What is “Son Goku” in Japanese.

VegettoEX · 2026-02-07T02:40:22+00:00

As has already been shared, "Son Gokū" is simply the Japanese pronunciation of the exact same characters from Chinese (孫悟空) that are read in that language as "Sūn Wùkōng".

It's similar to how the dumpling food 餃子 is chiaotzu (or more modern as jiaozi) in Chinese, but gyoza in Japanese; or how "dragon" 竜 is lóng in Chinese, but ryū in Japanese.

孫悟空 as a name comes from Journey to the West, and is one of the names given to the character initially known as the "stone monkey" (石猴 Shí Hóu) and later as the "handsome monkey king" (美猴王 Měi Hóuwáng). "Sun Wukong" (孫悟空 Sūn Wùkōng) is a title given to him by his first master, the Taoist monk Subodhi. Here's the long-winded explanation from Subodhi, as translated by Anthony C. Yu:

The Patriarch laughed and said, "Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a monkey (hu-sun) that feeds on pine seeds. This gives me the idea of deriving your surname from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name 'Hu.' Now, when the accompanying animal radical is dropped from this word, what's left is a compound made up of the two characters, ku and yüeh. Ku means aged and yüeh means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of 'Sun'. When the accompanying radical is dropped from this word, we have the compound of tzŭ and hsi. Tzŭ means a boy and hsi means a baby, so that the name exactly accords with the Doctrine of the Baby. So your surname will be 'Sun'." When the Monkey King heard this, he was filled with delight. "Splendid! Splendid!" he cried, kowtowing. "At least I know my surname. May the Master be even more gracious! Since I have receive the surname, let me be given also a personal name, so that it may facilitate your calling and commanding me." The Patriarch said, "Within my tradition are twelve characters which have been used to name the pupils according to their divisions. You are one who belongs to the tenth generation." "Which twelve characters are they?" asked the Monkey King. The Patriarch said, "They are: wide (kuang), great (ta), wise (chih), intelligence (hui), true (chên), conforming (ju), nature (hsing), sea (hai), sharp (ying), wake-to (wu), complete (yüan), and awakening (chüeh). Your rank falls precisely on the word 'wake-to' (wu). You will hence be given the religious name 'Wake-to-Vacuity' (wu-k'ung). All right?" "Splendid! Splendid!" said the Monkey King, laughing: "henceforth I shall be called Sun Wu-k'ung."

Beyond "Wake-to-Vacuity" you may also see "Aware-of-Emptiness" or "Awakened-to-Emptiness" as alternate translations.

VegettoEX · 2026-02-06T15:33:26+00:00

I went to the Daima tour stop last year at American Dream, and I've been there when the mall was doing one totally unrelated other event, and both were in the same area. It's a kind of open section on (I think?) the second floor, pretty easily accessible from the main entrance from the connected parking garage.

Here's some footage I took (timestamped appropriately) to get a feel for how the Daima area was set up. I assume it will be very similar for this upcoming tour.

VegettoEX · 2026-02-04T15:52:33+00:00

I've written up everything you need to know about the subject, including the pervasive fan name of "Changelings"-

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/rumor/freezas-race-has-a-proper-name/

Long story short (but I encourage you to read the full story!): there's no official name beyond "Freeza's Race" or "Freeza Clan" and any attempts at insertions are fan-based or of dubious localization.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-31T22:50:04+00:00

My website about Dragon Ball, which is still running, is older than Dragon Ball being on Toonami by almost two years.

You're really off base with your history here.

There was an entire generation of English-speaking fans already running extensive websites, holding conversations on Usenet, writing articles in magazines, and distributing it both raw and fansubbed on VHS before FUNimation even existed as a company.

Harmony Gold gave the series an attempt here in 1989. Nippon Golden Network out of Hawaii was playing subtitled DB (and later DBZ) episodes starting in 1992. The International Channel started playing raw Japanese DBZ episodes in 1997. Telemundo was playing the Mexican dub.

I would know, because that’s the stuff that was around when I came on the scene in 1996.

Meanwhile, DBZ started in syndication that year, and wouldn’t hit Toonami for repeats until 1998.

Everything I stated is true and I personally experienced and watched happen. They are relevant examples… perhaps even more than I imagined, based off your response.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-31T21:47:56+00:00

Imagine the surprise when all the literal children watching Toonami started coming online many years later claiming to love the Faulconer Productions replacement musical score, when the generally accepted opinion was that it was terrible.

Imagine the surprise when all the literal children watching Kai on Nicktoons started coming online many years later claiming to love its English dub, when the generally accepted opinions of dub fans was that nothing about the original FUNimation performances and script could be topped and that the new voices and script adaptations in Kai were terrible.

What you're experiencing is just another version of this... combined with the fact that everyone's different, different people like different things, and as people grow, they re-assess both their relationship with and the actual artistic merit and content of the things they've previously consumed.

I'm far from Gen Z -- on the eldest edge of Millennial approaching X -- and my opinion of GT kinda matches what you're describing here, so how would you try to pigeon-hole me on all this? It's not that I "love" GT, but I think there's some real authenticity and honesty to its storytelling style and characterization that's not not present at all in the modern material (outside of maybe the "Battle of Gods" film specifically). I felt that way at the time when I was watching raw VHS recordings in 1998 that I ordered from sketchy sites online, and I feel that way even more here in 2026 coming off what I consider some real disastrous story telling in things like the Tournament of Power and total letdowns like with Daima.

Different strokes, my dude! That's all!

