Funi names: a review (update: Namek)

[Gaffer Tape]

While I don't like to dismiss evidence, I feel the Cell image is really the only one that matters in this case because it was the first time FUNimation ever named the attack. And season four had plenty of other cringe-inducing moments of them clearly not doing their homework when it came to elements of the story they'd skipped over. While it could go either way, my money is on the hand shape. The beam comes of his hands. And especially if you're looking at Tenshinhan, his fingers arch up to a point, like a triangle.

[ABED]

Now the triangle square debate is beginning to sound like the blue/white dress debate.

[Soppa Saia People]

Now the triangle square debate is beginning to sound like the blue/white dress debate.

But it's not a square, it's more of a rhombus. You can mistake a rhombus and a triangle rather really. If you confuse a square and triangle you're doing something wrong.

[ABED]

Now the triangle square debate is beginning to sound like the blue/white dress debate.

But it's not a square, it's more of a rhombus. You can mistake a rhombus and a triangle rather really. If you confuse a square and triangle you're doing something wrong.

I'll be the first guy to admit it, but this is being a little pedantic. I know the difference between a square and a rhombus. I was talking about the debate itself, not really taking a side.

[Puto]

While I don't like to dismiss evidence, I feel the Cell image is really the only one that matters in this case because it was the first time FUNimation ever named the attack. And season four had plenty of other cringe-inducing moments of them clearly not doing their homework when it came to elements of the story they'd skipped over. While it could go either way, my money is on the hand shape. The beam comes of his hands. And especially if you're looking at Tenshinhan, his fingers arch up to a point, like a triangle.

Wasn't it first named in the Saiyan arc? Or did the Saban dub have something else there instead?

[Kamiccolo9]

While I don't like to dismiss evidence, I feel the Cell image is really the only one that matters in this case because it was the first time FUNimation ever named the attack. And season four had plenty of other cringe-inducing moments of them clearly not doing their homework when it came to elements of the story they'd skipped over. While it could go either way, my money is on the hand shape. The beam comes of his hands. And especially if you're looking at Tenshinhan, his fingers arch up to a point, like a triangle.

Wasn't it first named in the Saiyan arc? Or did the Saban dub have something else there instead?

When, I believe, Tenshinhan only had one hand, so he couldn't make it a triangle anyway.

[Desassina]

He made a geometric plane with one hand, which means that energy lost its focus and faded on the other side. Imagine if it didn't...

[Azelf89]

An interesting thing to note here is that in the Blue Water dub of the original Dragon Ball, they actually changed the name to "Spirit Cannon" which I actually kinda like. Mainly due to it being a closer translation of the original name, and I just find it overall a better name than "Tri Beam" (though that may be because I just can't take the name seriously, as I'm always reminded of the move "Tri Attack" from the Pokémon series whenever I hear it).

[Valerius Dover]

An interesting thing to note here is that in the Blue Water dub of the original Dragon Ball, they actually changed the name to "Spirit Cannon" which I actually kinda like. Mainly due to it being a closer translation of the original name, and I just find it overall a better name than "Tri Beam" (though that may be because I just can't take the name seriously, as I'm always reminded of the move "Tri Attack" from the Pokémon series whenever I hear it).

Hmm, something I recall now is that the term "Spirit Cannon" is in fact used in the Funi title for the episode that the Tri-Beam makes its debut. It's never once actually referred to by that name, though, nor is anything else for that matter.

[Gaffer Tape]

While I don't like to dismiss evidence, I feel the Cell image is really the only one that matters in this case because it was the first time FUNimation ever named the attack. And season four had plenty of other cringe-inducing moments of them clearly not doing their homework when it came to elements of the story they'd skipped over. While it could go either way, my money is on the hand shape. The beam comes of his hands. And especially if you're looking at Tenshinhan, his fingers arch up to a point, like a triangle.

Wasn't it first named in the Saiyan arc? Or did the Saban dub have something else there instead?

"This three-eyed cowboy is going for ONE. LAST. RIIIIIIIIIIIDE!"

