Toriyama Romanizations: A Visual Guide

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Hey guys! Long time, no talk! I wanted to share with you all a project I've been working on. This is actually something I first started researching approximately 20 years ago, but for whatever reason I never got around to finishing it. I had to start from scratch since I don't have any of the images from back then, so a lot of this was simply done from memory!

So, my goal was to compile every single official romanization used by Toriyama for proper nouns in the series. I believe I've achieved that goal, but would love to hear about anything I've missed!

Characters and other proper nouns are organized roughly in the order of their first appearance in the series. When I note the first appearance in the guide, however, I'm talking about the first appearance of that particular spelling, not when the character itself first appeared. So please don't get that confused.

In general, I'm just showing off the very first panel in which the spelling was featured, although sometimes I added an additional panel for clarity. Sometimes I also added some other notable appearances. Some of these spellings never appeared in the manga at all, but the sources are always noted.

I hope everyone finds this all as fascinating as I did! Also, if you're reading this, VegettoEX, feel free to shamelessly steal this for the main site/Wiki if you'd like!

CHARACTERS:

SON GOKUH

First appearance: 1987 tankōbon #06 - cover



Additional appearances (as simply "GOKUH")

Weekly Shōnen Jump 1989 #07 - cover



1990 "Akira Toriyama The World" - cover



Weekly Shōnen Jump 1990 #50 - cover



BULMA

First appearance: chapter 1



BLOOMERS

First appearance: Weekly Shōnen Jump 2007 #29 - concept image of the bonus figures included with the individual DVD release



Note: it's hard to make out depending on the quality of the particular scan you look at, but there does indeed appear to be a partially obscured letter s at the end.

KAME SENNIN

First appearance: Weekly Shōnen Jump 1987 #14 - promotional sticker set



Note: this is the only time I've ever seen Toriyama spell KAME SENNIN, although there is a ton of KAME in the series.

SHERMAN PRIEST

First appearance: chapter 5



Note: the father of one of Oolong's captive girls. Although not named in dialogue or any of the guide books, it's presumed this is supposed to be his name. As noted on the Kanzenshuu main website, his name "is most likely taken from the M4 Sherman and M7 Priest tanks used by the allies during World War II."

YAMCHA

First appearance: Weekly Shōnen Jump 1986 #05 - 1986 calendar



Additional appearance: Weekly Shōnen Jump 1989 #03/04 - 1989 calendar



PILAF

First appearance: chapter 135



KURIRIN

First appearance: chapter 166



KULILIN

First appearance: chapter 245



Additional appearance: chapter 328 - title page



栗 (kuri)

First appearance: chapter 125 - title page



Note: okay, this is actually more like the opposite of what this guide is focusing on, but I thought it was too cool not to note. Here, Goku's hoverbike and outfit display the 悟 (go) kanji associated with his given name, which is pretty normal for Dragon Ball.

Kuririn is likewise sporting the 栗 (kuri) kanji, which means "chestnut." As far as I can tell, this is the only time a kanji has ever been associated with his name! Perhaps his name could be written 栗林 in kanji? (林 is read either hayashi or rin depending on context, and it's used in the Chinese word "Shaolin," and by extention, the 多林 (ōrin) temple that Kuririn came from. So this is plausible. But I digress.)

LUNCH

First appearance: chapter 26 - title page




BLUE

First appearance: chapter 70




ARALE

First appearance: chapter 81



SLUMP

First appearance: chapter 82



TURBO

First appearance: chapter 82



YAJIROVE

First appearance: chapter 140, title page



SON GOHAN

First appearance: chapter 203, title page



Additional appearances:

1989 tankōbon #18 - cover



Weekly Shōnen Jump 1989 #36 - Jump Summer Festival (as simply "GOHAN")



1990 "Akira Toriyama The World Special" - cover



TRUNKS

First appearance: Dragon Ball Side Story - TRUNKS THE STORY - cover



Mr. SATAN

First appearance: chapter 394



BEEDEL

First appearance: chapter 440



Note: credit goes to SaiyaJedi for discovering this one years ago. Thanks, Julian!

JEWEL

First appearance: chapter 452




SON GOTEN

First appearance: chapter 518



Additional appearance: chapter 519 (as simply "GOTEN")



BARRY CARN

First appearance: chapter 476



Note: an extremely minor character. He's a famous actor appearing in SUPER GUY magazine (lol) that Majin Boo imitates to try and impress a girl for a kiss. This ends miserably. Barry also appeared in a Dragon Ball Super episode, playing the Great Saiyaman in a movie.

----------

OTHER PROPER NOUNS:

CAPSULE

First appearance: chapter 1



HOIPOI CAPSULE

First appearance: chapter 2



Note: this seems to be the only time "Hoipoi Capsule" was ever romanized in the manga. Eventually, Capsule items are consistently labeled CAPSULE CORP. and often include the iconic company emblem, as featured on Trunks's jacket.

