Does Buu say "Saiya-jin"?

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:09 pm

Yeah but the Japanese language don't say "Dragon Ball" perfectly, just like the English versions of "Saiyan" and "Kaioken" aren't the same. For "Saiyan," I think it sounds better. Other than that, they wouldn't want to get sued by a car company would they? But it's okay. Now as for Kaioken...would a lot of people feel better if they directly translated it to King Kai Fist? Would lots of people prefer that over the English pronunciation for Kaioken? I just think the reason "Saiyan" and "Kaioken" sound different is because of the way it sounds in English. It just doesn't sound very English-like.

MyVisionity · Post by **MyVisionity** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:38 pm

TheGreatness25 wrote:I just think the reason "Saiyan" and "Kaioken" sound different is because of the way it sounds in English. It just doesn't sound very English-like.

I agree with this. While I don't think 'Kaio-ken' would be much of a stretch to pronounce in English, I think new pronunciations are acceptable. If FUNi's DBZ was simply an English languange-dubbed version of the original, I would probably be more particular about it, but I consider their version to be an all-new adaption for American audiences.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:43 pm

MyVisionity wrote:
TheGreatness25 wrote:I just think the reason "Saiyan" and "Kaioken" sound different is because of the way it sounds in English. It just doesn't sound very English-like.
I agree with this. While I don't think 'Kaio-ken' would be much of a stretch to pronounce in English, I think new pronunciations are acceptable. If FUNi's DBZ was simply an English languange-dubbed version of the original, I would probably be more particular about it, but I consider their version to be an all-new adaption for American audiences.

Then why isn't it "King Kay"?

It's an obvious fuck-up that they acknowledged they messed up, corrected, and then went back on for god knows what reason.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:39 pm

I'm pretty sure I know why they went back to the "K.O. Ken" pronunciation. The Ocean Dub was really...umm...off sometimes. DBZ became popular in the US, they only got up to the episode where Vegeta realizes that Goku is a Super Saiyan and then stopped. Now every DBZ fan was holding their breath, waiting for the next installment of the series...for years...and years. Finally, when it was advertised, it knew how to hit the audience by doing the promos in a way where they acknowledged the fact that everyone was on the edge of their seat. Basically what I'm getting at is they left it in there probably for those fans that were so used to the Ocean dub version. For the first episodes that the newer FUNimation dub did, they even tried to sound like the older voices a bit. Vegeta's voice was really slithery and not as hoarse or deep as it was portrayed in later incarnations. You could almost tell they tried their best to make the transition fluid, although obviously the voice work and music was different. Finally after Frieza, they just said, "the hell with it" and ran with the ball the way they wanted to. Would be stupid to start changing all of the pronunciations in the middle of the series.