Dragon Ball Super's WORST joke is worse than you realize

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]The Goku doesn't know what a kiss is gag in Dragon Ball Super is bad. In fact, it's so bad that if you didn't know any better, you'd suspect the whole joke was the result of a mistransation. Well, I won't drag this out. I'll tell you right here. There are absolutely no translation issues at play here. It's just a bad joke. And actually, it's significantly worse than just about everyone realizes. So, on this edition of Dragon Ball Dictionary, I'm going to break down the infamous scene where Goku reveals that he doesn't know what a kiss is. And I'm going to show you how truly terrible it is.

[00:00:55]Hey guys, Tony here. I make videos about Dragon Ball anime and anime localization. If you're into that kind of thing, make sure to subscribe, hit the notification bell, and help me grow the channel by leaving a like and dropping a comment. Here's a question for you. Do you think Bulma was Vegeta's first kiss? Or was he uh having some fun in other parts of the universe before he came to Earth? Let me know what you think. And if you want to support what I do, another thing you can do is pick up a t-shirt from my t-shirt shop, mecca nickelsushi.com.

[00:01:30]There's some awesome designs up right now, and there's more coming very soon.

[00:01:36]In case you forgot, the Goku kiss joke happens in episode 60 of Dragon Ball Super. In this episode, Mai is in really bad shape, so Trunks asks Goku for a Senzu bean. Goku hands one over and because Mai is so out of it that she can't chew or swallow on her own, Trunks pops the bean into his mouth, chews it up, and then puts his lips to her lips and feeds it to her like a mama bird.

[00:02:09]After Goku sees Trunks do this, he is weirded out because he's never seen anyone put their lips on somebody else's lips. And this sparks an exchange between him and Vegeta. Here's my translation of this exchange.

[00:02:27]>> Wa! Trunks, how could you put your mouth on her mouth like that?

[00:02:31]>> You mean you've never done that?

[00:02:34]>> Of course not.

[00:02:35]>> But you're married, aren't you? What has that got to do with anything? Uh, never mind. What do you mean never mind?

[00:02:42]>> The first thing we need to make abundantly clear here is that there aren't any translation issues going on.

[00:02:47]Like I said earlier, this is just a bad joke. The English dub did a fine job adapting this scene, and so did the English subtitles. The issue isn't with the translation. The issue is what is being said in this scene. The original Japanese makes it very clear that Goku has no idea what a kiss is. And it seems pretty safe to assume that Goku doesn't even know the word kiss. In Japanese, you can say kiss or chew. And even if he has heard these words at some point in his life, the scene here tells us that he doesn't know what they mean. And by the way, if you're thinking this has something to do with Japanese culture because Japanese people don't kiss as much, so this scene isn't weird in Japan, no, you're wrong. Because there's plenty of people in Japan who think Goku never having kissed Chi-Chi or even knowing what a kiss is is strange. For example, the well-known anime and manga commentator Toshio Okada actually talked about this moment in one of his videos, and he referred to this whole thing as the Goku, which means the Goku's never kissed anybody problem.

[00:04:11]>> So, yeah, there's plenty of people in Japan who think this scene is confusing, weird, or just plain horrible. So, it doesn't take much analysis to arrive at the conclusion that this scene makes no sense. By this point in the story, Goku is over 40 years old. He's been married to Chi-Chi for over two decades, and he's had two children with her. Given all that, you would think that at the very least Goku would be aware what a kiss is called or the fact that when two people are in a romantic relationship, they like to do stuff with their mouths and their tongues. And well, he knows about the other stuff that people like to do, but he doesn't know about the mouth on mouth action. But actually, Goku doesn't care about romance. He only cares about food and fighting. So, it makes total sense that he wouldn't know what a kiss is.

[00:05:07]>> Yes, that's true. But here's the thing.

[00:05:09]Goku married Chi-Chi, and Chi-Chi absolutely cares about romance.

[00:05:15]Chi-Chi's idea of marriage and a romantic relationship between two people seems to have come out of well, really old-fashioned ideas and or fairy tales.

[00:05:27]So, you would expect Chi-Chi to at the very least have mentioned the word kiss at one point during the many, many, many years that they've been together.

[00:05:40]>> Oh, Goku, I missed you.

[00:05:45]>> Gi, ARE YOU OKAY?

[00:05:47]>> OH, WHAT THE HECK, GOKU?

