Why did FUNimation spell Freeza with an "i"?

[Super Sonic]

Thank you, I found this much clearer. By this logic, could Videl be spelled Veedel?

That sounds more like overstressing an accent, similar to Speedy Gonzales cartoons having maps saying Veelage" and "Mexico Ceety".

[Gaffer Tape]

Not really because... that's how you say her name. It's not at all the short "i" sound that the dub goes with. It's very much a long "ee".

[Herms]

EDIT: And to answer your last post, yes, it could. In fact, if it wasn't for it being an anagram of the word "devil", then it probably would've been written "Veedel" by most people.

In the manga, one of the audience members at the tournament is holding up a sign reading "Beedel".

[linkdude20002001]

Really now...? That's interesting. But I guess it works since, like I say below, it's not like her name is an anagram in Japanese (despite my previous comment).

No problem, hopefully I didn't come off as an arse.

It's fine. I understand why you said what you did.

That sounds more like overstressing an accent, similar to Speedy Gonzales cartoons having maps saying Veelage" and "Mexico Ceety".

Exactly. For reference, in Japanese her name is written ビーデル (Bīderu), as apposed to being written as ビデル (Bideru) like it would if it were an anagram of デビル (debiru, devil)*. So, the vowel sound is a long "ee" sound, as apposed to a short "ee" sound which COULD just be the Japanese close approximation to an..."ih" sound.

*I stated in my last post that it WAS an anagram, but it looks I remembered wrong.

[BurakkuForesuto]

It doesn't even make sense since you don't say "fry-za" or "fry-eza".

"Frieza" would be pronounced free-zuh... Now if it were spelt "Freiza", then it would be frahy-zuh. There are exceptions, but mostly in pluralized forms of short, single-syllable words (such as "fry" to "fries"), but that's a case of "y" becoming "i" and adding "es" to pluralize, and not a case of "ie" being pronounced ahy (that ahy sound is just from the "i" all by itself).

So, Funimation's spelling is correct pronunciation-wise, however it is not correct as a pun on "freezer". Most likely, the spelling is most likely not Funimation's fault. I believe they saw it written that way in the terribly translated scrips they received (Hey, look! An example of an exception on the "ei" rule!) from Toei. Looking at the copyright information they submitted to the Copyright Database, I can tell that Toei is probably to blame for "Master Roshi", "Tien Shinhan", "Kami", "Shenron", "Krillin", and the "Nimbus Cloud" (which FUNi changed slightly). Oddly, though, Toei at least had Kaio's name right, and Funimation went and changed it.

"Shenron" is how the character's name is pronounced in Japanese. It's not even close to wrong or a dub name. In Gundam Wing, while Shenlong Gundam is always written in its Chinese romanization on Japanese texts, it is written in Japanese as "シェンロン" rather than "神龍" as is pronounced as "Shenron" rather than "Shinryu" or something. "Kami" means God, but it's not the same God that we view in western culture, meaning that translating it could make it lose some meaning.

[BurakkuForesuto]

Not really because... that's how you say her name. It's not at all the short "i" sound that the dub goes with. It's very much a long "ee".

Don't use katakana as a guide to pronounce non-Japanese words, specifically if it has multiple consonants in its original language. Besides, it doesn't matter anyway.

[Gaffer Tape]

First of all... what are you talking about? I never even mentioned katakana in my post. Second of all, Videl isn't a non-Japanese word. It's not even a word. It's an alteration of a corruption of a transliteration of an English word. Third of all, what do consonants have to do with anything when we're specifically talking about a vowel sound? To bring the katakana into this, there is clearly an elongated vowel in it, one that was specifically added to this name when it didn't come from the source. When you listen to characters speak her name in the TV series, they are universally elongating that sound too. And fourth of all, if it doesn't matter to you, why are you bringing it up?

[ABED]

It's an alteration of a corruption of a transliteration of an English word.

I know Videl is an anagram, but could you explain the rest?

[Rocketman]

Maybe it was to make the name unique enough that they could put a copyright/trademark on it?

[linkdude20002001]

"Shenron" is how the character's name is pronounced in Japanese. It's not even close to wrong or a dub name. In Gundam Wing, while Shenlong Gundam is always written in its Chinese romanization on Japanese texts, it is written in Japanese as "シェンロン" rather than "神龍" as is pronounced as "Shenron" rather than "Shinryu" or something. "Kami" means God, but it's not the same God that we view in western culture, meaning that translating it could make it lose some meaning.

You miss my point. I was trying to explain where these specific spellings/etc likely came from.