[Kamiccolo9]

While I don't like to dismiss evidence, I feel the Cell image is really the only one that matters in this case because it was the first time FUNimation ever named the attack. And season four had plenty of other cringe-inducing moments of them clearly not doing their homework when it came to elements of the story they'd skipped over. While it could go either way, my money is on the hand shape. The beam comes of his hands. And especially if you're looking at Tenshinhan, his fingers arch up to a point, like a triangle.

Wasn't it first named in the Saiyan arc? Or did the Saban dub have something else there instead?

"This three-eyed cowboy is going for ONE. LAST. RIIIIIIIIIIIDE!"

Damn it Gaffer. I had blocked that. Damn you.

[Puto]

While I don't like to dismiss evidence, I feel the Cell image is really the only one that matters in this case because it was the first time FUNimation ever named the attack. And season four had plenty of other cringe-inducing moments of them clearly not doing their homework when it came to elements of the story they'd skipped over. While it could go either way, my money is on the hand shape. The beam comes of his hands. And especially if you're looking at Tenshinhan, his fingers arch up to a point, like a triangle.

Wasn't it first named in the Saiyan arc? Or did the Saban dub have something else there instead?

"This three-eyed cowboy is going for ONE. LAST. RIIIIIIIIIIIDE!"

Oh. That's... seriously atrocious, frankly. I wish I hadn't asked.

[Herms]

OK, one final "technically the Saiyan arc but really just general background" type post, and then I'm moving on into the Namek/Freeza arc specifically. Today, focusing on Roshi/Baba.

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.

To be continued...

[kei17]

Speaking of the name Master Roshi, I think it's worth mentioning that it originates in the Harmony Gold dub. Considering how ridiculous and random it is, it's unlikely that both HG and FUNi coincidentally came up the same name. Maybe it was already in Toei's awfully translated English script, but if that's the case, it would have appeared in other dubs, too. So my guess that FUNi somehow referred to the HG dub or there was someone remembering the name through watching it in on TV.

[Valerius Dover]

Speaking of which, in the Z dub, Goku tells the Snake Way taxi guy that he studied the Kame Sennin style of martial arts. Pretty sure that's the only time that term was ever used in English.

[Gonstead]

Speaking of the name Master Roshi, I think it's worth mentioning that it originates in the Harmony Gold dub. Considering how ridiculous and random it is, it's unlikely that both HG and FUNi coincidentally came up the same name. Maybe it was already in Toei's awfully translated English script, but if that's the case, it would have appeared in other dubs, too. So my guess that FUNi somehow referred to the HG dub or there was someone remembering the name through watching it in on TV.

If I remember correctly, the HG and Funi dubs of Dragon Ball do seem to share a suspiciously similar translated script, barring obvious name changes such as Zero and Zedaki. There was a video on Youtube a while ago that compared between the HG, Funi-Ocean and Funi-In House dubs of the first DB movie and I remember there being moments where either two or three of the dubs all shared the exact same dialogue, word for word, so Funi somehow having access or referring to the HG dub does sound somewhat plausible.

Unrelated but I wonder what kind of masters Toei sent to HG? What a coincidence it would be if it were the same masters that were sent to Funi, hah.

[Puto]

They're not. For one, the harmony gold dub had a textless opening 2 and movie 3 ending, something funimation clearly don't have seeing as they had to slap a black bar on the third movie ending to put their own credits in.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

I think the issue in the dub of making it sound like the dudes name is "Roshi" can be somewhat fixed simply by always referring to him as "The Master Roshi". It's still a non-translation, but adding the "the" makes it sound more like a title, or that "Roshi" is an adjective of "Master".

[Kamiccolo9]

I guess that if you kinda stretch it, you can construe "Master Roshi" as "Master of Masters" and kinda-sorta-not-really get the same general idea as the original. Kinda.

[MCDaveG]

Super Tableveg 3 or ''I am the prince of Tablevegs!''

I am happy for retaining it as a Saiyan and not translating the puns outright.

We could have Chi-Chi as ''Boobies'' and Roshi as Master Master.

From japanese anime version, show him your Boobies' boobies.
Appearantly toned down in Viz translation.