Dragon Ball will forever be considered one of the best and most influential animes and mangas of all time, and that is, in a big part, thanks to how lovable Goku is. Some other shonen shows can encounter numerous debates about who is the most popular character, and sometimes, the protagonist is not even in the conversation.
It was never the case with Dragon Ball as Goku has always been a fan favorite. He has served as an inspiration for a good deal of other anime main characters. And like any good shonen, he has undergone many changes, developments, transformations, power-ups and adaptations to other media. Let's take a look at how he has evolved since day one.
The Evolution In His Design
The Dragon Ball manga premiered to the world in December 1984. That's when Akira Toriyama showed Goku for the first time. The kid saiyan that landed on Earth maintained the first design for a long time. But in fact, before publishing, Goku had a much different design, one that consisted in basically a humanized monkey rather than just a human with a tail. The first draft was later discard as it would lose some appeal or some connection with the fans in he wasn't really a kid. The inspiration came from Journey To The West, a classic Chinese novel. Dragon Ball was always trying to emulate this story and the references construct almost the entire early Dragon Ball universe.
The 11 to 14-year-old Goku remained the same for quite a while, changing occasionally the clothes or improving the draw of his face or face expressions but nothing excessively noticeable. The anime adaptation starting in 1986 brought a different perspective with the color and voice acting that helped complete the image of the character. The point that usually marks the first design transformation is after the battle with King Piccolo. At that moment the series took a three year time-skip and returned with an 18-year-old Goku looking pretty much like his adult version.
When he faces Vegeta he was 23, and his design showed him a bit more muscular and bigger in general. But the great leap in this sense came after the Frieza Saga. This adult Goku design remained the same for the entirety of the original run that ended in the manga in 1995 and in the anime in 1996. In addition, it was also used in Dragon Ball GT before he was turned into a child, which also basically the same as child Goku in Dragon Ball, maybe with a little more detail that came with the improvements in the animation department. The current design from Dragon Ball Super it's just the same Goku but with the modern animation that highlights his facial features.
Personality Traits
It's always funny to think how much has Goku changed over the years in this aspect. In some situations he can seem like a completely different person, however they managed to create the exact same feel around him. When fans watch Dragon Ball Super, they don't see him as that different from that kid that went around in his flying Nimbus carrying the Power Pole. Even as 44-year-old man he still can be childish at times. But is he truly the same?
A topic often debated by fans is his willingness to kill. When everything started out Goku was an unstoppable murderer. He had no hesitation to put anyone's life to an end, not only people, animals too. The ultimate killing machine at a young age. However, as he grew older, for some reason, he erased this aspect of himself completely. He would kill someone from time to time, mostly out of necessity to save everyone else. But when choosing was in his power, he would limit himself to just knocking out the enemy in a Batman-like way. He sometimes pulls the punches just fo fun, when at the beginning he would go all-out even with regular humans lacking any training or strength.
That is not the only way he is radically different. He went from being an independent survivor as a child to relying entirely on others' cooking, clothing, utensils and money as an adult. He expanded his social circle to a big friend group, half of them being his past enemies and somehow formed a family and became a grandfather as a young age. However, this last aspect also relates to one of the main differences. He used to care a lot about his friends and help them with anything they needed, he would lose it every time someone got hurt.
But in the last stages of Dragon Ball Z and in Dragon Ball Super he only cares about training. Goku is a terrible father figure, even worse than Vegeta. He is always away training and ends up risking everyone's lives for selfish reasons time and time again. He complains about doing anything other than improving his strength and is never around for his family and most of his friends.
Power Level
Everyone knows about Dragon Ball's iconic power-ups and transformations, even those who don't like anime or haven't watched the show, that's the impact it had in popular culture. In them lies one of the biggest sources of change for the franchise. Every new transformation comes with a flashy design and all kinds of merchandising. At this point, Goku stands close to a dozen different power-ups between all the different series, canon and non canon. And truth is, there is no end in sight for his miraculous progress. The moment he reached Super Saiyan for the first time will live long in the memory of every anime fan, and so will do the Ultra Instinct for the younger generations.
Crazy to think about the times when he was struggling to lift a car. Now he is as, if not more, powerful as a God of Destruction, a figure that should have been unreachable for a regular being. He can destroy entire planets if he wishes to, and as always, he will keep getting better with every challenge. Fans never get tired of seeing Goku reach new heights in terms of power, and certainly he will, for as long as Dragon Ball keeps adding to its legendary legacy and story.