Romanized Spellings on Japanese Merchandise

[KBABZ]

クリリン is Japanese. I’m not gonna sit here and write クリリン everytime I talk about Kulilin. I write with the English alphabet. Just because I write in the alphabet doesn’t take away that the name is from a Japanese series. It’s like Riku from Kingdom Hearts. I’m not gonna write リク everytime. Now, if there wasn’t an official English translation for the game, some people would go for Liku or Riku. But the official name is Riku, coming from the Japanese Square Enix, so everyone uses Riku and Riku is the real name of the character. Why can’t we have that with Dragonball?

Probably because neither Toei or Shueisha are the ones handling the translation of the character names into English like Square Enix does with its properties. When the former two companies get their products outside of Japan, it's very much a "hand off the licensing so somebody else can do it" deal, whereas with Square Enix it's them handling that stuff themselves.

[TheGreatness25]

クリリン is not in the Roman alphabet so it’s not his “real name.”

That ignores the fact that Dragon Ball comes from and was written in Japan.

クリリン is Japanese. I’m not gonna sit here and write クリリン everytime I talk about Kulilin. I write with the English alphabet. Just because I write in the alphabet doesn’t take away that the name is from a Japanese series. It’s like Riku from Kingdom Hearts. I’m not gonna write リク everytime. Now, if there wasn’t an official English translation for the game, some people would go for Liku or Riku. But the official name is Riku, coming from the Japanese Square Enix, so everyone uses Riku and Riku is the real name of the character. Why can’t we have that with Dragonball?

Nobody is asking you to write in Japanese characters just like nobody else is around here. Please note what's been said: because of the fact that this was written in Japanese, anything that is from the Roman alphabet is an adaptation. Even if Akira Toriyama and Toei came up with a list of names, they would still only be adaptations. Steve Simmons of Funimation translated the series from the Japanese version (which is used as the Japanese subtitles on releases). Those names were intended to be as close to the Japanese version as possible (without the Master Roshis and Hercules). That's an official English script that was translated/adapted from the Japanese version. If you'd like, I'd gladly give you the list of the names that he uses. However, once again, since they're taken from a language that doesn't use our characters, any "translation" is merely an adaptation and you can make your own too as long as you try to have it make sense, have it sound like the original (which is why I don't like Blooma), and we all know who you're talking about.

P.S. There's still a filter on Freeza? I tried to use it as an example instead of Roshi and saw that it gave me the double-e instead lol I thought that wasn't a thing anymore. You just couldn't do it, huh VegettoEX? Lol I feel you.

[KBABZ]

P.S. There's still a filter on Freeza? I tried to use it as an example instead of Roshi and saw that it gave me the double-e instead lol I thought that wasn't a thing anymore. You just couldn't do it, huh VegettoEX? Lol I feel you.

Auto-correct? I use Frieza here all the time!

[Gaffer Tape]

have it sound like the original (which is why I don't like Blooma)

Huh. That's one of the reasons I do like Blooma, because it sounds so close to "Buruma, whereas "Buhl-muh" sounds nothing like it.

[mute_proxy]

Huh. That's one of the reasons I do like Blooma, because it sounds so close to "Buruma, whereas "Buhl-muh" sounds nothing like it.

Now try saying the name "Bulma" in japanese. It does sounds the same as the original.

[TheGreatness25]

P.S. There's still a filter on Freeza? I tried to use it as an example instead of Roshi and saw that it gave me the double-e instead lol I thought that wasn't a thing anymore. You just couldn't do it, huh VegettoEX? Lol I feel you.

Auto-correct? I use Frieza here all the time!

That's so weird. I wrote "Frieza" and it posted as "Freeza." When I went to edit the message, it was "Frieza." So weird. Frieza

Well now it worked lol

have it sound like the original (which is why I don't like Blooma)

Huh. That's one of the reasons I do like Blooma, because it sounds so close to "Buruma, whereas "Buhl-muh" sounds nothing like it.

I don't call her "Buhl-ma" and never heard anyone actually call her that aside from Ocean Kurilin. "Bull-ma" is all I've ever heard people call her.

[KBABZ]

When it comes to carrying over the puns, my rearing up on the dub means that I prefer the ones that aren't so face-smackingly obvious, like Burter instead of Butta, or Frieza instead of Freeza (which is hypocritical of me to say considering King Cold and Cooler are things).

[Meshack]

That ignores the fact that Dragon Ball comes from and was written in Japan.

クリリン is Japanese. I’m not gonna sit here and write クリリン everytime I talk about Kulilin. I write with the English alphabet. Just because I write in the alphabet doesn’t take away that the name is from a Japanese series. It’s like Riku from Kingdom Hearts. I’m not gonna write リク everytime. Now, if there wasn’t an official English translation for the game, some people would go for Liku or Riku. But the official name is Riku, coming from the Japanese Square Enix, so everyone uses Riku and Riku is the real name of the character. Why can’t we have that with Dragonball?

have it sound like the original (which is why I don't like Blooma), and we all know who you're talking about.

