Funi names: a review (update: Namek)

[Herms]

Now that the word filter is gone and civilization will collapse within weeks, I thought I’d spend what little time remains evaluating Funi dub names on a case-by-case basis. Take a look at which are fine, which are totally nonsensical, and everything in between. I’ll go roughly by story arc starting with DBZ and eventually jumping back to DB, since that’s more or less how Funi did it (those first 13 episodes aside). For now here’s the Saiyan arc, part one:

Saiyan
Might as well start with this. Pronunciation issues aside, this is as straightforward and logical an adaptation of Saiya-jin into English as you could ask for. Considering how the French dub went with “Space Warriors”, we should probably count ourselves lucky. “Saiyan” had also already been used as the standard English spelling even on various bits of Japanese merchandise before the Funi dub came around. Since the name is of course a pun on the Japanese word for vegetable (yasai), I suppose we could question why Funi left the name as-is rather than changing it to be a pun on an English word instead…except the English word for vegetable was already used for the name of the Saiyan planet/prince/king.

Goku, Gohan
Another thing pretty much left as-is. The only difference to speak of is how their surname “Son” is missing in action for most of the Funi dub, though it turns up in a few random instances. I guess it’s just bad luck that their surname happened to be spelled the same as a common English word. It’s pronounced more like “Sown”, but still, I have to assume the main reason it was left out of the dub is because if Bulma went around calling Goku “Son” like she does in Japanese, it would lead to confusion. It would probably still work fine if they just put in the effort to always pronounce it right and make it clear it was part of the characters’ full name, but I can at least understand why they wouldn’t want to bother.

Bulma
Well, this is the spelling Toriyama uses on her shirt when she appears for the very first time, in the very first chapter, and it pops up onscreen in various other places throughout the series after that. So it definitely doesn’t count as a “dub name”. In fact, it’s one of the names that’s exactly the same between Viz’s manga, the Funi subtitles, and the Funi dub. There’s the whole issue of the dub treating “Briefs” as her surname, but that’s a topic all its own. The spelling “Bulma” itself is fine…right? Well, it is fairly removed from the pun source (bloomers), and so in recent years there’s been bit of a push among some to use “Blooma” or spellings like that instead. Like a lot of things, it’s a question of how much of a monkey you give about name puns. On a purely practical level though, “Bulma” is a perfectly legitimate way of transliterating the name. Of course, so is “Tolanks” when it comes to her son’s name, but hey, if Toriyama always drew Trunks wearing a shirt with “Tolankus” printed on it, things would be different.

Krillin
Like with “Bulma”, this is another perfectly valid way of transliterating the kana spelling, the only problem being that it misses the intended name pun entirely. There’s a few different things going on with his name, but at heart it’s a pun on kuri, meaning “chestnut”, and by extension associated with smooth, hairless heads. Of course, kuri isn’t a word your typical member of an English-speaking audience is going to pick up on, so arguably there’s less of a point in them bothering to preserve the pun there. Something like “Tolankus” is a dumb English spelling because it’s obscuring a connection an English audience should be able to pick up on, whereas “Kuririn” isn’t a joke an English audience would have the cultural background to notice. With that in mind though, a typical approach in many localization is to change names like this into something with a roughly equivalent English language pun. Pokemon is a good example: Kamex (a pun on the Japanese word kame, “turtle” and the English word “max”) becomes “Blastoise” (a pun on “blast” and “tortoise”). Obviously it’s not an exact science, but the idea is to replace a name that means something to Japanese audiences with a name that means something to English audiences. As opposed to “Krillin”, which is essentially just gibberish, albeit gibberish deemed easier to pronounce than “Kuririn”. Actually, I’ve seen it suggested that “Krillin” works as a pun on “krill” (since he’s small), and while I doubt this was Funi’s intention, I guess you can view it that way.

Chestnutrin. Think about it, won't you?

Raditz, Nappa, Vegeta
Right, well these guys are all fine.

Saibamen
They left out the second “i”. This name comes from 栽培/saibai, meaning “cultivation”. It’s not a pun, it’s flat-out the Japanese word for “cultivation”, slapped in front of the English word “man”. In other words, the name signifies that they are “Cultivated Men”, a type of man cultivated like a vegetable. But Funi left out the second “i”: saibai is the Japanese word for “cultivation”, but saiba is just gibberish. This is one of those seemingly pointless changes that I think must have come about simply by accident, but actually the bigger question here is…why didn’t they just translate the word, or otherwise adapt it into English in some way? Like Viz did, calling them “Cultivars”. This’ll be a running theme, but the amount of random untranslated Japanese kicking around the Funi dub is quite substantial. Funi fans often look askance at stuff like "Kaioshin" but don't think twice about "Kaio-ken"; ultimately it just comes down to what names you happen to be familiar with. Even Pokemon leaves “Pikachu” and certain other Japanese-based names completely as-is. No word on if the Saibaimen were ever considered as franchise mascots, though.

Other World
I think this one gets a bad rap among old school fans by being associated with the whole “another dimension” debacle, back when the Funi dub tiptoed around the entire concept of characters dying and winding up in the afterlife. Lots of people probably view “Other World” as just a slight rephrasing of “another dimension” and therefore just another way of avoiding the issue of death, but in truth this term has a solid pedigree. First off, it works as a fairly direct translation of ano-yo, one of the Japanese terms for the afterlife, literally meaning “the world over there” (in contrast to the world of the living, called kono-yo or “this world here”). What’s more, otherworld is often used in the study of mythology and religion as a term for the realm of the dead and/or the gods...in other wor(l)ds, for precisely the sort of place as DB’s ano-yo. So it’s a pretty good translation, and the only oddity is the way the dub typically refers to it as “Other World” rather than “the otherworld”.

Snake Way
In Japanese, this is Hebi no Michi; hebi=snake/serpent, michi=road…but the no part can be complicated. Often in Japanese it simply corresponds to “of” or an ‘s at the end of a noun, so that Hikaru no Go means “the Go of Hikaru” or “Hikaru’s Go” (Go being a board game, if you were wondering). By the same token, Hokuto no Ken means “Fist of the North Star”…or alternatively “North Star’s Fist”, although that sounds ridiculous. Beyond then there’s cases like midori no hon: you could translate this as “book of green”, but in practice it means simply a “green book”. So with all that in mind, you could translate Hebi no Michi out as “Road of the Serpent”, or alternatively (as in Simmons’ subtitles) as “Serpentine Road”…a snake-like road, in other words. If we take “way” as simply another word for “road”, then “Snake Way” is a simplification of the original name, but not too wildly off the mark. It gives a decidedly light and informal spin to the name, not necessarily representative of the tone of the original name, but also not out of keeping with Toriyama’s down-to-earth, businessman version of the afterlife.