I know Videl is an anagram, but could you explain the rest?

It went from de-bi-ru (the actual English word "devil" as it's written in Japanese) to bi-de-ru to bii-de-ru.
So, he's saying it was "corrupted" into an anagram state, and then further "altered" into the name they made for the character.

[Adamant]

Maybe it was to make the name unique enough that they could put a copyright/trademark on it?

I'd say "Freeza" is already more unique than "Trunks" and "Cell", and those were trademarked fine.

[Thouser]

"Kami" means God, but it's not the same God that we view in western culture, meaning that translating it could make it lose some meaning.

The gods of Shinto may have subtle differences from many Western deities, but that doesn't change the fact that "kami" is used in Japanese as the general term for deities, and is used to refer to Greco-Roman gods and the Christian god. There is nothing incorrect about translating the "Kami-sama" of Dragon Ball as "God".

On the contrary, leaving "Kami-sama" untranslated is when meaning is lost. The subtitles on the Funimation DVDs do this, and it makes it seem very odd when little Goku tells his friends that he's going to meet "Kami-sama", and they all express their disbelief. Lunch even says "There's no such thing as Kami-sama." The significance of what they're saying (and in fact the significance that "Kami-sama" is the one who created the Dragon Balls, and that Goku has to meet him) is totally lost to most english speakers when left untranslated.

[xmysticgohanx]

Why does spelling matter so much to people? Pronunciation is the only thing that matters to me.

[ABED]

"Kami" means God, but it's not the same God that we view in western culture, meaning that translating it could make it lose some meaning.

The gods of Shinto may have subtle differences from many Western deities, but that doesn't change the fact that "kami" is used in Japanese as the general term for deities, and is used to refer to Greco-Roman gods and the Christian god. There is nothing incorrect about translating the "Kami-sama" of Dragon Ball as "God".

On the contrary, leaving "Kami-sama" untranslated is when meaning is lost. The subtitles on the Funimation DVDs do this, and it makes it seem very odd when little Goku tells his friends that he's going to meet "Kami-sama", and they all express their disbelief. Lunch even says "There's no such thing as Kami-sama." The significance of what they're saying (and in fact the significance that "Kami-sama" is the one who created the Dragon Balls, and that Goku has to meet him) is totally lost to most english speakers when left untranslated.

Translating isn't a science. It's an art, and not everything will translate. The audience should be able to tell by context that Kami is a position of reverence. You lose the Kamicollo joke in the Cell arc. Something will get lost in translation. The significance would still be different because if they did say "god", English speakers might be inclined to think of Yahweh, which would also be wrong.

[Super Sonic]

"Kami" means God, but it's not the same God that we view in western culture, meaning that translating it could make it lose some meaning.

The gods of Shinto may have subtle differences from many Western deities, but that doesn't change the fact that "kami" is used in Japanese as the general term for deities, and is used to refer to Greco-Roman gods and the Christian god. There is nothing incorrect about translating the "Kami-sama" of Dragon Ball as "God".

On the contrary, leaving "Kami-sama" untranslated is when meaning is lost. The subtitles on the Funimation DVDs do this, and it makes it seem very odd when little Goku tells his friends that he's going to meet "Kami-sama", and they all express their disbelief. Lunch even says "There's no such thing as Kami-sama." The significance of what they're saying (and in fact the significance that "Kami-sama" is the one who created the Dragon Balls, and that Goku has to meet him) is totally lost to most english speakers when left untranslated.

It's not just DB where they've done that. In Shuffle, they left the term "lolipedophin" as is in the subtitles. Whether they wondered if folks would get it or they just didn't feel like translating, no clue. (For guys who speak Japanese, would the dub's "cradle robber" be a good translation for that?)

[Insertclevername]

Maybe it was to make the name unique enough that they could put a copyright/trademark on it?

Either this or maybe it could have just been a fudged up translation that happened to stick.

Or maybe it's a conspiracy to piss off VegEX. Probably that one.

[mecha3000]

I know this is an old discussion, but this has also been something I've been wondering about lately. I've come to the conclusion that I'd prefer Freeza over Frieza - but I think I know why Funimation decided to add the "i". They might've felt Freeza wasn't alien-sounding enough because it sounded too much like a pun so they decided to add the "i" to give it a more distinctive feel that strays from the obvious pun nature of the name. And then with names like King Cold and Cooler, they decided to be lenient when it came to the puns (is my guess anyway). Still, I do like the Furiza theory only because it does have an "i" in it and perhaps Funimation did try to merge "Furiza" with "Freeza" in some way? Eh, who knows?

