Woohoo! More News About The New Dragonball Special!

[Kid Trunks]

Is it just me or do a lot of those character sheets look fake?

Like the Kuririn sheet that had Goku's body with the head edited out?

Yeah. And the SSJ Gotenks and SSJ Vegeta hair looks like it was just changed to that color in Paint. Also, there's so many alternate outfits, old and new, that theres no chance of them all featuring in 35mins. Goku's "SSJ base hair" seems a bit strange too.

[Hujio]

Yes they are! Even some of the Japanese is a little off.

Yeah, カメくん and 老海王神 kind of threw me for a loop.

I don't know if I've ever seen Umigame referred to as Kame-kun (カメくん). He is usually credited in the series as Umigame (ウミガメ), or simply just Kame (カメ or 亀). I guess whoever made his design sheet was quite fond of him. Though, they even wrote Kame-sennin as カメ仙人 instead of his normal 亀仙人, so who knows. As far as Rou-Kaioshin is concerned, someone just dropped the ball on that one. Instead of writing 老界王神, they replaced the kai (界) kanji with umi (海), the kanji for sea, and wrote 老海王神. They also wrote Super Saiya-jin out in katakana; スーパーサイヤ人 instead of 超サイヤ人. They've been starting to do this more and more lately, which somewhat annoys me, but it's not that big of a deal.

[Saiyan-Professor]

If these character sheets are any indication of anything, the following takes place. Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu are missing in action as usual. It takes place before ma and pa Briefs and Gyû-maô dies (since they were absent in GT). Son Gohan may or may not still have the “Ultimate” power-up. Karin is absent and Gotenks will not go Super Saiyan 3 in the fight.

Gyû-maô had a brief appearence in GT.

Thanks, it slipped my mind.

Yes they are! Even some of the Japanese is a little off.

Yeah, カメくん and 老海王神 kind of threw me for a loop.

I don't know if I've ever seen Umigame referred to as Kame-kun (カメくん). He is usually credited in the series as Umigame (ウミガメ), or simply just Kame (カメ or 亀). I guess whoever made his design sheet was quite fond of him. Though, they even wrote Kame-sennin as カメ仙人 instead of his normal 亀仙人, so who knows. As far as Rou-Kaioshin is concerned, someone just dropped the ball on that one. Instead of writing 老界王神, they replaced the kai (界) kanji with umi (海), the kanji for sea, and wrote 老海王神. They also wrote Super Saiya-jin out in katakana; スーパーサイヤ人 instead of 超サイヤ人. They've been starting to do this more and more lately, which somewhat annoys me, but it's not that big of a deal.

And all of that means what? I do not know Japanese so called you explain it in English.

[Dayspring]

"Table" (though that last one should be pronounced differently than the piece of furniture).

Why? We don't pronounce "Nail" or "Cargo" different from those words.

That's by no means a fair comparison: the "Nail" and "Cargo" found in "Snail" and "Escargo" are pronounced the same, whereas the "Table" found in "Vegetable" isn't.

Pronunciation-wise, "Snail" sounds like "Sss-nayl," whereas "Nail" sounds like "Nayl." Meanwhile "Vegetable" sounds like "Vej-tuh-bull," whereas "Table" sounds like "Tay-bull." I don't get why people are so against waiting until we see how Tarble's name is pronounced before deciding.


EDIT: As for the incorrect names, note that they're all found on the recycled character sheets, or are sequel sheets to recycled ones.

[Rocketman]

Meanwhile "Vegetable" sounds like "Vej-tuh-bull," whereas "Table" sounds like "Tay-bull." I don't get why people are so against waiting until we see how Tarble's name is pronounced before deciding.

Vej-tah-ble and tay-ble. Close enough, and there's no 'r' anywhere.

Besides, like that we should say "Vej-tah".

[SSJ Helldog]

Vej-tah-ble and tay-ble. Close enough, and there's no 'r' anywhere.

Don't forget the asian tendency to blend L's and R's. I imagine it's pronounced something like "Tah-bur-uh." (soft "uh")

[Olivier Hague]

On the name spellings, it makes most sense to me that if the pun is based off an English word, and the name is not somehow altered from the original word by changing the order of syllables or adding elongation, then its spelling should reflect the English spelling.

It's certainly the "most direct" approach, but it's not necessarily the correct one: if the author feels otherwise...

since "abokado" and "bejitaaburu" are katakana-ized versions of "avocado" and "vegetable"

"Vegetable" would be "bejitaburu" in kana, actually, with a short "ta". So that's a difference right there already, for what it's worth.

