Those "Weird" Dragon Ball Names - A Guide to Character Translations
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- Finally, by popular demand (and in some cases unpopular demand) I have created my first guide to Dragon Ball character names. Ever wonder why some weirdos say and spell names totally different than you? Do you ever just want to yell at them? Well, take a few deep breaths, master that impulse, and take a deep dive into the various ways characters' names have been rendered in English!
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Herms's Name Pun Round-Up at Kanzenshuu:
www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewt...
Contents:
00:00 Intro
03:13 Torankusu/Trunks
06:36 Bura/Bra/Bulla
08:16 Kame Sen'nin/Turtle Hermit/Master Roshi
12:49 Kuririn/Krillin
16:28 Biideru/Videl
20:04 Buruma/Bulma/Blooma
25:16 Ending - Zábava
I'm pretty sure Chris Sabat or someone else from Funimation confirmed on camera that they renamed Bra in their dub explicitly because they didn't want kids to get a face full of cleavage if they ever tried to google the character.
monk
I just tested this out with Trunks and then Bra. One immediately shows the Dragon Ball character, the other... not so much.
I get what he means, since bra is a more broad term than trunks when describing underwear. Still, I reckon it wouldn’t be too bad if they just committed to the name.
Wasn't the dub created before Google was created?
@@trueblade3636 nope
Small pedantry here: kanji is logographic, not pictographic. The characters don’t depict the objects or concepts they denote.
Gah, thank you! My apologies.
To add to that if someone is confused: some kanji *do* depict the object or concept they denote. 木 looks like a tree and it means 'tree'. 日 looks like a sun and it means 'sun'. However, 海 doesn't really look like anything, but it means 'sea', and 鬱 looks like a mess but it means 'depression'. Furthermore, 日 is 'sun', but it is also 'day', 'date' and 'sunday', which are all related concept but obviously 日 isn't a picture of them. Basically, simpler kanji can be pictographic, but as a whole the system is not.
@@heatth1474 lol how the fuck does that drawer looking ass looks like a sun 日🤔
@@heatth1474 I'd say depression looks like depression.
@@daymianhogue1634 Fair. =p
Holy shit hearing mistarefusion say "krillin" after all these years is straight up unnerving and I love that dubbed name lol
I am shaking.
He also did that in an older video where he talked about the various English dubs and used the respective dub specific names.
no kidding... i grew up with it, so that's what i'm used to.
then i come across lance and his idiosyncratic naming conventions. i honestly just accepted them, considering his way of doing things isnt wrong anyway.
Trunks: " So, you must be Frieza. "
Frieza: " Actually it's Lord Freeza. "
Trunks: " Really? Then why is there an "I" in it? "
Freeza: " There isn't. "
I wish he addressed that one
My mind goes to “You think ‘Master Roshi’ is my real name?” with this one.
I was hoping he played that clip.
@@HomeWingGamer Ah yea I forgot about that one too. I swear TFS does a better job than Funimation
@@Googaliemoogalie lmao shut up
To be fair, Toriyama forgetting he spelled it "Bulma" for 20 years is in line with his character. The fandom is still not over him forgetting what SS2 is after all.
Well, he did forget about it years after the series was over, so that's understandable imo
@@binge-ington6115i thought he forgot about it between cell and SSJ3 being revealed ?
'Master Roshi' always struck me as an interesting example because, as noted in the video, it doesn't actually make much sense as a translation but it _does_ maintain something like the rhythm of the original title. And I can see how that would be useful for a dub.
It’s literally Master master. Muten Roshi means invincible old master, and Kame-Sennin is the turtle sage.
>Why do people want to set me on fire for a children's cartoon
And you say you've been on the internet for a long time
I never said I wasn't hopelessly naive and innocent. ;-)
Hey nothing wrong with that! I mean you managed to stay innocent on the internet for pete shake. That’s an accomplishment
Everything suddenly made sense once I learned Japanese pronunciation. Before that, I couldn’t comprehend how bulla and bra could be the same name.
I know, right! A bulla and a bra are two completely different objects with two completely different etymologies!
@@gazeboist4535 wait bulla is an actual object? I always though they made the name up for the show and later when I found out her name was actually bra because they didn't want to call her bra like was mentioned in the video.
@@FuryousD Oh obviously that's why they chose it (plus maybe to give her a bit of naming continuity with "Bulma"), but yeah a bulla is an actual thing - it's a little charm that Roman boys would wear while they were growing up, which would be dedicated to their household gods when they came of age. Girls had a similar charm with a different name. Also "bulla" has some kind of meaning in dermatology or something, according to wiki, but that's not as funny to me.
Doesn't this mean mario and luigi could have been translated as malio anf ruigi
@@alexskocy9948 Yes, but they’re clearly meant to be transliterations of the common Italian names Mario and Luigi, so no one would make that mistake.
Some fans: "Toriyama's engrish is canon!"
Toriyama: writes "jetap" on a drink can
Fun fact: in the Latin dub they changed Chichi’s name to milk because chichi literally means titty 😂
I thought that's oppai? Or is oppai a slang?
@@MariaYuri-qo8jy it means titty in Spanish not japanese.
I like how "Master Roshi's" sister "Fortuneteller Baba" seems to have gotten the exact same treatment where half her title was translated and the other half taken as her actual name.
What was going through their parents mind.
Their Parents: Ahh, yes I will name my son "Old-Master" & my daughter "Old-Lady", that feels appropriate.