[00:05:48]>> I THOUGHT YOU WERE TRYING TO SPAR WITH ME BECAUSE OF THAT ATTACK.

[00:05:50]>> WHAT ATTACK?

[00:05:51]>> THIS ONE.

[00:05:53]>> That's kissing, you idiot.

[00:05:54]>> Kissing? What's kissing? It's when you put your lips on someone else's lips.

[00:05:58]>> Oh, THAT'S THE TECHNIQUE VEGETA TAUGHT ME.

[00:06:03]>> But just for a moment, let's disregard the kiss thing because there's something else going on in this scene that results in Goku coming off as extremely stupid.

[00:06:16]It's not like Trunks and Mai were just making out for no reason. Like assuming that Goku doesn't know what a kiss is, I would get why Goku would react like that in that situation. However, this is a life ordeath situation. Trunks chews up the Senzu bean in order to feed it to Mai because Mai is unconscious. What Trunks does here is pretty logical. And this should make sense to Goku as well.

[00:06:44]He knows how Senzu beans work and presumably he knows that when you're unconscious you can't feed yourself, right? So having Goku react in this way makes him come off as so utterly stupid that he's oblivious to what is going on in this situation. And in fact, throughout the entire series of Dragon Ball, both the anime and the manga, we only see Chi-Chi kiss Goku on the cheek.

[00:07:10]We never see them actually kiss on the lips. And of course, this is mainly because Toriyama himself has admitted that he's not very good at writing romance. So, in Dragon Ball, that's why you never see that classic movie kiss that you see in other shows and other films and whatnot. And yes, I'm aware that Akira Toriyama never drew Goku and Chi-Chi kissing on the mouth. So, actually, this scene doesn't conflict with anything we got in the manga, but doesn't matter because like I just showed you, this scene is just badly written. And it perfectly encapsulates so much of what is wrong with modern Dragon Ball. You see, this scene wasn't written because it's funny on its own merit. No, it wasn't written because it's a good joke. It was written as a reference to a classic joke from the original 42 volumes of the manga. Of course, I'm referring to the Goku thought bride was a type of food joke.

[00:08:08]By the way, I've already done an entire video where I do an indepth breakdown of the Goku bride food joke. Many people think that Goku thought marriage was a food, but actually in the original Japanese, he thinks the word yome, which means bride or wife, was a type of food.

[00:08:30]But for a proper breakdown, you got to check out the full video. I'll include a link down in the description and in the pin comment right under my link to make sushi.com where you can buy a t-shirt to support what I do. Anyway, the Goku thought bride was a type of food joke is really good and I absolutely love it. There's multiple reasons why I like this joke so much. To begin, we've got the fact that this joke works on two levels. In the Be Love Saga, Kid Gigi asks Kid Goku to marry her. He thinks she's offering him food, so he agrees. And we've got a misunderstanding here. It's great comedy. But then in the 23rd Tengai martial arts tournament, Akira Toriyama turns that silly little joke into setup for an even better joke. So, it works both as a joke, but also as very satisfying payoff to this loose little plot point that most of us thought was just some random joke and probably wouldn't result in anything, but instead it ended up becoming something very important in Goku's life. Another reason why I like this joke is because it makes total sense. It's the organic result of both who Chi-Chi is as a character and who Goku is as a character. By the 23rd Tengai martial arts tournament, yeah, Goku was a young adult, but he spent pretty much his entire life either in the wilderness or training. So, it's not strange at all that Goku wouldn't understand what marriage is, or that he would misunderstand the rather traditional and old-fashioned phrase that Chi-Chi used to mean marriage. And on top of all that, this joke is pivotal to both Goku as a character and the story of Dragon Ball.

[00:10:32]This joke pushed Goku forward as a character. Because of this joke, Goku went from a young adult to a husband to a father. And speaking of fatherhood, this joke also resulted in the birth of Gohan and Goten. Meanwhile, the Goku kiss joke is nothing but nostalgia bait.

[00:10:54]It's not funny. It's not organic. It makes no sense. And it's completely unimportant to what's going on in the story. You could cut this moment out and nothing would change about Dragon Ball Super. The only reason the Goku kiss joke exists in Dragon Ball Super is because Akira Toriyama wrote a better version of this joke back in the 1980s.

