Do you get bothered seeing dub names?

[VegettoEX]

What about Dabura? I always liked the way that was pronounced in english.

What about it?

FUNimation's English dub puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable. Even if you ignore where the word comes from, it's ダーブラ. That's "daabura" and not "daBUra". It's a long "aa" sound at the beginning, not an emphasized "BUR" (or "BOOR") in the middle.

Furthermore, it comes from "abracadabra". Unless you literally say "abURacadabURa"...

You should be saying "DAHbra" and not "duhBOORa" (though I guess the further conversation is whether you do a short "a" or long "ah" sound in that first syllable when you say it "in English"). This is another one Viz got right with "Dabra" (which is what we use here on Kanzenshuu).

[Gaffer Tape]

In terms of the forum, Dabura is one of those that's nice enough that what's wrong with it doesn't necessarily come out in text. So if I come across it, I can just assume they're doing a straight romanization of it. Unlike something like Tien, it doesn't just scream DaBOOOOOOOOruh just by reading it. But just like a lot of the dubisms, it's something I'm now so unfamiliar with that it really throws me for a loop for a second when I hear it. That's just so far off from a name I associate with this character.

[ekrolo2]

Is Ox-King a good translation for Gyūmaō?

UPDATE: Never mind! Ajay already answered that for me. You can ignore or delete this point.

[Gaffer Tape]

As was said on the last page (but Kunzait, I think), it's good for what's there, but it's not complete. If you break down Gyumao into its three separate parts, you get Gyu, Ma, and O. As you can see, Ox King is just two parts, the Gyu and the O. It's missing the Ma, or demon, the same Ma that's in Piccolo Daimao.

[precita]

I guess they didn't translate the demon part because Ox King doesn't look evil, just a nice old man and Gohan's grandpa.

[Valerius Dover]

There's nothing wrong with "Great Ape." It's twice as good as "World Martial Arts Tournament" and a billion times more palatable than "Instant Transmission", "Tri-Beam", or "Hyperbolic Time Chamber." And again, I'm 99% sure "Great Ape" is never used in dub-dialog ever anyway.

I recall in both Ultimate Uncut and Kai that Vegeta said "I will turn into a Great Ape and crush him!".

Actually, the Z dub has Vegeta refer to the form with the loose term "giant ape" in that scene. The term "Great Ape" was never once used in the original 508 episode run. The dub simply didn't have an equivalent name for Oozaru until the games came along and went with Great Ape. It wasn't until Kai that the name was dropped in the actual anime.

[B]

I'm surprised the whole "Android 17 and 18" names stuck to this very day, even into Kai. They never call them artificial humans in the dub, ever.

"Artificial Human" is super-literal. "Jinzouningen" functions as a catch-all term for androids, cyborgs, etc. The only problem here is that Toriyama didn't/doesn't know the difference between an android and a cyborg. This is something you really can't blame FUNimation for at all.

[Kunzait_83]

As was said on the last page (but Kunzait, I think), it's good for what's there, but it's not complete. If you break down Gyumao into its three separate parts, you get Gyu, Ma, and O. As you can see, Ox King is just two parts, the Gyu and the O. It's missing the Ma, or demon, the same Ma that's in Piccolo Daimao.

What's always bothered me about those kinds of examples is that they're a part of the dub's overall wider attempt at "secularizing" the more mythical/Eastern aspects of Dragon Ball: which to me are extremely important and absolutely vital aspects to what makes the whole thing work, and to discard them is basically out and out vandalism of the original story at its most basic level.

Dragon Ball is basically Asian/Chinese myth, run through the modern day creative filter of an exceedingly silly, flighty Japanese dude. Removing those crucial components, which to one degree or another run through the ENTIRE series for every single story arc (sci fi tinged or not) at every single step of the way from front to back not only robs the series of its fundamental identity that helped make it stand out so much, it also homogenizes the whole thing into a generic glop of boilerplate actiony vagueness.

"I can feel the energy of this planet's guardian." in no way, shape, or form carries the same connotations as "I can feel the Ki of the god of this world." One can have come from any old generic sci fi/fantasy show, the other comes squarely from Asian martial arts fantasy fiction.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to self-kneecap such an inherently attention-grabbing property by actively working to make it stand out LESS and conform to be JUST LIKE everything else around it? (Yes that was rhetorical, and I know the answer to that: because middle America is painfully lame and boring and easily offended at the drop of a hat by pretty much everything, no matter how innocuous: and it treats its children like they're utter morons to boot.)

Its a testament to the amount of craft that went into the original series and the distinctive touch of its author that even when actual effort has been made to rob it of its distinctiveness, it still can't help but stick out like a sore thumb and pop out at you anyway despite all the self-imposed handicaps holding it down.

