Viz's Print Edition of the "Full Colour Comics" Discussion

[Luso Saiyan]

Btw, Puto, did you choose your username for any particular reason, or is it just for English-speaking forums?

In portuguese, 'puto' means 'kid'. Quite different from spanish.

[UltimateHammerBro]

Btw, Puto, did you choose your username for any particular reason, or is it just for English-speaking forums?

In portuguese, 'puto' means 'kid'. Quite different from spanish.

My bad. Blame Wordreference for that: I checked it before posting, and the only meaning I got was... the one which doesn't mean 'kid'
EDIT: A deeper search made me get into this sentence in a topic:

Em Portugal a palavra tem um sentido completamente diferente; um puto é um menino, um garoto pequeno.

Thanks, WR, you could have included that in the main dictionary.

[IIMaxII]

As a fan of the Funimation Dragonball Z dub, these censorships and different translations are really annoying to me. All my friends who have watched the original Funimation dub will be confused when they read Kakarotto instead of Kakarot, Vegerot instead of Vegito, and Chi instead of Ki. Also Djinn Buu? Again, the majority purchasing this set will have already watched DBZ, there's no reason not to just leave it as Majin buu, so hopefully they decide to change their errors. Viz's core audience, the majority who will purchase this manga, will have already watched DBZ and DB and will be highly familiar with the English dub that aired on Toonami. I don't see why they would change those things, it confuses their core audience. I seem to remember Mr Satan and Hercule being used hand in hand on the English dub when I was growing up.

If there's any censorship of Master Roshi and his perverted ways or middle fingers then that will just ruin some of the comedy relief that is supposed to be in Dragonball. It's also a shame that they do not offer a hardcover version of this release.

[KentalSSJ6]

As a fan of the Funimation Dragonball Z dub, these censorships and different translations are really annoying to me. All my friends who have watched the original Funimation dub will be confused when they read Kakarotto instead of Kakarot, Vegerot instead of Vegito, and Chi instead of Ki. Also Djinn Buu? Again, the majority purchasing this set will have already watched DBZ, there's no reason not to just leave it as Majin buu, so hopefully they decide to change their errors. Viz's core audience, the majority who will purchase this manga, will have already watched DBZ and DB and will be highly familiar with the English dub that aired on Toonami. I don't see why they would change those things, it confuses their core audience. I seem to remember Mr Satan and (the H-word) being used hand in hand on the English dub when I was growing up.

If there's any censorship of Master Roshi and his perverted ways or middle fingers then that will just ruin some of the comedy relief that is supposed to be in Dragonball. It's also a shame that they do not offer a hardcover version of this release.

Someone asked VIZ on facebook if they would be changing their translation of the Buu saga (Veggeto instead of Vegerot, Mr. Satan instead of the H word) and they said they will most likely keep their previous translation. Whether out of laziness or not, I don't know.

I don't quite remember but Roshi got rather toned down in DBZ as did a lot of the sexual humor and comedy. Its a 50/50.

[IIMaxII]

As a fan of the Funimation Dragonball Z dub, these censorships and different translations are really annoying to me. All my friends who have watched the original Funimation dub will be confused when they read Kakarotto instead of Kakarot, Vegerot instead of Vegito, and Chi instead of Ki. Also Djinn Buu? Again, the majority purchasing this set will have already watched DBZ, there's no reason not to just leave it as Majin buu, so hopefully they decide to change their errors. Viz's core audience, the majority who will purchase this manga, will have already watched DBZ and DB and will be highly familiar with the English dub that aired on Toonami. I don't see why they would change those things, it confuses their core audience. I seem to remember Mr Satan and (the H-word) being used hand in hand on the English dub when I was growing up.

If there's any censorship of Master Roshi and his perverted ways or middle fingers then that will just ruin some of the comedy relief that is supposed to be in Dragonball. It's also a shame that they do not offer a hardcover version of this release.

