Goku Never Kissed
The question of whether or not Goku has kissed — after all, he was married and had kids! — was never actually a question until late-2016 when Dragon Ball Super threw a couple curious lines of dialogue into the mix.
What’s significantly more important than what otherwise appears to be the question at hand here, however, is that the Dragon Ball Super anime and manga were both translated correctly. More on that later… but first, let’s start at the beginning!
The Original Manga
From chapter 1 to 519 in Akira Toriyama’s original Dragon Ball manga, we never actually see Goku kiss anyone (Chi-Chi or otherwise!). There are some Chi-Chi snuggles — particularly at the 23rd Tenka’ichi Budokai — but no real kiss.
The TV Series
Dragon Ball episode 137 adapts the scene mentioned above from the 23rd Tenka’ichi Budokai, adding on a scene not present in the original manga: Chi-Chi pecks Goku on the cheek (adding to his ongoing confusion). Chi-Chi has kissed Goku, but at this point Goku has not necessarily reciprocated!
In Dragon Ball Z episode 147, Goku has recovered from his heart disease and is preparing to leave. Upstairs at Kame House, Goku shares a moment with Chi-Chi (wonderfully interrupted by the Turtle Hermit, of course) in a scene that heavily implies a kiss:
It’s worth noting that FUNimation’s English dub — which is not representative of the original work — adds extra dialogue here, none of which is relevant to the question at hand.
A Brief Note on Filler
Episodes 146 and 147 feature a large amount of “filler” material: content that was created and added exclusively to the television series which was not present in the original work (the “original work” in this case being the corresponding chapters of the actual Dragon Ball manga’s printed pages by Akira Toriyama).
Akira Toriyama was involved with filler material for a large run of the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z television series’ adaptations. We have concrete documentation on a few key pieces he directly contributed (lore like Yamcha’s baseball career and the Tsufruians), but there is likely a large amount we do not (and will never) have.
And because it’s the Internet, we need to stress: that’s not any kind of judgement on anyone’s personal/subjective feelings on the material itself — it’s just a fact that we don’t know what we don’t know. Whether you like any bits of filler (and whether or not Akira Toriyama may or may not have contributed ideas to what you like) is between you and Dende.
That said, Toriyama has repeatedly ignored information established in the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z television series when he either had a different idea — or possibly never knew in the first place — what the TV staff might have done.
For example, in Dragon Ball episode 42, in order to get Hatchan’s self-destruct mechanism removed, the gang visits his creator, Dr. Frappe. This excursion is entirely filler: in the original manga, this trip never happens — Hatchan gets asked to stay in the village, he does, and Goku takes off on Kinto’un the next day. Years later, Toriyama developed Dr. Gero as the retroactive creator of the Red Ribbon Army artificial humans, completely ignoring the Dragon Ball filler material.
Toriyama’s relationship with filler material gets even more interesting and convoluted at times! Even though it was Toriyama himself who developed back-history of the Saiyans and the Tsufruians for Dragon Ball Z episode 20, the idea that somehow the God of Planet Vegeta was responsible for its destruction is completely ignored when Toriyama introduces Freeza. If you squint really hard and hand-wave a few tidbits, you can somewhat twist this into perhaps Kaiō’s original story being part of the coverup for what really happened when Freeza destroyed the planet… but there would be no reason for Kaiō to lie… except maybe to keep Goku away from being interested in Freeza like he does later on? It’s all a bit of a mess, but just goes to show that Toriyama isn’t concerned the least with what details are new to the television series: he does his own thing regardless.
“Daizenshuu 101”
Before actually getting to the information itself, a “Daizenshuu 101” crash course may be necessary:
- Yes, the series of ten Daizenshuu — Japanese guide books from 1995-1996 contemporary with the end of the original manga serialization — are official publications released by Shueisha, the ultimate rights-holder of the Dragon Ball franchise
- The Daizenshuu are what you might classify as “coffee table books”: premium-style releases (the original seven volumes are hardcover) classifying and recapping various bits of information across the full breadth of the franchise, from illustrations to in-universe categorizations to merchandise overviews and beyond
- Yes, Akira Toriyama “approved” of the Daizenshuu (if you want to extrapolate that out from his opening comment in Daizenshuu 7 where he says it would have been nice to have had these volumes while he was working on the series)
- We have no idea if Akira Toriyama actually sat and read each and every word across the hundreds and hundreds of pages in the ten Daizenshuu, but that sure seems unlikely
- Expanding on and further clarifying things: no, Akira Toriyama did not himself personally write all of the entries across the hundreds and hundreds of pages in the ten Daizenshuu
- Under the aforementioned supervision by Shueisha, the Daizenshuu were written and produced by Caramel Mama, a magazine and book agency in Japan founded by Tsuneo Matsumoto (himself originally the president of Akira Toriyama’s fanclub)
With that out of the way…
Daizenshuu #5’s “Kiss” Inclusion
Three of the Daizenshuu — #3, #5, and the final supplemental volume (colloquially #10) — are dedicated to covering the events of the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z television series. This includes lots of screenshots directly from the show, original artwork (usually made for beautiful two-page spreads), and countless little captions and other write-ups explaining the events of the series.
