Non-thread-worthy discussions

[MasenkoHA]

as opposed to FUNi's use of "King Kai" which leaves it half-translated for whatever dumb reason (which, to be fair, was absolutely par for course for FUNi's awful dub back in the 90s).

On that note, translating the ô in Kaiô as King at all was pretty short sighted since ô can be gender neutral and there are female Kaio and Kaioshin.


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[Caulifor]

Just FYI, if you're gonna write Jôji with the mark above the o indicating the lengthened vowel sound (which IS accurate, and I love seeing it!), you should do so for Kaiô as well.

To be honest I just copied his name on Google 'cause though I knew the rest of the info, I didn't know his name But thanks anyway haha

Man, I remember being sad to see him go. Not only was he Kaio, he was also the narrator which means he must've been in every single episode of DB and DBZ (and I guess GT and Super?). Unless the narrator didn't say some of the titles.

[Vegetto95]

[On that note, translating the ô in Kaiô as King at all was pretty short sighted since ô can be gender neutral and there are female Kaio and Kaioshin.

FUNi's decision to call the Kaiōshin "Supreme Kai" is weird and stupid if you know anything about Japanese. Supreme World/Realm? Like... where's the humanity? The Kaiōshin aren't synonymous with the realms they oversee. Like, we don't call the King of England JUST England lmao

In contrast, I always really liked Toriyama's naming schemes for the gods and how it gets progressively more superfluous lol. Like, first you have the four Kaiō, or World Kings (who is above even Kami-sama, which literally translates to God!), then you have the Dai Kaiō, the Great World King, them above him you have the four Kaiōshin, The DIVINE World Kings, and finally, at the very tippy top, the Dai Kaiōshin, THE GREAT DIVINE WORLD KING!! It's so ridiculous and I fucking love it lmao

[GhostEmperorX]

Just FYI, if you're gonna write Jôji with the mark above the o indicating the lengthened vowel sound (which IS accurate, and I love seeing it!), you should do so for Kaiô as well.

The "ô" (or "ō", they're both the same and are just products of different styles of Romanization, in this case Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn) literally translates to "king"

One accent is a circumflex, and the other is a macron.

Kaiô basically translates to "Realm King" or "World King", hence the Viz manga using "Lord of Worlds" (though really lord isn't quite as accurate as king), as opposed to FUNi's use of "King Kai" which leaves it half-translated for whatever dumb reason (which, to be fair, was absolutely par for course for FUNi's awful dub back in the 90s).

But yes, it's more accurately something like "realm king" as you said. It's a similar mistake they made with Muten Roshi, where they made "Roshi" and "Kai" into their "names" which is ridiculous, as they don't actually have proper names in the first place.

And on the matter of Kaioshin, a similar mistake is made on their part. In fact, they're basically saying that the characters are realms by calling them "Kai's". The name itself would mean "Realm King God" when translated literally, but honestly it's a real nonsensical name even by JP or CN standards and Toriyama was always just making up whatever even if it didn't make sense anywhere else (such as the whole classification "problem" of Android or Cyborg when no one else anywhere else has this issue and they just use either term or "robot").

On that note, translating the ô in Kaiô as King at all was pretty short sighted since ô can be gender neutral and there are female Kaio and Kaioshin.

Not necessarily a fault of the translator and more of a nitpick, because that's generally the sense in which it's used even by JP translators themselves. That's about the least of their problems. It's more in how it's a botched translation altogether.
But to reflect what you pointed out, it should likely have been left untranslated, just like "Kaioken".

[Vegetto95]

Man, I remember being sad to see him go. Not only was he Kaio, he was also the narrator which means he must've been in every single episode of DB and DBZ (and I guess GT and Super?). Unless the narrator didn't say some of the titles.

Oh yeah, he was in EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE (and movie and TV special, and I do believe all of the games that had voice acting as well!) of DB, DBZ, and DBGT. He did narration for every single episode recap (though there were a few episodes of DB that had a cold open instead of a recap and as such did not feature his narration) and title card, and voiced not only Kaiō-sama, but Dr. Brief, Bobbidi, the World's King, and Dr. Frappe (from that weird filler episode of DB that caused huge issues, that of course went COMPLETELY unaddressed by Tōei, with the introduction of Dr. Gero) as well!