Someone asked VIZ on facebook if they would be changing their translation of the Buu saga (Veggeto instead of Vegerot, Mr. Satan instead of the H word) and they said they will most likely keep their previous translation. Whether out of laziness or not, I don't know.

I don't quite remember but Roshi got rather toned down in DBZ as did a lot of the sexual humor and comedy. Its a 50/50.

I would say it's out of laziness, any other excuse that they come up with is absurd. I wouldn't say Roshi was toned down, but that Dragonball Z became a more serious show with new main characters. Whenever we actually did see Roshi he was doing something sexual, although I believe most of those instances were filler.

[rereboy]

I would say it's out of laziness, any other excuse that they come up with is absurd. I wouldn't say Roshi was toned down, but that Dragonball Z became a more serious show with new main characters. Whenever we actually did see Roshi he was doing something sexual, although I believe most of those instances were filler.

Absurd..? Why?

Just look at the examples you provided:

- They use Kakarot, not Kakarotto so I don't see how its even different from the dub.

- Vegetto is the combination of the names Kakarotto and Vegeta from the original japanese. Since the english version uses Kakarot instead of Kakarotto, it doesn't make sense for Vegetto to be the combination of their names, hence Vegerot. How is that absurd?

- Chi is basically just a different spelling for Ki, referring to the same concept. It gives a more chinese feel which plays nicely into the chinese legend of the Monkey King that Dragon Ball is based on. How is that absurd?

- Djiin is a perfectly valid, logical and natural way to translate Majin given the context. How is that absurd?

All of these are just complains of people who criticize it, not because its actually wrong, but ONLY because they are not used to it. Viz has no obligation to stick to other translations, namely Dub translation, nor should they.

The only thing actually wrong in the translation is the Hercule thing and some other minor tidbits.

[Ajay]

- Djiin is a perfectly valid, logical and natural way to translate Majin given the context. How is that absurd?

I think context on this one is important. It's one of the few I really dislike since the art features 'M's on people's heads referring to 'Majin' and yet using Djiin just seems like a strange choice considering.

[rereboy]

- Djiin is a perfectly valid, logical and natural way to translate Majin given the context. How is that absurd?

I think context on this one is important. It's one of the few I really dislike since the art features 'M's on people's heads referring to 'Majin' and yet using Djiin just seems like a strange choice considering.

That's untrue. We don't know if M stands for Majin at all since it has never been confirmed as such. Such a relation is just a fan assumption/interpretation. In truth, only Buu is stated as Majin Buu. No other character is refereed to Majin and Majin Vegeta is only a fan originated term. However, despite only Buu bearing the term of Majin, the M symbol is widely used by babidi (on himself) and his minions.

To quote Herms on this:

I am pretty sure Herms already covered that up but I can't find in his guides. What does the "M" on Babidi's henchmen stand for?

We don't really know. It could stand for "majin", or it could stand for "madoushi". Or it might be some alien symbol that only coincidentally resembles an "M", like how Superman's "S" crest is actually supposed to be some Kryptonian symbol.

So, if you are disliking the term purely based on that... there's no reason to since the "M" might not even stand for majin at all.

[IIMaxII]

I would say it's out of laziness, any other excuse that they come up with is absurd. I wouldn't say Roshi was toned down, but that Dragonball Z became a more serious show with new main characters. Whenever we actually did see Roshi he was doing something sexual, although I believe most of those instances were filler.

Absurd..? Why?

Just look at the examples you provided:

- They use Kakarot, not Kakarotto so I don't see how its even different from the dub.

- Vegetto is the combination of the names Kakarotto and Vegeta from the original japanese. Since the english version uses Kakarot instead of Kakarotto, it doesn't make sense for Vegetto to be the combination of their names, hence Vegerot. How is that absurd?

- Chi is basically just a different spelling for Ki, referring to the same concept. It gives a more chinese feel which plays nicely into the chinese legend of the Monkey King that Dragon Ball is based on. How is that absurd?

- Djiin is a perfectly valid, logical and natural way to translate Majin given the context. How is that absurd?

