"Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by TheUltimateNinja » Sun Mar 26, 2017 12:54 am

This reminds me of 2007 or so when a mistranslation caused some in the Bleach fandom to believe that a new level called Zenkai was going to be introduced.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by dbgtFO » Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:50 am

TheUltimateNinja wrote:This reminds me of 2007 or so when a mistranslation caused some in the Bleach fandom to believe that a new level called Zenkai was going to be introduced.
Makes me think it could be possible that we get a new type of ki in DB called zenki to perhaps explain Zeno's ki and how he's so powerful.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Cipher » Sun Mar 26, 2017 4:21 am

So, I almost considered making this a separate thread.

After a night of truly embarrassing digging, I think I can reasonably say that using the term "zenkai" to refer to the Saiyan near-death power-up stems from an August 2003 update to fansite Dragon Ball Arena.

Image

The offending page: http://dragonballarena.gamesurf.it/engl ... ivelli.php

The offending quote:
Coming from Planet Vegeta, the Saiyans are a warrior race having different characteristics: black hair having always the same shape and length, tail, aggressive attitude and infinite appetite. Since they are not very clever, they exploit their victims technology (as that of Tsufurus)... they are always looking for new world to conquer ( and resell). They are very strong and, when they recover after deadly wounds, their power increases... this ability is called Zenkai Power and there is a special section about it!
A related page, describing Vol. 4 of the Daizenshuu, also makes mention of the Saiyan's "Zenkai Power." The way this is worded, they seem to believe they're taking information from the volume itself. They're very careful about using the exact title of each section from the book, and the breakdown of the Saiyan parenthetical is near one to one with the subsections of their entry in the Daizenshuu: http://dragonballarena.gamesurf.it/engl ... shuu04.php
Contents: this is the smallest book in Daizenshuu collection, if we exclude the last 3 which are "extra" volumes; but it is really sweet because it is a guide to everything! Of course it has got some very great images: in the first section, called WORLD, there is a PROLOGUE with big coloured images of Dragon Ball World, The Cosmos, The Universe and the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western parts of the Earth. And then... WHAT'S THE DRAGON BALL: the full coloured story of the Earthling and the Nameccian Dragon Balls, of their creators and of Shenron and Polunga's appearances. The next section is dedicated to RACIAL GROUPS and describes in detail (unluckily only in Japanese =__=... but the images are of some help!) the characteristics of SAIYAN (tail, transformations, great appetite, zenkai power etc...) NAMECCIAN (regeneration, assimilation, reproduction, food etc...) PEOPLE OF THE COSMOS, related to Kaiohshins, Kaiohs, Karinsama, Popo and Bubbles, FREEZA AND HIS FOLLOWERS, BABIDI AND HIS FOLLOWERS and, at the end, EARTHLINGS!
The other sections are dedicated to FIELD (Places besides the Earth and the Earth) where DB events take place, to GRAPPLE, with the Classification of Attacks, to MACHINES and to TECHNOLOGY describing scientific items, robots, androids but also supernatural items (senzu, potara, z-word etc...). Believe us...there are lots of stuff!!! ^__-
Because the wording so heavily indicates they believe all of this is genuinely covered in the Daizenshuu entry, I figured it was possible they'd misinterpreted a bit of Japanese and somehow come away with the "Zenkai Power" terminology. More than a few bits of text just on the pages I visited led me to believe someone connected to the site had a very cursory knowledge of Japanese—just enough to do some damage. Perhaps just a bit to find the right general sections, but come away with wild misinterpretations. To that end, I wound up looking for scans of Daizenshuu 4 to check on my own, as, although I'm nowhere near fluent, I at least trust myself to be thoughtful about looking things up.

What led me to believe the site might be capable of employing just enough Japanese to get a wild mistranslation?

Well, I think I wound up believing that somewhere between this:
(unluckily only in Japanese =__=... but the images are of some help!)
and this:
This level is reached by Gohan after he has been strengthened by the Old Kaiohshin jumped out from the Z Sword. The Americans call him "Mystic Gohan", but the translation should be "Final Warrior". This level has not any physical mutation (hair, eye...) but Saikyou No Senshi is as powerful than a Super Saiyan III.
(For what it's worth, 最強 is not 最終, but I can see why someone with veeeeeery limited amount of Japanese vocabulary and a lack of initiative to look things up might think that. Oops.)

