Japanese people don't care that the actress is not Japanese. The original creators don't care that the actress is not Japanese. Does no one else see the terrible irony that the people complaining loudest about Scarlett Johansson being cast in this role are mostly privileged white people?

I'd be curious if these same people complained about Tom Cruise being the lead in Edge of Tomorrow or Justin Chatwin playing Goku in the 2009 Dragonball movie. And I'd be more curious to hear what Asian box office star should have been cast in these roles to attract the audiences these movies needed to recoup their production costs.

Sure, Mr. and Ms. educated liberal-progressive might go to see these movies even if they are cast with relatively unknown Asian actors but would that be enough to justify production of the movie in the first place?

This movie is an ADAPTATION. Adaptations are not supposed to be literal translations of the source material. What would be the point in that? I don't think a lot of people who watched the Lord of the Rings films, for instance, could have stomached being bombarded for minutes at a time with bad poetry by Tom Bombadil.

They made the right decision on this film. In this case, people who know nothing about anime are going to show up for this movie just to watch Johansson kick ass. And if they like it a lot they are going to be interested in learning more about the original source material, in which case they'll obtain a lot more Japanese cultural knowledge than they would if some "Asian-looking" person had been cast in the role in the first place.

Whether this movie will actually be any good or not... it's really impossible to tell from this trailer.

Mario and Son Goku: FUSION!!!!!!!!!!!! History and its micro miracles.

And don't forget the robots... which will one day take over the world -- and only brave, hypersexualized Japanese high school students in giant mech suits can defeat them!

Or be raped by demons and/or tentacles and/or demons with tentacles. Japanese game shows and poooooorn. THE END.

For some reason I imagine you're Goku, forever creating powerful super saiyen children to dominate the universe. Pair them off, have them fuison dance, then have the fused pairs fusion dance, and then finally you fusion dance with the super fused saiyen entity and become -- I don't know. Scanners don't work so well after that.

The sheer numerical value is pointless and really, why? Why do you keep having these saiyen children? Don't you realize they will destroy the universe?!?!?!

"sangoku" = Son Goku (family name, given name order), just so people would know.

You make good points. However if you made heroes (female and male) plain looking they would no longer seem special. Superheroes are basically modern gods and goddesses. And just like the Greeks and Romans, we make our gods hypermasculine (heavily muscled) and our goddesses hyperfeminine (beautiful, with hourglass figures).

However, American superheroes aren't the only ones portrayed this way. Britain's Judge Dredd is pretty big. So is MarvelMan, aka MiracleMan. Doctor Manhattan is also pretty big. (Insert big blue penis joke here.) And let's not forget Japan's Goku and Gohan, among others.

I'll concede that American superheroes are probably the most pronounced in this regard, and sometimes it's downright awful. But if the artist is good then extremes are generally avoided, and combined with good writing you get a comic book that stands shoulder to shoulder with others in the medium, at least in my opinion.



>> ^rebuilder:

What I mean is the female characters are ludicrously over-sexed and often portrayed in poses and clothing whose sole purpose is to maximize the amount of tits and ass shown. It just seems like a cheap way to market to a target audience of young boys. Of course there's also a stereotypical male figure, which has been getting more and more outlandish as well. My main issue with that is that it seems there's a certain standard way to draw comics in the US, designed more for saleability and a kind of industrial production method than for artistic purposes.
Most of the time you can tell the crap from the interesting stuff just by looking at the drawing style, but sometimes you find a very good story illustrated by a technically accomplished artist who has, to my eye, been corrupted by lifelong exposure to what they probably think is "the way" to draw comics. That I find sad.
I just find it hard to take any character seriously when their body language come straight out of a Playboy shoot.
>> ^kronosposeidon:
I don't see the softcore porn aspect that you mention, at least not in the superhero comics I've read, and I've read a lot of Wonder Woman, and a little Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern. (I stick to the DC universe. It's hard to keep up with just one universe of superheroes. Learning the Marvel characters would be too much for my poor brain.) You'll see some ample cleavage with some of the ladies (Wonder Woman and Power Girl, I'm looking at you), but never more than that, and no sexual body parts of either sex are ever grabbed or fondled. That's what I think of when you say "softcore."

Isn't Goku supposed to have more muscles?

"You want to troll me? Heh. Good luck. Perhaps you haven't heard, but I have an IQ of around 190 (I took some online tests and averaged the score). You? You're nothing but a baka little gaijin. Feh. You are lucky that my Dragonball Goku training has given me the maturity to not unsheathe my bat'leth and send your dishonored spirit to Gre'Thor.

Perhaps you're wondering why I'm even wasting my breath on a weakling such as yourself; a weakling not worthy of being run through with my hatori hanzo steel. The answer is simple: as a proud Aspie, endowed with mental capabilities far beyond your own, I represent the next stage of human evolution. It is my sworn duty to cleanse your kind from the internet and to make it a safe haven for those who find beauty in Animu and peace in Star Trek dick girl fan fiction.

So take heed, trolls: wherever there is a fellow aspie being flamed for their love of Naruto, I'll be there. Wherever a Ron Paul supporter is being harassed, I'll be there. Wherever there are more then 3 people having actual social interaction outside of their mother's basement, I'll likely be somewhere else."

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/awfulvision/racist-hillbilly-furry.php?page=7

Son Goku!

This is why the original Dragonball was so awesome. Before Toriyama started all the DBZ fighting craziness, the original DB was simply an adventure story with tons of tongue-in-cheek humor aimed squarely at a recently pubescent male audience. It regularly featured characters giving each other the finger, Bulma flashing people or using her feminine wiles to get what she wanted, and Goku (who grew up alone and isolated) constantly getting into trouble for not understanding simple social conventions like it's not okay to touch people "down there."

Gradually though Toriyama and Shonen Jump morphed it into DBZ where, instead of being a happy-go-lucky kid who gets caught up in a grand adventure, Goku suddenly was an alien from another planet destined to save the universe. Don't get me wrong, as a kid I enjoyed the fighting in DBZ as much as the next otaku but I also felt the series lost some of its charm when it sidelined quirky characters like Oolong (the pig in this video) and the lecherous old martial arts expert Roshi.

gee, thanks thatguyjames, now you got me thinking. goku or superman? GOKU OR SUPERMAN???

There's been a wierd influx of Monkey King movies lately (more than normal, at least); Japan just made another Saiyuki movie starring a boy-band member as Goku this past year.

Is that Fatal Fury I see in there also? Was hoping to see at least one of the many hard hits in the awesome Goku vs Brolly fight.

I wouldn't touch that! Yuck!

He reminds me of Goku from Dragonball! lol