In ROF Whis specifically mentioned that Goku hardening his body with ki is a thing.
So. Like, needles would have a tough time getting through his skin because his skin and muscles are just naturally tough, but. Theoretically it could be done.
And.
I mean, if you're going to take away Goku being afraid of needles then you might take away Vegeta being afraid of worms and that's unacceptable.
edited 1st Feb '16 1:19:59 PM by unnoun
Resurrection F being full of shit isn't actually an argument.
I mean, here's something to consider: When people power up, their auras are able to to generate electricity, generate wind, levitate rocks and even sometimes crush the ground underneath them.
So if someone powered up, the needle might break even before it touched them.
Alternatively, maybe Goku got shots as a baby.
Either before he got to Earth, and that's a memory that somehow survived the braindamage, or after Gohan found him he (somehow) got access to a vaccination kit.
I mean, yeah, Goku was in the middle of nowhere and had never seen a car or a girl before, but. I mean, maybe Gohan left and went into town to get the vaccines? Jonas Salk tried to make his vaccines free and available even in rural areas and the third world, so.
Like, Goku is 12 at the start of the series. We don't know how long Gohan's been dead for at the start of the series, but.
edited 1st Feb '16 1:34:00 PM by unnoun
Yeah, I doubt that Goku's had any sort of vaccination. Besides, a bullet fired from a gun couldn't pierce his skin when he was 12. There's no way in hell a needle is going to be able to regardless of age.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!Bullets are different from needles, though. Like. More surface area. Moving much faster.
As an example. Like, kevlar vests are designed to protect from bullets because of the forces involved, cushioning against the kinetic impact. Spreading it out.
But kevlar vests aren't actually rated against piercing damage. Smaller knives can get through. Cops wearing kevlar get stabbed sometimes. The knife slides right through the fibers of the weave.
Prison guards wear kevlar with a tighter weave that protects them better from being stabbed, but that kevlar isn't rated as well against bullets.
Bullets don't work because they're sharp, or even because they're that hard or that dense or have that much mass, they work because they're moving ridiculously fast. Like. The acceleration and the speed of the bullet is the thing.
And, like, I dunno what rounds Bulma was using.
Conversely, chainmail protects well against bladed weapons, but against guns all that will happen is that it'll break and the chains will get embedded in you as shrapnel.
Like. That's the principle I'm going off of. Maybe Goku's body works more like kevlar than it does like chainmail.
Conversely, maybe Goku's never had needles in him, but he's seen it happen to someone else or heard about it and is scared of them because of that?
edited 1st Feb '16 1:48:45 PM by unnoun
Like. If you hit water at terminal velocity, you'll break your legs because for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, and the water will "push back" because of its surface tension. You can break the surface of the water better if you approach it slower with less force. And less surface area.
Maybe Goku has special muscle or skin thingies that work similarly.
Being bullet-resistant or bullet-proof is not instantly a sign of immunity to all forms of damage.
Like, bullets are good, but they don't do everything.
edited 1st Feb '16 1:55:21 PM by unnoun
That was more or less mandatory, though. It's hard to reconcile Frieza and Cell being Bash Brothers in Hell with Frieza's damnation cocoon.
edited 1st Feb '16 1:52:06 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Like, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, because I think whether Goku's ever been punctured by a needle or could be is besides the point.
People aren't always scared of things that can actually harm them.
Fear is an instinctive response to perceived danger, but it's not always logical or rational.
That's not to say the fear is invalid per se, but.
EDIT: I mean, based on what happened with Future Trunks, Frieza is not sword-proof.
Gohan was stronger than Goku, and in all likelihood so were most of the medical staff on Planet Vegeta, so if anyone could stick Goku with a needle...
edited 1st Feb '16 2:37:04 PM by unnoun
In the original anime adaptation there was a whole series of filler of Goku's various antics in the hospital while Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan travelled to Namek. There was him freaking out about needles, him training in the hospital. There was even an episode of him literally escaping from the hospital, putting on his training gi, and getting even more injured than he previously was.
To be honest, outside of worfing Nappa and the Ginyu Force, Goku was actually rarely ever on top of things in each arc in Z.
The only Big Bad Goku manages to beat on his own definitively is Freeza.
Yeah, but Toei doesn't seem to realize that based on the movies and GT.
Toei's filler with the needles and things like Goku hurting himself in the hospital counterbalances that to an extent. Not by enough, but.
Like, when Toei does so much to make Goku the most important and all-powerful central character, getting mad at them for one of the very few small things they do that goes against that trend seems to me to be counterproductive.
Toei giving Goku a silly phobia is one of the small things I would consider to be an improvement on one level. Something that develops his character, expands it. Makes him not boring and invincible.
edited 1st Feb '16 2:53:50 PM by unnoun
Freeza was the one Big Bad Goku was stronger than. Otherwise, he was definitely weaker than Perfect Cell, and weaker than Super Buu, and his superiority over Kid Buu is debatable as well.
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari
To be fair, Goku did go for the kill after Freeza spat on his offer of Mercy. Goku's oversight was that he failed to Double Tap.
edited 1st Feb '16 3:02:46 PM by Lionheart0
Also, it's interesting to note that based on power levels, Goku was only 25% stronger than Frieza at the end, and yet the numerical difference between the two was more than ten times greater than the difference between Goku's base state at that point and a Saibaman.
Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!Actually, just ignore the GT thing and reveal that after that first attempt to take over Hell, the ogres got their shit together (maybe Pikkon helped) and put Frieza in the pod.
We do have to ignore that scene of all the Hell-nizens watching Goku fight Buu though.
As for the power difference between Goku and Frieza. It occurs to me that the incidence is similar to why Nappa was stomping Piccolo despite a difference of merely 500 between them (and why Nappa was able to fight non-Kaiouken Goku equally once he calmed down despite Goku being far stronger):
Goku was far more skilled. Remember, before then, Frieza had never really been challenged at all. He never trained because he was so powerful he didn't need to. Goku however, had been fighting a long time, training, and learning his power. Combine that with being the stronger of the two, and there's nothing much to say.
I now believe that how small the gap has to be for a weaker fighter to still stand a chance against a stronger fighter is very smaller. Like I'm assuming just like at the beginning of the Saiyan Saga (when Raditz showed up) the gap between Goku and Piccolo back when they fought each other in the Budokai was rather small, like, in the same number type small.
Recall that the numbers for them when they were wearing their weighted clothing was 330 and 322 respectively. That's a very small gap.
One Strip! One Strip!

The only conflicts Goku and his hospital staff got into were over him getting out of bed and exercising despite his injuries and the brief argument that occurred when Yajirobe showed up with the Senzu. Neither involved needles.
On Namek, there's very little conversation between Ginyu's defeat and Goku being loaded into a healing pod. It happens in the space of four panels with no input from Goku at all.
Goku being afraid of needles is 100% filler.
edited 1st Feb '16 1:06:23 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.