In early chapters, there wasn't a standard, and the emblem didn't even make an appearance until around the Saiyan arc, as far as I can tell.

CAPSULE CO. LTD

First appearance: chapter 10 - title page



Note: this is the only time that I'm aware of the corporation being referred to this way. It's typically just labeled CAPSULE CORP.

It's also interesting to note that this is the first time Capsule Corporation itself is mentioned in the series. I don't think there's another reference until Goku travels to West City in the Red Ribbon Army arc, in chapter 68. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

CAPSULE CORP.

First appearance: chapter 68



Note: this chapter is the first time Capsule Corporation is ever mentioned in dialogue, as far as I can tell. Here we see the standard CAPSULE CORP. making its first appearance, at Bulma's house.

It's also interesting to note the original Capsule Corporation emblem, featured on the entrance, which is a Hoipoi Capsule with the letter k inside.



The more iconic emblem with the letter c doesn't start to appear until around the Saiyan arc. The entrance has the updated emblem in later arcs, as seen below:



You can see he misspelled it as CUPSULE CORP. up top there. I saw this another time somewhere else in the manga, but I didn't find it notable enough to give it its own entry, so here you go.

Additional note: hilariously, during the Boo arc, starting with chapter 423, Toriyama went all the way back to chapter 68 to reuse this exact same establishing shot! It's used multiple times. You can even see that the cars and airplanes are the same. This creates a slight continuity error, because the old Capsule Corporation emblem is featured on the front entrance, instead of the newer one.



Toriyama sure was at his absolute laziest at this point in the series!

CAPSULE CORPORATION



KAME HOUSE

First appearance: chapter 12



RED RIBBON

First appearance: chapter 155



Note: this henchman has a jacket which says RED RIBBON on the back. Quite infamously, later appearances on other items seem to always say RED RIBON instead.

I'm using the kanzenban as a reference; can anyone confirm that this also appears as RED RIBBON in the magazine run and the tankōbon run? It's possible that this was originally misspelled RED RIBON and later corrected. Maybe they just decided it wasn't worth the effort to correct the misspelling for the remainder of the chapters.

Additional appearance: 2003 Kanzenban #7 cover



RED RIBON

First appearance: chapter 70



Note: from chapter 70 onward, I could only ever find the spelling RED RIBON.

SAIYA

First appearance: Weekly Shōnen Jump 1991 #33 - cover



Note: this is the only time I've ever seen this spelled by Toriyama in alphabet.

WE-KONG HOSPITAL

First appearance: chapter 243



Note: this is obviously a reference to Sun Wukong, the inspiration for Son Goku. Of course, it seems to say WE instead of WU and there seems to be space for another letter. Perhaps it's supposed to be WEUKONG HOSPITAL? That's not a standard romanization, but it works. I guess we'll never know exactly what it's called, but I thought it was interesting to highlight.

SATAN CITY

First appearance: chapter 421



SATAN CITY POLICE DEPT.

First appearance: Weekly Shōnen Jump 1993 #45 - insert poster calendar



ORANGE STAR HIGH SCHOOL

First appearance: chapter 421

[Kid Buu]

It certainly has been a long time. I was even a member of your forum - Chibi Gohan's Lookout!

Wow, amazing read. I feel like I'd have to read that multiple times to digest it all.

[Adamant]

PILAF

First appearance: chapter 350

This is a later edit, the original chapters consistently said "PILAW".

[CodeOfMe]

One might wonder how Toriyama managed to romanize Capsule Corp. two different ways in the same panel. Maybe his assistant at the time (Matsuyama, I believe?) handled the background while he, Toriyama, handled the foreground, and neither of them noticed the inconsistency?

Anyway, this was a very informative post; great work! I can't believe I never noticed the discrepancy of the updated Capsule Corp. logo later on. No wonder Toriyama made that fourth-wall-breaking joke about photo-copying panels later in the Boo arc--he did it more often than I thought. (Really, I'm more surprised he went ~350 chapters back to find a panel to reuse; I was under the impression Toriyama basically never bothered going through old volumes of DB while he was working on the manga.)

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

This is a later edit, the original chapters consistently said "PILAW" .

Interesting. Are you sure this was specifically in Weekly Jump and/or the Japanese tankōbon? I can't find any information online about that. At least, I'm seeing "PILAF" as well in the corresponding anime episode...

One might wonder how Toriyama managed to romanize Capsule Corp. two different ways in the same panel. Maybe his assistant at the time (Matsuyama, I believe?) handled the background while he, Toriyama, handled the foreground, and neither of them noticed the inconsistency?