And this is why I choose to call them Muten Rōshi and Uranai Baba instead. I mean, I can get Roshi, but who names their kid "Old Hag"?
@@MonkeBrain07 Uranai Baba isn't her name, it's her professional title. She says as much to Goku after he calls her name weird.
@@danielquinlan2457 Exactly. I just call them by the title.
@@R0-83-RTthey were manifesting long lives for their kids clearly
Guys, how are we going to deal with Perfect Sal? 😱
Also, considering how Bulma reacts when people point out the bloomer association, I like to imagine "Bloomer" is on her birth certificate and "Bulma" is her own attempt to redirect people's attention. That's why she wears shirts with it emblazoned across the front.
I think I'm going to adopt this Head-Canon, at least for the dub.
Fuck it. I'm taking this as head canon.
Okay, that I like. Required a slight bit of mental gymnastics, but it works.
I love it, she doesn't want people using her Gov't name 🤣
howd they deafeat fliza or picro???
I think Kurilin is the best version of the little guys name, it keeps the Chesnut pun, it has the bonus "Sholin" pun AND it sounds natural to English speakers. Master Muten would've been a better dub name but in both cases what's passed is past
"Oh No!!! My favourite Japanese show has Japanese words in it?! I can't believe they didn't just speak american! Can't we all just call Goku George? And Kuririn Keith? I'll feel so much better"
No silly Goku's English name would be Zero hehe
I truly appreciate that you choose to use the correct pronunciations and spelling of the characters names. I actually had forgotten because after 30 years I haven't heard it that much.
You missed an important controversy! For some reason everybody mispronounces Mago Gosora's name. It's super weird.
Who?
@@reversalmushroom He competed in the finals of the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai
@@reversalmushroom Its a gag referenced to that one time the Tournament announced failed spectacularly in reading Goku's name properly.
@@reversalmushroom It's a wildly wrong reading of Son Gokū's name by the commentator of the Tenkaichi Budokai.
The joke being that most Japanese characters have at least two possible readings, one that is the native Japanese reading and one that is used in words derived from Chinese. For instance, 日 (meaning 'sun' or 'day') may be read as 'nichi' or 'hi' depending on context. 'Son Gokuu' is actually a Chinese name but the announcer (who is obviously supposed to have never seen it before) tries to read it as if it were Japanese.
Y'know, I had always kinda wondered why you didn't just default to "Bloomer", had no idea about the cut-off like Freeza. Educational as ever even on a topic like this!
My knowledge of Romanization is pretty surface-level but it's more funny than anything seeing what people come up with. My favorite was an S.H.Figuarts release some years ago that had "Klilyn" on the box, yes, with a 'y'. The US distributors apparently tried to challenge it and Bandai INSISTED.
The Klilyn spelling is right there in the thumbnail. It's also the spelling used in (the Japanese version of) the GBA Dragon Ball game, Mystical Adventure.
Bandai has always had their own official int'l spellings prior to Eng. dubs and only very recently have they caved to US dub name conventions for Krillin and others like Freeza (now...Frieza) and Goku (used to be Gokou).
Whats funniest to me is how consistently wrong we've all been with Romanizing "Buruma" solely cause Toriyama got it wrong 1st.
As someone who speaks English and Japanese, and is open minded, I agree with you. I like to spell and pronounce names correctly, so I do it even if many ignorant people disagree.
Yea me too, if you're experiencing someone else's culture, why would you argue that it's in another language?
@@Googaliemoogalie yeah, the most important part of japanese culture, a fighting manga about a monkey man who fights monsters and aliens
@@ultrascarlet5275 Low IQ comment.
You get even more romanisations in other European languages. As a kid, I lived in Spain for a bit and got my first exposure to Dragon Ball via a left-to-right flopped, western-comic-size resized Spanish translation, and aside from some stuff I know is common in that localisation--"Freezer" for instance--that also used "Kuririn", but the font was kinda weirdly slanted so until I was like 15 and found the English version of DBZ I honestly thought his name was "Kuvivin"...
This video is incredible. It reminded me how I learned a lot of Katakana and Hiragana using a DBGT chapter guide that had the japanese and romaji versions of each episodes name. All the spelling with syllables, the fonetic "mute" wovels, the use of "impure sounds" by adding the dakuten and handakuten to the H and T groups of syllables, etc... DB increased my interest in learning japanese, unfortunately I never studied it much farther than those autodidact days.
Some funny things about the names in the Latinamerican and Spanish dubs and translations (I'm from Argentina): Kuririn was named Krilin here (spelled like that in the translated title cards), but fonetically speaking, it has the strongest sound in the first "i" in Latinamerica, and in the last "i" in Spain, for whatever reason. In an earlier attempt to dub Dragon Ball from a Harmony Gold adaptation, Krilin's name was changed altogether by the super hispanic name of Cachito (Little Cacho, or Cacho Jr. for an attempt of an accurate english translation), which is used as a nickname for various names here, specially Carlos. So... Krillin's latinamerican name was... Carlos???? (funny stuff).
Generally speaking, Latinamerican dub made in Mexico is pretty accurate, and Spanish dub from Spain was made based on the French re-writing of the scripts, so ended up changing some names, fonetics or even pronunciation of the names and attacks (Muten Roushi was changed into 'Muten Roi' or 'Muten Roy', Vejita was changed into 'Vegeta' in Spain ("g" sounds like the "h" in "help") and Vegueta in Latinamerica ("g" sounds like it does in "get" or "guest"), Trunks was pronunciated as 'Trunk" in Spain ("u" sounds like it does in "Honolulu") and 'Tronks' in Latinamerica ("o" sounds like it does in "store), etc.