Not to mention the random smatterings of kanji worked into the site's design. We're in serious yonanunayachi territory here.

The Evidence for "Zenkai" Starting Here

I searched high and low through everything the internet sought fit to archive looking for the earliest reference to "zenkai" in this context, going year by year, and I honest to god could not find a single instance prior to August 2003. And I mean that. I looked through everything I could. If you can find an earlier reference, please let me know. I'll happily eat crow on this.

However, in the immediate aftermath, we have:

http://www.dragonballzpower.50megs.com/catalog_2.html - A straight copy-paste job

(Image in case it shunkan idos off the internet)
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

And at least one other usage a month later in a power-level debate in the midst of some DeviantArt comments (which, whoo boy, welcome to 2003). I don't want to link to this innocent artist's page, but you can find it yourself with some digging. At any rate, here's a screenshot of the result:

Image

In 2004, it starts blowing up. We have at least two Kanzenshuu (née Daizex) threads questioning its early usage.

More importantly, when it does show up, posters tend to be careful to explain it, with language reminiscent of Dragon Ball Arena's 2003 post. "Zenkai" is presented as a capital-"Z" proper noun.

I can't find anyone actually trying to justify its connection to "full-throttle" power, per the ending song's lyrics, outside of the 2004 Daizex thread where Mike finally forces the issue. But you know what? Arena doesn't make the connection either. They simply present the phrase as a proper noun likely gleaned (in the readers' minds) from some mysterious Japanese guidebook. Does it even have to mean something, in a series with Senzus (sage beans) and Ohzarus (big monkeys) and who knows what other nonsense words? That matches its usage throughout 2004 except in rare instances when participants in discussion are pressed to justify the phrase, at which case the theme song is turned to for whatever explanation it can offer.

Anyway, that general trend continues through every site I can find, including a few oldies I was able to peek through via WayBack machine. Even Pojo suddenly sees "zenkai" pop up in early 2004, with no earlier results.

It makes sense that a fansite with a reasonable amount of traffic and information dodgy or otherwise, presenting a term so matter-of-factly with vague reference to Japanese sources, could have facilitated the spread of the term. It's almost impossible to imagine it spreading any other way, for that matter. An individual trying to coin new shorthand isn't going to have much sway.

The Explanations

So, I have a generous reading of this situation, and a not-so-generous one.

My generous explanation assumes that someone at the site actually thought they were drawing from the Saiyan entry in Daizenshuu Vol. 4, which, believe it or not, is not impossible. The "Battle Power" section does mention the near-death power-up—not with reference to any form of "zenkai," but it provides a bit of text I think it's theoretically possible could have been misinterepreted. Unlike, say, the Japanese Wikipedia entry on Saiyans, which states their "battle power substantially increases" (戦闘力が大幅に上昇する), the Daizenshuu entry says they receive a パワーアップ (power-up).

Image

See that big old "パワー" in the middle there? This is very, very generous, but taking into consideration the site's spotty, but not non-existent, per the 最強 vs. 最終 mistake, understanding of Japanese, the possibility of bad scans, etc., I think there is a non-zero chance they may have seen that giant kana, made a quick mental association with the identically rendered katakana パワー of "Tobikiri Zenkai Power!" and, from there, through a bit of mental gymnastics, said, "Oh, パワー. Where else does that show up in Dragon Ball? In the title of the ending song, right? This must be 'Zenkai Power'!"

It seems ... like something of a stretch, but not impossible.

My non-generous explanation is that they simply made something up.

Put that in your DB Wiki and smoke it. Or don't. It's possible no one else cares about this.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by RedRibbonSoldier#42 » Sun Mar 26, 2017 6:46 am

:clap: :clap: :clap:
Seems as close as we'll get without asking the people in charge of the site. If eveyone looked into it as much as you, I'm sure this and other made-up fan terms would be less prominent. (And it does seem made up now, amateur or not, getting "zenaki power" by seeing パワー, an actual word used outside dragonball, by honest mistake is pretty hard; the term isn't even in the text at alll.)

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Gaffer Tape » Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:39 am

Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Fascinating read, Cipher, and great detective work. This has been quite entertaining to read. Thank you for all the hard work.
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by VegettoEX » Sun Mar 26, 2017 8:22 am

For what it's worth, I don't see any reference to "Zenkai" in this context on alt.fan.dragonball. Everyone's confusing the "Z" in "Dragon Ball Z" as coming from "Zenkai Power" for a few years, and every once in a while someone brings up the meaning of "Zenkai" as "full-throttle" or "complete recovery of health", but never (as far as I can see) in the context of the specific near-death power-up.