His assistant was indeed Matsuyama. It's possible it happened like that, or maybe it's just because it's harder to catch typos in a language foreign to a person. In the other example I mentioned, there has "CAPSULE" all over the same chapter, and indeed one on the same page.

Anyway, this was a very informative post; great work! I can't believe I never noticed the discrepancy of the updated Capsule Corp. logo later on. No wonder Toriyama made that fourth-wall-breaking joke about photo-copying panels later in the Boo arc--he did it more often than I thought. (Really, I'm more surprised he went ~350 chapters back to find a panel to reuse; I was under the impression Toriyama basically never bothered going through old volumes of DB while he was working on the manga.)

Thank you! It was a lot of hard work to put together, but I'm glad to finally see the finished product myself. Even I learned some new things after picking the project back up!

I was thinking the exact same thing about that Boo arc joke. He really did photocopy a lot of establishing shots and whatnot throughout the series. I really noticed that on my last re-read. Typically, he'd most often copy a panel which appeared at the end of one chapter to the beginning of the next chapter, to continue the story where it left off. But I've also noticed blatant cheating during some of the fights, particularly during the Piccolo Daimaō era, probably because he was pretty ill at the time.

New guide idea unlocked: Times Toriyama cheated!

[coola]

https://youtu.be/OroxflNYhXo?t=2248 Engrish credits from DBZ II on Famicom

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

https://youtu.be/OroxflNYhXo?t=2248 Engrish credits from DBZ II on Famicom

These are the typical romanizations used by Bandai, such as "Gokou" instead of Toriyama's "Gokuh." It would be interesting to document all of the spellings used in official products, although it would be a lot more work than my project.

[Saiya6Cit]

Nice job on the recap.

I had seen "Gokuh" on Spaniard magazines from the 90s and early 2000s.

Guess I will have to accept Toriyama's will and type: "Kulilin" from now on...

"Beedel" was a true surprise because according to the old rumor it should be spelled ¨Videl¨ because it comes from ¨Devil¨ since she is Satan's daughter.... (oh... thank you Toriyama, thanks to that humor or yours my parents always believed Dragon Ball is satanic....) was it really the only time he spelled her name?. Very interesting.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Nice job on the recap.

I had seen "Gokuh" on Spaniard magazines from the 90s and early 2000s.

Guess I will have to accept Toriyama's will and type: "Kulilin" from now on...

"Beedel" was a true surprise because according to the old rumor it should be spelled ¨Videl¨ because it comes from ¨Devil¨ since she is Satan's daughter.... (oh... thank you Toriyama, thanks to that humor or yours my parents always believed Dragon Ball is satanic....) was it really the only time he spelled her name?. Very interesting.

Thank you! I kind of like the "Gokuh" spelling, it's charming. But I'm so used to writing "Goku" at this point...

Toriyama spelled it "Kuririn" as well so you can choose either one.

He did say ビーデル (*bīderu*) comes from "devil" (デビル *debiru*), but it's a slightly modified anagram, and his alphabet spellings don't always reflect the name pun. Bulma, for example, just looks like a completely made up name. I'll stick with Videl because it looks nicer.

[Zebra]

Toriyama did spell Gokuu's name as "Goku" a few times.

On one illustration that was the cover to the first Weekly Jump magazine featuring Dragon Ball, "Capsule Corporation" was spelled as "Kapsel Corporation". Note the katakana カプセル (kapuseru) is based on the German word "kapsel".

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Toriyama did spell Gokuu's name as "Goku" a few times.

Y'know, I did have some old notes that listed "Goku" as a Toriyama spelling, but I didn't record the sources. I wasn't able to find anything other than "Gokuh" when I did my research. Do you remember where you saw "Goku"?

On one illustration that was the cover to the first Weekly Jump magazine featuring Dragon Ball, "Capsule Corporation" was spelled as "Kapsel Corporation". Note the katakana カプセル (kapuseru) is based on the German word "kapsel".

Interesting, I never would have noticed that. I'll be sure to add that to the guide later. Appreciate the etymology lesson as well!

[Zebra]

Also, the "Gokuh" spelling was first used for a 1986 telephone card:
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/2018/04/09/t ... -work-060/

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Awesome, will update later. Thanks! So I wasn't just imagining things when I made those old notes. Can't believe I missed Goku's pant leg when I was checking all of the title pages recently.

That Jump cover is great! The covers were super small in my source (Daizenshuu #1). Nice to see a rare appearance of the OG Capsule Corp. logo. Might be its last appearance!

(Anyone have a textless version of this one? Doesn't seem like this one is featured in the artbooks.)

Also, the "Gokuh" spelling was first used for a 1986 telephone card:
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/2018/04/09/t ... -work-060/

Cool, I've never seen that one before. I'll be sure to give you credit when I update the guide.