Most of the spanish names changes the accents on the names and words: Goku's name was "gOku" istead of "gokU", Piccolo's name was "picOlo", while it was "pIcoro" in México, etc. And so on. It would be funny to make some kind of series with these. If I ever make a video comparison of the spanish language dubs, I'll let you know, and I'll credit oyu for the inspiration!
Thanks for all the amazing job with these videos!
I sincerely loved your explanation!
I think the issue with the tonic syllable has to do with the language phonetics because I've seen a similar thing happen with Digimon. Back when Digimon Linkz existed (old mobile game that shutdown around… 2019~2020 if I'm not mistaken) a lot of spanish speaking folks used to pronounce Digimon names as such: jesmOn, demimeramOn, chaosgallantmOn, ImperialdramOn. For whatever reason the strongest sound in a Digimon's name had to be the final "o" (maybe for everything except for Omegamon's localized name, which I've heard pronounced as OMnimon but I'm fairly certain they'd pronounce Omegamon as omegamOn as well). No idea how they'd pronounce Ooryuumon but I'm guessing that word might follow that pattern as well.
@@aikou2886 Í know what you mean! Same thing happens with Pokemon, even when it actually has an accent mark on the "e", around here it's pronounced as pokemOn... I believe it's because of some grammar and pronunciation rules we have in spanish, as the words are classified based on the syllable were they have the accent mark or tonic syllable, as an example "song" is translated as "canción", which is an "aguda" word (has the accent on the last syllable, and as it ends with an "N", it has an accent mark). Other words like "Truck" ("camión"), "mouse" ("ratón"), "cantaloupe" ("melón") etc. also follow these rules, so I believe for us spanish speakers any word finishing with "on" must be the tonic syllable hahaha.
I found really amusing some of the differences and similarities between languages.
Your reply was really cool to check out some of these stuff too, and I'm glad you liked my explanation on the DB spanish tropes =D
No soñé que le decían Cachito???? Te juro que pensé estar loco porque se los decía a mis amigos en la secundaria hace 20 años y no me creían xD
@@kamatariedgar3603 Jajaja no, no lo soñaste!, fue el primer doblaje, que se pasó bastante sin censura y por eso causó quilombos en la transmisión! En ese doblaje se conoció como Zero y el Dragón Mágico: Zero es el nombre de Goku, a Yamcha le decían Zedaki y a Krillin, Cachito!
Hay fragmentos del doblaje en internet, el que dirigío el doblaje fue Rafael Rivera (Maxwell Sheffield en La Niñera, Sembe Norimaki en Dr Slump, Shura de Carpicornio en Caballeros del Zodíaco, Jay Sherman en El Crítico, etc). Buscalo como "Zero y el Dragon Mágico" y vas a encontrar algunos clips con "Cachito" jajaja
@@Sergevantes oh god, es toda una revelación, si tenía buena memoria entonces xD
I really like this. I always took your method of naming characters as you trying to be as close to the original japanese context as possible. I don't mind, this is pretty educational.
For the next one, how does one really spell Freezer correctly? Lol
I am now in the habit of spelling it Freeza since I started reading the Super Manga
I think it is just "Freeza"
Its just Freeza
Freezer > Furiizaa
The character is Furiiza, so
Furiiza > Freeza
フリーザー
I always spelled it Freeza and I grew up on the funi dub lol
Frieza is just so obviously wrong
Here in Brazil a bunch of names are different as well. I remember when I was first learning English and everyone was calling the character "Master Roshi", I was really confused. As far as I knew in my childhood, the character name had always been "Master Kame".
Some other examples from the top of my head are "King Kai", who I always knew as "Mr. Kaio", "Saiyans", which I always knew as "Saiyajins", or more recently "Zamasu", who here is officially named "Zamas". Translations are weird.
Pensei em comentar isso. Nem tava ligado que o Zamasu tinha ficado sem o U KKKKKKK
@@marxist-leninist-protagonist Outro exemplo meio recente é o nosso querido Deus da Destruição "Bills"... ou "Beerus", porque o nome dele vem da palavra "Beer".
Translation: Another example is our beloved God of Destruction "Bills"... or "Beerus", because his name comes from the word "Beer".
Se a gente entrar no assunto de pronuncia, um que eu sempre achei estranho a dublagem aqui no Brasil é o jeito que eles pronunciam o nome "Zen'o". Eles pronunciam "Zenhor", tipo como se tivessem juntando o nome dele com a palavra "Senhor". É ainda mais estranho quando chamam ele de "Senhor Zen'o", porque parece que eles tão dizendo "Senhor Zenhor".
Translation: If we talk about pronunciation, one that I always found weird in the dub here in Brazil is the way they pronounce "Zen'o". They pronounce it as "Zenhor", sort of like they've joined his name with the word "Lord" ("Senhor"). It's even weirder when they call him "Lord Zen'o", because it sounds like they're saying "Senhor Zenhor".
@@PauloJrchannel CARALHO, verdade! Eu me acostumei tanto com Bills desde 2013 q quando vi gente mandando o Beerus fiquei super confuso HAHDJEDH
@@marxist-leninist-protagonist Em japonês o su no final de Zamasu é pronunciado como s.