Daizenshuu 5 (“TV Animation Part 2”) covers the Cell arc (and beyond!) of the television series, including the filler material from episodes 146 and 147:
The specific caption for this cutout of Goku and Chi-Chi states:
Goku has recovered from his disease and Chi-Chi is relieved. They will be apart for a while, so Goku bids Chi-Chi goodbye with a kiss…
There is no separation of “manga-canonical” vs. “TV-original” material here, and no qualification of it being made: content is content, and it’s all being represented and explained. These specific sections of these specific books are simply explaining and describing what you can see on-screen for yourself.
The various “TV Animation” Daizenshuu showcase all material: Goku and Chi-Chi’s kiss and Dr. Frappe are given just as much attention as, say, Goku turning Super Saiyan for the first time. These are all just events that happened on-screen, and as such, are all represented here.
DR. FRAPPE AND A REVIVED MURASAKI!
Hatchan was invited to live in the village, but it turns out there’s a self-destruction device inside his body! In order to remove it, Goku and the gang try and talk to Dr. Frappe, who lives deep in the mountains, but the truth is that Frappe was the one who built Hatchan in the first place!! Murasaki, who was still alive, threatens the doctor and tries to steal Goku’s Dragon Ball, but fails. Frappe then removes the self-destruction device from Hatchan.
→ Gunning for the Dragon Ball, Murasaki threatens the doctor by using Sno as a hostage and then steals Goku’s bag. But it turns out that all the bag had was Goku’s lunch! He’d just left the Dragon Ball back at Sno’s house.
(Heck, Daizenshuu #5 not only additionally covers the afterlife tournament filler arc, but also Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans and the Hyper Dragon Ball Z experimental animation!)
From here, we typically get into the “but Toriyama fully approved the Daizenshuu” argument — and, sure, see the aforementioned introductory comment from Daizenshuu 7 in which Toriyama says, “…and I think having this encyclopedia around when the series was still running would have really helped me out.”
As noted in our little “Daizenshuu 101” section above, however, it is unrealistic to extrapolate that out to mean: “Toriyama personally read and approved every bit of text and deems it all canonical to his original manga.”
The Figure/Statue (Gashapon)
Another common argument is the fact that a “statue” (as it’s often somewhat erroneously called) was made showcasing Goku and Chi-Chi’s kiss:
It’s certainly an official piece of merchandise, though it is just a somewhat standard gashapon released under the Megahouse Capsule Neo line!
The existence of this gashapon is a little strange to bring up for the sake of this argument. Figures, statues, and other merchandise are made for a wide variety of things — filler and canonical and everything in between. There are figures from characters original to movies, or even Dragon Ball Fusions on the Nintendo 3DS, but we know those aren’t meant to represent Akira Toriyama’s original manga! They happened where they happened.
Again, this is not a judgement on your personal like/dislike of the material in question. Merchandise exists for a wealth of things, and this particular gashapon neither “proves” nor “debunks” anything any which way — it just is what it is.
Dragon Ball Super
With that, we finally arrive at the actual source of confusion (and sometimes rage!): Dragon Ball Super TV series episode 60 and manga chapter 18.
The same overall events happen in both versions:
Vegeta and Goku confirm they have Senzu with them and depart for the future with Trunks. Upon arriving, Goku and Vegeta are a bit shocked to see just how terrible the future looks. Black and the group sense each other and prepare for battle. Trunks notices the cat and screams for a Senzu: Mai is still alive! Trunks chews the Senzu and places it directly into Mai’s mouth. Goku is taken aback by the mouth-to-mouth action! Vegeta wonders if Goku has ever kissed before, to which Goku exclaims of course he has not. Vegeta presses the issue noting his marriage, but Goku wonders what that has to do with anything.
While the TV series version of events came first (episode 60 aired 02 October 2016 while manga chapter 18 hit V-Jump a little over a month later on 21 November 2016), it’s the manga version and its dialogue that seems to most often take the heat (perhaps because of its more direct oversight by Toriyama — more on that later).
