Goku actor mourns Akira Toriyama by apologizing for infamous Dragonball: Evolution

Goku’s live-action actor mourns Akira Toriyama’s death by apologizing for the creation of the infamous Dragonball: Evolution. 

The influence Dragon Ball had on popular culture at large cannot be understated, with millions across the world discovering the joys of anime thanks to the original Dragon Ball Z. 

However, the news of Akira Toriyama’s death on March 1 shocked the world, as thousands of mangakas, artists, actors, and fans paid tribute to the creator of Dragon Ball. 

Included in the vast amounts of tributes is Justin Chatwin, whom most Dragon Ball fans may know as the actor of Goku in the infamous live-action Dragonball: Evolution. The actor sharing a heartfelt message to Toriyama while also apologizing for the adaptation. 

“Rest in peace brother. And sorry we messed up that adaptation so badly,” Chatwin wrote in an Instagram story on his page. 

Dragonball: Evolution is an unfortunate stain in the franchise’s history, not only being infamous as one of the worst live-action anime adaptations of all time but one that even people involved distanced themselves from. 

Toriyama himself was critical of the Hollywood adaptation in an interview with Asahi Shimbun. “It had a conventional content that I couldn’t find interesting, so I cautioned them, and suggested changes; but in spite of that, they seemed to have a strange confidence,” he said.

“What came out in the end was a movie I couldn’t really call a Dragon Ball that lived up to my expectations,” Toriyama said of the film. 

Even the screenwriter of Dragonball: Evolution, Ben Ramsey, apologized to fans for the creation of the film in 2016, admitting he didn’t come into the movie as a fan but more as a “businessman taking on an assignment.”