King Kai
Pretty much my White Whale. This is a nonsensical non-translation, and what makes it extra annoying is that explaining why it’s so silly is relatively complicated. With “Mister Satan” vs “Hercule”, anyone can see at once that those are two completely different names. With “Kaio” and “King Kai” though…well, “o” means “king”, so hey! “King Kai” sounds like a pretty direct translation! Except he’s not some dude named “Kai”. It’s not the name of his species either, though that’s the impression many take away from the Funi dub. Instead, “Kai” means “world”, and the title “Kaio” means “King of the Worlds”. Thus Viz calls him “Lord of Worlds” (replacing “King” with “Lord” to create a rhyme). “Cosmic King” would be good too…for that matter, the King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy has conceptually the same title as Kaio, though probably nobody solely familiar with the "King Kai" of the Funi dub would ever think to connect the two. That’s the way in which “King Kai” obscures the nature of the character. It’s as if instead of calling Chi Chi’s dad “Ox King”, they called him “King Gyu”. Or if Funi’s One Piece dub had Luffy questing to become “King Kaizoku” instead of the “Pirate King”. Or if in English Godzilla were called “King Kaiju” instead of “King of the Monsters”. Actually, that one sounds pretty cool. Anyway…

Kaio-Ken
Exhibit B for why “King Kai” was a bad character name choice. In the original version, the idea is that Kaio invents a technique, which he names “Kaio-ken” after himself (ken literally means “fist”, but by extension is often used in the names of martial arts attacks or even techniques that don’t directly harm the opponent, ala Taiyo-Ken, but more on that later). So it’s Kaio’s Fist, or the Fist of the King of Worlds (shortened to simply “Fist of the Worlds” in Viz’s footnotes). Or the Cosmic King Attack, or things along those lines. The main point is that the character invented the technique (though he never mastered it), and so named it after himself. Whereas in the Funi dub, the idea is that King Kai named his trademark technique the “Kaio-ken”…because...reasons. I mean, in the Funi dub do they give any explanation about what the name is supposed to mean? Viz does have an advantage in this department, because they can include footnotes or have characters alternate between a Japanese term and its English translation in a manner that would probably be much harder to follow in a spoken dub instead of text dialogue. But still, I can’t rate the (old school) Funi dub very highly as a translation or localization precisely because of things like this. There’s a major character, and a major technique directly named after said major character, yet they entirely fail to preserve this connection.

Princess Snake
Forgot about this one yesterday, but it has certain similarities to the whole Kaio/”King Kai” boondoggle. In Japanese this is Hebi-Hime, “Snake Princess”, and is actually the exact same title Boa Hancock has in One Piece, where it’s pretty universally translated as “Snake Princess”. But Funi went with “Princess Snake”, as if she were actually a person named “Snake”. It’s a small, odd thing, which I would possibly attribute to stylistic choice if it were surrounded by otherwise competent translations, but in the context of the early Funi dub it seems to highlight that they weren’t sure how to handle things. Well, at least they didn’t call her “Princess Hebi”.

King Yemma
Complicated. This is one of those names that originates from a language outside Japanese: Enma is simply the Japanese approximation of…the Chinese approximation of…(possible further steps in here)…ultimately the Sanskrit name “Yama”, referring to the god of death and the underworld. You might think Funi stuck the “Y” on there in homage to the original source of the name, but in fact it’s even simpler than that: while not exactly typical, romanizing the Japanese え/e as “ye” is sometimes done. The most famous example being the “yen”, which in Japanese is 円/えん/en, the same sound at the start of Enma (Ebisu beer becoming "Yebisu" is another example). So even without the Yama connection, it’s entirely possible Funi would have stuck the “Y” on his name anyway, if only to keep it from looking too much like the name “Emma” (they seem to be consistently anxious over the prospect of characters being mistaken for women). The “nm” in Enma becoming two “mm”s is also perfectly cromulent. So, Yama --> Yemma. The fact that an English adaptation of a Japanese approximation of a Chinese approximation of a Sanskrit name isn’t too far removed from the ultimate Sanskrit source is truly a testament to…something, I guess.

In short, “Yemma” is a valid Romanization of the name Enma. If “Enma” was a name Toriyama made up, that would be the end of the story. But since it comes from “Yama”, should Funi have used that instead? After all, that’s precisely what they did in their dub of Yu Yu Hakusho. If nothing else, the two different ways they handled the same name/cultural reference across two different franchises is an interesting case study. I think their approach with YYH was better, but I think “Yemma” is serviceable too.

Oh yeah, his title: dai-ou literally means “great king”, but is also often used in Japanese as the title for historical figures usually called “the Great” in English: Alexander the Great, Cyrus the Great…even Kamehameha the Great. It’s kind of sad that apparently nobody ever went down in history as “the Great” on account of being a really good painter or singer...“Great” men are always kings and conquerors! Anyway, back on topic, leaving out the “great” and just calling him “king” is a valid option, although “Yemma the Great” would also have been valid (and the Simmons subtitles for YYH go with “Yama the Great”). Elsewhere in DB, Cold has the same Dai-ou title, and is likewise called “King Cold” in the dub. But Pilaf has this title too, and instead gets called “Emperor Pilaf” for whatever reason. Well, more on him later.

Kami, the Guardian of Earth
Right, well people are already debating this one, so I might as well address the issue myself. The first thing to note is that since their release of BoG and continuing on with RF, Funi has consistently translated Kami as “god” or “God”, in regards to everything except the God of Earth, which they keep as “Guardian of Earth” for the sake of continuity with their dubs of previous material. So far, nobody has died and nothing has been burned down. Likewise, while Viz uses “Kami” a lot too, they also alternate it with “God”, to the point of introducing the character in their DB vol.14 translation simply as “God”, and having characters refer to him as such. It all went fine, and nothing bad happened to anybody. Outside of DB, Funi’s One Piece dub called the villainous Eneru a “God” (though they changed this to “Sky King” for the TV broadcast version), and Viz’s release of One-Punch Man cheerfully talks about God-Level Disasters. Maybe times were different when Funi was starting out back in the mid-90s, but I think this all nicely illustrates that there’s nothing inherently dangerous about translating the Japanese word for “God” into the English word for “God”. People automatically jump to say it’s “too controversial”, but I think the evidence is mixed at best.

The main issue really isn’t even the question of whether to call the green dude “Kami” or not, but instead on how the scripts as a whole are handled. Like I said above, the Viz manga typically defaults to calling the character “Kami”, but it’s also not shy about throwing the G-word around: in their translation, the character is clearly identified as a god and is often referred to as “God of Earth”. In that context, the fact that they use “Kami” most of the time isn’t actually so bad. It comes across as no different than how they alternate between calling the blue guy “Kaio” and “Lord of Worlds”, or how they switch between “Genki-Dama” and “Energy Sphere”. Viz isn’t leaving “Kami” untranslated as a way of covering up what the word means…which, let’s face it, is precisely what Funi was doing. You can say “Kami=God therefore it’s fine to call him ‘Kami’”, but the flipside to that is if Kami=God, it must likewise be equally fine to call him “God”. In Viz it’s clear that “Kami” means “God”, but in the Funi dub “Kami” means nothing. It’s simply a name people call the character, and it might as well just be “Zonk” or “Flibbelbink”.

Instead, the actual way the Funi dub translates Kami is as “Guardian”. Which…OK. If you’re not going to call a god a god, “guardian” is not the worst euphemism in the world. It worked for Doctor Who back in the 70s (with the “White Guardian” and “Black Guardian”), and on a basic level “guard” sounds quite similar to “god”. Theoretically speaking the purpose of most of the gods throughout the series is to watch over stuff, even if they’re uniformly terrible at their jobs. So since Funi changed “God of Earth” to “Guardian of Earth”, what is the word “Kami” still doing in the dub at all? It’s really just adding extra confusion. If a character called “Kami” is said to serve as “Guardian of Earth”, leaves, and then is replaced in his duties as Guardian by a character named Dende, surely almost everyone casually watching these events would assume “Kami” was the man’s name, printed on his birth certificate. Which makes it weird when (from the dub’s perspective) the character named Kami fuses with the character named Piccolo to create a character who solemnly declares that he has “forgotten his name”. In Japanese this (halfway) makes sense because Kami/God is simply a title held by a man whose true name we do not know (see again, Doctor Who). When this character abandons his title to fuse with Piccolo (and return to being the Namekian he was before obtaining that title), he therefore is left with nothing to call himself.