This is great! I really hope to see you continue to make Dragon Ball videos that aren't strictly DBD or DBDTV, I love constantly learn about the series from you
Ever since I started watching DBD I've called her "Bluma" because it just seems so much more natural and true to the intention of the pun. Apparently you'd actually spell it "Blooma" though so... guess I got my wires crossed somewhere
Given that Toriyama himself spelled it with a U for a couple of years, that's to be expected.
The issue is English. Japanese has a consistent way of pronouncing a specific spelling and a consistent way of spelling a specific pronunciation (provided you're writing in Hiragana), but English has lots of letters with re-used sounds. E.g. Lance writes the name of the final DB villain as "Majin Boo", but the official localized spelling is "Majin Buu", probably bc the translators didn't think a villain called Boo would be that scary.
But like, when you look at the word Buu you know what it's trying to say, right? No English reader would look at that word and go "Majin Buh-uh"? So who really cares about spelling lol, the pun is audible regardless. It's only annoying when the localization ruins the pun, like Bulma or Jeice.
Man it's so fascinating how much names and their meaning can be interpreted, said, and spelled depending on the context and translation. Very informative!
Beautiful. Thank you for this and I'd love to see more for words like Saiyan and characters like Lunch and even Goku. People forget that the U is extended at the end.
It's also thinking about funny concepts like, what if the dub in some alternate universe mispronounces the names they haven't messed up? Like... Gohan. Everyone seems to agree on that pronunciation, but what if they messed it up? Like if they pronounced it the same way Dragonball Evolution does (IIRC they pronounce the "han" like we do for the word "hand")... What if Funimation originally went with this mispronunciation? People would call you pretentious for pronouncing it the way we're all currently used to, simply because familiarity triumphs over accuracy for some people sometimes. If Master Roshi can carry over from Harmony Gold and persist to this day, then imagine if it were the same for Whiskers the Wonder Cat. People would call you ridiculous for not using that instead of Karin. Wait, they don't use that one either. What a mess, lol.
As a Japanese speaker and someone who only takes in Dragon Ball in its native tongue, I really do love and appreciate Dragon Ball dissection for how you use the Japanese manga plus their actual names.
Between Viz's translations for the manga I read as a kid to various fansites and blogs from back in the day, when I came across your Dragonball Dissection years ago your pronunciations never bewildered me. Sure they were different from the more commonly used Funimation names but it never really bothered me. When I finally did pick up Japanese years ago, everything finally clicked as to why translations were they way the were. One nitpick though and I apologize is someone already pointed this out already, Kanji is logographic not pictographic. Thankfully, Kanji in Dragonball is often accompanied by furigana since is a children's manga so it never too hard to figure out how names are supposed to sound. It only when you try to romanize those name that things get tricky hence this video.
Hello, random person here looking to go into translation and is approaching N3 level Japanese
"Blooma" makes a lot of sense, from what you've described and what I personally know. If I where to be a translator, and was given the job to translate this, I'd go with "Blooma" over "Bulma" since it's closer to the original purpose like you described as well.
I guess it's worth noting that nowadays, naming issues such as these seem to happen less and less due to more and more people becoming aware of foreign culture and languages, and adapting to an unaware audience is less and less incentivized due to it. I'm pretty sure that "Kuririn" would have been left as "Kuririn" if Dragon Ball where to come out today, simply because it's not based on an English word and more people would understand that they're reading a piece of Japanese media and simply accept it as a Japanese name.
Very interesting video however, it's interesting to consider which options I would have picked in these situations if I where to be given the chance and which one could be considered the "Best" one
Thanks for your perspective! That means a lot that you'd share your opinion with me. I wish you the best of luck with your career goals and your N3. Maybe some day I'll jump back in and get there too. :-D
@@MistareFusion Ahh, thank you so much! Good luck with your CZcams efforts as well, I really enjoy your videos!
You know, I feel like listing off all the Italian name changes as we received them in the dub, as our dub was mostly translated directly from Japanese. Most of these changes were made with the intent of adapting the japanese names to the conventions of italian names (mostly must end in a vowel, as the final vowel often carries the gender and number of a name in the italian language)
Here's a bunch:
Yamcha -> Yamco
Krillin -> Crili
Crane School Master -> Condor (???)
Tao Pai Pai -> Taobaibai
Tien Shinhan -> Tensing
Jiaozi -> Riff (I cannot explain this one)
Yarojibei -> Jirobai
Master Roshi -> Genio/Eremita delle tartarughe, but also Maestro Muten (respectively, they're the literal italian for Genius/Hermit of the Turtles, and Master Muten)
Dr. Gero -> Dr. Gelo
Android 8 -> C-8 (this change affects all androids, which we referred to as Cyborgs. But 8 in specifically gets the nickname Ottone, which contains Otto, the italian for 8, and is the italian for the Brass metal.)
Kami -> Il Supremo (The Supreme, italy is a religious country and we'd never just let a character be just "God")
King Yenma -> King Yammer
King Kai -> Re Kaioh (King Kaioh)
Kakarot -> Kakaroth/Ka'aroth
Raditz -> Radish
Bardak -> Bardock
Frieza -> Freezer (yep, just Freezer, not even the italian word for it)
Dabura -> Darbula
Due to Kakarot's name changing to Kakaroth, Vegito's name also changes to Vegeth, still in use to this day.
Funny notes:
Piccolo Junior is just referred to as Junior throughout, and the Makankosappo is just called "Cannone dell'anima" or "Cannone Speciale" which translate to "Soul Cannon" or "Special Cannon"
The Kamehameha was originally adapted simply as "Onda Energetica" (energy wave) and kept this generic name for the longest time.