Unfortunately, there are a few years of lost Dragon Ball forum history between our exodus from USENET and the creation of this forum, and obviously with the death of Planet Namek. We had a few things in between spread across various providers, but from what little I can dig up of their remains, I don't see any reference to "Zenkai" in the power-up context there. Doesn't mean it didn't exist, but I feel pretty safe in saying at least WE didn't contribute to it.

(I love this kind of stuff and appreciate your continued digging!)
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Cipher » Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:27 pm

VegettoEX wrote:For what it's worth, I don't see any reference to "Zenkai" in this context on alt.fan.dragonball. Everyone's confusing the "Z" in "Dragon Ball Z" as coming from "Zenkai Power" for a few years, and every once in a while someone brings up the meaning of "Zenkai" as "full-throttle" or "complete recovery of health", but never (as far as I can see) in the context of the specific near-death power-up.
Yeah, I encountered some of the "'Z' stands for 'Zenkai'" posts. I also saw a few "full-throttle" and "complete recovery of health" explanations, but they were in context of trying to explain the phrase in the ending song. Like you said, I didn't see any applying the term to the near-death power-ups. (Or, as that Daizenshuu section header calls them, "Power-ups upon revival.")
Unfortunately, there are a few years of lost Dragon Ball forum history between our exodus from USENET and the creation of this forum, and obviously with the death of Planet Namek. We had a few things in between spread across various providers, but from what little I can dig up of their remains, I don't see any reference to "Zenkai" in the power-up context there. Doesn't mean it didn't exist, but I feel pretty safe in saying at least WE didn't contribute to it.

(I love this kind of stuff and appreciate your continued digging!)
I'm definitely aware there are a few years of lost material, especially with early fansite message boards, and that's a shame. I tried to dig up what I could, but a lot of it's vanished into the ether. It's possible the phrase gained traction on a forum somewhere first, before spreading to Dragon Ball Arena, but I feel I can at least confidently say DBA was the biggest factor in facilitating its spread. The timeline of other search results matches up with their "Saiyans" page too well. If the phrase was going around in other circles prior to the DBA page, none of the search results reflect this; you'd think it would at least show up in a few other archived locations.

On an unrelated note, I wish I could go back and edit out some of the late-night typos in that post. Everyone else, I see them just as clearly as you do!
RedRibbonSolider#42 wrote:(And it does seem made up now, amateur or not, getting "zenaki power" by seeing パワー, an actual word used outside dragonball, by honest mistake is pretty hard; the term isn't even in the text at alll.)
I feel you, but let's not underestimate the power that a need for exclusive information and digestible shorthand, along with poor-quality scans and a half-understanding of a foreign language, can have. I might be giving them too much benefit of the doubt, but in some ways it's easier for me to believe someone was convinced "Zenkai Power" was an appropriate phrase for the ability than to believe someone outright and knowingly lied.

Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance, and all that.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Metalwario64 » Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:43 am

Zenkai bothers me, because it's an inaccurate fan term that doesn't even describe the Saiyan's near death power-up, and is it really to hard to type "near death powerup"? That also sounds cooler.

All of Cipher's research is really cool though. :thumbup:
Last edited by Metalwario64 on Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Jinzoningen MULE » Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:46 am

Metalwario64 wrote:Zenkai bothers me, because it's a half Japanese term made up by fans, and is it really to hard to type "near death powerup"? That also sounds cooler.
When the government comes for my Zenkai, I'll give'em my Kamehameha.
Retired.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Metalwario64 » Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:48 am

Jinzoningen MULE wrote:
Metalwario64 wrote:Zenkai bothers me, because it's a half Japanese term made up by fans, and is it really to hard to type "near death powerup"? That also sounds cooler.
When the government comes for my Zenkai, I'll give'em my Kamehameha.
"Give me Zenkai, or give me death!"
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Puto » Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:00 am

I always assumed people got the term from a certain episode title in the anime--the episode where Dende died.

(Dende no shi... Detekoi! Tobikiri zenkai power)
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by LuckyCat » Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:15 am

Puto wrote:I always assumed people got the term from a certain episode title in the anime--the episode where Dende died.