Well, this could go on forever, so in short: if Funi felt calling the character “God” all the time was too controversial, it still would have been fine to call him “Kami” so long as they made it clear that he was a god. Or if any use of “god/God” was deemed too controversial, Funi should have always called him “Guardian of Earth” or simply “Guardian”. Their approach of going with “Kami, the Guardian of Earth” is needlessly confusing.

Mister Popo
Oh, but they handled this guy’s name perfectly. Good!

Korin
The original name, Karin, comes from a type of candy called karintou. “Tower” in Japanese is tou, so the joke is Karin-tou --> Karin Tower. Changing it to “Korin” of course ruins the joke, though it’s another one of those puns an English-speaking audience was never going to get anyway. Regardless, it seems a pointless change. In my heart of hearts I still believe they just made a typo somewhere along the line and never spotted it in time, but the usual explanation I see is that they didn’t want people to confuse the name “Karin” with “Karen”. Since “Karin” (properly pronounced) does not actually sound very much like “Karen”, this strikes me as a poor excuse. Surely if they just did their jobs and pronounced it correctly, there wouldn’t be an issue. Or if it’s the spelling that’s the problem, how about something like “Karyn”, so that you’re not changing the pronunciation? Or hell, let people mistake his name for “Karen”; it wouldn’t be the end of the world. These days we’ve got dubs for Bleach and other series with characters named “Karin”, and in those cases the name is left as-is without any apparent mishaps.

Chiaotzu
Lots of people think this spelling is some crazy thing Funi made up, but in fact the character is named after the Chinese word for potstickers (餃子), and “Chiaotzu” is the way this word is spelled under the Wade-Giles system for writing Chinese names in English. Meaning, it’s a perfectly valid choice…more so than “Chaozu”, which is simply the Japanese approximation of the original Chinese word, roughly equivalent to calling Trunks “Torankusu”. That’s right, Funi handled this name better than Viz! It seems like Funi must have had someone around in the early days who know Chinese, though apparently this mysterious person was only around half the time.

The Japanese word for potstickers is gyouza, but this is explicitly not how Chiaotzu’s name is read (there’s even a joke about this in the series). While the Chinese word for potstickers is spelt “Chiaotzu” under the Wade-Giles system, the Pinyin spelling is “Jiaozi” (despite at first brush looking completely different, the pronunciation is essentially the same; both spellings are merely attempts to capture non-English sounds using English letters). “Jiaozi” is therefore also a valid spelling for the character’s name, and it’s the spelling for postickers that you are most likely to be taught if you take a Mandarin Chinese course.

Tien
More complicated. His original name comes directly from the dish 天津飯/Tenshinhan, which means "Tianjin rice" since it was supposedly made with rice from Tianjin, China (this dish is served in Japan as an example of “Chinese food”, but in fact originates in Japan, similar to pseudo-Chinese dishes like Cashew Chicken in the US). Unlike Chiaotzu, Tenshinhan’s name actually uses the standard Japanese reading for the characters 天津飯, rather than approximating the Chinese reading. Fully explaining this would take forever, but just trust me when I saw that calling him “Tenshinhan” is more valid than calling Chiaotzu “Chaozu” (not that “Chaozu” is completely invalid, but as noted above it’s similar to “Torankusu”). So sticking with the Japanese name is OK, but at the same time, there’s still an argument for using the Chinese spelling. At the end of the he’s still named after a major Chinese city, after all. On that note…what exactly is the Chinese spelling for his name, anyway?

Like with potstickers, there’s a few options. The Wade-Giles spelling is T’ien-chin, while the Pinyin spelling is Tianjin. As with “Chiaotzu” vs “Jiaozi”, despite the superficial differences these are simply different spellings for precisely the same Chinese name. Even the Japanese Tenshin is obviously not too far removed. These days, if you see the city mentioned on the news, or take a Mandarin Chinese course, “Tianjin” is the spelling you’re going to see. As you can tell though, like with “Chiaotzu”, Funi opted for the Wade-Giles spelling, using “Tien” rather than “Tian”. This is a valid choice. They also dumped the last two-thirds of his name. This is…less so.

However, there is actually some precedent for this in the Japanese version of the series. Chiaotzu commonly calls him “Ten-san”, while the Tenkaichi Budokai announcer likewise refers to him as Ten-senshu, “Contestant Ten”. And in the anime, Tenshinhan refers to his Four-Body Technique as a “Ten Style” move. The Funi dub flips this around though, so that instead of almost always being called “Tenshinhan” and sometimes being called “Ten”, the character is almost always called “Tien” and only rarely called by his full name of…”Tien Shinhan”. So the Funi dub does sometimes restore the rest of his name, but in a strange way: “Tien Shinhan” mixes the Chinese spelling “Tien” with the Japanese spelling “Shinhan”. To be consistent, it should be either “Tien Chinfan” or “Ten Shinhan”. Of course, the difference between the latter of those two and what they actually used is only a single “i”, so arguably there was no reason for them to bother. But by the same token, getting it fully correct wouldn’t have taken much effort on their part either.

Bottom line...Well, if they used “Tien Shinhan” most of the time instead of hardly ever, it would actually be quite faithful, funky Sino-Japanese spelling issues aside.

Shenron (aka the “Eternal Dragon”)
In Chinese, Shen=”God” while Long=”Dragon”, therefore the name means “God Dragon”, “Divine Dragon”, etc. With that in mind, Funi calling him the “Eternal Dragon” seems like another attempt to side-step any mention of gods, with “Eternal” being a safe PC substitute for “Divine”. Well, OK…like with “Guardian”, if you’re not going to use any directly god-related words, I guess “eternal” is not a terrible replacement. But then, if they’re changing the God of Earth into the “Guardian of Earth”, shouldn’t the divine dragon which God creates likewise be rechristened the “Guardian Dragon”, to maintain the connection between their names? Or on the flipside, shouldn’t the dub refer to Kami as “the Eternal Guardian”, at least once or twice? He’s not actually eternal of course, but then Shenlong is likewise quite susceptible to being blown up.

On the Chinese side of things…Long is the Chinese word for “dragon”, while ron is simply the Japanese approximation of the Chinese word. Again, calling a Long “Ron” is like calling Trunks “Torankusu”. It’s pretty bizarre that Funi would mess this up when they got “Chiaotzu” right. Extra so when you consider that “Long” is one of the most well-known Chinese words around.

Flying Nimbus
The Japanese name, Kinto-un, originates from the Chinese novel Journey to the West and means “Somersault Cloud”. In fact, this “kinto” is not the typical way of saying “somersault” in Japanese, but rather is a holdover from the name’s Chinese origin. For that matter, the very use of “somersault” is a reference to the original conception of the Monkey King’s cloud-riding abilities, which did indeed involve somersaulting. However, later Journey to the West adaptations tend to leave this out, and DB follows suit. Anyway, if we take “Nimbus” as a fancy word for “cloud” and “flying” as a replacement for “somersault” (one better suited to the way the cloud is actually depicted in DB), then “Flying Nimbus” works as a very loose translation of Kinto-un, although it does totally obscure the ancient Chinese origin of the term.