A few notable attacks are:
Kienzan -> Disco Magico (magic disk)
Tayoken -> Colpo Del Sole (Sun Strike/Attack)
Most other techniques kept their original names, but whether they were translated or kept in English is inconsistent. Weekend was translated to Fine Settimana, but Final Flash and Big Bang Attack stayed in english.
Lastly, the Abridged version deserves a mention, since it was officially adapted to italian by a group of voice actors called Zeromic, who kept the names from the original italian anime run.
I hope this was at least an interesting read for some of you. It is very interesting to us italians, as our history with Japanese media importation goes further back than most other countries'. I'm in my 20's and even my uncle grew up watching Gundam, Mazinger Z, Daitarn, and other Anime series from that time.
This applies to the anime, the italian translations of the manga tend to be more accurate to the Japanese names, much like manga translatios of other countries, with some outliers for one reason or the other ("Freeza" still turing into "Freezer" and later "Moro" becoming "Molo").
Also I think you swapped name's in Bardock's case.
The dub doesn't call Vegito Veget, it calls him Vegeku, Veget is actually the closest to what it was probably meant to be like cause it's supposed to be a fusion of the names Vegeta and Kakarot, but Vegeto sounds better.
@@ginogatash4030 They call him "Vegeth" in the manga since there Goku's Saiyan name aslo ends with a h ("Kakaroth" instead of "Karakot/tto"); but this can only work in text form so in the anime they decided to just change it (and also because Veget/Vegito sounds terrible, I suppose).
@@succubastard1019 yeah i know the manga translation does that, I was talking about the Italian dub of the anime, and Vegeto sounds fine honestly.
@@ginogatash4030 I disagree, I pretty much share Mistare's opinion of the character's name being weird from conception and simply not working at all when translated ti alphabetical writing.
And again, the viewer simply wouldn't understand how "Vegeto/itto" would be a combination of the names "Vegeta" and Kakarot" withouth first reading a whole trivia page, something that most TV viewers in the 90's wouldn't do or think of doing. Whether you prefer it over what they decided to go for is definitely understandable, but you can't blame them for trying something else.
as someone that's seen your whole series twice, i knew all of these and the reasons for them BUT
having them all in one place, easy to share is great and yes, you should totally do more
This was definetely fun! I learned a lot through your explanations along the whole Dissection series.
I grew up with the brazilian dub translation, which gave us:
Master Kame - Kuririn - Videl (with emphasis on 'del') - Mister Satan (actually pronounced with "Mister" in english)
also Chiaotzu was called "Caos" (as in the portuguese word for "chaos")
I've also taken a couple semesters of Japanese prior to finding your channel, so seeing your pronunciations and understanding why was fun seeing someone try to keep most of how the Japanese would say the names or meet in the middle with cases like Bulma
I’ve been watching your channel since you were uploading the Saiyan arc, and have always appreciated your efforts to provide accurate and meaningful pronunciations of these characters’ names. As someone who mostly knows DB from the Funimation dub and sub, and who barely got anything out of his semester on the Japanese language almost 20 years ago, thank you for this review of naming conventions and transliteration.
This was a great video! Extremely insightful and can’t wait to share this with my friends
Nice video as always, Lance! I would love if this turn into a series
Btw, a little fun fact is that the offical japanese figures and guidebooks have their own romanizations for the names, like "Klilyn" for "Kuririn" and "Son Gokou" for "Son Gokū"
This was really informative! I'd love to see more in this style from time to time.
Great episode! The editing is particular nice in this one.
Here in Latin America there is a really fun thing about the pronunciation of Vegeta. The planet is pronounced as it is pronounced in Japanese, and so are the names Vegetto and Gogeta, which include the name of Vegeta. Yet... the character itself isn't, and that's because the official translator of the series was absent on the first appearances of the character, and the person who translated those episodes placed an incorrect pronunciation, because it's not even how the character's name would be pronounced in Spanish
Do more of these. This is so well researched, it's great.
But a lot what's going on with people's opinion about the pronunciation of names is the nostalgia for the dub they've seen first. So for them that's what is correct.
The worst example of this is Bardock's crew lol
The original name: パンブーキン , pronounced Panbookin
Switching some sounds to make it easier for English speakers to pronounce: Pambukin
Removing sounds to make the vegetable pun more obvious: Pumbkin
The actual, official localized name: Shugesh
Literally the only way I can explain the names of Bardock's crew is if the dubbing team wasn't given the original script and had to make it up lol. It's incomprehensible to me.
Another weird one is Jeece, who most English speakers pronounce Jayce, but his actual voice actor pronounces it J-aye-ss. Like it seems to me they just changed the vowel sounds of his name so it would be easier to do an Australian accent, a thing the original character was never stated to have. And to this day a lot of people I know seem to think he was named after juice, not cheese.
A funny one is Cooler's minion Souzer, who is meant to be named after Thousand Island Dressing (so should probably be Thousa), but got renamed to Salza, which is the wrong type of dressing lol. But like, they had the spirit, at least.
The explaination behind Jeese might be as simple as the translators being afraid that the name would sound too much like "Jizz".
@@succubastard1019 but isn't his name just based on the word Juice?
@@SrWboi No, it's based on the word "cheese", as the Ginyu force members have all their names based on dairy products.
Regarding Bardock's teammates, you're dead on the money. Funimation wasn't given the original script. Iirc they had to translate it from the Spanish version or something. Also, it doesn't help that none of Bardock's teammates are referred to by name in the Japanese version, save for Toma.
This is great, I'd love to see more of these!
