Question to all Dragon Ball fans in the world ( Translation and language related )

[Yagami1211]

When a Dragon Ball games comes out translated in your language ( English, Spanish, French ... whatever. )

Now the important question, that I always wanted to ask.
Which translation is the game based off ?
Anime dub ? manga translation ? Something else ?
Is it even constant ?
Or is Tenshinhan called Tenshinhan in one game and Tien in the next one ?


Tell me your experiences regarding the Dragon Ball games translations and how they differ or not from other Dragon Ball medias.

As for me, in France, the Dragon Ball games always base their translations on the manga. They discard the weird translated names and call everyone by the original names like in the manga ( No Hercule, Neptune, Satan Petit Coeur or Boubou here ).

They use original attack names like Kamehameha, Kienzan, Makankosappo ...

[KBABZ]

For all English releases the bias is squarely towards Funimation, which makes sense as they tend to handle the translations for the games as far as I'm aware. Particularly nowadays the writing errs closer towards what was seen in Kai past the Namek Arc, with the script being more faithful than in the 90s (Goku wants a good fight, Mr. Satan, etc) but sticking to old attack names (Tri-Beam, Special Beam Cannon, Kah-may-hah-may-hah, etc).

[Yagami1211]

That's interesting. I hope to have some feedback from German or Spanish speaking members.

[Lek]

As far as I know the German games are managed by Bandai Namco in regards to translations. Since there is no separate audio track for German in the games, they just have to translate the script. Most of the time they seem to go with the Japanese script as a source, but especially in FighterZ there were some lines of dialogue, that they clearly translated from the English version.

That being said, the translations are pretty consistent throughout the German games, show and manga. They went with Bills here for example, and they painfully go with it in every medium.
(Fun fact for that example though: In FighterZ they use Bills during every dialogue, but the name above the health bar has been left as Beerus. Must be pretty confusing for gamers who don't know the show.)

Other than that we have got Tenshinhan, Mr. Satan, Piccolo (and his alter ego Beelzebub during 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai), Meister Kaio and Jindujun as well as Gott (literally God for Kami), Pflanzenmänner (plant men for the Saibamen) and Meister Quitte (Master Quince for Korin).
Also most attack names were left untouched (Kamehameha, Kaioken, etc.) mixed with some appropriate translations (Höllenspirale for Makankosappo, Kiku-Kanone for Kikoho and Sonnenblitz for Taiyoken).

If I had to guess I'd say that the German translation team largely goes with whatever sounds best and is still pronouncable by the kids.

[Javaki]

That being said, the translations are pretty consistent throughout the German games, show and manga. They went with Bills here for example, and they painfully go with it in every medium.
(Fun fact for that example though: In FighterZ they use Bills during every dialogue, but the name above the health bar has been left as Beerus. Must be pretty confusing for gamers who don't know the show.)

Nah, German Manga (Battle of Gods Anime Comic, Super) and Anime (Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Super) both actually use "Beerus". Xenoverse was the first game to use "Bills", but before that "Beerus" was used in Battle of Z.

[Lek]

Nah, German Manga (Battle of Gods Anime Comic, Super) and Anime (Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Super) both actually use "Beerus". Xenoverse was the first game to use "Bills", but before that "Beerus" was used in Battle of Z.

You're absolutely right. My memory really failed me on that one Thanks for the correction!

[tinlunlau]

The Chinese release of the recent games have been based on the Taiwanese translation. You can tell since Bandai-Namco Games use the Taiwanese names. It's a little gripe that most Hong Kong players have a huge problem with.

On the other hand, Bandai Namco give an option to switch between Cantonese and Taiwanese translations on some of their Gundam games.

[emperior]

Italian here. Our games differ from our dub. They use the terms of the other dub team which only dubbed the movies and so doesn't use the popular terms.
Names are faithful to the Japanese terms, although Beerus becomes Bills and Krillin is Crillin (our most popular dub uses Crili).

[SuperCyan2]

When I play Dragon Ball games, I typically avoid the English translated version as it has the dubnames which I hate. That is, Tien, Frieza, Hercule and the likes whereas the Spanish version features the original or moreso closer to the Japanese edition.

Beerus becomes Bills

On the Spanish (Castellano) dub of DBS that was the case, too. On the first run of the dub he was Bills and then on the second-ongoing run of the dub they switched to Beerus (for accuracy's sake, I'd say).

[KBABZ]

Hercule

He's actually called Mr. Satan in FighterZ!

[Dbzfan94]

Hercule

He's actually called Mr. Satan in FighterZ!

I was legitimately surprised (and happy) to finally hear Mr. Satan in the game dubs after being in the dubs for so many years.

[Cetra]

The German translated Dragon Ball products are hit and miss since the manga because vol. 1-42 got a very good translation from Junko Iwamoto Seebeck, a Japanese native speaker and her husband Jürgen Seebeck. That does not mean they never took some deliberate actions to adjust something and make it funny but overall it was very good.

Dragon Ball Super though is already translated by another one, Ms. Teichmann and she chose to go with other translations, she for example did not translate certain attacks like the Masenko which originally was called "Dämonenblitz" (Demon's Flash) or kept "Majin" instead of the original "Dämon" (Demon), what was established as "Zeitebene" (Timeline) in Dragon Ball is now translated by her as "Parallelwelt" (Parallelworld). She even made it a thing to use both "Dreifacher Super-Saiyajin" (Super Saiyajin 3) and "Super Saiyajin dritten Grades" (the form that legit exists in the Cell saga) for SSJ3. Same for SSJ2.

The games though have absolutely horrible translation because they are never consistent. FighterZ for example calls Cell both an Android as well as a Cyborg, Goku Black ist literally translated to "Goku Schwarz" which is the greatest move of silliness I have seen in this game, Beerus is translated as "Bills" which I do not understand because he already had his correct translation and so on. Even Kuririn is still translated as Krillin in some products even though he has consistently been shown as Kuririn before. Don't get me started on older games like Legendary Super Warriors.

German (1-42) + GT

Shenlong, Polunga
Son-Goku, Bulma, Kuririn, Yamchu, Herr der Schildkröten/Muten-Roshi, Rinderteufel, Chichi, Lunch, Tenshinhan, Chao Zu, Herr der Kraniche, (Oberteufel) Piccolo
Radditz, Nappa, Vegeta, Son-Gohan, Meister Kaio
Freezer, Guldo, Barta, Cheese/Jeez, Rikoom, Ginyu, Kiwi, Dende, Nehl
Cell, Trunks, C16, C17, C18, C19, C20
Dämon Boo, Bibidi, Babidi, Kaioshin, Kibito, Videl, Mr. Satan, Spopowitsch, Yamu, Dabra, Son-Goten, Bra, Maron
Helpful stuff:
Dragon Balls, Jindujun, Mönchstab, Magische Bohne, Dragon-Radar, ..
Attacks/Techniques:
Kamehameha/Schockwelle (first episodes of the anime), Wolfstechnik, Hand des Grauens, Sonnenattacke/Sonnenblitz, Kiku-Kanone, Dodon-Pa, Phantombild-Trick, Babuschka-Trick, Dämonenstrahl, Höllenspirale, Galik-Strahl, Kaioken, Genkidama, Momentane Teleportation ...
____

Baby, Vegeta-Baby, Dr. Mu, General Rirudo, Dorutaki
Super Nr. 17
Yi Xing Long, etc.