Power Pole
Another JttW item. The Japanese name, Nyoibo, can literally be translated to "As-You-Wish Staff" (*insert Princess Bride reference here*), the idea being that it’s a staff which grows or shrinks however the user wishes it to. “Compliant Rod” is sometimes used as a more succinct translation. I guess there is a connection between the concept of something doing as one wishes, to the concept of “will”, and from there to “power”, in a 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of way. “Pole” is a valid way of translating bou, though it seems to have been selected mainly to go along with “Power” and create an alliterative name. Overall, “Power Pole” doesn’t convey the essential point of the original name, which is that this staff/rod/pole changes in response to the user’s desires. Something like “Morphing Pole” would be better on the score, though it sounds like something out of Power Rangers. Of course, like with Kinto-un, this name originates from a classic Chinese novel. More so than any other DB names, these are two which you don’t necessarily want to heavily localize so that they sound like random items from any kids action show.

Yamcha
Long story short, this spelling is fine, but the explanation is complicated. I’ve been talking blithely about “Chinese” names, but until now I’ve only dealt with names deriving from Mandarin Chinese. This one though comes from the Cantonese term Yum cha, a style of Chinese cuisine involving drinking tea while eating snacks. 飲/Yum=”drink”, 茶/Cha=”tea”. In fact, I’m a bit puzzled by that “Yum”. The Wikipedia page uses the spelling “Yum cha”, but according to that same page, this term should be spelled “Jam caa” in English under the Jyutping system of romanisation, and “Yam cha” under the Yale system. So after 30 seconds of research I still don’t really know where “Yum” comes from, but as you’ve probably noticed by now, there’s no shortage of different systems for spelling Chinese names in English (over in Mandarin Chinese these same characters would be read as “Yin cha”). At the end of the day, “Yam cha” is a valid spelling according to the Yale system of writing Cantonese names in English, meaning there shouldn’t be anything wrong with calling the DB character “Yamcha”. The Japanese kana spelling for both the name of the Chinese cuisine and the DB character is ヤムチャ/Yamucha, but there’s no reason to keep the “u” in there.

Puar
Off by one letter. The name derives from a type of tea spelt either “Pu-erh” or “Pu’er” in English (the latter being the Pinyin spelling of the Mandarin Chinese name). The Japanese kana spelling for the DB character is プーアル/Puuaru, and so “Puar” is a valid romanisation of this, but overlooks how the name ultimately derives from the Chinese Pu’er tea. So spelling it “Puer” would have been better in that regard.

Oolong
Fine. Another tea name. The Pinyin spelling for this Mandarin Chinese name is “Wulong”, but “Oolong” is (per the Wikipedia talk page) a “nonstandard transcription of the Mandarin pronunciation” and seems to be the most commonly used name for the tea in English. So nothing wrong with using this spelling for the DB character.

Kamehameha
Well, they left it as-is. They do say “Kamehameha Wave” a bunch, which is technically redundant (波/ha=wave), but in a world of ATM machines and PIN numbers, it’s probably nothing we can’t handle. The issue of what, if anything, “Kamehameha” as a whole is supposed to mean is complex. Obviously it’s a reference to the Hawaiian king (whose name in Hawaiian means “the Lonely One”), but what’s the name supposed to mean in the context of the DB universe? Well, kame in Japanese means “turtle”, so there’s the intended connection to the attack’s inventor, Kame-sennin/the Turtle Hermit. And ha means “wave”, as mentioned above. So that leaves hame…to be honest, there’s no clear answer. It’s commonly claimed among English speaking fandom that it’s supposed to be short for hametsu/”destruction”, but there are certain problems with this idea, not least of which is that it’s never been officially stated anywhere and seems unknown among Japanese fans. But none of that really has to do with how Funi handled the name. Again, they left it as-is, and that’s probably for the best since the name is so iconic and each syllable is tied directly into how it’s performed. Of course, the connection between the Kamehameha’s name and the name of its inventor is lost, but I guess that’s more of a problem with how they chose to adapt Kame-sennin. More on that later.

Oh yeah, there is the whole pronunciation issue…actually, I’ve seen people claim that the Funi dub’s pronunciation of “Kamehameha” is closer to the original Hawaiian pronunciation of the king’s name, but near as I can tell, this is not actually true. It’s simply that mainland US English speakers are inclined to mispronounce the Hawaiian king’s name in precisely the same way they’re inclined to mispronounce the DB attack’s name.

Special Beam Cannon
The Japanese name: Makankosappo, meaning approximately “Demon Piercing Light Kill Cannon”. Or “Demon’s Deadly Cannon of Piercing Light”. Or, you know, other things of that nature. Long kanji-based attack names like this are relatively rare in DB, but are a staple of other Shonen series. See for instance Yu Yu Hakusho, which gives us Hiei’s Jao-Ensatsu Koku-Ryu-Ha (aka Dragon of the Darkness Flames). And who could forget Yomi’s Makoi-Ryu Renpa-Hansho-Heki (aka…something, I’m sure)? I’m told that in the Naruto dub they typically just leave these names in Japanese and dub fans eat it up, but I suppose it helps if you’re a ninja-themed show.

Anyway, at heart the name “Makankosappo” is simply the word “cannon” modified by four preceding words (“demon”, “piercing”, “light”, and “kill”). In that sense, “Special Beam Cannon” retains the basic form of the original name, while only retaining one of the original modifiers (if we count “beam” as a liberal translation of “light”). Viewed in this way, it seems like “Special” must clearly be a PC replacement for “Demon”. Funi’s dub of the original DB eventually gave us “Evil Containment Wave” in place of Mafuuba/”Demon Containment Wave”, so in that sense perhaps “Evil Beam Cannon” would have been a better choice? “Special” just seems a bit toothless to me. Notably, Viz’s “Light of Death” is not really much of an improvement on “Special Beam Cannon”. Both are far-removed from the original name, and “Light of Death” doesn’t even maintain the structure of the original name the way “Special Beam Cannon” does. But at least “Death” sounds scarier than “Special”.

Personally, I quite like “Devil Drill Cannon” as an alternative to “Special Beam Cannon”, as far as loose translations go. If we’re picking which of the four modifiers to keep, I think the “Piercing” part is a key aspect of the attack (since it goes straight through two characters in a crucial scene), and if you play around with that a bit you get “Drill”. Likewise, Ma/Demon/Devil is important because it’s how Piccolo brands things during this part of the series (more on this shortly). Of course, to be honest I think the Funi dub could totally have gotten away with leaving the name in Japanese if they had tried. Why bother? Well, in DB half the attack names are in English already, so there’s an argument for leaving the ones in Japanese as-is. Toriyama’s even said he takes characterization into account when deciding on attack names: he explains that Vegeta’s the kind of guy to name his attacks in English, while Piccolo’s a “classy” guy who would therefore use kanji. Anyway, Funi did indeed leave some attack names totally untranslated, such as…

Masenko
Admittedly, it’s catchier than “Makankosappo”. It means “Demon Flash”. Without getting into any more theological debates, a big part of Piccolo’s character early on is that he considers himself a Demon King and labels everything with the kanji 魔/ma, “demon”. Whether or not Piccolo actually count as a demon is irrelevant (and I’ve got a whole thread on that), the point is that he thinks he is. It’s his brand, and he labels his stuff accordingly. That’s why he slaps a big　魔 on the outfit he gives Gohan, and that’s why his attacks tend to start with “Ma”. It’s a subtle but distinct thread: DBZ starts off with Piccolo using an attack beginning with “Ma” to kill some Saiyans, then he trains Gohan, who goes on to use an attack beginning with “Ma” against more Saiyans. The entire point behind the name “Masenko” is that it shows Gohan learned this technique from Piccolo. But the Funi dub turns “Makankosappo” into “Special Beam Cannon” while leaving Masenko as-is, so the connection is lost. If nothing else, you’d think they could have called it “Special Flash”. No? Well, suit yourself.