In terms of the forum, Dabura is one of those that's nice enough that what's wrong with it doesn't necessarily come out in text. So if I come across it, I can just assume they're doing a straight romanization of it. Unlike something like Tien, it doesn't just scream DaBOOOOOOOOruh just by reading it. But just like a lot of the dubisms, it's something I'm now so unfamiliar with that it really throws me for a loop for a second when I hear it. That's just so far off from a name I associate with this character.

The example like this that always throws me the most is Dr. Gero being pronounced as "Jero". NOBODY ever said it that way for years and years until the dub got to it, then it suddenly became standard and ubiquitous. And if you had been familiar with the series for so long prior to the dub and didn't watch the dub at all, it becomes the most senselessly confusing shit.

[ABED]

Its a testament to the amount of craft that went into the original series and the distinctive touch of its author that even when actual effort has been made to rob it of its distinctiveness, it still can't help but stick out like a sore thumb and pop out at you anyway despite all the self-imposed handicaps holding it down.

On the list of negative changes made, the fact that he's not the Ox Demon King is low, especially since things like this aren't what really made DB distinctive. What was "demon king" about Gyumao? Now, if it was Piccolo Daimao we were talking about, THAT I can understand much more. In this case, it feels like you're making a mountain out of a molehill. To be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of the change, just that I don't think removing the "ma" part of his translated name in the dub is the sort of thing that really robs DB of its distinctiveness nor holds it down.

[Puto]

For whatever it's worth, Toriyama didn't create the name Gyumao to begin with, it's just the Japanese name for Niu Mowang from Journey to the West. Which Anthony C. Yu's translation renders as "Bull Demon King", as far as I can tell from Google.

[Gyt Kaliba]

On the list of negative changes made, the fact that he's not the Ox Demon King is low, especially since things like this aren't what really made DB distinctive. What was "demon king" about Gyumao? Now, if it was Piccolo Daimao we were talking about, THAT I can understand much more. In this case, it feels like you're making a mountain out of a molehill. To be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of the change, just that I don't think removing the "ma" part of his translated name in the dub isn't the sort of thing that really robs DB of its distinctiveness nor holds it down.

I'd have to second this. In a dub that (while I do feel gets a little more hate than it deserves) also neutered death to 'next dimension', tried to briefly give the impression that Tenshinhan could grow his arm back given enough time, and was chock full of horrible one liners, removing the 'demon' portion of a background character's name, that never really lives up to that part of his name, seems pretty minor in the scope of things to get upset about.

I'm also fairly certain that the removal of 'God' in regards to Kami had far more to do with the way overly-religious people in the states would react to it, than it did about intentionally trying to remove the Eastern mythological aspects of the series. I do agree though that the fact that they felt the need to be worried about said portion of the demographic is pretty stupid/worriesome, but that's more of a social problem than an entertainment one, really.

[Super Sonic]

To be honest, I kinda thought the dub names were like pre-90s anime dubs that folks don't care a lot with the changes.

And now I'm wondering in Japan are fans of Komoriman and Shonen Ninja Kame who ever wonder about things when they talk to American fans.

[Kunzait_83]

On the list of negative changes made, the fact that he's not the Ox Demon King is low, especially since things like this aren't what really made DB distinctive. What was "demon king" about Gyumao? Now, if it was Piccolo Daimao we were talking about, THAT I can understand much more. In this case, it feels like you're making a mountain out of a molehill. To be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of the change, just that I don't think removing the "ma" part of his translated name in the dub is the sort of thing that really robs DB of its distinctiveness nor holds it down.

I never said I was just talking about just solely that one character specifically. You're completely missing the forest for the trees of my wider point: I was (very clearly) talking about the overall secularization of DB. Removing ALL traces of myth and mysticism, which the dub often does.

If it did that to just the one character name Gyuumaou and no one else (for whatever reason), then whatever fine, as you said its not at all a big deal in the long run as he's such a minor character. But my point wasn't to bitch about the Gyuumaou example in and of itself: it was about what that one change is symptomatic of on a much larger scale. He's not the ONLY character that this happens with: as you said, Piccolo Daimao (a character who IS important and for whom the change DOES fundamentally rob of context and meaning) is treated in much the same way. So is Kami, so are the Kaio and Kaioshin, etc. So is Ki as a concept even for that matter. So is the afterlife as a whole (where large swathes of the series is set).

This stuff piles up after awhile until the show is no longer at all the same show. Translation conventions like this are one of even DOZENS of more factors that tweaks and tweaks and tweaks at it until the show's no longer about martial arts masters in a mythic Asian setting, but about generic superhero-types.