His was literally the VERY FIRST line in DB, and the VERY LAST in GT (which is why I kind of dislike that Super came along and ruined that perfect full-circle, similar to how I dislike Disney ruining the fact that the original six Star Wars films are bookended by C-3PO and R2-D2... Threepio had the first line in the original Star Wars, followed immediately by Artoo's beeps, and Threepio had the LAST line in Revenge of the Sith, preceded immediately by Artoo's beeps...)

As for Super, Yanami sadly did not do every recap (and, for the first time since original Dragon Ball, some episodes of Super features no recap and had a cold open instead) and episode title reading, nor did he voice Kaiō the entire show. He fell ill and was replaced by Tatsuta Naoki (the guy who's voiced Oolong since the very beginning in 1986) only 12 episodes in, and Tatsuta has continued to voice Kaiō and provide narration ever since. I LOVE him as Oolong... but I still just can't get used to him as the narrator/Kaiō despite having been in the role for eight years now. He's fine, don't get me wrong, he just doesn't have that same energy Yanami had...

[ATA]

If Funimation had to censor "Mr.Satan" why not just call him Hades? I don't think Disney owns the right to that name.

[Vegetto95]

Just FYI, if you're gonna write Jôji with the mark above the o indicating the lengthened vowel sound (which IS accurate, and I love seeing it!), you should do so for Kaiô as well.

The "ô" (or "ō", they're both the same and are just products of different styles of Romanization, in this case Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn) literally translates to "king"

One accent is a circumflex, and the other is a macron.

Huh, interesting. I'd always seen them used interchangeably for long vowels in Japanese and that one was used in Kunrei-shiki romanization while the other was used in Hepburn. Guess I need to do more research lol

But yes, it's more accurately something like "realm king" as you said. It's a similar mistake they made with Muten Roshi, where they made "Roshi" and "Kai" into their "names" which is ridiculous, as they don't actually have proper names in the first place.

And on the matter of Kaioshin, a similar mistake is made on their part. In fact, they're basically saying that the characters are realms by calling them "Kai's". The name itself would mean "Realm King God" when translated literally, but honestly it's a real nonsensical name even by JP or CN standards and Toriyama was always just making up whatever even if it didn't make sense anywhere else (such as the whole classification "problem" of Android or Cyborg when no one else anywhere else has this issue and they just use either term or "robot").

Yeah... "Master Roshi" has bothered me for YEEEEARS because... it literally just translates to "Master Old Master". It's SO dumb lol (reminds me of this dumb ecchi show called "Ichiban Ushirō no Daimaō", or "The Great Demon King in the Back Row", which refers to his seating placement in his supernatural school classroom... and the DUMBASSES who localized it called it "Demon King Daimaō"... WHICH LITERALLY TRANSLATES TO "DEMON KING GREAT DEMON KING"!!! I swear to Kamisama...)

And yeah, I actually just made that exact point in a previous comment about "Supreme Kai". "Kai" refers to the realms they rule over, not the rulers themselves... I mean, I know FUNimation was a tiny little company with next to no experience dubbing anime when they started doing Dragon Ball back in 1995 because they only got the license due to sheer, unadulterated nepotism (NONE of which is an excuse, btw), but... I think that if your entire job is, oh I don't know... dubbing JAPANESE anime into English... you should PROBABLY have a few people employed who know both languages and actually, you know, fucking listen to them. But hey... that's just me lmao

I always used the very literal translation of Jinzōningen, "Artificial Humans" to refer to them all, because it literally DOES describe them all (thanks to the great Steve Simmons lol). All of them are either biological humans artificially upgraded with mechanical parts, fully artificial mechanical beings made to LOOK like humans, or, in the case of Cell, an artificially-made biological humanoid creature made from the cells of several humanoid aliens (and Dragon Ball has always used "ningen"to refer to extraterrestrial beings and not just humans from Earth). And in actual dialogue between Nos. 16, 17, 18, and Cell, a distinction is made SEVERAL times between the Jinzōningen who are "human type" and the ones who are "completely robotic" ("kanzen robotto). It's been science fiction word of god for DEEEECADES that androids are strictly fully mechanical beings, sooooo...