Spirit Ball
In Japanese this is Genki-Dama. Now, 元気/genki can mean several related things, including health, energy, and vitality. “Spirit” falls into that ballpark, but notably it’s “spirit” in the sense of energy/mood. “Being in high spirits”, “spirited”, that sort of thing. It’s unrelated to “spirit” in the sense of ghosts or anything otherworldly like that. Instead, that would be 霊/rei, which is the word translated as “spirit” in Funi’s Yu Yu Hakusho dub. Meanwhile, “dama” comes from 玉/tama, meaning a ball or jewel, or also sometimes a bullet (though in that case it’s usually written with the kanji　弾 instead). Hence Viz translating it as “Energy Sphere”. Since the Genki-Dama is a ball that explodes, calling it a “bomb” is not a huge leap, so I’ll count “Spirit Bomb” as a loose but essentially fine translation.

Tri Beam
Has 100% zilch to do with the original name, something relatively rare, as we’ve seen. In Japanese this is 気功砲/Kikou-hou. The 砲/hou means “cannon”, while　気功/Kikou is Japanese for Qigong, “Life Energy Cultivation”. In the real world, this pretty much just means breathing exercises, but in funky kung-fu stories like DB it means channeling your ki so that you can use fancy attacks. With that in mind, the English release of the Budokai games also refers to this attack as “Chi Blast Cannon”, which is a much better localization. This might all seem a bit academic, but the point behind the attack is that it uses up so much ki/chi/qi/”life force” that people who use it run the risk of dying (if you use up your life force, you use up your life). So keeping ki/chi/qi/”life force” in the name seems smart in that regard. Meanwhile, with “Tri Beam” I guess they just hooked onto the fact that he forms a triangle with his hands when firing it.

Destructo Disc
Alright, so Kienzan: ki=ki, en=circle, zan=cut. With that in mind, “Disc” works as an adaptation of en/”circle”, while…I guess “Destructo” substitutes for zan/”cut”? All else aside, “destruction” is simply the wrong word to invoke when naming an attack whose distinguishing characteristic is that it neatly slices through things. Virtually every other signature attack in the series could have “Destructo” tacked on there (could, not should), but this is one of the attacks where it’s least appropriate.

Gallick Gun
Japanese: ギャリック砲/Gyarikku-hou, with砲/hou once again meaning “cannon”…although “gun” is a potential meaning too (in the sense of a ship’s guns, rather than a handgun or anything tiny like that). Meanwhile, “Gallick” is a valid romanisation of ギャリック/Gyarikku (which could be a pun on “garlic”, though we don’t know for sure). Pretty much fine, I’d say.


Turtle Hermit
Let’s start with “Turtle Hermit”, because that’s easier than Muten Roshi. Maybe. In Japanese this is Kame-sen’nin, with kame meaning “turtle”, and sen’nin meaning…well, “hermit”, sort of. Sen’nin are figures of Japanese folklore (originating from the Xian of Chinese folklore), and so the concept is hard to translate into English in a single word. In short, they’re immortal Taoist wizards who typically live alone (or in groups together, but isolated from human society at large). Typically they’re shown residing in mountains, and not coincidentally, the kanji for the sen in “sen’nin” (仙) comes from combining the kanji for “person” and “mountain”. Meanwhile, the nin (人) part simply means “person”: so a sen’nin is a “Hermit Person”, in contrast to Karin, who is described as a sen’byou or “Hermit Cat”, or the Senzu, which are “Hermit Beans”.

On its own, “hermit” might not seem like it conveys the mystical significance of “sen’nin”, but it is a standard way of translating the term (along with "immortal" and "sage"), so Funi is pretty much going by the book here. Interestingly enough through, the English word “hermit” originally had mystical significance as well, since it was actually coined to refer to religious figures who isolated themselves from society (basically the first Christian monks). Similar to how 仙/sen literally means “person of the mountains”, the word hermit derives from Latin for “of the desert” (in both cases, locations sought out because they offer isolation). Nowadays of course in English “hermit” typically means anyone who isolates themselves for any reason, but if you go back to its roots, it’s a pretty good translation of sen’nin.

Master Roshi
The Japanese name is 武天老師/Muten Roushi, which is somewhat tricky to translate. Well, roushi literally breaks out as “old teacher/master” (but “master” specifically in the sense of someone with knowledge/skills), and is used to refer to Zen teachers, sages, things like that. In Mandarin Chinese the exact same characters are read as laoshi and refer to teachers in general (so it’s a word you hear a lot in Chinese classes), but the Japanese term roushi is reserved for more mystical teachers, not ones you’d encounter in a typical classroom.

Meanwhile, 武/mu=the martial arts, and 天/ten=heaven, or potentially god. This is not a normal combination of kanji, and there’s actually some uncertainty as to precisely what it’s supposed to mean (Toriyama has unhelpfully commented that it’s simply supposed to “sound suitably impressive”). Since ten can potentially mean a god, and this character is indeed referred to as a bujutsu no kami-sama “god of the martial arts” a few times, it makes sense to think of Muten as a shortened version of this longer title. Going with that idea, a full translation of Muten Roshi would be “Martial Arts God Old Master”. Which is ridiculous. “Divine Martial Sage” is a bit better. Viz’s translation is “Invincible Old Master”. The “Invincible” part is a bit of a stretch, but this is obviously a tough one to coherently and succinctly translate into English. As Toriyama said, it’s supposed to sound impressive, so it’s basically just a bunch of impressive kanji stuck together.

With all that in mind, how does “Master Roshi” stack up as an English adaptation? Well, the first thing that jumps out is that “Roshi” is the part of the name that means “(old) master”, therefore “Master Roshi” literally means “Master Master”. Which is...interesting. The next thing is that while Muten Roshi in Japanese is simply one long title, “Master Roshi” in English makes it sound like he’s a guy named “Roshi” whose title is “Master”. This does highlight the awkward fact that in the Japanese version of the series, this character is known by two separate titles but we never learn his real name (although he does have Muten Roshi on his driver’s license, so maybe it really is his name, albeit a very unusual one).

Overall…I think “Master Roshi” is a pretty bad non-translation, but this is a genuinely difficult name to translate/adapt into English, so I should probably cut them some slack.

Fortuneteller Baba
I guess fittingly enough, her name gets the same sort of non-translation translation treatment as her brother. Just as roushi is simply a Japanese word for old master and not (in the Japanese version) the character’s actual name, baba is a Japanese word for a grandmother or (by extension) an old woman. This character is called Uranai Baba, which could be translated as “Fortune-telling Granny” or as Viz somewhat liberally has it, the “All-Seeing Crone” (“crone” being a fancy word for old woman). In the series, she even explicitly states when she first appears that Uranai Baba is merely her nickname, leaving her true name unknown (like her brother). By wacky coincidence, “Baba” likewise means “grandmother” in Slavic languages, and so pops up in the name of the Russian witch Baba Yaga.