I thoroughly enjoyed that. Was very educational. Looking forward to seeing more like this 😀
keep doin' what you're doin MistareFusion!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
do more of these
They’re amazing!!!!
Would honestly watch 20 or so videos like this! Pretty interesting honestly watching!
i don’t get why people feel the need to get pressed over someone not using the same character names as them.
Let a guy say Blooma, damn
I love your DB videos no matter how you choose to pronounce the names. :)
I love videos discussing translation and localisation in anime and manga. Despite your frustrations, I hope we see more of these videos from you in the future.
ON another note, i don't know if this is on purpose but i'm actually happy that you're taking your time and releasing related-sidish projects before GT. Gives you some breathing room and all of that.
I do kind of wish dubbed Dragon Ball would go back and edit some names that are just incorrect or adapted oddly. For example, "Turles", which should probably be more like "Tullece". As a kid, I always thought he was supposed to be named after chocolate turtles or something, but it's supposed to be lettuce. Same with the term "androids" being a blanket term for androids, cyborgs, robots, and... whatever Cell is.
In fairness, the Android thing is about as odd in Japanese as it is in English. Jinzoningen may literally mean Artifical Human, but it's pretty much just their generic word for Android and just as unfitting for cyborgs like No.17 and No.18 (Kaizoningen or Modified Human would be more correct).
@@danielquinlan2457 Yea, some of these things are first and foremost Toriyama’s own fault. Other anime or game media don’t have this problem.
This was a pretty good summary + expansion on what you've talked about with these names in the series. I tend to say the Japanese names unless I am talking with IRL friends who would have no idea what I'm talking about.
This is a really good and informative video! I always questioned your adamancy to stick to the Japanese name translations (despite the validity of that, I always just figured it'd be easier on your end not to have to deal with the confusion / backlash from some viewers). But this explains your logic a bit more, and how your decision to use the Japanese names was very well thought out. Good job here!
Honestly I’d like him to continue and weed them out so they can be rightfully ridiculed for being petulant fanbrats.
Love this video, as a person who needed it least, having known all this and having agreed with you since jump.
Nice video as always, Lance! I would love if this turn into a series
Btw, a little fun fact is that the offical japanese figures and guidebooks have their own romanizations for the names, like "Klilyn" for "Kuririn" and "Son Gokou" for "Son Gokū"
Also, here in Brazil we have or own adaptations as well, like "Master Kame" (Mestre Kame) for Kame-Sennin/Mutenroshi, we also use "Kulilin" in the manga translation, but in the anime dub, he is called "Kuririn"
I actually like your Bulma pronunciation.
Please, do more! It is a fun topic.
Hey, you did great with this; just telling you that. I like your explanation considering things and my own laziness at time. (and seriously, we really need something with evil android Sal)
20:15 Ya damn straight I knew it was coming. :P
Loved this style of video. hope we are getting more.
That was a very fun and educating video for the names and so on.
great video! Even if people still don't agree with your versions of the names, it's hard to argue against your reasoning.
Oh man, this ought to be cathartic. Can't imagine how annoying it must be for Lance to be constantly "corrected" in the comments very video.
He's finally done it. The mad bastard finally did it. He actually made an entire video specifically about his name pronunciation rants.
And I am here for it
From Brazil here, where Dragon Ball is a really popular franchise; our dub likes to mix the usage and pronuciation with lot of the japanese and english dub names, as well our own brazilian portuguese words. Which happens, I think, in part, to try to preserve the original names, as much possible, but also compromising giving something that sounds nice or pratical ( I don't have information on the story of dubbing of DB and DBZ of Brazil). Here are some of ours, off the top of my head:
--- Bulma;
---Kuririn;
--- "Chaos" instead of Chiaotzu. We say it as we use our the translated word from english to portuguese "Caos" in pronuciation (the "a" sound is like the in the word "car");
--- Muten Roshi/Master Roshi is called "Mestre Kame", where the first word is BR and the second JPN, meaning "Master Turtle";
--- Despite not using the honorifics for names, like japanese use words like "san" and "sama" for; we call Kami as "Kami-Sama" as his full name; and Kaioh we use "Senhor Kaioh" (Lord Kaioh) always as his full name, everytime. Beerus also, sometimes, we use the word for Lord, "Senhor", in the beginning of his name sometimes, but here we call Beerus "Bills" ("Senhor Bills");
---The Androids we call by using our word for number plus they designation, i.e: Nº 18, or Número 18 (Number 18). We do use the word "Androide" (Android) by the way (On a side note, "Cell" continue as Cell, we don't translate- "Célula"- or convert. It does end up sounding as our word "Céu", that means sky or heaven in portuguese, funnily enough).
I have long since been converted to a disciple of Blooma.
This video was really good!
Fun Fact - Cebula is Polish for onion so in a strange way the dub name Bulla kept the Saiyan vegetable naming motif.
What a fun video!!! Loved it
Wow that's definitely a different style for yoy! Much more rhytm and comedy, I guess because it's a relatively small topic to cover? In any case good job!
EDIT: I'm noticing much more editing too! Did you hire someone or did you just want to make it more dynamic?
"How can you say the author is wrong?"
Kinoko Nasu and insistence on spelling the name アルトリア, which was confirmed multiple times to be writing of Lantin name "Artoria" in katakana, and is name used in the story to the feminine version of king Arthur (in Latin: "Artorius", according to author himself), as "Altria" entered the chat.
Bonus points: every single official translation translates アルトリア as "Artoria" unless they are told otherwise by higher-up.
