Looks like Japan have finally ditched the Son "Gokou" spelling!

[Arteaga4K]

Definitely weird that they're going with "Vegito" and "Frieza" now, but not something I'll lose sleep over. The dub names never really bothered me that much

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Sorry for the bump. But May's Wafer Stickers got revealed....

They have now ommitted "Son"...


What the actual f**k is going on??????????

[Metalwario64]

Sorry for the bump. But May's Wafer Stickers got revealed....

They have now ommitted "Son"...


What the actual f**k is going on??????????

It really makes no sense to me... Are they trying to appease importers? The Japanese market doesn't want dub nanes and spellings... Are these Japanese companies international brand unification efforts due to the Olympics? As I said, Hasbro and Takara did this two years ago with Transformers. I don't know if anyone else has done it (what's next? Capcom changing the Street Fighter names to the US ones?).

[GhostEmperorX]

Sorry for the bump. But May's Wafer Stickers got revealed....

They have now ommitted "Son"...


What the actual f**k is going on??????????

It really makes no sense to me... Are they trying to appease importers? The Japanese market doesn't want dub nanes and spellings... Are these Japanese companies international brand unification efforts due to the Olympics? As I said, Hasbro and Takara did this two years ago with Transformers. I don't know if anyone else has done it (what's next? Capcom changing the Street Fighter names to the US ones?).

Not even sure why they need romanizations in Japan anyway (of both their own made-up names and legit words within the language), seeing as a large portion of the population won’t even get it. Some of these things only even make sense in Japanese so translation is often times futile.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Sorry for the bump. But May's Wafer Stickers got revealed....

They have now ommitted "Son"...


What the actual f**k is going on??????????

It really makes no sense to me... Are they trying to appease importers? The Japanese market doesn't want dub nanes and spellings... Are these Japanese companies international brand unification efforts due to the Olympics? As I said, Hasbro and Takara did this two years ago with Transformers. I don't know if anyone else has done it (what's next? Capcom changing the Street Fighter names to the US ones?).

Not even sure why they need romanizations in Japan anyway (of both their own made-up names and legit words within the language), seeing as a large portion of the population won’t even get it. Some of these things only even make sense in Japanese so translation is often times futile.

They probably think English writing is cool the same way Western only merch often has Japanese writing because I think in the West Japanese writing is considered cool, you often see people with Japanese writing as tattoos and what not.

[GhostEmperorX]

Speaking of which, translations like Frieza instead of Freeza in the west don’t seem to be all that problematic. Take Mr. Freeze for example, his real name is Victor Fries, and it’s clear they’re going with the German way of pronouncing the letters of “Frie” which is equivalent in sound (not meaning) to “free” in English. Freeza also seems way too obvious as a reference to freezer.
Plus remember, “Engrish” as written with Katakana is primarily an imitation of UK English pronunciations where “-er” and “-a” are rather similar because the r is more or less silent when it’s at the end.

As for the fusion name Vegetto, that pretty much only makes sense in Japanese, because you can’t exactly leave “Kakarotto” which is a pun on “carrot” as is in English. Ending with “-tto” instead of just “t” is necessary because Japanese words never end with any consonant that isn’t double N.

[jjgp1112]

It really makes no sense to me... Are they trying to appease importers? The Japanese market doesn't want dub nanes and spellings... Are these Japanese companies international brand unification efforts due to the Olympics? As I said, Hasbro and Takara did this two years ago with Transformers. I don't know if anyone else has done it (what's next? Capcom changing the Street Fighter names to the US ones?).

Not even sure why they need romanizations in Japan anyway (of both their own made-up names and legit words within the language), seeing as a large portion of the population won’t even get it. Some of these things only even make sense in Japanese so translation is often times futile.

They probably think English writing is cool the same way Western only merch often has Japanese writing because I think in the West Japanese writing is considered cool, you often see people with Japanese writing as tattoos and what not.

This is exactly it. Japan's always been infatuated with English Language logos, hence, well, Dragon Ball .

Mick Foley once mentioned a funny story about how he had a shirt with "King of the Deathmatch" written on it in Japanese that sold poorly over there...the exact same shirt with it written in English flew off the shelves.

[TheGreatness25]

I think it's an active step in bridging the gap between the Japanese version and the official English-speaking version (Funimation's).

There was obviously always a divide between the two and I don't think that there was ever an intent to do that. I think this is Toei giving its "blessing," so to speak, to Funimation's version of the series.

I know that nobody would assume this, but could the "Frieza," "Master Roshi," "Krillin," "Tien/Tien Shinhan," "Spirit Bomb," "Special Beam Cannon," and "Vegito" stuff been a Toei thing? Could Toei have presented those spellings to Funimation? We know that Toei made international releases of Kai include "Z." Just a weird speculation.

I will continue to not use the dub spelling because the characters' "real" names are in Kanji, Katakana, or Hiragana and are open to interpretation. However, if that's what they want to go with, I can't really do anything about it.

As for Goku's name, his name will always be Son Goku whether or not it's written on a toy or tshirt.

[10gigtriforce]

Supposedly toei provided some name translations to harmony gold for their 89 dub, and gave them to FUNimation for their 1995 dragon ball dub. Entirely possible they kept doing that for the rest of dragon ball for funi. Or at the very least gave the OK to name changes, they did give the OK for every change 4kids made to one piece.

[GhostEmperorX]

As for Goku's name, his name will always be Son Goku whether or not it's written on a toy or tshirt.

That’s an obvious fact considering it’s a Kanji name (and he’s also Sun Wukong to begin with anyway).