Dragon Ball is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. Goku, known as Son Goku in the original Japanese language version, is a fictional character, a superhero and the main protagonist of the Dragon Ball manga series. He is loosely based on Sun Wukong, a central character in the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West. Goku is introduced as an eccentric, monkey tailed boy who practices martial arts and possesses superhuman strength. At first, Goku is believed to be an Earthling, but he is later revealed to be a member of an extraterrestrial warrior race called the Saiyans.