[00:11:20]But it actually gets worse because like I said in the intro, this joke is actually worse than a lot of people realize. You see, it's not even consistent with how Goku is depicted earlier in Dragon Ball Super. In episode 31 of Dragon Ball Super, there's a scene where Jako and Bulma leave together to go see the character Zuno. Right before they depart, Vegeta warns Jako not to do anything weird to Bulma. In other words, this is Vegeta saying, "Don't try anything inappropriate with my Bulma or I'll come and get you." After this, Vegeta and Goku watch the ship depart and then they have a very interesting exchange. Here's my translation of this moment.

[00:12:06]>> We've both got some strong willed wives, huh?

[00:12:09]>> Yeah, but I don't dislike Bulma.

[00:12:12]>> Well, if you're going to put it that way, I like Chi-Chi, too. You know, >> after this, Vegeta explains that Saiyans have a genetic tendency to prefer strong willed women. Now, that's interesting, but that's not what I want to focus on here today. What I want to focus on is how Goku is depicted in this moment.

[00:12:33]First of all, in the first line in this exchange in the original Japanese, Goku uses the word yome. Now, hopefully you remember from earlier that the word yome means bride or wife. And it's the word that Goku misunderstood that resulted in him agreeing to marry Chi-Chi. Now, yes, Chi-Chi doesn't just say yome, she says oy. That's just a more polite version of yome. And then in this scene, Goku says y.

[00:13:05]That's using that suffix that you often hear at the end of names. So, we're talking about one version that has a prefix and one version that has a suffix. Doesn't really matter. At the core, it's the same exact word. Goku using the word yome with the son suffix shows us that Goku didn't just memorize the word yome after he learned it from Chi-Chi and Krillin and Yamcha. No, he came to integrate it as part of his vocabulary and he's come to master its usage. In other words, the Goku that we get here is capable of something called learning. and he doesn't come off like a complete idiot who doesn't even know what a kiss is. But there's more. So in response, Vegeta says that he doesn't hate Bulma. In the original Japanese, he says Janai. Kai means hate and jana is what you use to negate something. So literally, he's saying I don't hate her.

[00:14:08]And this is basically Vegeta's indirect way of saying that he loves Bulma. In anime and manga, it's very common to hear a character reluctantly admit that they love someone by using this phrase jai, I don't hate them. This is especially common with characters who like to present themselves as tough, but in reality, they're soft and emotional on the inside. In other words, sundere.

[00:14:37]And Vegeta is very much this type of character. So yeah, even though this is a very indirect way to put it, this is Vegeta saying that he cares deeply about Bulma and that he loves her. In response to what Vegeta says, Goku says, "I like Chi-Chi, too." You know, so in Japanese, Goku uses the word ski. Ski means like.

[00:14:57]However, in romantic context, it often takes on a slightly deeper meaning, something closer to love. So in this context, I'm definitely getting that vibe. Now, I wouldn't translate what Goku says here as I love Chi-Chi, too.

[00:15:13]You know, I think that's a bit much. But it's clear that Goku isn't simply saying, "I like Chi-Chi, too." No, Goku comprehends what Vegeta just said, the I don't hate her. He understands that Vegeta is expressing how deeply he cares for Bulma. And Goku is responding by saying, "Yeah, me too." In other words, he's saying he cares deeply about her.

[00:15:41]And even though he's not explicitly saying, he's saying, "I love Chi-Chi, too." Does this seem like the kind of character who doesn't even know the word kiss? No, it does not. And if you're thinking, "It's just a stupid joke. It doesn't matter." I completely disagree.

[00:16:00]It absolutely does matter because this joke is Dragon Ball Super in a nutshell.

[00:16:06]It's this approach to writing that results in so much of Dragon Ball Super being mediocre at best. Don't get me wrong, there's some fun moments in Dragon Ball Super. For example, I rather like the exchange between Vegeta and Goku where they admit that they actually care about their wives. It's a nice moment and arguably it shows how much these characters have progressed since the first time that we saw them to think that one day Vegeta would be saying that he well essentially loves Bulma. And the same thing for Goku, this character who went from not even knowing what marriage is to saying that yeah, he likes parenthesis loves Chi-Chi too. But unfortunately, so much of Dragon Ball Super is exactly like the kiss joke.

[00:16:57]Nothing more than a hollow reference that can't stand on its own two legs and often ends up doing more damage than good. Dragon Ball Super fans, come at me in the comments. Don't forget to subscribe, like, and comment. Again, tell me if you think Vegeta's first kiss was Bulma. And if you haven't already, check out my in-depth breakdown somewhere on screen right now about the Goku bride food joke.