Dragon Ball Zee vs Dragon Ball Zed

[thedarkuniter]

Back at my own Dr. Slump forum Penguin Village Paradise, we are having this side conversation about how to pronounce, well, Z. One interesting point was when the Japanese actors pronounce Dragon Ball Z, they pronounce it as Doragon Booru Zetto. As everybody knows, in the U.S., we pronounce Z as Zee but in other places, they pronounce it as Zed, so when you're discussing about the show with your friends or family, which way do you pronounce it?

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

Zee.

[Cipher]

The two pronunciations are one-to-one English-Japanese counterparts. We speak English, so, "Zee."

If you speak a language with the "Zed" pronunciation, "Zed."

If you want to be really asinine, you'd have to call it "Doragonbooru Zetto" and talk about how much you love it when Toranksu shows up in the Seru arc. But no one should ever do that because it's not really respectful to anything.

[thedarkuniter]

The two pronunciations are one-to-one English-Japanese counterparts. We speak English, so, "Zee."

If you speak a language with the "Zed" pronunciation, "Zed."

If you want to be really asinine, you'd have to call it "Doragonbooru Zetto" and talk about how much you love it when Toranksu shows up in the Seru arc. But no one should ever do that because it's not really respectful to anything.

Yeah, but that's the point, like, for British folks, I noticed they pronounce it as Zed, so Zee is not the only pronunciation.

[Cipher]

Yeah, but that's the point, like, for British folks, I noticed they pronounce it as Zed, so Zee is not the only pronunciation.

Oh? Is it really all that common a UK pronunciation? I profess ignorance. I've heard a few British fans on Youtube at various points, but there wasn't a "Zed" in (aural) sight.

[thedarkuniter]

Yeah, but that's the point, like, for British folks, I noticed they pronounce it as Zed, so Zee is not the only pronunciation.

Oh? Is it really all that common a UK pronunciation? I profess ignorance. I've heard a few British fans on Youtube at various points, but there wasn't a "Zed" in (aural) sight.

A lot of my friends on Youtube either from the U.K, Canada, Ireland and so on would pronounce Z as Zed, only here in the U.S., it's Zee. Maybe the closest thing to the Japanese title is Zed since it's Zetto in Japanese.

[Ashura]

My buddy who introduced me to Z way back in the '90s prior to things like Funimation and DVDs called it Zed. I found it peculiar and questioned him on it; he was like, pfff, that's how you say that letter! I realized his parents were British a long time later and it suddenly made sense to me.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

It is indeed pronounced "Zed" in French, so Zee may well just be the American thing.

[Piccolo Daimao]

It's apparently pronounced "Zed" in the UK (where I live), but I pronounce it "Zee" just because it feels more natural to me, perhaps because I saw FUNimation's English dub of the anime first.

[PuppetDoctor]

I am from Canada and when saying Z I will pronounce it "Zed" but with Dragon Ball Z I always call it "Dragon Ball Zee."

The reason is because the theme song in Canada for Dragon Ball Z kept saying "DRAGON BALL ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" so that is how I got used to hearing the name of the show. Plus that is the way all my friends pronounced it in school.

[Jawdrahb]

'Zee'. It was always presented this way throughout it's original airing. Of course, the official pronunciation of 'Z' in the UK is 'zed' and the only time I believe I heard 'zed' was during a TV advertisement (commercial) for one or two of the Playstation 2 games.

[ET93]

'Zee'. It was always presented this way throughout it's original airing. Of course, the official pronunciation of 'Z' in the UK is 'zed' and the only time I believe I heard 'zed' was during a TV advertisement (commercial) for one or two of the Playstation 2 games.

This ^, I'm from the UK too and it was always pronounced as 'Zee'. Although I don't quite recall the game advertisements which referred the it as Dragon Ball 'Zed'. Do you by any chance remember which adverts they were?

[TripleRach]

The Japanese call the letter Z "zetto," and I believe it derives from a language where it's called "zet" (Dutch maybe?). So they're just using their own pronunciation of the letter. English speakers should probably do the same, so whether it's "zee" or "zed" depends on where you live.