But... Blooma does sound like Buruma. So does Bulma. Why do you think Toriyama spelled it as Bulma even know he knows the pun is on bloomers? He even spelled the source of the pun in recent artwork. Blooma and Bulma works. Even Bluma or Boolma (which is better than Bulma imo).

On topic but changing it a little, do you guys know where Combined ACa is spelled? I know アボ is officially spelled as Abo and カド as Cado but where does Combined ACa come from? [I just found out that the official subs for Yo! The Return of Gokuh and Friends!! uses different spellings from the norm.]

[Meshack]

When it comes to carrying over the puns, my rearing up on the dub means that I prefer the ones that aren't so face-smackingly obvious, like Burter instead of Butta, or Frieza instead of Freeza (which is hypocritical of me to say considering King Cold and Cooler are things).

The Japanese transliterations of the Ginew Special Corps. is much better imo: Burtta (because of the elongated ba), Jees, Ghourd (an alternate spelling for yogurt [yoghourt], Recoom (not Reacoom because ri is not elongated), and Ginew because... idk. For Freeza’s brother, I’m aware his name is not a pun on cooler but some dialect in Japanese meaning “Let’s chow down” and it’s kūra. So, I think it should be Coora (even Japanese material and Global Dokkan Battle use Coora)

[Gaffer Tape]

I don't call her "Buhl-ma" and never heard anyone actually call her that aside from Ocean Kurilin. "Bull-ma" is all I've ever heard people call her.

I don't know what the difference between those two is. But regardless, I have personally never heard a person say "Bulma" and have it sound anything like Buruma. At all. It's always that English short "u" sound.

Huh. That's one of the reasons I do like Blooma, because it sounds so close to "Buruma, whereas "Buhl-muh" sounds nothing like it.

Now try saying the name "Bulma" in japanese. It does sounds the same as the original.

You mean more of a "Boolma"-type sound? Yes, as a matter of fact, in the years before I made the full switch to Blooma, that's how I pronounced it. But I've never heard anybody else take that route. But then I decided that Blooma works better, both in retaining the pun, and flowing off the tongue, as well as being a match in sound.

Or are you saying to play reverse telephone? As in, take the adaptation "Bulma" and then render it as it would have to be in Japanese phonetics... which would be Buruma... which sounds just like the Japanese because the Japanese is Buruma, so it sounds like itself...? Because that's more than a little recursive.

Also, just for perspective, in case anybody remotely cares, I present my personal "Evolution of Purple/Blue-Haired Girl Naming Usage"
1. "Bulma" pronounced just as the dub did because that was all I knew, so why not.
2. "Buruma" because I was all into the Japanese version, and that's what Chris Psaros of DBZ Uncensored used, so, damn it, I'll use it too.
3. "Bulma" but pronounced closer to "Boolma" because I was wanting to move away from straight romanizations, didn't think the way the dub pronounces "Bulma" sounded at all like the original name, had seen people here on the forums like TripleRach use "Blooma" but was too scared to move that far off the beaten track, and figured that was the best compromise.
4. "Blooma" because it had started to grow on me and make the most logical sense. I was prepping to start my Dragon Ball Dissection series and needed to come down firmly on a standard for her name to use in my videos. So I bit the bullet about six years ago and just hoped for the best. And now I've become so accustomed to it it'd be crazy going back.

[VegettoEX]

Dub spellings are not filtered.

Mis-spellings of dub names are filtered to the appropriate Kanzenshuu style guide spelling because if you can't even be bothered...

The dub spelling isn't "ei".

[Meshack]

I think people take the dub’s pronunciation of Bulma and stick that pronunciation to the spelling when in fact Toriyama did not intend it that way. Buruma is Bu-ru-ma. If you can say Buruma with the oo sound then you can say Bulma with the oo sound. I tend to stick with Bulma because of Toriyama’s romanization of the original. Originally, it was because of what was most common but my stance has changed on spellings for ALL of the series I’m into. If you wanna take the source and take account the pun, Blooma is the most direct to do so. With Kulilin, Kuririn is the most direct but I think what Toriyama was trying to do was not make them so direct, even with his transliterations.

I tend to try to stay away from dubs nowawdays. Even now with the pronunciation of キャベ. The dub says Cah-bah but the original says Cah-beh. I originally didn’t like Cabbe but I use it now, for one, to retain the pronunciation of the original and because Japanese material use it.

I have a question. Why did Viz use Bulma? Is it because of her shirt? Is it because they romanized it that way? Why did Funimation use Bulma? Why didn’t they try to make their own transliteration of the Japanese?

[BlueBasilisk]

I was looking at the boxes for my WCF figures and I noticed they had Future Mai's name spelled out as "Mye" in English. My Golden Frieza just says "FOR MOVIE."

[Meshack]

I was looking at the boxes for my WCF figures and I noticed they had Future Mai's name spelled out as "Mye" in English. My Golden Frieza just says "FOR MOVIE."

Mye is everywhere in Japanese material. I don’t think I’ve seen Mai anywhere

[linkdude20002001]

I use Toriyama's spellings (Gokuh, Bulma, Kulilin, Yajirove, et cetera), even when they're a little weird like "Bulma", but aside from that, I go with whatever makes the most sense. Shueisha, Toei, and Bandai seem to be even less consistent than Toriyama, and since they differ from his spellings, using any of theirs would just be inconsistent. Having a hierarchy and taking whatever's available makes no sense to me if your goal is consistency.