Here in the manga, the original Japanese dialogue is:
GOKU: うひゃーっ あいつよくクチとクチをくっつけるなぁ…！
VEGETA: お前…… したことないのか？
GOKU: ん？何をだ？
VEGETA: その… キスを…
GOKU: あったりめえだろ！
VEGETA: ……… …結婚しているじゃないか…
GOKU: え？なんか関係あんのか？それが
VEGETA: も…もういい…
This was adapted in Viz’s English translation of the Dragon Ball Super manga (by Toshikazu Aizawa; current translator Caleb Cook took over with chapter 33) as:
GOKU: What the…?! He’s seriously doing something like that?!
VEGETA: Wait…! You’ve never done it before?
GOKU: Huh? Done what?
VEGETA: Umm… A kiss…
GOKU: Of course I haven’t!
VEGETA: … But you’re married…!
GOKU: How’s that related?
VEGETA: N- Nevermind…
Detractors of this scene and its dialogue — generally folks who have no knowledge of Japanese whatsoever — often dismiss the dialogue in Viz’s version as a “mistranslation”. Let us be clear: this dialogue is not mistranslated. It is an absolutely faithful adaptation of the original Japanese dialogue into English.
It’s worth noting that, following the original digital publication and prior to its collected print edition, the translation of these chapters generally gets another once-over by the editorial team, and the letterer assigned to the series performs additional work such as translating and redrawing all of the sound effects from Japanese to English. As part of this process, only one line in this scene was touched for Dragon Ball Super manga volume 3, and with no real consequence: Goku’s “How’s that related?” was adjusted to “What’s that gotta do with anything?!”
To prove a series of points here (both about the original Viz translation, as well as about translation from Japanese to English in general!), we gave the original Japanese dialogue to several different translators. To double-check that we knew what we were talking about to start with here, as well as to confirm we gave each subsequent translator correct Japanese dialogue, our own Julian translated the scene the following way, WITH full imagery and context for what he was looking at:
GOKU: Whoa! He’s just gonna put his mouth right up ag’inst hers?!
VEGETA: You’ve… never done that?
GOKU: Huh? Done what?
VEGETA: Well… Kiss…
GOKU: ‘Course not!
VEGETA: … You’re married, aren’t you…?
GOKU: What’s that got t’do with anythin’?
VEGETA: Er—… Never mind…
For additional context on this scene’s translation, Goku does not explicitly say he hasn’t — he just says あったりめぇだろ！ (an emphatic and Goku-ized version of 当たり前だろう), which roughly means “[that] should be obvious”. We have to look to the context to render this out into something coherent and readable, and we really don’t see any other way to interpret it and have it make sense other than having it mean that has has not kissed before. That said, to maintain the lack of a strict and extremely-literal “yes” or “no” answer here, it could also perhaps be translated as “Well, duh!” (though that kind of response sounds more Bulma to our ears than Goku).
Here’s where the experiment comes in:
Next up, WITHOUT any imagery or context (indeed, even without saying it was from Dragon Ball Super, though they likely figured that out on their own), we provided this dialogue to several other translators. Some of these are the Kanzenshuu-related friends you know and love, and some are external friends of the site that wouldn’t necessarily know what they were getting into. There were no “Google Translate” or “ChatGPT” shenanigans involved here (i.e., “You can get the direct translation by looking up each kanji!!!!”); all of these people are actually qualified to do this, and you both would and have trusted all four of these people for more than just Dragon Ball translation work.
Here are the translations we got back:
Translator #1:
CHARACTER “A”: Yikes! I can’t believe he’s just stickin’ his mouth to her mouth like that!
CHARACTER “B”: Wait… you’ve never done it before?
CHARACTER “A”: Hm? Done what?
CHARACTER “B”: Um… Kissing…
CHARACTER “A”: Of course not!
CHARACTER “B”: Aren’t you married?
CHARACTER “A”: Huh? That got somethin’ to do with it?
CHARACTER “B”: F-Forget it…
Translator #2:
CHARACTER “A”: Wow, he’s really pressing their lips together…!
CHARACTER “B”: Have you…never done that before?
CHARACTER “A”: Hm? Done what?
CHARACTER “B”: Well…kissed…
CHARACTER “A”: Of course not!
CHARACTER “B”: …Aren’t you married?…
CHARACTER “A”: Huh? What’s that got to do with it?
CHARACTER “B”: Ne…never mind…
Translator #3:
CHARACTER “A”: Whoa! He’s actually putting his mouth against hers!
CHARACTER “B”: Wait… you’ve never done it?!
CHARACTER “A”: Huh? What do you mean?
CHARACTER “B”: You know… kissing.
CHARACTER “A”: Of course not!