I should also say a word or two about uranai/”fortune-telling” itself. Besides “fortune-telling”, this Japanese word can also mean divination, the process of finding out information through occult means. This information might be about the future, but it could also be about where things are presently located…which is where the term “divining rod” comes from (an instrument supposedly capable of locating underground water and other treasures). Since this character is introduced into the series as someone who can locate any object, this sense of the word uranai seems to be what was mainly meant at the time, though she does go on to predict the future as well.

Senzu
As noted above, this breaks out to “Hermit Bean”, with the sen being the same one in the word “Sen’nin”. This naming scheme follows other items associated with Sen’nin in mythology, such as the sentou, the peaches of the Sen’nin said to grant immortality. Anyway, in the case of Sen’nin, Viz translated it out to “hermit”, but Senzu they just left as-is. Of course, the beans’ name comes specifically from the fact that they are the property of Karin, the Sen’byou or “Hermit Cat”. In the Harmony Gold dub Sen’byou was very loosely translated as “Wonder Cat”, and if we followed that then the Senzu would in turn become “Wonder Beans”. Well, I’m glad Funi didn’t do that, but the whole Sen’nin/Sen’byou/Senzu connection is another thing that drops out in the Funi dub. If you just watch the dub, Senzu is simply an arbitrary name for that type of bean, rather than a label that logically links it to the character who cultivates them.


Planet Namek
This comes from the Japanese word for slug, namekuji. In fact, the name of the planet is different from the pun source because it has a double “k” sound: ナメック/Namekku. This could be romanized as “Nameck” (and some Japanese merchandise even uses the alphabet spelling “Nameccian” for the planet’s natives), but Funi sticks with a simple “Namek” and Viz and Simmons’ subtitles do likewise. The dub’s pronunciation is slightly different too: in Japanese it’s Na-mek, rather than Nam-ek. Eh, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Anyway, the biggest oddity about how Funi handles the name is their use of “Namek” to describe not only the planet but the inhabitants as well, so that Dende is a Namek from Namek. I guess as long as the meaning is clear it’s not too big of a deal, but it is strange simply from an English grammar point of view.

Dende
From denden-mushi, one of several Japanese words for “snail”. Left completely as-is.

Cargo
I think they leave this guy’s name as-is? It’s from escargot, and because of that Viz actually changed it slightly to “Scargo” to make the pun more obvious.

Moori
From katatsu-muri, another Japanese word for “snail”. The katakana spelling is ムーリ/Muuri. This switch from “u” to “o” is actually a fairly straightforward bit of romanization; due to the ambiguities of English vowels, the Japanese u sound often corresponds to sounds expressed with “o” in English. This is in fact the whole issue with “Buu” vs “Boo”. For that matter, Viz spelled Pui-Pui’s home planet of Zun as “Zoon” precisely to help readers pronounce it properly (since it should more or less rhyme with “soon” rather than “sun”). So while “Moori” is a perfectly valid spelling, it’s interesting that it’s an approach to character name spellings more characteristic of Viz than Funi.

Nail
From “snail”. And they left it as-is. So there.

Guru
In Japanese, chourou means an elder, specifically an elder in some position of leadership or authority (as opposed to just some old guy). Each of the tribal leaders on Namek are called chourou,”elder”. In turn, sai is a prefix meaning “most” (used for instance in saikyou, “strongest”), so a Sai-chourou would be the most elder, the elder of elders. I suppose “Eldest” is the most direct translation, but “Great Elder” conveys the intended meaning at least as well. Meanwhile, “guru” is a Sanskrit term for a “teacher, guide, or master”…in other words, it’s essentially a synonym for “roshi”. Through strongly associated with Hinduism, in the US it’s not infrequently used to describe any sort of expert. So, you can tell Funi was using this as a translation of Sai-chourou…but it’s really not a particularly apt term. The idea with Sai-chourou is that he’s a village elder, a patriarch. He’s got mystical aspects, and seems well-informed, but he’s not primarily defined as a spiritual teacher. Even calling him “the Guru” wouldn’t be so bad, but like with “Roshi”, the Funi dub largely acts as if “Guru” is not a title but rather this person’s proper name, printed on his driver’s license. Well anyway, they switched to “Great Elder” for the Kai dub, so whatever.

Porunga
Left as-is. According to Toriyama, this is a gibberish name that means nothing…in the real world, but in-universe this name is said to mean “God of Dreams” in the Namekian language. Which I seem to recall ended up as “God of Love” in the Funi dub? As in “Don’t piss off the God of Love”. That happened, right?

To be continued…

[Valerius Dover]

Excellent review so far Herms!

My knowledge surrounding the Japanese version at this time is somewhat limited, so it'll be interesting to learn exactly how much was changed. From what I understand, very few names were changed entirely, right? It seems the majority of the confusion seems to go around spellings that are a result of different transliteration. Anyway, keep 'em comin'!

[ABED]

it’s a question of how much of a monkey you give about name puns.

I like the idea of name puns being used as the basis for a name, but changing it so that it's not so on the nose.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Despite my butting heads so much in the other thread, I actually find this to be a really interesting topic, so I look forward to seeing your other notes on names going forward.

I admit, my own stance on naming conventions is...weird, and probably not one very many people (if any) are going to agree with. In general, I want the names to be as close to the Japanese as possible, even while accepting that certain things do end up being changed slightly, for whatever reason, in an English version. From your own examples, for...uh, example...I'm absolutely fine with Krillin coming from Kuririn, cuz the two names are more or less similar enough looking that just about anyone is going to be able to know we're talking about the same character. It's honestly the same way I look at Frieza V.S. Freeza, though the difference on that one is even more minute.

On the flip side, it's why a few Viz names in the manga are a bit 'eh' for me in comparison. Again from your examples, I'm actually not a big fan of 'Cultivars'. I get that it's preserving the pun, but in a new English word to try and get the same point across, but for whatever reasons, it just looks...iffy, to me. In comparison, I much more prefer 'Saibamen' even if it does leave off the other 'i' from 'Saibaimen'. It just works better, for me, at least. It's by the same token that I greatly prefer 'Vegito' over 'Vegerot', even though I wonder where the heck FUNi thinks the 'i' in that one was coming from.

So yeah, I admittedly have a weird stance on this one, and I admit too that I'm a bit biased in regards to the dub compared to most, since I grew up with it and thus generally still know all the names someone could throw out from that one, and can also still watch the dub without wanting to keel over (it's definitely trying at times though)...and yet still greatly appreciate, and in many ways, prefer the original Japanese version nowadays. I don't even really know how I'd describe myself as a fan nowadays in fewer words than that.

Looking forward to seeing more of this thread, especially if you tackle 'term' changes as well as character names!

[Super Sonic]

On the flip side, it's why a few Viz names in the manga are a bit 'eh' for me in comparison. Again from your examples, I'm actually not a big fan of 'Cultivars'. I get that it's preserving the pun, but in a new English word to try and get the same point across, but for whatever reasons, it just looks...iffy, to me. In comparison, I much more prefer 'Saibamen' even if it does leave off the other 'i' from 'Saibaimen'. It just works better, for me, at least. It's by the same token that I greatly prefer 'Vegito' over 'Vegerot', even though I wonder where the heck FUNi thinks the 'i' in that one was coming from.

So yeah, I admittedly have a weird stance on this one, and I admit too that I'm a bit biased in regards to the dub compared to most, since I grew up with it and thus generally still know all the names someone could throw out from that one, and can also still watch the dub without wanting to keel over (it's definitely trying at times though)...and yet still greatly appreciate, and in many ways, prefer the original Japanese version nowadays. I don't even really know how I'd describe myself as a fan nowadays in fewer words than that.