All of these are just complains of people who criticize it, not because its actually wrong, but ONLY because they are not used to it. Viz has no obligation to stick to other translations, namely Dub translation, nor should they.

The only thing actually wrong in the translation is the (the H-word) thing and some other minor tidbits.

The reason why all those are absurd is easily identified when you can understand the audience for the manga. Lets look at a few important details.

-The manga is being released in the US in English

-The manga's largest demographic is the English dub fans who have watched the funimation dub

-The anime is insanely popular among people from ages 8-35 in the US


Now let's just say for hypothetical reasons a casual DBZ fan happens to be at a book store, they come across this manga and decide to buy the first volume. Viz's main reasons for changing Majin to Djin and Ki to Chi are because the latter are more recognizable by western audiences. However, the main demographic who will be buying this manga will have already watched DBZ and be confused by the glaring changes in names, counteracting their intentions of making the manga easier to understand for their audience.

I am in no way upset by the translations, I just think it's idiotic to not use more "Funimation friendly" terms. The hardcore fans I.E. us, are not the target audience, you have to think in perspective from a business standpoint.

[auspx]

Just my 2 cents about the VIZ edition of the DB/Z manga.

I have seen much better fan translation(s) of the DB/Z manga than anything that VIZ has done. Take a look at the DB Minus manga. In the VIZ version Gine says "infiltration baby". In a fan-translated version she says something completely different.

Spoiler:

Who to believe?

[Ajay]

There's no reason to since the "M" might not even stand for majin at all.

Interesting. Consider me corrected then.

Still not a huge fan of Djinn but hey, at least it's not as big a deal as I thought it once was.

[Gaffer Tape]

I am in no way upset by the translations, I just think it's idiotic to not use more "Funimation friendly" terms. The hardcore fans I.E. us, are not the target audience, you have to think in perspective from a business standpoint.

A few things I'd like to say in reference to your points. One, aside from the few oddities that you mentioned, there are extremely legitimate choices that VIZ made, many of which they translated correctly that FUNimation royally mistranslated. Things like Tao Pai Pai over General/Mercenary Tao, Karin over Korin, Tsuru'Sennin over Master Shen, Shen over Hero, Tenshinhan over Tien. And aside from just naming conventions, there are the mistranslated plot points, character motivations, etc. So I guess a clarifying question I feel compelled to present to you is, "Is it solely the VIZ oddities that bug you, or would you prefer VIZ completely tailor themselves to FUNimation's approach, their horrible mistakes and all?" Because, honestly, as much as VIZ did screw up, they did a much better job than FUNimation, and I applaud them for having the guts to at least attempt to do it right and provide the American fanbase a relatively accurate alternative years before FUNimation managed to.

As far as your argument goes, while FUNimation did get to the franchise first, it's not as if VIZ was terribly far behind. I believe VIZ started the series in '98, which is right around the time the TV series really first started to get popular, so it's not as if VIZ was going against deeply-entrenched conventions here.

And as far a "business standpoint" and "alienating the audience" goes, well, I'd say their track record speaks for itself. They managed to translate the entire series, a feat they finished about eight years ago. And since then, DB manga has never been out of print in this country as far as I know. In fact, quite the opposite: they're still repackaging it and re-releasing it. So I'd say they've managed to do quite well for themselves without dirtying it up FUNimation style. And just anecdotally speaking, back when I was a kid first getting into DBZ around '98-'99, a friend of mine picked up one of the monthly issues of the manga. All we knew was the dub. And I remember him pointing out to me the fact that this comic referred to "Master Roshi" as "Master Muten." All that garnered from us was a vaguely interested shrug. I was curious as to why it was different, but we certainly didn't go, "This isn't what I'm used to. This sucks!"

It's not exactly a novel concept to American comic fans. I grew up with dozens of different Batman continuities. Reading a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic was a totally different experience than the cartoon I was used to. And the same thing for the movies. Film adaptations of books I read had totally different plots and characters a lot of the time. And I imagine most kids get used to that pretty fast, maybe even more so now than when I was a kid.

