Is there an acceptable translated version of the manga?

Post by **Herms** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:30 am

Kendamu wrote:In the VIZ manga it is officially spelled as "Vegerot" with a single "r" despite "Kakarrot" having two.

I know, I was just wondering why that was.

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:35 am

I think the rationale for the name change is pretty weak, especially considering the English dub, they will take a cue from it for Hercule but they won't take Vegetto?.

It comes down to someone at Viz just being a smartass, it's the same with Djinn, it's an unnecessary change and seems to be made more for the sake of changing something than anything else.

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:47 am

Herms wrote:
Kendamu wrote:In the VIZ manga it is officially spelled as "Vegerot" with a single "r" despite "Kakarrot" having two.
I know, I was just wondering why that was.

Yup I’ll agree that’s a mistake they made.

Captain Awesome wrote:I think the rationale for the name change is pretty weak, especially considering the English dub, they will take a cue from it for Hercule but they won't take Vegetto?.

Her.cule was a case of censorship Vegerrot is a case of consistency. People only dislike the name Vegerot because it’s not the name they are used to, I guarantee if the dub had called him that there would be less of an issue.

I also think Djin makes sense. Not once outside of "Majin Buu" has Madoshi called any of his other mind slaves "Majin" which leads me to believe the "m" stands for Madoshi as opposed to Majin. Meanwhile Majin could be translated to Magical person which Djin while not a direct translation fills okay. I'm not as much of a stickler about this subject though.

Saiyavenger2941 · Post by **Saiyavenger2941** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:50 am

NeptuneKai wrote:People only dislike the name Vegerot because it’s not the name they are used to, I guarantee if they dub had called him that there would be less of an issue.

I can imagine it now...

"V3GETO??!?????! OMG WTF SI TAHT SHIT??!!??!?? OMG WTF LOL TAHTS SO GAY!1!11 OMG WTF"

............Please tell me I can unimagine things.

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:53 am

Saiyavenger2941 wrote:
NeptuneKai wrote:People only dislike the name Vegerot because it’s not the name they are used to, I guarantee if they dub had called him that there would be less of an issue.
I can imagine it now...

"V3GETO??!?????! OMG WTF SI TAHT SHIT??!!??!?? OMG WTF LOL TAHTS SO GAY!1!11 OMG WTF"

............Please tell me I can unimagine things.

Ha ha of course

"OMG U PURISTS VEGETTO PSH WHY NOT CALL KAKAROT "KAKAROTTO"
WHILE UR AT IT!?

Herms wrote:I don't see why they couldn't have just gone with "Vegetto". I mean, that is his actual name, and the name most fans already knew him as (whether spelled Vegetto or Vegito). Sure it's a bit confusing since they used to "Kakarrot" spelling, but they could just explain the name in a note or something.

Kakarotto is Kakarot's "real name" too. Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't the pronunciation excuse be applied to "Vegetto" aswell?

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:02 am

NeptuneKai wrote: Her.cule was a case of censorship Vegerrot is a case of consistency. People only dislike the name Vegerot because it’s not the name they are used to, I guarantee if the dub had called him that there would be less of an issue.

It's not that I dislike the name because I'm not used to it, I dislike it because it isn't the character's name, as for consistency, I don't own any of the Boo stuff, but do they keep the "o" on Kibito?

NeptuneKai wrote: I also think Djin makes sense. Not once outside of "Majin Buu" has Madoshi called any of his other mind slaves "Majin" which leads me to believe the "m" stands for Madoshi as opposed to Majin. Meanwhile Majin could be translated to Magical person which Djin while not a direct translation fills okay. I'm not as much of a stickler about this subject though.

Oh I wasn't arguing that it doesn't make sense, It's just a unnecessary change, there was really no reason for it to happen.

Saiyavenger2941 · Post by **Saiyavenger2941** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:04 am

Captain Awesome wrote:It's not that I dislike the name because I'm not used to it, I dislike it because it isn't the character's name, as for consistency, I don't own any of the Boo stuff, but do they keep the "o" on Kibito?

Yep. They do. Just checked Volume 22 to make sure.

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:13 am

Saiyavenger2941 wrote:
Yep. They do. Just checked Volume 22 to make sure.

I don't speak Japanese, but isn't the "o" on the end of Kibito the same kind of extraneous "o" on the end of Kakarotto because of the way Japanese phonetics work?.

And yes, I know I'm nitpicking, but still.

Though I do remember Mr. Simmons saying something on the podcast about wanting to keep the "o" on the end because it better preserved the name pun..

Bussani · Post by **Bussani** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:21 am

Captain Awesome wrote:
Saiyavenger2941 wrote:
Yep. They do. Just checked Volume 22 to make sure.
I don't speak Japanese, but isn't the "o" on the end of Kibito the same kind of extraneous "o" on the end of Kakarotto because of the way Japanese phonetics work?.

And yes, I know I'm nitpicking, but still.

Though I do remember Mr. Simmons saying something on the podcast about wanting to keep the "o" on the end because it better preserved the name pun..

I think you're right about the o at the end of Kibito. In the case of Vegetto I think it's because they had already used the translation Kakarrot, which better preserves the carrot pun. If they had called him Kakarotto from the start, Vegetto would have made perfect sense. But they couldn't just retcon it just to use 'Vegetto' for the short time he's in it, I guess.

In other words, I suppose Vegetto's name was decided (directly or indirectly) back when they translated Kakarotto, rather than when they got to translating Vegetto.

SaiyamanMS · Post by **SaiyamanMS** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:43 am

I haven't read any of the Z portion of the manga... But, I disapprove of Vegerot, not because of "It's not 'Vegetto'! >:O" but because... It makes him sound like rotting vegetables, which is kinda gross.