At this point, as far as many places outside Japan go - The definitive name now is "Frieza" and "Cooler". But if I could go back in time, I would change Frieza to "Freeza" and maybe Cooler to "Coola" (or maybe even Kuula or Cuula). I don't know, it just feels right to me that both Frieza and Cooler would both have two of the same letters in the middle of their names. Also, from my understanding - Cooler is known as Kura in Japanese so "Kuula" also feels right to me (even though it might miss the point of the pun).

On a side note, even though I kind of prefer "Freeza" over "Frieza" - The Funimation name change is a nice example of how Funimation tried to make Dragon Ball distinctive in some ways from the original version when they first localized it. I also recall Kyle Hebert saying they've kind of taken the series and made it into their own thing, in a way. This is proven with names like Tien (even though I also prefer Tenshinhan because I'm used to names like Shikamaru) becoming definitive outside Japan for the anime.

[Sailor Haumea]

My personal stance on naming is to go with the dub name. In addition, I refer to 17/18 as Lapis/Lazuli, just because I don't feel they should be addressed as numbers assigned to them by a psychopathic engineer who abducted them and turned them into cyborgs.

I refer to the Trunks from the future as Future Trunks, not Mirai Trunks, and refer to Beerus as..well, Beerus. Any other spelling of Beerus would remove the double pun of "beer" and "virus".

In fact, it irks me when people use names that aren't even in the Viz manga, or used by official sources. Seriously, Bluma? Why would you do that when no official sources - not Toei, not Viz, not Toriyama, not Shonen Jump, not Funimation - have ever spelled her name like that? It's also baffling for people to use the Japanese names for everything but Buu. Seriously, everything else you use the original Japanese names for, but you're making an exception for this character and calling him "Boo"? Make up your mind! I'm also irked by people calling the androids Jinzoningen. In casual conversation, no one will know what the fuck you're talking about if you mention "Jinzoningen 18" out of the blue, and they're not a die-hard fan. Using the dub names is simply, in my opinion, a matter of ensuring casual fans know what you're talking about, and removes any confusion that may arise.

[Bansho64]

Using the dub names is simply, in my opinion, a matter of ensuring casual fans know what you're talking about, and removes any confusion that may arise.

That is, if, you're talking to English dub fans. Or, to be more specific, Funimation English dub fans.

And even then, you don't have to be a "hardcore fan" to know what Jinzoningen refers to. A casual fan of the Japanese version will most likely know what the person is referring to.

You keep saying a "casual" fan won't know but I think you mean a fan of Funimation's English dub.

[Cipher]

At this point, as far as many places outside Japan go - The definitive name now is "Frieza" and "Cooler". But if I could go back in time, I would change Frieza to "Freeza" and maybe Cooler to "Coola" (or maybe even Kuula or Cuula). I don't know, it just feels right to me that both Frieza and Cooler would both have two of the same letters in the middle of their names. Also, from my understanding - Cooler is known as Kura in Japanese so "Kuula" also feels right to me (even though it might miss the point of the pun).

"Cooler" to me is even more nonsensical/inaccurate than "Frieza." His name simply doesn't indicate an "er" in Japanese. That's a total fabrication on FUNimation's part. Or perhaps on the part of the same type of haphazard fansub or even Japanese transliteration that has given us various instances of "Freezer" over the years.

Weirdly, though, if there were actually a case for doing something funky with the repeated vowels in the middle of either character's name, it'd be Coola's, as his Japanese name uses a second "u" character rather than the prolonged sound mark more typical with katakana. "Coula/Cuula/Couhla," etc. actually could have been justifiable translations that slightly further obscured a very obvious pun.

It's also baffling for people to use the Japanese names for everything but Buu. Seriously, everything else you use the original Japanese names for, but you're making an exception for this character and calling him "Boo"?

This is a borderline case. What do you mean by "use the Japanese names"? Because most people don't say "Seru" or "Torankusu." And while the characters in Boo's name (or Buu's name, if you prefer) are another case of a second vowel character being present, like in Coola's above, a case could certainly be made that "Boo" is just avoiding translitering the kana in the same way almost every one uses "Cell" over "Seru." "Boo" is definitely in the same family of English-name approaches as "Dabra" and "Coola," at any rate.

It's also the spelling used in both FUNimation's subtitle tracks and VIZ's manga release, so it's extremely familiar to a lot of fans. It's the version I use without even thinking about it at this point. Though there's nothing fundamentally wrong with "Buu" either.