Some lines needed even to be slightly altered in order to sentence to make sense with this "correct" "Altria" spelling, while they wouldn't need with "Artoria".
As someone who recently got into Fate, this explains everything...
"Altria" is a crime against humanity. Fans sometimes render the name as "Arthuria" and even tho that is sorta inaccurate because it bases itself on the wrong rendering of the original name, it at least bases itself on the original name. All respects to Nasu, but anyone tho thinks the king in the legend is called "Altur" in english needs to stop sniffing glue. One can't even pull the "Engrish is at fault"-card because it takes 2 seconds to research how the name is actually written in the language.
What's most interesting is the fact Toriyama himself just decided the names as puns for the most part and never thought anyone would care that much and many times he contradicts himself later lmfao.
Having been on 90s internet while Funimation was trying to decipher these names and edit things I'll never forget certain fans rabid insistence of using names like "Mirai Torankusu" while JP merch we saw mostly stuck to just "Trunks".
I use to chuck some resistance to accepting "JP" spellings/pronunciations to that hostility but after 25+ years of separation, nah US Dub fans are just being insular and goofy. I rarely see Spanish speaking fans do this tho as all their dubs had changes too but most still accept other terms, always wondered why 🤔
Absolutely fascinating!
Interesting video. As someone who isn't familiar with the Japanese language and mostly knows DBZ/anime in general via the dubs, it's interesting to get an inside peek at how they handle adapting names like this.
You DO know better than the author actually. Man forgot so much about dragon ball over the years that most people do. No idea how "Araki Forgot" became a meme when Toriyama is right there!
I don't know why trying to respect the names of something japanese in a japanese way make you bad and make people call you names and stuff... If trying to go to the core of the source make us weebs then fine, we are, but they that mad because of a letter makes them worse.
I like your way of calling them because in Latam is close to those xD great video as always.
It is very, very, very hypocritical to say someone is being a Weeb for saying Dabra over Dabura. The latter is basically saying Seru instead of Cell, well the former you know, actually makes sense in English.
@@2000mphgirl Sal or nothing
@@2000mphgirl Sal or nothing
I know this isn't in the video, but I've heard it mentioned in other videos, I will defend "Vegerot" to my dying breath 🤣! Yes I know it's "Vegito" because "Kakarot" is "Kakarotto" in Japan, but in English, the sentence "I'm Vegeta and Kakarot together. Guess that makes me Vegito." makes no sense! I know it's inaccurate but it makes more sense in English. I will fight! (Disclaimer I will not actually fight. People have gotten used to Vegito in English so it's a non issue. Just a personal pet peeve from someone who got into Z through the manga 🤣). PS love your content dude! Hearing the origins of this stuff is super interesting!!
Anyone expecting any kind of consistency from toriyama, obviously has not been paying attention for the last 30 years
I've never had a issue with you using Japanese names I only have a issue with it when the names are hard to pronounce for English like Trunks in japanese Is hard but Bluma I can accept over Bulma it sounds foreign and relatively normal
As someone who's seen the Funimation dub, the Kai dub, TFS, read the Viz manga, the English subtitles on the orange box and learned Japanese, I end up being more open to how people say spell out and pronounce DB names and techniques because of how weird and all over the place the translations have been. Only exception is Kaio-Ken tho.
kai-o-ken = king of worlds fist so either English or Japanese is fine with me =P
Just as long as they don't replace the "A" with an "E" sound like Funimation has for years till Kai. points to Peter Kelamis in the pioneer dub for pronouncing it right. He did pronounce it wrong in the later seasons of the Ocean dub though which was the director's fault not his.
Awesome video, I was already sad that we were never going to see another video of you where you used the panels from the manga.
Do you plan to make these Dragon Ball etymology, nomenclature and localization videos something regular?
By the way, what about that time Muten Roshi showed Chi-Chi his driver's license where it literally said his name was Muten Roshi?
Never understood why people get so offended over names. Names that Toriyama himself wasn’t really even consistent with.
I swear I've made this comment before, but I respect you for using the names you choose to use and in most cases I agree with what you use. I'll just never type or say Blooma instead of Bulma, I grew up with it being Bulma so it's just a habit even though I now, as an adult, KNOW it's really Blooma.
Still, I've been following DBD for almost a decade now, it's pretty much ingrained in me that when I hear "Blooma" I immediately associate it with DBD and I wouldn't change that for the world. You just keep doing what you do!
Now stop stalling and do GT already! (I'm joking, take your time!)
Love this video
I do have one question, walking away from this.
What about attack names?
If I remember correctly, you often leave attack names untranslated. And sometimes, that makes sense, as they’re just names. But sometimes they are well…words that mean things. If it’s literally translated as something, wouldn’t it make sense to actually well, translate it? Like you would any Japanese word? And obviously that’s not saying to go with funimation’s translations (unless they line up with accurate translations) but overall…..I mean, why not translate some of them? Hell even funimation’s “spirit bomb” actually hues pretty closely to the literal translation (life ball) and admittedly does actually sound cool as hell. So where should we draw the line and where should we just straight up translate the names?
It's a very good question, and like with most translation questions, I don't know if there is a clear answer. Consider for a moment that we have loan words in real life that we understand as concepts without translating. Think of karate or karaoke or kamikaze. They have simply entered into the lexicon as is. As such, there is precedent.