Looking forward to seeing more of this thread, especially if you tackle 'term' changes as well as character names!

Your mention of Viz vs Funimation names reminds me of a few things regarding One Piece in recent months. Was used to names that the English manga had for years, and seeing them different in the anime was weird a little. For example Viz calls the move of knocking folks out foaming the "Supreme King Haki" while Funimation in their dub and subs called it the "Conqueror's Spirit Haki". So used to Supreme King that it was weird for me.

[ekrolo2]

Despite my butting heads so much in the other thread, I actually find this to be a really interesting topic, so I look forward to seeing your other notes on names going forward.

I admit, my own stance on naming conventions is...weird, and probably not one very many people (if any) are going to agree with. In general, I want the names to be as close to the Japanese as possible, even while accepting that certain things do end up being changed slightly, for whatever reason, in an English version. From your own examples, for...uh, example...I'm absolutely fine with Krillin coming from Kuririn, cuz the two names are more or less similar enough looking that just about anyone is going to be able to know we're talking about the same character. It's honestly the same way I look at Frieza V.S. Freeza, though the difference on that one is even more minute.

On the flip side, it's why a few Viz names in the manga are a bit 'eh' for me in comparison. Again from your examples, I'm actually not a big fan of 'Cultivars'. I get that it's preserving the pun, but in a new English word to try and get the same point across, but for whatever reasons, it just looks...iffy, to me. In comparison, I much more prefer 'Saibamen' even if it does leave off the other 'i' from 'Saibaimen'. It just works better, for me, at least. It's by the same token that I greatly prefer 'Vegito' over 'Vegerot', even though I wonder where the heck FUNi thinks the 'i' in that one was coming from.

So yeah, I admittedly have a weird stance on this one, and I admit too that I'm a bit biased in regards to the dub compared to most, since I grew up with it and thus generally still know all the names someone could throw out from that one, and can also still watch the dub without wanting to keel over (it's definitely trying at times though)...and yet still greatly appreciate, and in many ways, prefer the original Japanese version nowadays. I don't even really know how I'd describe myself as a fan nowadays in fewer words than that.

Looking forward to seeing more of this thread, especially if you tackle 'term' changes as well as character names!

I find myself agreeing with you on Krillin & Saibamen but disagreeing on Vegetto. Sure I use the Japanese name but Vegito is bloody stupid since Goku's name in English is spelt and pronounced as Kakarot, not Kakarotto or Kakarito. I mean, a fusion of Vegeta and Goku even using Goku's name is dumb since Goku never addresses himself as such but Vegerot works for the English version of his Saiyan name.

[ABED]

I know movie 12 uses Gogeta, but I don't know why so many are adverse to the dub just using that name since it's FAR better than Vegerot or even Vegetto.

[VegettoEX]

I know movie 12 uses Gogeta, but I don't know why so many are adverse to the dub just using that name since it's FAR better than Vegerot or even Vegetto.

What you're advocating for here is doubling up and using a name that already exists for another character for some other character because you personally think it's "FAR better". Basically, you're advocating for more confusion because... reasons? That makes no sense to me what-so-ever.

[ABED]

I know movie 12 uses Gogeta, but I don't know why so many are adverse to the dub just using that name since it's FAR better than Vegerot or even Vegetto.

What you're advocating for here is doubling up and using a name that already exists for another character for some other character because you personally think it's "FAR better". Basically, you're advocating for more confusion because... reasons? That makes no sense to me what-so-ever.

But it's not another character. Gogeta isn't radically different from Vegetto. It's the fusion of the same two characters. How is this confusing? Other than the different design, they aren't really different characters. Sure, Vegetto is a little less serious, but the context is different. Vegetto was buying time to get absorbed; Gogeta was trying to end the fight as soon as possible because of the time limit.

[jjgp1112]

I always thought Castlin was a good English alternative for Krillin. Cast coming from Castanea, the genus name for Chestnut. Probably not something most people would pick up on, but biology geeks will get it!

[Adamant]

I know movie 12 uses Gogeta, but I don't know why so many are adverse to the dub just using that name since it's FAR better than Vegerot or even Vegetto.

What you're advocating for here is doubling up and using a name that already exists for another character for some other character because you personally think it's "FAR better". Basically, you're advocating for more confusion because... reasons? That makes no sense to me what-so-ever.

But it's not another character. Gogeta isn't radically different from Vegetto. It's the fusion of the same two characters. How is this confusing? Other than the different design, they aren't really different characters. Sure, Vegetto is a little less serious, but the context is different. Vegetto was buying time to get absorbed; Gogeta was trying to end the fight as soon as possible because of the time limit.

Things are bad enough with English dub fans insist on tossing around names people in general wouldn't know, and you're saying you want them to refer to two characters that have different names everywhere else by the same name, something that'd be confusing even IF you actually knew that?

[Herms]

Alright, starting out positive and working my way to the negative, here's a few items relating to the afterlife:

Other World
I think this one gets a bad rap among old school fans by being associated with the whole “another dimension” debacle, back when the Funi dub tiptoed around the entire concept of characters dying and winding up in the afterlife. Lots of people probably view “Other World” as just a slight rephrasing of “another dimension” and therefore just another way of avoiding the issue of death, but in truth this term has a solid pedigree. First off, it works as a fairly direct translation of ano-yo, one of the Japanese terms for the afterlife, literally meaning “the world over there” (in contrast to the world of the living, called kono-yo or “this world here”). What’s more, otherworld is often used in the study of mythology and religion as a term for the realm of the dead and/or the gods...in other wor(l)ds, for precisely the sort of place as DB’s ano-yo. So it’s a pretty good translation, and the only oddity is the way the dub typically refers to it as “Other World” rather than “the otherworld”.

Snake Way
In Japanese, this is Hebi no Michi; hebi=snake/serpent, michi=road…but the no part can be complicated. Often in Japanese it simply corresponds to “of” or an ‘s at the end of a noun, so that Hikaru no Go means “the Go of Hikaru” or “Hikaru’s Go” (Go being a board game, if you were wondering). By the same token, Hokuto no Ken means “Fist of the North Star”…or alternatively “North Star’s Fist”, although that sounds ridiculous. Beyond then there’s cases like midori no hon: you could translate this as “book of green”, but in practice it means simply a “green book”. So with all that in mind, you could translate Hebi no Michi out as “Road of the Serpent”, or alternatively (as in Simmons’ subtitles) as “Serpentine Road”…a snake-like road, in other words. If we take “way” as simply another word for “road”, then “Snake Way” is a simplification of the original name, but not too wildly off the mark. It gives a decidedly light and informal spin to the name, not necessarily representative of the tone of the original name, but also not out of keeping with Toriyama’s down-to-earth, businessman version of the afterlife.

