Bigfoot, Yeren, and Goku: Tracing the Ancient Wild Man Archetype

Ever wonder if Goku from Dragon Ball might actually be a Bigfoot? Sounds wild, right? But a fascinating video recently popped up on YouTube that dives deep into exactly that idea, and honestly, the connections are pretty mind-blowing. The video, hosted by Elliot over at the Manna & Monsters channel, makes a compelling case that the story of Goku, the beloved anime hero, traces all the way back to the same ancient wild man legends that Sasquatch comes from. And once you see the thread pulled, it's hard to unsee it. It all starts with Sun Wukong, the Monkey King from the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West. Goku is literally just the Japanese pronunciation of "Wukong." Akira Toriyama didn't hide the influence either. He included a pig character named Oolong, mirroring Zhu Bajie from the original tale. Even early Goku designs looked straight out of the Sun Wukong playbook, complete with the extending staff, the flying nimbus cloud, and yes, that signature tail. But here's where it gets really interesting for anyone who spends time thinking about Sasquatch. The video points out that the wild man archetype didn't begin with Sun Wukong. It goes back thousands of years before that. Around 280 AD, a Chinese writer named Zang Hao documented a creature from the mountains of southwest China that looked like a monkey, walked upright, stood about as tall as a man, and had a rather unsettling habit of snatching women travelers off the road. After about ten years with these creatures, the women reportedly began to think and act like them, refusing to return home. Sound familiar? Hairy, upright, living just past the edge of civilization, taking people. That's the wild man story told across virtually every culture on Earth. And here's the kicker. This wasn't just ancient folklore. In May 1976, a local government official named Chen Lei was driving home from a work conference in the mountain forests of central China when something stepped onto the road. Reddish-brown hair all over, upright stance, a face somewhere between a man and an ape. Chen got within a few meters of it before it walked off on two legs. Unlike most witnesses, Chen didn't stay quiet. He collected reddish hair from the spot and filed a report with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. What happened next was huge. In 1977, the Academy sent over 100 people into those mountains, including zoologists, photographers, and soldiers, all led by a scientist named Zhou Guoxing. They came back with footprints, hair samples, and scat. The creature they were searching for is known as the Yeren, China's version of the wild man. And here's where the worlds collide. Zhou actually co-wrote a paper on Yeren footprints with Jeff Meldrum, one of the most respected academic researchers in the Sasquatch field. The Chinese wild man and the American wild man, measured the same way, described the same way. Witnesses on both sides of the planet reported something six to eight feet tall, upright, covered in reddish-brown hair. The video also breaks down the word "Sasquatch" itself, which a lot of people don't actually know the origin of. In 1929, a teacher and government Indian agent named J.W. Burns, who worked on a reserve in British Columbia, collected accounts from the Indigenous people there and published them in Maclean's magazine under the title "Introducing B.C.'s Hairy Giants." The word he spelled out for English readers was Sasquatch, which roughly translates to "wild man" in the original language. So even the name itself ties directly into this global wild man tradition. Then there's Enkidu. About 4,000 years ago in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest story humanity has, the gods shaped a man out of clay, covered in hair all over his body. He eats grass with the gazelles and drinks at the watering hole with the herds. A hunter finds him tearing up traps so the animals can escape. His name is Enkidu. He becomes civilized, becomes the king's best friend, and joins him on his quest. A wild man turned into a sidekick on an adventure. The parallels to Sun Wukong and Goku are striking, and the video draws that line beautifully. So is Goku actually a Bigfoot? Is the Yeren the same as Sasquatch? Is Enkidu just another version of the same ancient story? The video doesn't claim to have all the answers, but it lays out the case in a way that's genuinely thought-provoking. The line between the Yeren and Sasquatch is strong, and the wild man archetype showing up in cultures separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years suggests something deeper is going on here. If this sounds like the kind of rabbit hole you want to fall down, definitely check out the full video over on the Manna & Monsters YouTube channel. Elliot does a great job weaving folklore, history, and pop culture together in a way that just might change how you look at your favorite anime. And honestly, after watching it, you might never look at Goku's Great Ape transformation the same way again.