Saiyavenger2941 · Post by **Saiyavenger2941** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:42 pm

SaiyamanMS wrote:I haven't read any of the Z portion of the manga... But, I disapprove of Vegerot, not because of "It's not 'Vegetto'! >:O" but because... It makes him sound like rotting vegetables, which is kinda gross.

Well, you have Goku, who is named after a vegetable, and then you have Vegeta, who is a rotten bastard (and drastically overrated).

I say it works out quite well in that regard.

Post by **Herms** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:11 pm

NeptuneKai wrote:Kakarotto is Kakarot's "real name" too. Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't the pronunciation excuse be applied to "Vegetto" aswell?

I'm not really sure what you mean by "the pronunciation excuse", but "Kakarotto" and "Kakarot" are both valid romanizations of the same katakana name, while Vegerot is a different name than Vegetto (albeit one made in the same way, by combining Vegeta and Kakarot[to]).

Captain Awesome wrote:I don't speak Japanese, but isn't the "o" on the end of Kibito the same kind of extraneous "o" on the end of Kakarotto because of the way Japanese phonetics work?.

And yes, I know I'm nitpicking, but still.

Though I do remember Mr. Simmons saying something on the podcast about wanting to keep the "o" on the end because it better preserved the name pun..

Yeah, Kibito gets his name from the Japanese word tsukibito, "attendant" (since he's Kaioshin's attendant and all), so keeping the 'o' on the end fits the pun better. The way Japanese works is that, with the exception of 'n', all consonants always have a vowel sound after them. So for instance you can't just have "k", it has to be "ka" or "ki" etc. For t/d sounds, to/do are used essentially as substitutes for a t/d with no vowel after it, and for everything else the 'u' sound is used for this. So Gotenkusu is Gotenks, Torankusu is Trunks, and so on. But 'u'/'o' sounds aren't always meant to be ignored; we don't romanize Buruma as Blma after all. So deciding whether or not to drop an 'u'/'o' when romanizing can be complicated, and when it comes to completely fictional names where the reasons why the author chose that name aren't known and there's no official alphabet spelling, then there can be several different romanizations that are all equally valid.

jda95 · Post by **jda95** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 5:52 pm

I've always wondered why FUNimation opted for the stupid spelling 'Vegito'. If it wasn't for that stupid I, they could have passed it off as a fusion of Goku's name and Vegeta's properly. Maybe they could just spell it 'Vegeto' though, to get rid of the extra T.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:12 pm

jda95 wrote:I've always wondered why FUNimation opted for the stupid spelling 'Vegito'. If it wasn't for that stupid I, they could have passed it off as a fusion of Goku's name and Vegeta's properly. Maybe they could just spell it 'Vegeto' though, to get rid of the extra T.

Vegeto and Vegett just look like typos of Vegeta.

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:20 am

SaiyamanMS wrote:I haven't read any of the Z portion of the manga... But, I disapprove of Vegerot, not because of "It's not 'Vegetto'! >:O" but because... It makes him sound like rotting vegetables, which is kinda gross.

Oh come on, to quote the old Dragonball dub "GOKU SOUNDS JUST LIKE GO-POO!" That's kind of a weak excuse. "Drum reminds me of dumb! WORST NAME EVAR1"

SaiyamanMS · Post by **SaiyamanMS** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:52 am

NeptuneKai wrote:Oh come on, to quote the old Dragonball dub "GOKU SOUNDS JUST LIKE GO-POO!" That's kind of a weak excuse. "Drum reminds me of dumb! WORST NAME EVAR1"

But... Goku doesn't sound like "Go-poo" and while "Drum" may rhyme with "Dumb", it's not "Dumb". There's an R sound in there.

Maybe it's because of my experience with the Japanese language providing things like "Persocom" instead of "Personal Computer" or "Pockemon" (or "Pokémon") instead of "Pocket Monsters" and various other portmanteau shortenings, but "Vegerot" simply sounds like some kind of disease vegetables get.

Heck, I wouldn't really have a problem if it was "Vegerrot" as the extra R would make it seem like more than just rotting vegetables.

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 2:00 am

I don't make such a big deal about Vegerot, after all, while I don't know if Japan is one of them, but some countries that don't speak English change the names of American comic characters.

And with SaiyamanMS' "persocom" comment, whenever most people, including myself hear that, first thing comes to mind is Chi and Sumomo.

Post by **Herms** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 2:06 am

Super Sonic wrote:I don't make such a big deal about Vegerot, after all, while I don't know if Japan is one of them, but some countries that don't speak English change the names of American comic characters.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. Two wrongs don't make a right. Or at least, two pointless things don't make a point. Or, you know, something.

Bussani · Post by **Bussani** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 2:22 am

A bit off topic, but since Super Sonic mentioned it, Japan did change the names of certain American characters. Kei was telling me about how he watched Fantastic Four cartoons when he was young, but all the names were completely different (instead of Fantastic Four it was called Uchu Ninja Gomuzu).

SaiyamanMS · Post by **SaiyamanMS** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:31 am

Well, localisation of names in my opinion isn't really much of a problem anyway, as long as you don't compromise the integrity of the original material.

Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban in Japanese) for example is a series of games centered around a defence attorney who must constantly go through hecktic trials with the odds stacked against him and his clients. In the English localisation of the series, almost none of the characters keep their original Japanese names and the setting is also changed from Japan to the US.

All the names in the series tend to be absolutely ridiculous puns in Japanese and the spirit of this is often carried over into English. For example, the protagonist "Naruhodou Ryuuichi" is called "Phoenix Wright" in English, with "Naruhodou" being a pun on "naruhodo", Japanese for "oh, I see" and "Wright" being a pun on "right", leading to things such as "Isn't that right, Mr. Wright?".