It's not like other show titles where letters might stand for something specific, like JAKQ being pronounced "jacker," or the S in Sailor Moon S being pronounced "Super."

On a funny general note about "zee" vs "zed," on Stargate Atlantis, there's an important device called a ZPM. The American characters call it "zee pee em" while the Canadian characters call it "zed pee em." Sometimes they argue about it in front of characters that aren't even from Earth.

[dbboxkaifan]

Japanese - Zetto (Doragon Boru/Bolu Zetto)
British English - Zed
Spanish - Zeta
US English - Zee

For Dragon Ball Z (+ Z Kai) = Zed

As for the Spanish, I pronounce Zeta (Bola de Dragón/Drac Z Kai), like it should be, saying "Zé" in Spanish doesn't even feel natural.

*Updated*

[MCDaveG]

For me, (Czech) it's Zet, but I adapted the american/english pronounciation Zee by the time.
I think it's based on your language how you pronounciate it

[xXInfinite026Xx]

I am from Canada and when saying Z I will pronounce it "Zed" but with Dragon Ball Z I always call it "Dragon Ball Zee."

The reason is because the theme song in Canada for Dragon Ball Z kept saying "DRAGON BALL ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" so that is how I got used to hearing the name of the show. Plus that is the way all my friends pronounced it in school.

What's interesting is that even in the canadian dub/market, they always pronounced it "Zee" rather than "Zed" as if they were trying to appeal to an american market. It made since back in 96 when they were hired by FUNimation/Saban, but even with the 2nd "Ocean Dub" theme song in the westwood dub, they still kept it as "DRAGON BALL ZEEEEEEEEEEE" (<- in that exact tone too lol)

I guess there thought process was it keep it the same for consistency sake? That seems makes the most sense to me anyways.

[Jawdrahb]

'Zee'. It was always presented this way throughout it's original airing. Of course, the official pronunciation of 'Z' in the UK is 'zed' and the only time I believe I heard 'zed' was during a TV advertisement (commercial) for one or two of the Playstation 2 games.

This ^, I'm from the UK too and it was always pronounced as 'Zee'. Although I don't quite recall the game advertisements which referred the it as Dragon Ball 'Zed'. Do you by any chance remember which adverts they were?

I don't remember exactly what game, if memory serves correct it was at least one and it was for the PS2. Please excuse my vague response, it's the best my ol' brain is churning out about it! It could've been a store specific ad too e.g. by HMV which would explain how short it was and the pronunciation.

Here's some examples of UK adverts nonetheless, I'm sure most if not all dub-troduced fans wondered when all of the 'Rock The Dragon' footage was going to appear in the series...

[thedarkuniter]

The Japanese call the letter Z "zetto," and I believe it derives from a language where it's called "zet" (Dutch maybe?)

The letter Z comes from the Greek word, zeta and pretty much every language made from the Latin alphabet uses the letter Z, so each one has it's own way of pronouncing Z. In my opinion even though I'm American, Zed is much closer to the original Greek word. So is Zeta from Spanish, Zetto from Japanese and so on.

[TripleRach]

The Japanese call the letter Z "zetto," and I believe it derives from a language where it's called "zet" (Dutch maybe?)

The letter Z comes from the Greek word, zeta and pretty much every language made from the Latin alphabet uses the letter Z, so each one has it's own way of pronouncing Z. In my opinion even though I'm American, Zed is much closer to the original Greek word. So is Zeta from Spanish, Zetto from Japanese and so on.

I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say in reply to me (I'm pretty familiar with the Greek alphabet, for what it's worth), but I was talking about the origins of the Japanese pronunciation specifically. It's "zet" in Dutch, and pre-Meiji Japan had more contact with the Netherlands than most other Western countries, so it seems like a plausible origin to me.

Otherwise, we were saying kind of the same thing about different countries having their own pronunciations.

[NeoKING]

Not sure if any of you are aware of this or not, but the letter "Z" is pronounced "Zed" in some countries, like the UK and the Caribbean Islands.