[suki]
Liking Goku is really a
strange thing for me. Back in May 2000, when I had no idea what Saiyuki
was
about and all the posters and magazine adds were driving me up a wall,
I quite hated him. I thought he was a loud mouthed brat with bad tastes
in clothes. Not to mention that I usually don't like the "kid" member of
any team. While I certainly don't hate them, neither Gundam
Wing's Quatre nor Weiß
Kreuz's Omi are my cup of tea. There's nothing wrong with them as characters,
I just prefer older characters. Minekura states Goku's supposed to look
eighteen, but come on people. He looks no older than thirteen. He gets
beaten into the dust by Touga
Kiryuu (Shoujo Kakumei Utena) and Kouji Nanjo (Zetsuai), strikingly handsome men who
are supposed to be sixteen. No, I quite disliked Goku. No doubt about it.
Then came that fateful day
when I saw volume 7. There's a wonderful extra story at the end of this
volume (and heads up mates, the story never appeared in G Fantasy;
don't you just love surprises in your manga?). While I don't remember the
title (I don't actually own volume 7, since the chapters compiled there
I already had from my G Fantasy magazines), I was very touched by
this story. And all of my parenthetical references are spoiling the sweetness
of this moment, aren't they?
The story takes place when
Goku was imprisoned. While in jail he would sit and look at the sky (as
he puts it "like an idiot"). Many birds flew by, and one little bird kept
coming back to Goku's cell. This made him very happy, and he grew very
attached to it. The bird died, though, and Goku was devastated. In his
anguish he starts to scream at the top of his lungs, and it's this screaming
that Sanzo hears and that brings him to Goku's cell.
While the story is the kind
of sweet tale that screams manipulative and pushing all the right
melodramatic buttons, I still loved it. I felt sorry for Goku, and
once I realized I was touched by his situation I felt very guilty. I was
being harsh to him by hating him so much. I was acting in the exact same
way I hated to be treated whenever I, as a kid, would cry and scream because
I was lonely. It's a show, people will say, then ignore you. That
hurts. Children don't react like adults. They're not going to sit around
sipping coffee and saying things like I'm not sure what's wrong with
me... I just feel a little on edge, I guess. They cry and scream and
act like brats, hoping someone will see beyond the facade and reach out
to them. Sounds corny, doesn't it? Like something out of Chicken Soup
for the Saiyuki Soul. Good lord. But it's all true, and what I'm trying
to say is that I understand Goku. I know why he's such a brat, and I've
genuinely come to like him because of it.
I think there's a lot of
sweet vulnerability in Goku as well. I'm not sure if these are any sort
of paternal feelings kicking in (my favourite character is, after all,
Hakkai), but I can't help but feel for this kid. I was very moved by the
scenes that take place after Goku's fight with Kougaiji in volume 6. Feeling
very guilty for having lost control once his circlet was removed, he tries
to apologize to Gojyo, whom he wounded badly. The apology, though, is very
tense, almost ripped out from him. He's very rough and embarrassed by it,
and this how I can tell that the apology is real and heartfelt. You can
see that Goku is almost fighting back tears. What really moved me, though,
was his inability to look at Sanzo in the eyes after he almost killed him
as a demon. You can see that it pains and shames him deeply. He's afraid
that he's pushed away the person he loves most with his own hands, and
this scares him so much that he can't even talk. This is sad. It's endearing
and quite human. You've got to have a pretty tough heart if you don't feel
at least a little bit of understanding towards this kid.
[saru]
[omoshiroii] [joudan
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