Cure Dragon 255 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 6:02 pm
Spirit Bomb is the correct translation. What do you want? A Yatsu Kisama Tachi translation?
Spirit Bomb is Funimation's rendition of Genki-Dama. "Genki" can mean "health", "energy" or "vitality", all of which are spiritual attributes, and "Dama" has been used for things like "ball", "jewel" or "bullet", so it's a solid rendition. It also is basically a bomb because when it lands and the enemy is enveloped it explodes.
Although, there's really no rationale for things like "Makankosappo", which approximates as “Demon Piercing Light Kill Cannon” other than anything about death was taboo in the Saban dub, and the "Special" part is misleading because nothing about the attack validates the term, something like
Herms' suggestion of "Evil Beam Cannon" would have worked better.
At any rate these terms are never going to change, best case scenario is the Ocean Kai dub will use the Japanese terms Funimation originally used without backtracking along with more faithful pronunciations of Goku's name, Namek, etc, but were never going to hear the right pronunciation of Saiyan in an English dub again (it was heard in the Filipino English dub and Big Green dub of the GT special, but the former was pre-Funimation and the latter was an actor or director who was probably unfamiliar with the existing dubs guessing the pronunciation).