[ABED]

I never said I was just talking about just solely that one character specifically. You're completely missing the forest for the trees of my wider point: I was (very clearly) talking about the overall secularization of DB. Removing ALL traces of myth and mysticism, which the dub often does.

It had little to do with removing mysticism, nor was DB made more secular by removing words like demon. They were just trying to get rid of potentially offensive words like "demon". The dub was far less explicit about mysticism and the spiritual aspect than the original, but it's clear that whatever they called it (usually "energy") was mystical in nature.

If it did that to just the one character name Gyuumaou and no one else (for whatever reason), then whatever fine, as you said its not at all a big deal in the long run as he's such a minor character. But my point wasn't to bitch about the Gyuumaou example in and of itself: it was about what that one change is symptomatic of on a much larger scale. He's not the ONLY character that this happens with: as you said, Piccolo Daimao (a character who IS important and for whom the change DOES fundamentally rob of context and meaning) is treated in much the same way. So is Kami, so are the Kaio and Kaioshin, etc. So is Ki as a concept even for that matter. So is the afterlife as a whole (where large swathes of the series is set).

I got that. I can see the forest from the trees and I'm aware that the Gyumao was symptomatic, but that is such a small symptom that I think the point is more effective if you use Piccolo Daimao than if you use Gyumao, especially given as someone mentioned, his name is more of an homage than anything descriptive. I do think the Gyumao example is worth noting, but not as much more than an addendum. Lastly, the afterlife isn't skirted around in the later part of the dub, so that's far less of an issue. I think many of these issues can be traced back to the days when Saban was making these sorts of decisions and less FUNi's decision. Saban is notorious for going out of its way to not offend anyone.

[VegettoEX]

All you're doing is passing the buck to someone else and re-explaining it. You're essentially agreeing with Kunzait: "yes, this was changed....... but it was for REASONS, sooooo..."

OK, but it was all still changed. We're not concerned with the reasoning behind it, because that's obvious and always has been.

[Kunzait_83]

I got that. I can see the forest from the trees and I'm aware that the Gyumao was symptomatic, but that is such a small symptom that I think the point is more effective if you use Piccolo Daimao than if you use Gyumao, especially given as someone mentioned, his name is more of an homage than anything descriptive. I do think the Gyumao example is worth noting, but not as much more than an addendum.

Quoted from my earlier post (with bold added by me for emphasis):

As was said on the last page (but Kunzait, I think), it's good for what's there, but it's not complete. If you break down Gyumao into its three separate parts, you get Gyu, Ma, and O. As you can see, Ox King is just two parts, the Gyu and the O. It's missing the Ma, or demon, the same Ma that's in Piccolo Daimao.

What's always bothered me about those kinds of examples is that they're a part of the dub's overall wider attempt at "secularizing" the more mythical/Eastern aspects of Dragon Ball: which to me are extremely important and absolutely vital aspects to what makes the whole thing work, and to discard them is basically out and out vandalism of the original story at its most basic level.

Gaffer used both Gyumao AND Daimao as examples, and I was using BOTH of them as a (VERY broad and general) jumping off point to briefly mention a much, much broader and more bothersome issue that they're both emblematic of. I don't really see how this could have possibly been any clearer.

That you nitpicked and nitpicked at the most inconsequential aspects of the framing of the point so ludicrously and senselessly that I needed to dissect it down to this absurd of a degree is just... I'm left speechless and in awe of the mind searing levels of Aspergian pedantry that this has devolved into.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I'm left speechless and in awe of the mind searing levels of Aspergian pedantry that this has devolved into.

Yeah, you do realize that resorting to accusations like that is not only low class, it pretty much invalidates and devalues any of your previous 'high minded' points, right? Because it does, and how.

[Kunzait_83]

I'm left speechless and in awe of the mind searing levels of Aspergian pedantry that this has devolved into.

Yeah, you do realize that resorting to accusations like that is not only low class, it pretty much invalidates and devalues any of your previous 'high minded' points, right? Because it does, and how.

"Accusations"? I wasn't accusing anyone of anything. I was tagging this discussion as being thuddingly picky, because it is. And I'm extricating myself from it now. Carry on folks.

Apologies in general for in any way stepping out of line.

[Gaffer Tape]

I guess they didn't translate the demon part because Ox King doesn't look evil, just a nice old man and Gohan's grandpa.

You're forgetting they dubbed the first thirteen episodes of Dragon Ball first where he did look evil, Oolong was pissing his pants over him, and he tried to kill the entire group. And that's when they gave him the name Ox King. In fact, his introductory episode was named The Ox King on Fire Mountain.

[precita]

I think some of the recent debates in this thread do prove the original question. Some people are still very triggered by dub names...in the year 2016. Its almost as if the same arguments from 15-16 years ago have never subsided.