But which OO sound for the U in Bulma? I'd say a near-close near-back rounded vowel makes the most sense for English speakers, even tho close back rounded vowel is a bit closer-sounding to how the Japanese would say it. However, to be exact, it's actually somewhere between the two. But the best way I can describe it is as a "lazy close back rounded vowel", where you don't round your lips into an O shape. Anyway, speaking of being lazy, English speakers will probably just pronounce what's supposed to be a "near-close near-back rounded" vowel as a mid central vowel becuz of the L after it. It's just not an easy sound to make, and they sound nearly identical anyway. So that's why Bulma is pronounced like the word 'bull'. Nothing wrong with it.

[Meshack]

I use Toriyama's spellings (Gokuh, Bulma, Kulilin, Yajirove, et cetera), even when they're a little weird like "Bulma", but aside from that, I go with whatever makes the most sense. Shueisha, Toei, and Bandai seem to be even less consistent than Toriyama, and since they differ from his spellings, using any of theirs would just be inconsistent. Having a hierarchy and taking whatever's available makes no sense to me if your goal is consistency.

But which OO sound for the U in Bulma? I'd say a near-close near-back rounded vowel makes the most sense for English speakers, even tho close back rounded vowel is a bit closer-sounding to how the Japanese would say it. However, to be exact, it's actually somewhere between the two. But the best way I can describe it is as a "lazy close back rounded vowel", where you don't round your lips into an O shape. Anyway, speaking of being lazy, English speakers will probably just pronounce what's supposed to be a "near-close near-back rounded" vowel as a mid central vowel becuz of the L after it. It's just not an easy sound to make, and they sound nearly identical anyway. So that's why Bulma is pronounced like the word 'bull'. Nothing wrong with it.

Well, relying on Shueisha, Toei, or Bandai is more consistent than relying on knowing the pun theme and the validity of the pun. Remember Bills? Remember Bilus? For the most part, their spellings are pretty consistent as far as I’m aware but they have hiccups now and then like Burta instead of Burtta (could easily be a typo) or Begeta instead of Vegeta. Maybe they get pretty consistent from here on out. I hope Shueisha tells Viz, Toei Animation, and Funimations the spellings so it can be universally consistent.

For the pronunciation or an alternate spelling for Bulma, I think it should be Blooma. It’s easier to get across from the pun and the most direct way to romanize it. Bloo-mah.

[Puto]

Wait, what about Yamcha? Why don’t you guys use Yumcha?

"Yamcha" (or Yam2 Cha4 if you want to indicate tones) is in fact the proper Yale Romanization of the Cantonese name for the dining custom. Under the Jyutping Romanization system the Cantonese name is spelt Jam Caa, while the Mandarin name is Yin Cha (all of these are different readings of the Chinese characters 饮茶, literally to drink tea).

Meanwhile "Yumcha", near as I can tell, is just some weirdo spelling that seems to have obtained prominence in English more or less at random. It is in no way a more proper or valid spelling of the name of the dining custom than are Yamcha, Jamcaa, or Yincha. I'm not saying it's less valid either, but there's no actual reason to prefer it over "Yamcha", certainly not when it comes to the DB character. I repeat, "Yamcha" is 100% in line with the Cantonese source of the name.

(At this point, I write these things mainly in the hope that other people who happen to be perusing this thread will find them helpful.)

In that case though, shouldn't you use the Pinyin "Wulong" instead of "Oolong"?

[Meshack]

Wait, what about Yamcha? Why don’t you guys use Yumcha?

"Yamcha" (or Yam2 Cha4 if you want to indicate tones) is in fact the proper Yale Romanization of the Cantonese name for the dining custom. Under the Jyutping Romanization system the Cantonese name is spelt Jam Caa, while the Mandarin name is Yin Cha (all of these are different readings of the Chinese characters 饮茶, literally to drink tea).

Meanwhile "Yumcha", near as I can tell, is just some weirdo spelling that seems to have obtained prominence in English more or less at random. It is in no way a more proper or valid spelling of the name of the dining custom than are Yamcha, Jamcaa, or Yincha. I'm not saying it's less valid either, but there's no actual reason to prefer it over "Yamcha", certainly not when it comes to the DB character. I repeat, "Yamcha" is 100% in line with the Cantonese source of the name.

(At this point, I write these things mainly in the hope that other people who happen to be perusing this thread will find them helpful.)

In that case though, shouldn't you use the Pinyin "Wulong" instead of "Oolong"?

Or Woolong.

[Puto]

As far as I know, "Woolong" isn't valid anything.

[Meshack]

As far as I know, "Woolong" isn't valid anything.

It is... valid... You even mention that in pinyin, for Oolong tea it’s Wūlóng. ウーロン can be romanized as Woolong or Oolong which I think is very similar to Shenron and Shenlong.

The difference between Woolong and Shenlong is that Woolong is used consistently and Shenron is used more consistently than Shenlong