So, no, I don't think it's an issue.

[Kid Buu]

Are you sure Viz started it around 1998? I thought they didn't start it until 2003?

They did start Ranma and Inuyasha that early, though.

[Gaffer Tape]

Yes, I am sure. I can guarantee you they didn't start as late as 2003. What's confusing you probably is the copyright dates on their Shonen Jump tankobon releases. Those were printed in 2003, but a lot of those were reprints of reprints. VIZ started out doing monthly comic book form releases with, I believe, 2 chapters apiece. They later collected those into tankobon-style formats but in a larger size. If memory serves, they got through ten volumes of each "series" this way. And around this time ('99-'00), what had once been a totally uncensored work was re-released in censored forms after parental backlash at seeing nudity on the comic stands at Toys'R'Us. In fact, when our own Julian Grybowski was getting his start at Planet Namek, I remember him doing an expose on the new VIZ censorships. Then they eventually cancelled their monthly versions and re-started with the Shonen Jump lines, which received a few translation tweaks from their previous efforts.

http://dbzu.3gkai.com/editorial/editorial16.html

Here's DBZ Uncensored doing an editorial about the VIZ releases... from January of 2000, an editorial he admitted to putting off for quite some time.

[theoriginalbilis]

Viz started publishing Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z in monthly issue form around 1998 (I own several issues.) The initial graphic novel versions came out shortly thereafter (totally uncensored, but canceled around Vols 9/10.) It wasn't until 2003-ish, when they re-released it again under the "Shonen Jump" branding. The censoring and wonky translation started to hit full-force once they started printing the later arcs (namely the Cell/Buu material) and reprints of the older material (DB 1-16/DBZ 1-13).

EDIT: What Gaffer Tape said.

[Gaffer Tape]

Actually, if I could add a small clarification to your post, theoriginalbilis, the original Shonen Jump editions actually removed a lot of the censoring that the reprinted monthlies contained. The re-printed monthlies took out all instances of nudity. In fact, with the exception of Popo's and Black's lips and, for some reason, Oolong's pafu pafu fantasy, the first printing of the Shonen Jump run of the non-"Z" portion was completely uncensored. I have all of the first printings of the original run. Only later printings chickened out and went back to their censoring ways.

[Kid Buu]

Huh, learn something new every day in this fandom.

I got into the manga in 2003 when I was at a dentist and they had a copy of Shonen Jump there. They were starting off with the Cell Saga and I started collecting from there. Remember realizing they were censored when they removed Yamcha flicking off Cell. Does anyone have a picture of that uncensored?

[IIMaxII]

I am in no way upset by the translations, I just think it's idiotic to not use more "Funimation friendly" terms. The hardcore fans I.E. us, are not the target audience, you have to think in perspective from a business standpoint.

A few things I'd like to say in reference to your points. One, aside from the few oddities that you mentioned, there are extremely legitimate choices that VIZ made, many of which they translated correctly that FUNimation royally mistranslated. Things like Tao Pai Pai over General/Mercenary Tao, Karin over Korin, Tsuru'Sennin over Master Shen, Shen over Hero, Tenshinhan over Tien. And aside from just naming conventions, there are the mistranslated plot points, character motivations, etc. So I guess a clarifying question I feel compelled to present to you is, "Is it solely the VIZ oddities that bug you, or would you prefer VIZ completely tailor themselves to FUNimation's approach, their horrible mistakes and all?" Because, honestly, as much as VIZ did screw up, they did a much better job than FUNimation, and I applaud them for having the guts to at least attempt to do it right and provide the American fanbase a relatively accurate alternative years before FUNimation managed to.

As far as your argument goes, while FUNimation did get to the franchise first, it's not as if VIZ was terribly far behind. I believe VIZ started the series in '98, which is right around the time the TV series really first started to get popular, so it's not as if VIZ was going against deeply-entrenched conventions here.

