Goku, pictured left

The main character. Goku starts off at the beginning of the story as a young boy who's 12 years old (he says he's 14, but later learns that 12 comes after 11).

The story follows his life up to adulthood, which covers 42 volumes of the comic book. At the beginning, he is living deep in the mountains by himself; he was raised by his late step father, Son Gohan. However, he's no ordinary boy, he sports a tail and is strong enough to lift small cars and deflect bullets. His step father had taught him kung-fu.

His rustic life is interrupted by a teenager named Bulma, who coerces him to come along on her quest to find the legendary Dragon Balls. Son Goku's life is changed forever; he meets the first human ever since the death of his step father, he encounters bandits, anthropomorphic animals, and an emperor of the world-wannabe.

Goku's isolated, rural origins are obvious at first, for initially, he can't visually tell the difference between males and females, doesn't know what money is, doesn't know how to use an elevator, and is surprised by various forms of technology.

After the first adventure with Bulma and some other characters they meet along the way, Goku finds his way to Kamesenin's place (A.K.A. Mutenroshi) in order to pursue more martial arts training. There, he meets his life-long friend, Kuririn.

From now on, Goku's life becomes that of continually furthering his fighting capabilities (to the point beyond any normal human can ever fathom). He encounters various foes, and each one seems to be exponentially stronger than the one before. Progressively, he fights off the ruthless Red Ribbon Army, the conniving Pilaf and Co., the evil Piccolo Sr., the evil Piccolo Jr., his bad brother Radditz, Nappa, Vejeta, the Ginyuu Special Combat Team, the cold Freezer, Androids, the diabolical Cell, and finally Majin Buu. Goku also enters into several martial arts tournaments, the Tenkaichibudoukai, the first two (#21 & #22) of which resulted in second place, and in the 23rd Tenkaichibudoukai, he finally won, over evil Piccolo Jr.

After the grueling match with evil Piccolo Jr., Goku formally marries Chichi, fulfilling a promise that he unknowingly made when he was a boy. He has two children, Gohan and Goten. Goku dies twice in the manga, once after fighting Radditz, the other after he transports Cell. Ten years after he defeats evil Buu, Goku is hardy as ever, training for the 28th Budoukai. At that tournament, he meets the boy Uubu, who turns out to be the reincarnation of Buu. Goku, satisfied with this boy's potential, makes him his student, and leaves the tournament.

Son Goku also becomes the main character, along with Trunks and Pan, of the Dragon Ball GT TV series. DB GT is not based on manga, it is created from completely new plot with Toriyama Akira having little participation. In this TV series, a new adventure unfolds, with Goku turning in to a child, for starters.

Goku, by nature, is very kind-hearted and innocent. In fact, this influences many of his original rivals or enemies to eventually become his friends. These people include Yamcha, Kuririn, Yajirobe, Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Piccolo Jr., and even Vegeta. He is also very adventuresome, and like a true Saiyajin warrior, he loves to fight and is fueled by the insatiable hunger to get stronger.

He is already quite strong at the beginning of the manga, but he becomes even more powerful as he learns various techniques and trains hard. He masters such waza as Kamehameha, Genkidama, Kaiouken, Supersaiyajin, teleportation, Supersaiyanjin 3. Like all Saiyajin, he burns up an incredible amount of calories, and thus, he eats mammoth amounts of food. (As a boy, he once cleaned out an entire restaurant)

At the beginning of the manga series, we assume that Goku is human, albeit a tail and a very minor, unnoticeable tendency to become a gigantic were-ape when he sees a full moon. However, when Radditz comes to destroy earth, we learn, and Goku learns, that Goku is actually Kakarotto, a lower-level warrior sent from Planet Vegeta to earth to exterminate humans. In fact, Radditz is actually Goku's brother who comes to check up on his progress. The tail is a characteristic feature of the Saiyajin aliens, which allows them to power up to ten times their normal level of strength during the full moon. In the TV series, we learn he is the second child of Bardock.