Like, I know a lot of the official Japanese merchandise used/uses "Androids"... but that same merchandise also uses things like "Son Gokou" (you only need to know THE MOST BASIC information about vowel pronunciation in Japanese to know why that's dead wrong lol), Klilyn, Pooal (instead of Pu'erh), etc. And to boot, a lot of it nowadays has started using other FUNi dub terms and spellings, such as Broly, Frieza, Vegito, etc., even in official JAPANESE merch, because Tōei just doesn't give a flyin' fuck anymore. Sooooo... I take that shit with a few grains of salt lol (just like how, like Julie and MistareFusion, I use "Blooma" instead of "Bulma"... because "Bulma" has nothing whatsoever to do with being a pun on bloomers XD)

[Vegetto95]

If Funimation had to censor "Mr.Satan" why not just call him Hades? I don't think Disney owns the right to that name.

It's funny because there's evidence that early on (around 1998/99ish) they were intending to re-name him "Mr. Savage", which I feel would have worked a lot better if they were gonna censor it no matter what. I guess they got cold feet because they didn't want to get sued by the WWF for the similarity to Randy "Macho Man" Savage, kinda like why the American releases of Street Fighter called Vega, the big evil guy in the red outfit, hat, and cape, M. Bison, because M. Bison (changed to Balrog in American releases) in the Japanese versions is the big black boxer dude... and clearly a parody of Mike Tyson. And the American publishers decided not to take that legal risk, which I always found regretful.

What's even more ironic to me is that even though they decided not to call him Mr. Savage, Chris Rager's vocal delivery for Mr. Satan is CLEARLY heavily inspired by Randy Savage lol

On a side note, as a fan of the Japanese version and a hater of the FUNi dub... there are a LOT of FUNi voices I absolutely despise, a decent amount that I think are just okay but have no strong opinions toward either way... and only ONE I legitimately LOVE: and that's Chris Rager's Mr. Satan! He's got it all... his voice actually FITS THE CHARACTER (it's amazing just how many FUNi voices just absolutely do NOT), it actually sounds pretty close to Gōri Daisuke's amazing original voice for the character, his delivery is actually GOOD, unlike so many other FUNi cast members, especially in the early 2000s, and you can tell that he's always having an absolute BALL (no pun intended lmao) when doing his lines. 10/10, the only FUNi voice that's actually absolutely amazing lol


On a second side note... yaaaay! With this here post, I have ascended from Newbie to Not-So-Newbie! Go me, I guess?

[GhostEmperorX]

Huh, interesting. I'd always seen them used interchangeably for long vowels in Japanese and that one was used in Kunrei-shiki romanization while the other was used in Hepburn. Guess I need to do more research lol

The French do use the circumflex in their own renditions, Wayô [和洋] Records for one has all romanized JP names bearing one where applicable (one such example).

Yeah... "Master Roshi" has bothered me for YEEEEARS because... it literally just translates to "Master Old Master". It's SO dumb lol (reminds me of this dumb ecchi show called "Ichiban Ushirō no Daimaō", or "The Great Demon King in the Back Row", which refers to his seating placement in his supernatural school classroom... and the DUMBASSES who localized it called it "Demon King Daimaō"... WHICH LITERALLY TRANSLATES TO "DEMON KING GREAT DEMON KING"!!! I swear to Kamisama...)

There was this one reanimation filler episode from Naruto P2 that clued me in from years back, when it brought in a character named "Old Master Chen [チェン老師/Chen Rōshi]". Those guys actually got it right (a good example of how to properly translate JP media unlike with DB).
Also, apparently Sentai Filmworks (reincarnation of ADV) was responsible for that second redundant blunder you mentioned, which is weird since they're supposed to be one of the more professional anime importers.

(just like how, like Julie and MistareFusion, I use "Blooma" instead of "Bulma"... because "Bulma" has nothing whatsoever to do with being a pun on bloomers XD)

With this one in particular, I think Toriyama himself made the first mistake, right from the way the katakana is structured.
As in, instead of "ブルマ", if it was going to match the word that the pun was based on then it should have been "ブルーマ" instead.
Which is where we reach the point of these things being intrinsically Dragon Ball problems as opposed to being across the board for JP media.

As for the Artificial Human thing, yes, there's generally no problem using that, as neither "android/robot" nor "cyborg" are one-size-fits-all terms in the way that they're used to describe them all.

[MasenkoHA]

If Funimation had to censor "Mr.Satan" why not just call him Hades? I don't think Disney owns the right to that name.

Because they did use Mr.Satan as far as the uncut dub was concerned. They made Hercule Satan his full legal name where characters would still occasionally refer to him as just Hercule in the uncut dub (pretty sure his PR lady or whatever Pizza exclusively called him Hercule in the uncut version) probably to save time on how many alternate takes they would have to do.