The Japanese creators probably don't really care about the English spellings

(Alphabet spellings)
While I naturally agree with you about that... they're still the damn creators.

Makes more sense for actual English speakers to decide how puns based on English are best spelled

Bleh. Yeah, I can't agree with that. Sorry. ^^;

I don't get why people are so against waiting until we see how Tarble's name is pronounced before deciding.

Er... We already know how it's pronounced, courtesy of the kana. ^^;

[JulieYBM]

At any rate, I can see FUNi romanizing it as Tubble to get the full effect of 'Table'.

[Captain Awesome]

At any rate, I can see FUNi romanizing it as Tubble to get the full effect of 'Table'.

I can see the Dub title of the special now..

Goku and the Z squad's Tubble Trouble!

[Sprite Satan]

I can see the Dub title of the special now..

Goku and the Earth Special Force's Tubble Trouble! Krillin's in Da House!

Fixed.

I could live with Tubble. FUNi could (and has) done a lot worse with localising names than that. Especially when if they used Tubble, they would at least be trying to keep in the spirit of the pun.

Get Harmony Gold on the line and we can have Spikey the Wonder Midget instead, though.

[Hujio]

I don't know if I've ever seen Umigame referred to as Kame-kun (カメくん). He is usually credited in the series as Umigame (ウミガメ), or simply just Kame (カメ or 亀). I guess whoever made his design sheet was quite fond of him. Though, they even wrote Kame-sennin as カメ仙人 instead of his normal 亀仙人, so who knows. As far as Rou-Kaioshin is concerned, someone just dropped the ball on that one. Instead of writing 老界王神, they replaced the kai (界) kanji with umi (海), the kanji for sea, and wrote 老海王神. They also wrote Super Saiya-jin out in katakana; スーパーサイヤ人 instead of 超サイヤ人. They've been starting to do this more and more lately, which somewhat annoys me, but it's not that big of a deal.

And all of that means what? I do not know Japanese so called you explain it in English.

I'll try my best to explain this, but I make no guarantees.

Kame-kun (aka: Umigame):
In most episodes of DragonBall, or DragonBall Z, the sea turtle that lives with Kame-sennin is typically credited as Umigame (ウミガメ / U-mi-ga-me). His name is written in katakana, and is intended to represent the kanji 海亀 (うみがめ / U-mi-ga-me), which literally means "sea turtle". Although most words borrowed from ancient Chinese are usually written in kanji, the Japanese take some liberties and sometimes write the "sound" of the kanji in katakana, which is seen quite often in manga and anime. He is also sometimes referred to as 亀 (かめ / ka-me), simply meaning turtle. You hopefully recognize this kanji character, as many of the characters, including Goku, wore this on there uniform after training under Kame-sennin (亀仙人 / ka-me-sen-nin).

Now on the design sheet they call him Kame-kun. As we've established, カメ (かめ / ka-me) simply means turtle, but what about kun. This is a suffix of used at the end of a boys name to express familiarity or endearment. It is also sometimes used by men among friends, or when addressing someone younger or of lower station. So they're literally saying, "endeared turtle".

Rou-Kaioshin:
Well there's not much to this, except they screwed up one of the kanji characters. For reference, 老 (ろう / ro-u) simply means old, so he's an "old Kaioshin".

Table:
Similar to his older brother Vegeta, Table's name is a pun on "vegetable". Vegeta's pun is on the first half of "vegetable", while Table's is on the latter half, "vegetable".
- ベジータ = bejiita (vegeta)
- ターブル = taaburu (table)
- To fully understand the name pun, simply remove the long vowel sounds (ー).
ベジータ (bejiita) + ターブル (taaburu) = ベジタブル (bejitaburu ~ vegetable)

In my opinion, his name is Table (pronounced tah-ble), unlike the furniture, but rather like "vegetable". There really is no right or wrong answer to this, but if you write ベジータ as Vegeta, then you should write ターブル as Table. It only makes sense. Otherwise if you write it as Tarble, you should, for consistencies sake, write Vegeta as Vejiita or Bejiita since the puns go together.

Also, in my opinion, if FUNimation picks this up, they'll use Table. Though they'll pronounce like the furniture.

[Olivier Hague]

if you write it as Tarble, you should, for consistencies sake, write Vegeta as Vejiita or Bejiita since the puns go together.

