Got corrected on how I say 'Goku' at a con last month

I was at Anime Expo in LA and mentioned to this guy how I loved how Goku's voice actor changes in the dub. He stopped me mid sentence and said it's 'Go-ku' not 'Go-koo' with a hard pause. I've been saying it wrong for like 6 years since I started watching Dragon Ball Z in high school. Has anyone else had someone call them out on a pronunciation that you just never thought about?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathanbennett1mo ago

And it's not just anime stuff either, @gonzalez.anna called it perfectly - this whole gatekeeping thing bleeds into everything. I remember getting called out for saying "chimichanga" wrong at a Mexican restaurant once, like come on, the waiter knew what I wanted. People love to flex their tiny bit of knowledge in the dumbest moments. It's like they think correcting someone makes them the official expert on the subject, when really it just makes them look like a jerk. We all know what "Go-ku" or "Go-koo" means, same way we know what a chimichanga is, so why make it a whole thing?

gonzalez.anna2mo ago

Honestly though, is it really that deep? I swear anime fans love to act like they're the gatekeepers of Japanese pronunciation when half of them can't even roll an R. I get that some people are passionate about accuracy but correcting a stranger mid sentence at a con is just kinda rude and unnecessary. Like, if you've been saying it for 6 years and everyone understood you, what's the big deal? Plus there's like three different official dubs and they all say it slightly different so who's really wrong here.

rowank692mo ago

Is it really that big of a deal if someone says "Naruto" with a hard T instead of a soft one, @gonzalez.anna? Like, I get wanting to be accurate, but at a con where everyone's just trying to have fun, correcting someone mid-sentence feels more like a power trip than a helpful tip. At the end of the day, we all know what they're talking about, so why make it a whole thing?