Funi names: a review (update: Namek)

[VegettoEX]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Tien the result of a strange translation error that may have pertained to Chiaotzu? I swear I've read it on here a few times. Tien Shinhan was then an attempt at a retroactive fix.

The two names are kinda independent of each other, with the exception of "the inspiration was Chinese stuff".

Chiaotzu's name (餃子) is written as the regular name of the food (which we might know best as "dumplings"), but with furigana above it indicating a Chinese pronunciation ("chiaotzu") rather than the standard Japanese pronunciation ("gyoza"). The tournament announcer makes this mistake by literally calling him aloud as "gyoza" (in the same vein as misreading the kanji in Son Goku's name as "Mago Gosora").

Tenshinhan's name (天津飯) is a little more complicated, also being named after a food, but written with furigana indicating a "normal" Japanese pronunciation, rather than a Chinese one. Here's something Jake wrote earlier:

Whereas "Ti'en" completely ditches 2/3rds of the character's name, and uses the Chinese reading for the first third rather than the Japanese reading. It's complicated though, because using the Chinese reading arguably fits the name pun better: he's named after the dish 天津飯tenshinhan, which means "Tianjin rice" since it was supposedly made with rice from Tianjin, China ("Tian" and "Ti'en" are both ways of spelling the Chinese reading of the character 天 in the city's name). So arguably the only real issue with "Ti'en" is how it ditches the "shinhan" in his name, and even then Funi has been using "Ti'en Shinhan" as the character's full name for years, even if most of the time they go with simply "Ti'en". Of course, to me "Ti'en Shinhan" looks really weird because it's mixing and matching Chinese and Japanese in a way that doesn't quite make sense, but that's not necessarily the sort of thing that warrants having a word filter to change

[Gyt Kaliba]

I could be wrong, but I think jjgp1112 may have been referring to Chiaotzu's habit of calling Tenshinhan 'Ten'. He is the person who calls the character by name the most often, so I could see how translators back then may have worked with that rather than the full 'Tenshinhan' when trying to come up with his English name.

I always found the efforts to restore the latter portion back in via a last name in Dragon Ball to be really weird though. Even barring the 'Bulma Briefs' thing, and occasional instances where they tried to treat Mr. Satan's full name as 'Hercule Satan', last names still weren't a particularly prevalent thing even in the dub, so 'Tien' suddenly having a last name that they only used in the early days and then immediately ditch as soon as the Z era started, was...odd.

[VegettoEX]

Oooooooooooh oh oh. I... guess? Maybe?

Just for the record, though, "Tien Shinhan" as a dub-ism dates all the way back to 1996 in FUNimation's original syndication broadcast (it wasn't a 2001-FUNimation-dubbing-the-original-series-again invention). In the scene where Bulma picks up the group photo (which incidentally has Lunch in it!), she speaks his name aloud as "Tien Shinhan". That to me says they were always well aware of what his actual name was.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Again, I'm just guessing though, mind you. I'd hate to put words in another user's mou - ...words from their hands? Bah! Internet.

Just for the record, though, "Tien Shinhan" as a dub-ism dates all the way back to 1996 in FUNimation's original syndication broadcast (it wasn't a 2001-FUNimation-dubbing-the-original-series-again invention). In the scene where Bulma picks up the group photo (which incidentally has Lunch in it!), she speaks his name aloud as "Tien Shinhan". That to me says they were always well aware of what his actual name was.

Bwah, really? I didn't know that, a majority of my familiarity with that version of the dub comes from the first three movies rather than the episodes (of which I saw very few of, mostly in years down the line re-airings prior to the Ultimate Uncut stuff). That does seem a little more odd of a choice then.

[jjgp1112]

Yeah, I meant the Ten-san stuff, not a pun relating to Chiaotzu's name. Shoulda been more clear

[Kamiccolo9]

"Vegito" seems to me to be a direct romanization of the Japanese name, which would be "Bejito," I believe. I'd guess that they just directly translated that without any regard to consistency with their own product.

[ABED]

Things are bad enough with English dub fans insist on tossing around names people in general wouldn't know, and you're saying you want them to refer to two characters that have different names everywhere else by the same name, something that'd be confusing even IF you actually knew that?