(Dende no shi... Detekoi! Tobikiri zenkai power)
The word's usage in Dragonball predates that. It's used in ED 1 of DBZ as Cipher noted, which is where I assume fans got it from. Though, it's interesting that episode 84's title uses the ED's name.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by VegettoEX » Mon Mar 27, 2017 6:03 pm

Crazy this isn't occur to me sooner considering all the specific work I've been doing:

This isn't something you're going to find in a web search. How about things like the Beckett and Pojo magazines? Considering their reach at the time, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to find an earlier mention in one of these as the main culprit.

I... uhh... own a single issue, and it's the one my own website was featured in, so I'm really no help on the research front here.
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Cipher » Mon Mar 27, 2017 7:33 pm

Puto wrote:I always assumed people got the term from a certain episode title in the anime--the episode where Dende died.

(Dende no shi... Detekoi! Tobikiri zenkai power)
This makes way too much sense. Great catch! The episode title is obviously just a nod to the ending, and the idea of a great bit of power being unleashed, but it does focus on Vegeta's power-up as a main plot point.

Still, though, I can't find any English-language references prior to 2003. So while this may be a better explanation than Daizenshuu-misinterpretation for why DBA or other sources may have thought it was the correct term, it still took until late that year for the phrase to spread. I don't see anyone pointing to that episode as an explanation for the term during its early spread either.

Over on Reddit, though, someone pointed out that they believed the term was going around the Italian community (DBA is originally an Italian site) earlier, so now that possibility's out there as well.
VegettoEX wrote:This isn't something you're going to find in a web search. How about things like the Beckett and Pojo magazines? Considering their reach at the time, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to find an earlier mention in one of these as the main culprit.

I... uhh... own a single issue, and it's the one my own website was featured in, so I'm really no help on the research front here.
I have quite a few Beckett magazines I collected as a kid, including their big quarterly anthologies, sitting around my parents' house. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be back there to interact with them until the middle of the summer.

For what it's worth, I don't remember ever seeing the phrase there, because I was fairly surprised when I first found it being used on the internet. And while I can't speak to Pojo's magazine, the phrase also doesn't pop up on their forums until early-mid 2004, in line with its appearance everywhere else I can find.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Puto » Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:00 am

What I assumed was that some VHS fansub left the word 'zenkai' untranslated in episode 84's title, possibly due to it being written in the roman alphabet in the ending theme (though it's written in kanji in the episode title), and people watching the show through that VHS fansub just assumed "Oh, 'Zenkai Power'. Guess that's what that power up is named!"
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Duo » Sun Apr 23, 2017 9:12 am

This is the best thread I've read in a while. I recall the term really rising into relevance when everybody and their mother first started writing their own power level lists, like on MFG. Has anybody had any further research progress?

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by B » Sun Apr 23, 2017 1:24 pm

I was always under the impression the word popped up in dialog; either when Vegeta is trying to get Kuririn to blast him in the stomach, or when Cell receives his own "zenkai" after exploding on Kaiou's planet; and Western fans co-opted it as a proper noun. It's looking like Puto put together the missing link. Great detective work all around.
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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Cipher » Sun Apr 23, 2017 3:50 pm

Duo wrote:This is the best thread I've read in a while. I recall the term really rising into relevance when everybody and their mother first started writing their own power level lists, like on MFG. Has anybody had any further research progress?
Pretty much ended there. DBA was the first English-language usage I could find chronologically, though someone on Reddit pointed out it may have been used earlier in the Italian fandom (and DBA is originally an Italian fansite), and Puto pointed out a plausible origin for the mistake, though I've never seen anyone reference that episode title directly.

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by Dieslley » Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:32 pm

Sorry to bring back this discussion, but I noticed that Goku uses the word 全快 on page 13 of chapter 283, when he shows to know that Vegeta's power increased after almost dying and recovering.

Goku's sentence is: 死にかけて全快してから力がグンと増えたはずだ

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Re: "Zenkai" - 全開 or 全快? (Also, questions on origins of the term in Western fandom)

Post by CodeOfMe » Wed Jun 22, 2022 3:01 am

Dieslley wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:32 pm Sorry to bring back this discussion, but I noticed that Goku uses the word 全快 on page 13 of chapter 283, when he shows to know that Vegeta's power increased after almost dying and recovering.

Goku's sentence is: 死にかけて全快してから力がグンと増えたはずだ
This is the translation from viz.
Image
As we all know, viz does sometimes have wacky translations, but I'm not sure any other translation mentions a "zenkai boost" either.
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