Hades Satan would have sound ridiculous

[Vegetto95]

Also, apparently Sentai Filmworks (reincarnation of ADV) was responsible for that second redundant blunder you mentioned, which is weird since they're supposed to be one of the more professional anime importers.

Yeah, that was always weird to me too. Sentai's definitely one of the better anime distributors in the US, alongside Discotek. I guess even the better companies have their off days lol

I would include Viz in that since they treat most of the anime they license, like Sailor Moon, Naruto, Bleach, InuYasha, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, etc. pretty decently... but their continued practice of ONLY including the shitty English dub of the Pokémon anime (part of literally THE biggest media franchise in history) on physical releases and streaming services and absolute refusal for the past 25 years to ever officially release the original Japanese version, knocks that down a peg. I've heard that The Pokémon Company is also partially to blame for that apparently? But still, not a fan. Plus... I HATE what Viz's manga side has done to the Dragon Ball manga over the years. Insane levels of censorship, dumb, weird name change choices, a HORRIBLE redraws (Nappa's melting titty is just... the fucking worst..) Viz is mostly pretty good, but they do have a LOT of problems.

FUNimation similarly has gotten a LOT better in the years since their formation (fucking took them forever though) and generally treat most of their releases pretty damn well... but, as we all know, they still continue to treat Dragon Ball, the series that put them on the map in the first place, the series that owe their entire fucking EXISTENCE to, like complete and utter shit. Sooooooo... yeah, no. Huge points deducted there too.

With this one in particular, I think Toriyama himself made the first mistake, right from the way the katakana is structured.
As in, instead of "ブルマ", if it was going to match the word that the pun was based on then it should have been "ブルーマ" instead.
Which is where we reach the point of these things being intrinsically Dragon Ball problems as opposed to being across the board for JP media.

I mean, translating "bu ru ma" to "Blooma" is functionally no different whatsoever from translating "fu ri i za" to Freeza or "ku u ra" to "Coola". The extra, extended a in both is the Japanese equivalent to the common "er" ending in English. Hence, "Freezer" would be pronounced in Japanese as "fu ri i za a", and the DB character is written as "fu ri i za", hence "freezer" to "Freeza", same with "ku u ra a" being "Cooler", but the DB character is "ku u ra", making "Coola" much more accurate. So, by that logic, "bloomer" in Japanese is "bu ru ma a", and the DB character is "bu ru ma"... hence, Blooma.

But yeah... you can definitely mainly trace that back to Toriyama writing "Bulma" on her shirt in chapter 1. Toriyama... a man whose first language is Japanese, a language VEEEEERY different from English, which he is not fluent in. Toriyama... the man who straight up wrote "Yajirove" on a tankōbon cover, and "Red Ribon" and "Son Gokuh" (which technically is a semi-accurate, but HORRIBLY outdated method of romanization. Granted that was 1987, but still...) on another. But no, his knowledge of the English language is totally SUUUUPER trustworthy, he TOTALLY always meant for her name to be Bulma, guys!! XD (It's funny because he actually did an illustration for an issue of Weekly Jump back in 2007 where he actually has her wearing a jacket that reads, in English, "Bloomer". Which, while not 100% dead on, is obviously MUCH closer to his intended meaning than "Bulma" lol)

[GhostEmperorX]

Viz is mostly pretty good, but they have a LOT of problems.

True, apparently they even did stuff like marketing OPM as "Shounen" in the US meanwhile it's not even made for the WSJ section of Shueisha.

FUNimation similarly has gotten a LOT better in the years since their formation (fucking took them forever though) and generally treat most of their releases pretty damn well... but, as we all know, they still continue to treat Dragon Ball, the series that put them on the map in the first place, the series that owe their entire fucking EXISTENCE to, like complete and utter shit. Sooooooo... yeah, no. Huge points deducted there too.

Sad part is how this is a similar deal with Toei Animation given that it was a flagship IP of theirs that they still love to milk nowadays.

I mean, translating "bu ru ma" to "Blooma" is functionally no different whatsoever from translating "fu ri i za" to Freeza or "ku u ra" to "Coola". The extra, extended a in both is the Japanese equivalent to the common "er" ending in English. Hence, "Freezer" would be pronounced in Japanese as "fu ri i za a", and the DB character is written as "fu ri i za", hence "freezer" to "Freeza", same with "ku u ra a" being "Cooler", but the DB character is "ku u ra", making "Coola" much more accurate. So, by that logic, "bloomer" in Japanese is "bu ru ma a", and the DB character is "bu ru ma"... hence, Blooma.

