful upgrade to SSB, could only fight evenly with one Merged Zamasu for a while in an effort to burn through his potara time limit.
And then much of the first chapter of the universe survival saga in the manga is focused on Vegeta sparring with Whis and then Beerus, and outright retcons the super saiyan god prophecy to include Vegeta as Beerus’ destined rival alongside Goku.
If you think this all makes Toyotaro seem a little bit biased towards Vegeta and that he probably doesn’t have much respect for Goku’s parenting skills. Well then, you’re probably right.
And then we get to the big issue. You know that scene I just talked about in detail from the anime.
Well, here Goku states that he doesn’t know when either Goten OR Gohan was born, and Vegeta outright says “You may not be a bad guy, but as a father you’re the worst”.
The framing of this moment is the exact opposite of the anime. Now first off, yes, Goku wasn’t around for Goten’s birth because he was dead. That’s a neutral fact. But GOHAN? Goku lived with Chichi the entire five years between Dragon Ball and the start of DBZ. He raised Gohan with her that whole time. Those are canon facts. The idea of him not knowing when Gohan was born is utter nonsense.
I mean, even if we were to accept that for some inexplicable reason he had to go away for a bit while Chichi was heavily pregnant (Which is never implied), and wasn’t around the day when Gohan was actually born… he should know when Gohan’s birthday is. Even if somehow we can believe he wasn’t around for the birth immediate after it happened, Goku SHOULD know when it did. The only explanation that he doesn’t in this case, is he just doesn’t care to remember it and it’s not that big a deal.
Especially problematic though is Vegeta outright calling Goku the worst father ever (Yeah, real funny mr never hugged his son until he was 8, punches him in the face for doing the thing you told him to do, didn’t care if he and his mother died at one point). That line makes it clear that the intent of this exchange is that Goku is supposed to be portrayed as a bad father here in this continuity, and as a contrast to make Vegeta look like the better, more considerate parent by comparison.
That is literally the worst way you can do anything like this.
The anime exchange was awkwardly worded, but ultimately harmless and it wasn’t meant in the way some people concluded because… well, some people who don’t like DBS’ handling of Goku take any excuse they can to complain about it and immediately jump to the worst possible conclusions with things like this.
But the manga scene? With the way this is handled, and taking into considering how Toyotaro usually handles Goku, especially in regards to how he perceives his children in contrast to the anime, and his fixation and glorification of Vegeta at several points, it’s visibly clear through the writing that Toyotaro (NOT Toriyama, because Toriyama writes Goku as a loving and supportive family man all the time) has about as much understanding of Goku’s parenting skills as your average TFS fanboy.
And it only gets worse. In the most recent chapter (Where Toyotaro also had Vegeta be the one to refuse to let Goten and Trunks compete in the ToP because “They’re just kids” and had him be a lot more immediately happy and excited around everyone else about Bulla’s birth), Toyotaro brought up that Goku in the manga has never seen a baby be born AND doesn’t even know HOW they’re born, wondering if Whis magically popping Bulla out of Bulma’s tummy was the standard birthing procedure.
I mean, I could believe that Goku didn’t actually witness the birth itself. I know some father’s sit in a waiting room while it’s happening, for example. But I CANNOT believe that Goku wasn’t told by Chichi, or anyone else at any point, how baby’s are actually born. You could get away with a comment like that with kid Goku, or even Goku at the end of Dragon Ball. But as a middle aged adult?!
No, there is literally no way that makes sense for his character to not know that sort of thing. The way that scene was handled infantilizes Goku and makes him a huge manchild. And it was Toyotaro that chose to portray him that way, because Goku makes no similar comment in the anime.
The way all of this is framed it DOES make it clear that Goku is pretty indifferent to the birth of his own children and the significance of it. It makes it clear Goku doesn’t know a thing about childbirth, or seemingly any significance in having a child.
The anime moment from episode 77 could have been written better, but this was outright written to frame Goku as a dismissive, bad father who doesn’t have much respect for his children, but Vegeta does because he’s super dad.
And before any Vegeta or Vegebul fan says anything, NO, I’m not trying to attack Toyotaro for “Giving them a moment” or whatever they want to say to play the victim card. I love Vegeta, and I was happy to see him put so much importance on the birth of his new baby in the anime. I’m happy for how much he’s grown.
But the way things were handled in the manga was insulting to Goku’s character, and you should NEVER tear down one character to build up another. That’s bad and stupid writing. It would be just as bad if either version made Vegeta regress severely or look worse than he should be as a parent at this point to make Goku look better by comparison.
I’m sure you’re wondering anon “Well, Toriyama signs off on everything, he must approve of this”. Toriyama makes corrections where he feels they’re needed yes, but he can make mistakes or just not think too hard about something. He’s only human. We don’t know how he actually feels about what Toyotaro did, and given his own writing of Goku and how the anime handles Goku as a parent, it’s clear that whatever the case, the manga’s attitude to Goku’s parenting skills isn’t on him. It’s on Toyotaro specifically.
Look, I have my issues with how Goku is written in the DBS anime too, I won’t argue too hard with people who find it annoying. But I stand by that the anime scene didn’t make Goku look as bad as people make it out to be, but the manga?
This isn’t even all of the problems with DBS manga Goku, but it is very much more insulting to me personally than just about anything the anime’s done. I can overlook moments of making him look overly stupid after some time to grumble about it, but what Toyotaro did here was so far out of character, so damaging and the complete antithesis of everything canon Goku’s character should be about, that it just makes me sick.
This mess IS on Toyotaro, and regardless of what the man wants to say about Goku being his favourite character, it’s clear through his actual writing where his real priorities lie, and that he fundamentally doesn’t understand who Goku is as a person.