But they aren't two different characters, really. They are different forms of the same combination. Is it really any more confusing than calling him Vegetto when half of the combination isn't called Kakarotto in the dub? Where does that "o" come from? I don't see how this is confusing even if you knew they had different names.

I dislike "King Kai" for the same reason I dislike "Master Roshi". The most natural assumption when first encountering it is that "Kai" and "Roshi" are their proper names. It entirely destroys the sense of reverence that the titles inspire.

I get what you're saying, but I don't agree. They still have king and master in their titles and the titles isn't what inspire reverence.

I understand the issue that many of the dub names aren't actually names, they are titles, but as wonky as the explanation is, names have etymologies. Kai does work as a name and not simply a title.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I don't really agree that they should have called them both Gogeta now, after the fact that they already had different names in the original Japanese version - but I do sort of agree that there was never really any need for separate names for the fusions in the first place. Gogeta as seen in movie 12 could still be differentiated by the fusion method (and as a result, his outfit) and different hair, while a fused 'Gogeta' as seen against Super Boo would have been different by the same tokens. Games and guides and such could have likewise just labeled the characters 'Gogeta (F. Dance)' and 'Gogeta (Potara)' or something, the same way that they now put other character age/form/etc. notes in parentheses as well.

[ABED]

My question regarding Kaio-sama is the term. How does that title distinguish itself from Dragon Ball's King of the world?

[Sandubadear]

Kaio-Ken

There's a game that tries to fix it by changing the name to "King Kai Fist", but in my opinion this is even more awkward.

[Valerius Dover]

Actually, I just remembered something regarding Vegito, at least in the dub. If I recall correctly, this fusion was never even referred to by name within the actual series. So, where exactly does it come from anyway? If I'm wrong, by all means show proof, since I'm only 90% sure this is the case.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I'm so happy that the FUNi dub of One Piece didn't use straight up untranslated terminology just to cater to the Kaizoku Fansubs crowd. The amount of people that say Shichibukai, Yonko and Nakama instead of Warlord, Emperor and Friend is insane.

QFT! Before I stopped watching fansubs altogether, one of my biggest pet peeves with them is how they wouldn't translate certain Japanese words under the pretext of, "It's a Japanese word, there isn't really an English word for it." That's true in a select few cases, but in many cases, that simply isn't true at all, and the people doing the fansubs were just trying to earn "internet cool points." There are a few specific instances of this that I find annoying, but the one I underlined tops the list. I even heard somebody say, "No, it's 'nakama,' it can't really be translated, it means 'friend.'" I remember sitting there and thinking....it can't be translated? You just did!

I probably wouldn't be so bothered by it if fansubs weren't luring people away from supporting the official release based on superficial stuff like that...but in any event, I apologize for the rant. Thanks Herms, this is a great idea for a thread!

[ABED]

I always found the efforts to restore the latter portion back in via a last name in Dragon Ball to be really weird though. Even barring the 'Bulma Briefs' thing, and occasional instances where they tried to treat Mr. Satan's full name as 'Hercule Satan', last names still weren't a particularly prevalent thing even in the dub, so 'Tien' suddenly having a last name that they only used in the early days and then immediately ditch as soon as the Z era started, was...odd.

That's not all that weird when you think that people often use nicknames after they become familiar with someone. When my friends and I were kids we called one of our friends Patrick. It wasn't until we were in our 20s that we started calling him Pat.

Actually, I just remembered something regarding Vegito, at least in the dub. If I recall correctly, this fusion was never even referred to by name within the actual series. So, where exactly does it come from anyway? If I'm wrong, by all means show proof, since I'm only 90% sure this is the case.

The name of dub episode 271 is "Vegito... Downsized"

[Gyt Kaliba]

I'm pretty sure the narrator also constantly mentions the character's name, as well as episode titles, but as far as actual in-show characters saying it? There's at the very least this. I want to say prior to that there's also them pondering what to call themselves and then belting out the name, but I might be remembering that from the manga or something, since there he goes Super Saiyan right away. Elder Kai and Kibito Kai might mention the name too, since they're watching via the crystal ball, and maybe even Dende or Mr. Satan, since they're watching on the sidelines, but I don't think they do.