Yeah, 'cause puns rule over all.
They're just Easter eggs, guys... ^^;

[Hujio]

Puns don't rule over all. There's no set in stone method for translating names, since there are so many different types, especially in DragonBall. I was just making a point. If you want to be consistent, you should write them as Vegeta and Table, or Vejiita and Tarble. In the long run, it doesn't really matter that much either way. There are so many screwed up names out there already, it's a little too late to get really picky.

[SaiyaMel]

"Tahbul" is my favored way of spelling it, think I'll continue to spell it that way too.

[Chuquita]

I'm calling him Tabaru until I hear how the character himself (or Vegeta) pronounces it. :3

[Acid_Reign]

EDIT: I see Hujio took a crack at this, but I already wrote up my explanation so I’ll post it anyway.

Vej-tah-ble and tay-ble. Close enough, and there's no 'r' anywhere.

Besides, like that we should say "Vej-tah".

No, not really. Pronouncing “vegetable” as “vej-tuh-buhl” is the result of elision (omission of sounds to make the word easier to say for the speaker); if you were to pronounce every syllable it’d be “vej-i-tuh-buhl,” which is a lot closer to the Japanese loanword, ベジタブル (bejitaburu). But note also that Vegeta’s name in kana is ベジータ (Bejīta), with an elongated /i/ sound. The romanized spelling could very well have been “Vegeeta” (among other things) to convey this, but I guess whoever originally spelled it “Vegeta” figured the pronunciation would be implied and/or simply truncated the English spelling of the word.

On the other hand, “table” is almost always pronounced “tey-buhl,” which lends itself to the Japanese loanword テーブル (tēburu), with an elongated /e/ sound. Compare that to the new Saiyan’s name, ターブル (tāburu), which has an elongated /a/ sound. /e/ and /a/ are two completely different sounds. Just because “table” and “’table” are homographs doesn’t mean they’re pronounced the same.*

In regards to spelling, well, “Tāble” makes the most sense to me, since it preserves the pun and is distinguishable from “table” as-is. But if diacritics are to be avoided (which they often are in English, for some reason), then “Tahble” is just as good.

While “Tarble” may be all we have from an official source at the moment, keep in mind that since Japanese often uses elongated /a/ sounds in place of /ər/ sounds, that his name could just as easily be “Terble.” I don’t think either of those really covey the pun as effectively, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what Toei decides on, since those documents are too inconsistent with all of their other official spellings to be taken for granted.

*On that note, this actually also applies to Mr. Satan, whose name, although derived from the English word pronounced “seyt-n”, is actually constructed in Japanese as if the letters represented Japanese sounds, and is spoken like “sah-tahn.” If the Japanese were to reflect the English pronunciation, they could probably use something like セイタン (Seitan). But since it isn’t that, it’s not quite appropriate to read his name that way, as the dub does.

[Dayspring]

What about "Taable" as a spelling? Or is that like writing "Vegeeta?"

[testing223]

A more clever pun would've been, if you think about it, just "abel".

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

A more clever pun would've been, if you think about it, just "abel".

By your logic, it should just be something along the lines of "Bel".

[Acid_Reign]

What about "Taable" as a spelling? Or is that like writing "Vegeeta?"

What do you mean? Are you implying that “Vegeeta” is an undesirable, or less-correct spelling?

Personally, I find “Vegeeta” to be perfectly acceptable, because the double-e represents a long /i/ sound, in the same manner as “bee” or “see.” The same thing applies to Taable; people generally read character doubling as a lengthening of its sound, and Japanese vowel lengthening is often romanized this way. On the other hand, double-a is a rarer combonation than double-e in modern English, and technically speaking, there’s only one /a/ sound in his name, which is why I suggested the spellings I did.

You could also indicate Vegeta’s name with diacritics (accent marks)—like the acute, as in Vegéta, or the macron, as in Vegēta—though they so rarely occur in English that their pronunciation can often be ambiguous; for instance, Pokémon can be said “Po-keh-mon” (as it is in Japanese), “Po-kee-mon,” or “Po-kay-mon” depending on whom you ask. The macron, too, could throw some people off if they happen to be familiar with Hepburn romanization, which might cause them to think of the “e” as an “eh” rather than an “ee” sound.

For those reasons I would probably stick with the double-e. Whichever spelling provides the least ambiguity is usually the one I’d pick.

By your logic, it should just be something along the lines of "Bel".

I think you mean “Ble.”