True, apparently that's a way the loanword is spelt in JP. And according to JP Wikipedia, there are at least two other ways to render it in Katakana, which includes the alternate version I suggested here.

Sort of similar is the two ways that "Energy" is rendered, although it's because they took one from German and the other from UK English.

But yeah... you can definitely mainly trace that back to Toriyama writing "Bulma" on her shirt in chapter 1. Toriyama... a man whose first language is Japanese, a language VEEEEERY different from English, which he is not fluent in. Toriyama... the man who straight up wrote "Yajirove" on a tankōbon cover, and "Red Ribon" and "Son Gokuh" (which technically is a semi-accurate, but HORRIBLY outdated method of romanization. Granted that was 1987, but still...) on another. But no, his knowledge of the English language is totally SUUUUPER trustworthy, he TOTALLY always meant for her name to be Bulma, guys!! XD (It's funny because he actually did an illustration for an issue of Weekly Jump back in 2007 where he actually has her wearing a jacket that reads, in English, "Bloomer". Which, while not 100% dead on, is obviously MUCH closer to his intended meaning than "Bulma" lol)

Honestly, from how much I've seen of direct/official JP romanizations in shows and on lots of official print media (like soundtrack booklets), they even get real world names and other stuff wrong at times (e.g. GGG has a character whose name is "René" but the romanization has it as "Renais", and from the same company, they romanized "Exkaiser" as "Exkizer"). So yea it's definitely common over there with in-house stuff

[Vegetto95]

True, apparently they even did stuff like marketing OPM as "Shounen" in the US meanwhile it's not even made for the WSJ section of Shueisha.

I mean, OPM is literally published in Shueisha's seinen magazine Young Jump lol. In my experience, a very large percentage of western anime fans don't have a goddamn clue what the term "shōnen" actually means (and fewer still have likely ever heard of seinen at all). Like, people like us know that it's a demographic (specifically one targeted towards elementary/middle school aged boys) and is not limited to any particular genre, but I would need a few dozens hands in order to count on my fingers the amount of times I've seen people describe shōnen as a "genre", because those people tend to be the most casual of anime fans who are mainly familiar with generic, shallow battle shōnen schlock like Dragon Ball (I say this with all love lol), One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Demon Slayer, etc. and not much else. And quite a few of them primarily identify Japanese anime STRICTLY with shows like that, despite them only being a fraction of the shows made over there. And sadly, that all-too-prevalent mindset seems to have bled a fair bit into the professional anime industry in the west too, which only serves to make those misconceptions more common. My advice to those people? Educate yoself! lol

Sad part is how this is a similar deal with Toei Animation given that it was a flagship IP of theirs that they still love to milk nowadays.

Oh, god yes. Tōei's treatment of Dragon Ball over the past decade has been positively horrendous. If you ask me, Dragon Ball should have absolutely been forever left where it was in 1997 with the ending of GT. Far more badly-written and -produced stuff has come out of it post-Battle of Gods than good, and NONE of it has the passion and energy the original run of the series had in droves.

Honestly, from how much I've seen of direct/official JP romanizations in shows and on lots of official print media (like soundtrack booklets), they even get real world names and other stuff wrong at times (e.g. GGG has a character whose name is "René" but the romanization has it as "Renais", and from the same company, they romanized "Exkaiser" as "Exkizer"). So yea it's definitely common over there with in-house stuff

Dude, you have NO idea how happy it makes me that you're a fellow GaoGaiGar fan! That series is SOOO underrated! Granted, speaking of Exkaiser, I have not yet watched the previous seven Brave series, but there are absolutely on my watchlist!

[Grimlock]

I posted this image in the fanworks, but I guess it's worth saying something it. I'm appalled about how I actually never thought about combining the Super Saiyan transformations into one before. And to be honest, I'm down for it. It actually looks kinda good. Even the lack of eyebrows here that I don't like in Super Saiyan 3 is okay (though I would certainly prefer it to have the eyebrows). The Super Saiyan 4 hairstyle combined with the three bangs from Super Saiyan 2 is great. And I would certainly remove the fur, no need for that.

As transformations will just keep coming, a similar to this one I wouldn't mind.

Spoiler:

[ZeroNeonix]

The body hair would be fine if it wasn't so much darker.