King Kai
Pretty much my White Whale. This is a nonsensical non-translation, and what makes it extra annoying is that explaining why it’s so silly is relatively complicated. With “Mister Satan” vs “Hercule”, anyone can see at once that those are two completely different names. With “Kaio” and “King Kai” though…well, “o” means “king”, so hey! “King Kai” sounds like a pretty direct translation! Except he’s not some dude named “Kai”. It’s not the name of his species either, though that’s the impression many take away from the Funi dub. Instead, “Kai” means “world”, and the title “Kaio” means “King of the Worlds”. Thus Viz calls him “Lord of Worlds” (replacing “King” with “Lord” to create a rhyme). “Cosmic King” would be good too…for that matter, the King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy has conceptually the same title as Kaio, though probably nobody solely familiar with the "King Kai" of the Funi dub would ever think to connect the two. That’s the way in which “King Kai” obscures the nature of the character. It’s as if instead of calling Chi Chi’s dad “Ox King”, they called him “King Gyu”. Or if Funi’s One Piece dub had Luffy questing to become “King Kaizoku” instead of the “Pirate King”. Or if in English Godzilla were called “King Kaiju” instead of “King of the Monsters”. Actually, that one sounds pretty cool. Anyway…

Kaio-Ken
Exhibit B for why “King Kai” was a bad character name choice. In the original version, the idea is that Kaio invents a technique, which he names “Kaio-ken” after himself (ken literally means “fist”, but by extension is often used in the names of martial arts attacks or even techniques that don’t directly harm the opponent, ala Taiyo-Ken, but more on that later). So it’s Kaio’s Fist, or the Fist of the King of Worlds (shortened to simply “Fist of the Worlds” in Viz’s footnotes). Or the Cosmic King Attack, or things along those lines. The main point is that the character invented the technique (though he never mastered it), and so named it after himself. Whereas in the Funi dub, the idea is that King Kai named his trademark technique the “Kaio-ken”…because...reasons. I mean, in the Funi dub do they give any explanation about what the name is supposed to mean? Viz does have an advantage in this department, because they can include footnotes or have characters alternate between a Japanese term and its English translation in a manner that would probably be much harder to follow in a spoken dub instead of text dialogue. But still, I can’t rate the (old school) Funi dub very highly as a translation or localization precisely because of things like this. There’s a major character, and a major technique directly named after said major character, yet they entirely fail to preserve this connection.

To be continued...

[jcogginsa]

Aboug Krillin: I'm perfectly fine with Krillin, but if I were to think of an alternative, I'd go with Kurilin. Leave Kuri as is, change rin to lin (like Shaorin vs. Shaolin).

[jjgp1112]

Aboug Krillin: I'm perfectly fine with Krillin, but if I were to think of an alternative, I'd go with Kurilin. Leave Kuri as is, change rin to lin (like Shaorin vs. Shaolin).

I think the problem with that spelling is that in most speaking situations, the "u" syllable would be pretty superfluous and it ends up sounding closer to "Krillin" anyway.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

I dislike "King Kai" for the same reason I dislike "Master Roshi". The most natural assumption when first encountering it is that "Kai" and "Roshi" are their proper names. It entirely destroys the sense of reverence that the titles inspire.

[Valerius Dover]

Wasn't that pretty much disproved once the other Kais got introduced, though? He is referred to as North Kai by the others.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

Wasn't that pretty much disproved once the other Kais got introduced, though? He is referred to as North Kai by the others.

So then it sounds like "Kai" is the name of his race, which is just as wrong

[VejituhTheWarriorGuy]

King Kai
Pretty much my White Whale. This is a nonsensical non-translation, and what makes it extra annoying is that explaining why it’s so silly is relatively complicated. With “Mister Satan” vs “Hercule”, anyone can see at once that those are two completely different names. With “Kaio” and “King Kai” though…well, “o” means “king”, so hey! “King Kai” sounds like a pretty direct translation! Except he’s not some dude named “Kai”. It’s not the name of his species either, though that’s the impression many take away from the Funi dub. Instead, “Kai” means “world”, and the title “Kaio” means “King of the Worlds”. Thus Viz calls him “Lord of Worlds” (replacing “King” with “Lord” to create a rhyme). “Cosmic King” would be good too…for that matter, the King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy has conceptually the same title as Kaio, though probably nobody solely familiar with the "King Kai" of the Funi dub would ever think to connect the two. That’s the way in which “King Kai” obscures the nature of the character. It’s as if instead of calling Chi Chi’s dad “Ox King”, they called him “King Gyu”. Or if Funi’s One Piece dub had Luffy questing to become “King Kaizoku” instead of the “Pirate King”. Or if in English Godzilla were called “King Kaiju” instead of “King of the Monsters”. Actually, that one sounds pretty cool. Anyway…

I'm so happy that the FUNi dub of One Piece didn't use straight up untranslated terminology just to cater to the Kaizoku Fansubs crowd. The amount of people that say Shichibukai, Yonko and Nakama instead of Warlord, Emperor and Friend is insane.

[DanielSSJ]

Not going to mention the Kaio-ken's pronunciation? But yeah, "King Kai" annoys the crap out of me. Calling him Lord Kaio or (like Viz did) Lord of Worlds would be fairly easy. A lot of the dub name changes annoy me so because they stem from bad or nonsensical translations. For example, refering to Kami's title as "Guardian of Earth" or renaming Mr. Satan "Hercule" doesn't bug me too much, becuase I understand the change. Calling them "God" and "Mr. Satan" wouldn't fly on American TV because the overzealous Christian moms would get the show pulled. Mind you, they could've found a better substitute than "Hercule". I remember hearing that he could've been called "Mr. Savage", which would've been cool, but might've gotten them into legal trouble with Macho Man Randy Savage. I also heard about translating it to "Mr. Saturn". Less cool than "Savage" but it wouldn't be wrong, based on the spelling. Though you'd lose the pun, just like with Bulma's name. Changing "Kuririn" to "Krillin" doens't bug me either becuase, like you said, it's a decent translation, and while it doesn't keep to the pun, most Americans wouldn't get the joke anyway. Besides Krillin just rolls off the tongue easier.
Conversely "Tien Shinhan" irritates me to no end. Why? It isn't because they add an "i" in there, though that doesn't make much sense. No, it's becuase they treat the "Shinhan" part of his name as if it's his family name and "Tien" is his given name. As if he's part of the Shinhan family. Maybe his mother is called Sally Shinhan and his father is John Shinhan. Also, if someone who is somewhat familiar with Japanese and knows of the Japanese tradition of putting the family name before the given name, but isn't very familar with the Japanese version of Dragon Ball, might think that Tenshinhan's proper name would be "Shinhan Tien." Mind you, I don't think I've ever seen that occur, but the thought terrifies me. Likewise, calling Karin "Korin" both confuses and annoys me. The change is so small that I have to wonder why Funimation changed it at all. Tha only reason I could think of is that "Karin" is kinda similar to "Karen", which is a girl's name, depite the fact that the names aren't really pronounced the same.
The majority of technique name changes bug me because the translations aren't usually accurate or phoenically pleasing. Seriously, who thinks "Destructo Disc" and "Special Beam Cannon" actually sounds cool? Tribeam is especially loathesome, since, not only is it a completely innaccurate translation, it also creates a nonexistent connection to Tenshinhan, since the "Tri" part if the name could be refering to his three eyes.
Another wierd one is is this: Vegito. Why is there an "i" in there. I know Funi had a hard-on for throwing unneccessary i's everywhere (Frieza, Tien, etc.) but this one isn't even congruent with their own spellings. "Vegeta" doesn't have an "i". Niether does "Kakarot", "Kakarotto", nor "Goku." The weird thing is that the spelling is pronounced exactly the same as "Vegetto" or "Vegeto", so why throw an eye in there?

[jjgp1112]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Tien the result of a strange translation error that may have pertained to Chiaotzu? I swear I've read it on here a few times. Tien Shinhan was then an attempt at a retroactive fix.