CHARACTER “B”: …aren’t you married?!
CHARACTER “A”: What does that have to do with anythin’?
CHARACTER “B”: Never mind…
Translator #4:
CHARACTER “A”: Whoa, he’s puttin’ his mouth on hers!
CHARACTER “B”: Wait…you’ve never done that?
CHARACTER “A”: Hmm? Done what?
CHARACTER “B”: You know…kiss someone…
CHARACTER “A”: No way!
CHARACTER “B”: …But you’re married…
CHARACTER “A”: Huh? What’s that got to do with it?
CHARACTER “B”: N-never mind…
What’s notable about each of these is that the very first line from Goku is pretty literally translated out concerning the mouth-to-mouth action taking place, whereas this isn’t exactly present in the Viz translation. The reason for this is almost certainly the small bubble of space available here: by cutting the line down to what it implies and you as the reader can clearly see taking place, the English text here (which still has to fit in a space that was otherwise written vertically in Japanese!) accomplishes what it needs to without necessarily being “a literal translation of the Japanese” — you still know everything you need to know.
The other takeaway is one about translation from Japanese to English in general: there are a million different ways to say the same thing and express the same underlying meaning, all while still being “accurate” and “faithful” at the same time.
Who is responsible for the dialogue in this scene?
This is a fairly simple question with a fairly simple answer… which is bogged down by a wealth of baggage and extra context necessary to fully understand the situation.
With the scene setup and most of the dialogue being pretty one-to-one and present in both versions (with some minor changes, of course), it’s pretty reasonable to assume that this overall setting and even direct scene was most likely supplied by Toriyama in his story arc draft.
Toriyama is very concerned with his characters’ dialogue, as he stated in a comment in the Volume F bonus attendee book for Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’:
Then there’s the dialogue. The original author knows each character’s personality and backstory, so they can naturally think up dialogue that suits them.
… which is simultaneously contradicted AND supported by a comment he made just two years prior alongside his rewriting work on Battle of Gods:
At first, when I was doing the supervision, there were times when I struggled because I couldn’t remember what sort of personality a character had. But once I finally remembered, the characterization would already be complete, so it became quite easy. Rather than being particular about the dialogue, I’m always staking my life on stupid lines. (laughs)
That said, obviously the TV series episodes each have different script writers — but at the same time, we also know “King Ryū” came in during the third story arc to start serving as a “Series Composer” (in layman’s terms, someone in charge of overall plot and continuity). By the time we reach Zamasu, we would have had someone reviewing scripts in this capacity.
The Dragon Ball Super manga was handled by Toyotarō, with Toriyama and Victory Uchida holding their own unique editorial roles. It is, by and large, Toyotarō’s own personal product: what we see on the printed page was drawn and written by him. That said (again!), this overall story arc was plotted out by Toriyama… and Volume 3 (in which chapter 18 is compiled) even includes examples of Toriyama’s corrections, so we know for sure he would have seen and reviewed this exact content.
As eerily specific as we can get here: in an interview with Anime News Network during New York Comic Con 2016 — very notably during the release timeframe of the episode and manga chapter in question! — Toyotarō stated:
I thought Toriyama would be more particular about the story, but he’s actually more particular about the gags and the comedic moments! I can tell that he really loves those parts.
All signs point to Toriyama having provided this exact scene for both the anime and manga, with the TV script writer and Toyotarō writing their own (extremely similar, to the point of being almost exactly the same) dialogue for their respective versions.
So… has Goku ever kissed before?
Within the continuity of Akira Toriyama’s original Dragon Ball manga, the reader never sees Goku kissing anyone (Chi-Chi or otherwise).
Additional scenes within the Dragon Ball television series adaptation heavily imply, if not directly show, Goku kissing Chi-Chi, and supplemental material related to at least that one specific scene go with the kiss as having happened.
Within the continuity of Dragon Ball Super, and in a scene that Toriyama would absolutely have seen in (at bare minimum) manga form prior to publication (and he probably wrote himself in the first place), dialogue from Goku pretty clearly states that he has not kissed before.
Is the Dragon Ball Super dialogue meant to be a joke? Is Goku just messing with Vegeta here? Does Goku think a “kiss” is something other than what it actually is? Is Goku misunderstanding basically every visual and social clue around him (per the norm, honestly)? Or is it meant to be absolutely 100% sincere, and Goku truly means that he has never kissed anyone before? Is it just a joke from the author that doesn’t seem to land with a (large?) portion of its audience?
What’s most important here is that neither the TV series’ English subtitles nor the English manga version is “mistranslated” — in Dragon Ball Super, Goku says he has never kissed before.