[Caulifor]

I don't care what people say about golden SS4 being too "fanfiction", in my opinion it would be the absolute perfect final form for Goku (and any Saiyan). It could actually be the real Super Saiyan of legend, which our characters never achieved before because they didn't have the tail anymore.

It always felt weird to me how the Oozaru transformation was just forgotten and had absolutely nothing to do with Super Saiyan. Connect them! Make this alien race consistent with itself! But oh well. I guess we're stuck with GT SS4 (with its random red fur and no vistual connection to other Super Saiyan forms) and the SSG and Ultra transformations from Super, which are even less related to the Saiyan race.

[SupremeKai25]

I don't care what people say about golden SS4 being too "fanfiction", in my opinion it would be the absolute perfect final form for Goku (and any Saiyan). It could actually be the real Super Saiyan of legend, which our characters never achieved before because they didn't have the tail anymore.

It always felt weird to me how the Oozaru transformation was just forgotten and had absolutely nothing to do with Super Saiyan. Connect them! Make this alien race consistent with itself! But oh well. I guess we're stuck with GT SS4 (with its random red fur and no vistual connection to other Super Saiyan forms) and the SSG and Ultra transformations from Super, which are even less related to the Saiyan race.

They simply chose a new evolution route for the Saiyans.

They could have gone in the direction of the ape/animal route like GT did with SS4, but since GT already did it, there was no reason to repeat this. So they decided to give Goku new forms that are connected to the domain of the Gods, which is naturally much more elegant and "noble" in its design than an ape man like SS4.

The Super forms are minimalistic in their design because they are meant to look elegant, and there is much elegance in simplicity. Fur and tail would look too primal and animalistic for a Godly form such as SSG or Ultra Instinct. Instead, slimmer muscles like Toriyama draws SSG and UI are perfect.

Super Broly already has SS4 in all but name anyway through his Ikari form, and this actually fits the character since he's a brute.

But as things have been written for the last decade, No, it doesn't make sense for Goku's "final form" to spawn fur or tail. It's too primitive and savage for the evolution route that Goku has taken since 2013, the route of the Gods, and Super forms have never been connected to the Saiyan nature. The series is not interested in that, the series is interested in the domain of the Gods.

[Grimlock]

The body hair would be fine if it wasn't so much darker.

Ah, I would also not have those red outlines. Just a plain mix of Super Saiyan 2 and Super Saiyan 4 would be cool.

It always felt weird to me how the Oozaru transformation was just forgotten and had absolutely nothing to do with Super Saiyan. Connect them!

One could argue Golden Oozaru is the connection between Oozaru and Super Saiyan, though that has never been confirmed in the sense of Golden Oozaru being two transformations used at the same time (which I don't think it has happened so far).

I guess we're stuck with GT SS4 (with its random red fur and no vistual connection to other Super Saiyan forms)

You shouldn't be expecting Super Saiyan 4 to have a connection with the Super Saiyan forms when Perfect Files outright states that even its name was given out of convenience. It is not supposed to have a connection.

[ZeroNeonix]

I don't know. The tail looked good on Shallot. Also, while I agree that SS4 wouldn't be a good fit for Goku or Vegeta in Super, we do have Broly now. It would be nice if SS4 were canonized through him. Ikari could serve as a precursor to it.



I've even seen fan art where he retains his green color scheme, and I think it looks cool. Reddit won't let me share it, though.

[Caulifor]

You shouldn't be expecting Super Saiyan 4 to have a connection with the Super Saiyan forms when Perfect Files outright states that even its name was given out of convenience. It is not supposed to have a connection.

I wasn't expecting anything, it's just a bummer that the Saiyan race and its transformations never came full circle in canon. Toriyama dropped the Oozaru concept early on and then created the Super Saiyan, which had no connection to the Oozaru or the tail of the Saiyans at all. The tail, which had been such a crucial part of the main character's design for so long, never came back. I've always felt that was a missed opportunity, and a form akin to the golden Super Saiyan 4 fanarts we see all around the internet would've been perfect as a final form in the story.

But when I say that, I mean the original manga. Maybe Super Saiyan 3 could've been that instead of a brand new look that didn't follow any of the previous designs except for the hair color.

I know this transformation wouldn't fit in Super, and that's not what I wish or hope for. I'm just thinking back on the original material and feeling like there was a potential to make the Saiyan transformations all be connected to one another, and to bring back an important part of Goku's design from the start of the series, capping it all off with a neat little bow. But alas, that never happened and that never will happen.