I guess I would ask what it is you distinguish between attack names that are names versus attack names that are words. Off the top of my head, I'd be hard pressed to understand the difference. There are very few attacks that are simply gibberish. I guess Kamehameha is the only one I could think of, and even that is mostly translatable. I personally tend to consider attack names as akin proper nouns, which is why I tend to leave them alone. I think we also have a predisposition to expecting martial arts moves to have Eastern-sounding names, which, again, ties into specific martial arts disciplines themselves left untranslated (Karate, Taekwondo, Kung Fu, etc.). And then there's the fact that it maintains the distinctiveness of, say, some of Vegeta's attacks, which he does say in English. Big Bang Attack doesn't sound nearly as unique alongside Destructo Discs as it does next to Kienzans.
Ultimately I like the route that Viz takes in regards to attack names and character titles, which is to basically do both, refer to them untranslated while also providing context within dialogue. It's their sometimes he's Kaio, sometimes he's Lord of Worlds, and we understand that one is a translation of the other. Anyway, I hope this helps.
... Is it bad I wanted more? Like, you could have gone as far as commenting on pronunciations of Goku and Tenshinhan and I would have been here for it xD I dunno I just find this stuff fun.
But attack names would be cool too. I'm not just talking "Special Beam Cannons" and "Galick Guns", but in particular I seem to remember reading Dragon Ball and Tenshinhan calling his attacks by Chinese names.
Your frustration provided me with much amusement. Yes. Looking forward to GT Dissection!
Of note, Funimation has used the term "Kame-Sennin" when speaking about the fighting style twice in their own dubs. Once was in Z (Both Ocean and the Remastered Dub) when Goku is speaking to the Ogre Guide and another time in Kai when Gohan remarks that his mother's dancing reminds him of the "Kame-Sennin fighting arts".
I knew I didn't just imagine that!
It's funny. I just thought of your video talking to a friend in japan. She just started watching Super after Toriyama's passing. She mentioned watching the 2nd episode tonight. She spelled the names in English as "Bejita" , "Toraksu", and "Bulma". Just goes to show you how there's really no right or wrong answer.
omg he really is tuxedo mask I don’t believe it -Serena
This show has made me a blooma truther
I dont think Videl would have worked if it was exactly as it is in Japanese, because then the pun would be lost in english as it would sound like "Beetle" unless it was only emphasized in pronounciation but kept the Videl spelling.
Fun fact, in the future of DB, Trunks has a son named Strap On. Original Japanese, Sturaponu. Bulla has two twin daughters and a third younger daughter. Panty and Stocking, with Garterbelt. I fought against those names, but she insisted.
you're still calling her "Bulla" when it's "Bra" lol. Other than that interesting.
I didn't realized until this video that DBD has brainwashed me into replacing "Bulma" with "Bluma". I really had Bluma in my mind coming to this video XD
Surprised you didn't go into Funimation's change of Tenshinhan to the more Chinese pronunciation of 'Tien' (his name being pronounced 天tien津jin飯fan in mandarin) and if memory serves, his name was even westernised to be Tien Shinhan to fit a more 'first name/last name' convention.
Very fun video. Much enjoyed.
Ah interesting so Tenjinfan is Chinese origin like Shenlong I didn't know that!
@@umbrellaunderdog Tianjinfan actually :p
also i guess just calling him Tien sometimes saves on lipflaps.
This was a fun video, small nitpick I believe Krillin goes by Juan Sanchez now for legal reasons
I really respect you for using your own translations, even when I disagree with them. You've always been up front about where you're pulling them from and why you think they fit the best, which is supremely helpful to people like me who are interested in learning Japanese (or at least, about Japanese). You by no means needed to make this video, but I found it very interesting and am definitely going to point people to it and Kanzenshuu whenever this topic comes up. Thanks you!
As much as I wanted to laugh at your Sailor Moon comparison, I found myself raging at fans for the westernization of Lunch into Launch, and Bra into Bulla. Then I realized " My God...this dude is correct...on all fronts..." Then I sat with purple cross-hatchings of gloom realized....
Fun little wrinkle to add to this whole localization business: Thanks to how long it took for Dragon Ball to become popular in English speaking countries, translations and dubs in other western languages had already been produced and quite likely might have influenced how English translations were done (as is often the case in reverse when manga and anime makes it big in the US). If I am not mistaken, the second (the first is a whole can of worms) Mexican dub of Dragon Ball set the precedent for Maestro (Master in Spanish) Roshi with Roshi as a proper name and for Krillin being spelled and pronounced like that.
Brazillian adaptation just call him "Master Kame" (Mestre Kame) all the time except once or twice using Kame Sen'nin.
zero y el dragon magico, I think that dub was based on the first english dub attempt (16 episodes), but they dubbed more episodes into spanish (60)
Roshi is called "Tortue Géniale" in french (Great Turtle) when Muten Roshi is treated as his real name. Bulma is Bulma though. But i think you're into something because Kurilin is Krilin in french, and every other translation than i am aware of have this name.
Good video, tho I'm surprised examples like Tenshinhan, Freeza, Karin, and Son Goku didn't get full sections. Also figured since Bra was covered, the whole Mr. Satan -> "Hercule" thing might've warranted a mention. Part two maybe?
I've heard "Hercule" may have originated in another language dub. I have seen it used even in recent official translations like the Dragon Ball Super manga and the Dragon Ball Legends mobile game! Plenty of Satanic Panic still going around I guess
they changed Mr Sata to Hercule because at the time they didn't want to anger some parents.
I like my solution of using the names I'm used to and accepting every other interpretation as long as we all know which character we're talking about