Has herm ever translated this panel before?

Discussion, generally of an in-universe nature, regarding any aspect of the franchise (including movies, spin-offs, etc.) such as: techniques, character relationships, internal back-history, its universe, and more.
Gogetason
Newbie
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2024 6:41 pm

Has herm ever translated this panel before?

Post by Gogetason » Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:36 am

Has herms ever translated this panel? I dont see it anywhere in his translations. Its a scene that conflicts with their initial reaction of buu.

https://imgur.com/a/IJOf74B

Its the panel right before they do rock paper scissors. The "I dont know if we can do anything but lets try anyways"

Can a mod help me with showing the image?

User avatar
VegettoEX
Kanzenshuu Co-Owner & Administrator
Posts: 17836
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:10 pm
Location: New Jersey
Contact:

Re: Has herm ever translated this panel before?

Post by VegettoEX » Sat Jun 06, 2026 12:50 pm

I would heavily recommend against anyone reading or using the ancient, flipped, (poorly) translated-from-Japanese-to-Spanish-to-English scanlations for anything!

Is there any particular reason you're not just defaulting to Viz's English translation of chapter 509 here?

Image

That said, I actually think either translation is totally fine here for the dialog:

なんとかなるかどうかいっちょうかましてみっか!

The gist of it is "let's give it a shot / a go / try" and "see / find out if it works / how it goes".

If you smooth that out to something actually resembling a real sentence a person would say, and not literal gibberish, I can equally see how you'd come out to a simplified "Let's give it our best shot!" a la the Viz translation, or a more verbose "I don't know if we can do anything, but let's try anyway" from the ancient scrolls. The sentence is actually so simple and straightforward, that the game of Translation Telephone from Japanese to Spanish to English actually kept it relatively intact.

What's the concern over this line? If I had to guess, this is another search for cracks in the eternal "Super Boo vs Kid Boo" argument, since if they've already established that they think he's got less power, they wouldn't suddenly be now saying they're not sure if it will work?

But that starts getting overly-literal and doesn't allow for improvisation either in the characters' dialog or story-telling. We already know this Boo is a mad man (he just blew up the Earth and immediately teleported to where they are), and so ultimately they're not totally, concretely sure what they're up against and what's going to happen — they're not prophets, and they haven't already read the rest of the manga they're in.

Heads-up for the future: this kind of request is also a perfect candidate for leaving as a one-off question over in The All-Purpose "Translation Request" Thread here in the same forum sub-section.
:: [| Mike "VegettoEX" LaBrie |] ::
:: [| Kanzenshuu - Co-Founder/Administrator, Podcast Host, News Manager (note: our "job" titles are arbitrary and meaningless) |] ::
:: [| Website: January 1998 |] :: [| Podcast: November 2005 |] :: [| Fusion: April 2012 |] :: [| Wiki: April 2026 |] ::

Zebra
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 104
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2025 5:41 pm

Re: Has herm ever translated this panel before?

Post by Zebra » Sat Jun 06, 2026 4:35 pm

Image
孫悟空「よし...
なんとかなるかどうかいっちょうかましてみっか!」
Son Gokū: "Yoshi ...
nantoka naru ka dō ka itchi ~youkamashitemikka!"
Son Goku: "Alright ...
let's give this a shot and see if it'll work out by any chance, shall we?!"


ベジータ 「ああ」
Bejīta: "Ā"
Vegeeta: Uh-huh.

User avatar
PhantomSaiyan
Beyond-the-Beyond Newbie
Posts: 435
Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2025 4:32 pm
Location: A Dark Future

Re: Has herm ever translated this panel before?

Post by PhantomSaiyan » Sun Jun 07, 2026 10:40 am

I don't know anything about translation but I'd like to point everyone's attention to the hatching Toriyama used on Goku's butt, making it look like he... relieved himself, perhaps from fear... (Toriyama = genius)

At least that's what it looks like to me...

Post Reply