That's not all that weird when you think that people often use nicknames after they become familiar with someone. When my friends and I were kids we called one of our friends Patrick. It wasn't until we were in our 20s that we started calling him Pat.

True - I did have a close friend that, for years in high school, we called him by his last name (partially to make it easier we were talking about him rather than the like five other kids in our classes that had the same first name as him), but nowadays if talking about him I do tend to think of his first name first. I dunno, it still felt weird in Dragon Ball though, but maybe that was partially since the DB dub made a pretty bad habit of everyone constantly using both parts of his name. It seemed like every other line referring to the character was 'Tien Shinhan!' this and 'Tien Shinhan!' that.

[ekrolo2]

I'm pretty sure the narrator also constantly mentions the character's name, as well as episode titles, but as far as actual in-show characters saying it? There's at the very least this. I want to say prior to that there's also them pondering what to call themselves and then belting out the name, but I might be remembering that from the manga or something, since there he goes Super Saiyan right away. Elder Kai and Kibito Kai might mention the name too, since they're watching via the crystal ball, and maybe even Dende or Mr. Satan, since they're watching on the sidelines, but I don't think they do

Old Kai says that "Vegerot is one smart fella" in the Viz manga but I'm not sure if that's a good translation (since a lot of people complain about the Boo chunk of Viz) or if it got translated to this for the dub.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Ah yeah, there is that. My bad though, I should have been more clear - I was talking about/trying to remember if in the FUNi dub of episodes if Elder Kai ever called Vegetto by name or not. I want to say he did, but I can't remember for sure.

[VegettoEX]

There's a game that tries to fix it by changing the name to "King Kai Fist", but in my opinion this is even more awkward.

Wasn't that just the first game? Pretty sure Steve was hired to translate the second and third games, and it was "corrected" back to "Kaio-ken" for those.

The name of dub episode 271 is "Vegito... Downsized"

In addition to that, the domestic action figures had the name printed on them, and a Vegetto (Vegito) figure was released under the Irwin line long before they got to it in the TV series.

QFT! Before I stopped watching fansubs altogether, one of my biggest pet peeves with them is how they wouldn't translate certain Japanese words under the pretext of, "It's a Japanese word, there isn't really an English word for it." That's true in a select few cases, but in many cases, that simply isn't true at all, and the people doing the fansubs were just trying to earn "internet cool points." There are a few specific instances of this that I find annoying, but the one I underlined tops the list. I even heard somebody say, "No, it's 'nakama,' it can't really be translated, it means 'friend.'" I remember sitting there and thinking....it can't be translated? You just did!

I probably wouldn't be so bothered by it if fansubs weren't luring people away from supporting the official release based on superficial stuff like that...but in any event, I apologize for the rant. Thanks Herms, this is a great idea for a thread!

For sure, but like we're looking at and talking about, FUNimation's English dub of Dragon Ball is littered with untranslated Japanese that has perfectly fine English translation equivalents... but the hardcore dub fans never seem to recognize, understand, or accept this.

[Kamiccolo9]

Actually, I just remembered something regarding Vegito, at least in the dub. If I recall correctly, this fusion was never even referred to by name within the actual series. So, where exactly does it come from anyway? If I'm wrong, by all means show proof, since I'm only 90% sure this is the case.

He calls himself Vegetto immediately after fusing. "What do you call a Vegeta and a Goku? Vegito sounds nice." The line is something like that.

[dbgtFO]

Actually, I just remembered something regarding Vegito, at least in the dub. If I recall correctly, this fusion was never even referred to by name within the actual series. So, where exactly does it come from anyway? If I'm wrong, by all means show proof, since I'm only 90% sure this is the case.

I thought you meant Gogeta, as even Funi dubbed the part, where Vegetto introduces himself as such and as has already been posted, when he turns Super.
Gogeta on the other hand doesn't dub himself as such, instead I recall the South Kai proclaiming him as such, when the first Fusion fails.

[VegettoEX]

Gogeta on the other hand doesn't dub himself as such, instead I recall the South Kai proclaiming him as such, when the first Fusion fails.

I can't speak for the English dub, but in Japanese the line is something like, "That's not Gogeta, that's Veku!"