And as far a "business standpoint" and "alienating the audience" goes, well, I'd say their track record speaks for itself. They managed to translate the entire series, a feat they finished about eight years ago. And since then, DB manga has never been out of print in this country as far as I know. In fact, quite the opposite: they're still repackaging it and re-releasing it. So I'd say they've managed to do quite well for themselves without dirtying it up FUNimation style. And just anecdotally speaking, back when I was a kid first getting into DBZ around '98-'99, a friend of mine picked up one of the monthly issues of the manga. All we knew was the dub. And I remember him pointing out to me the fact that this comic referred to "Master Roshi" as "Master Muten." All that garnered from us was a vaguely interested shrug. I was curious as to why it was different, but we certainly didn't go, "This isn't what I'm used to. This sucks!"

It's not exactly a novel concept to American comic fans. I grew up with dozens of different Batman continuities. Reading a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic was a totally different experience than the cartoon I was used to. And the same thing for the movies. Film adaptations of books I read had totally different plots and characters a lot of the time. And I imagine most kids get used to that pretty fast, maybe even more so now than when I was a kid.

So, no, I don't think it's an issue.

I don't mind the Viz translations at all, but I'm speaking for people I know, that do. I'm able to play Devil's advocate, aren't I? My point was, that they decided to use some Chinese versions of words instead of the Japanese words, like KI being Chi. The reason why they did it was because it was apparently more familiar to US readers. Now if we apply the same reasoning to other translations, it doesn't make sense. Like Light of Death, they might as well just have made it Special Beam Cannon, or w/e since it is also more familiar to US readers who have watched DBZ, just little things that contradict their intentions.

[theoriginalbilis]

Actually, if I could add a small clarification to your post, theoriginalbilis, the original Shonen Jump editions actually removed a lot of the censoring that the reprinted monthlies contained. The re-printed monthlies took out all instances of nudity. In fact, with the exception of Popo's and Black's lips and, for some reason, Oolong's pafu pafu fantasy, the first printing of the Shonen Jump run of the non-"Z" portion was completely uncensored. I have all of the first printings of the original run. Only later printings chickened out and went back to their censoring ways.

Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Tape.

I totally forgot what a clusterluck they created with all the various reprintings. Glad I have as many first printings of the "red DB/white DBZ" SJ books as I do.

[Gaffer Tape]

RE: IIMaxII

I never said you weren't allowed to play Devil's advocate, but that doesn't preclude me from challenging it. But you didn't really answer my question at all or address anything I said. You're still going on about the odd, non-literal translation choices they made that also happen to go against FUNimation's choices. I'm asking whether that applies to all the things VIZ got right that FUNimation got wrong. I'm pointing out to you that, when VIZ was making those choices, FUNimation's naming schemes weren't as ingrained as you seem to think, and that a much larger percentage of the fanbase was made up of those people who got into the series before FUNimation existed as a company. And, again, as for contradicting their "intentions," you're rather assuming what their intentions were. If their intention was simply to translate the Dragon Ball manga, well, they did that. You assume their intention was to grab the same audience as FUNimation. In fact, from that same interview I linked Kid Buu to, there's a quote from VIZ addressing this very thing when someone presumably asked a similar question to what you're positing, although you have to dig through the PR politeness.

"In terms of the difference between the U.S.-published manga as compared to the U.S.-broadcast anime, we figure the difference is that we're able to keep more of the original Japanese names and cultural touches intact, whereas the broadcasters-for reasons dictated by Federal law-were obliged to 'tone down' and 'mainstream' their version. Call us cretins, but even if we disagree with some of the individual name choices (Krillin vs. Kuririn), we still think the U.S. anime series is great-if nothing else, think of all the new people it's brought into the fandom!"

So basically, it seemed their intention, at least originally, WAS to be as accurate as possible to the source, not pander to the FUNimation audience. In fact, in that very quote, they tout those features as selling points and very implicitly say they're not trying to be "mainstream."

RE: Kid Buu

It exists uncensored in VIZ's release of the first daizenshuu.