Goku’s still got it, baby

polygon.com:

Over the weekend, I nearly did what I once thought impossible: downloaded Fortniteagain. Lots of my friends had taken the leap, filling my social media feed with clips and talking about Victory Royales (with cheese) for the first time in at least a year. The reason? Goku. Son Goku, the star of Dragon Ball, is still the key to my jaded heart — and many others’, it seems.

With a hot Fortnite collab and a new movie in theaters, we have once again been reminded that Dragon Ball is, and seemingly always will be, on top. I am more than OK with this. I am not someone who needs to know whether or not Goku could beat someone else in a fight — that stuff is for the birds. I just think Goku is cool. And seeing Goku in non-Dragon Ball contexts is, it turns out, extremely funny.

Goku in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Incredible. Goku hitting the Griddy? Divine. Goku with a sniper rifle? Our finest humorists could never.

Next Dragon Ball movie, let's add guns #gokuinfortnite #dragonball #fortnite

A lot of the cultural cache Goku/Dragon Ball has in the U.S. can be chalked up to being one of the first big anime properties to make it big here. But I also think there’s something more there. Besides being an essentially perfect character design from the legendary Akira Toriyama, Goku’s characteristically jacked and serious appearance is almost always immediately undercut by context. No matter how badass a given fight may be, it’s never very long before he’s getting into some kind of family hijinks or himbo trouble, eating too much or lifting too many weights and ruining someone’s yard. He is perhaps the mightiest warrior in the known universe, but he has all the social graces and behavioral tics of an only partly-trained Labrador