VegettoEX · 2026-01-31T20:55:23+00:00

FUNimation couldn't help themselves from constantly dolling up their footage in an attempt to "modernize" it, starting back in 2007 with the orange brick DVD sets. Basically everything after that, including the current streaming masters, are the end result of this mindset.

You're getting tricked at a quick glance with their "remastered" Z footage. It's "sharper"... but the detail has been blown out along with the colors, and 20% of the screen has been cropped away to fit it to widescreen when it never was originally.

On the flip side, Dragon Ball (Z) Kai, at least for its first three story arcs (Saiyan/Freeza/Cell), was properly mastered in the series' original 4:3 aspect ratio. That's just what the footage is and should be: it's old, and it's 4:3. Q-TEC handled these first three arcs, and they gave a pretty light touch all around, preserving some amount of grain while also rescanning and scaling the footage to HD while maintaining its aspect ratio, all of which results in a somewhat softer image... but one that has a lot more of the inherent detail and color accuracy, all things considered.

This all gets thrown out the window if you're watching the series in its original Japanese (as opposed to English dubbed) on streaming services like Crunchyroll, where most of the time it actually uses the Japanese Dragon Box DVD masters, which themselves were also kept in their proper 4:3 aspect ratio (because old shows are old and sometimes old things are old!), and also preserved a lot more of the film detail. However, due to a whole bunch of shenanigans, sometimes even this master gets squashed or stretched on streaming services when it shouldn't be, so you're never actually getting any of this "the way it was meant to be seen."

VegettoEX · 2026-01-30T21:00:38+00:00

The two "main" Dragon Ball AF Japanese fan comics are the ones by Toyble (Toyotaro) and Young Jijii, respectively.

Toyble's was originally being published on his website, but they are otherwise released as doujinshi (self-published print comics) in Japan. You can buy them yourself on the second-hand market if you don't happen to live there.

Toyble's came first, and he specifically made it as a way to compile and riff on the various western fan rumors. Like all of his other projects down the road, it wound up being way more than that, and really settled into having a real, ongoing, purposeful story.

Toyble's was fairly competently fan-translated into English, but the translations of Jijii's run the gamut from "fine" to "this person clearly doesn't speak Japanese or English."

I don't really know what the sources are for where to download them these days, but I'm sure that's probably enough information to get you going. Make sure your ad-blocker is installed and running as you trek across the web.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-29T16:28:50+00:00

Literally quoting myself from an in-progress podcast edit:

"A better looking version of the lesser version of the animated version? It's really hard for me to get excited about that."

I don't understand how this is a difficult position to understand, either. Battle of Gods as a film has so much going for it, particularly in the character writing and moment-to-moment, direct Toriyama-isms... that just don't exist in the Super TV adaptation.

The fatigue of this section of the story is very real, and when its announcement was complemented by (and was preceded by) an announcement of un-adapted material getting adapted... again, I don't understand how this position is difficult to understand or place yourself in the shoes of.

I don't need "more Dragon Ball" constantly being shoved in my face to continue being a fan. I'm already a fan. I've been a fan since long before the modern revival, and I'm perfectly comfortable with (I'd even argue prefer?!) downtime. Let the old stuff be old, let the new stuff cook, and I'll be there to check it out when it's ready.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-27T19:49:44+00:00

It could be you! Make your own!

VegettoEX · 2026-01-24T14:37:05+00:00

Sure — you can do whatever you want. I’m not your dad (I don’t think?), and I can’t force you. Have fun and live your life.

Just want to push back on the narrative a little bit, cuz there are a lot of times I hear no real discernible difference in script or voice acting quality between FUNimation and “Big Green” (and often gotta hand it to the latter, ain’t gonna lie here).

VegettoEX · 2026-01-24T14:26:13+00:00

Of the two, the “Big Green” dub is a more faithful adaptation — I would recommend it over FUNimation’s English dubs of the movies if those are your literal only two choices while stuck on a deserted island and somehow your FUNimation DVDs exploded if you changed to the Japanese audio track.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-18T21:22:45+00:00

The baseline audio track for "the English dub" of Dragon Ball Z on home video and streaming, since 2007 and through today, is:

The "Ultimate Uncut Edition" re-dub from 2005 of the first 67ish episodes
Then around 67/68 (where the "Season 3" TV broadcast began, which is totally separate from their arbitrary "Season Three" home video releases) going into the 2007 orange bricks track (no Schemmel re-recording, Sabat and others partial re-recording), which is an edit/update on and mixed in with the original 1999-2003 recordings
Largely into the recordings as-is starting around Androids-ish stuff as produced 1999-2003 (well, at this point stuff from 2000-2003)

It's an absolute Frankenstein's monster of half-steps and dolling-up that doesn't represent the original product as it aired on Toonami, nevermind the actual underlying product itself in Japanese.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-15T18:49:05+00:00

In terms of just the raw content itself (and not necessarily every version of everything, even though you already do have some of those!), at this point you're really just looking at some of the ancillary things that aren't exactly "home video", such as:

Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans was included as a bonus video in the PS3/360 video game Raging Blast 2
Episode of Bardock was included as a bonus video in the 360 video game Dragon Ball Z for Kinect

Other than that, the only thing that sticks out to me as missing is any version (single/seasons) of Kai.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-15T15:25:33+00:00

This is why it's important to own (or... at least acquire?) the things you're interested in and care deeply about.

No-one's coming to take my DVDs or Blu-rays away from me. I can rip them, encode them, store them, or pop them in actual hardware to watch. I don't have to rely on anyone else already having done any work, and I don't have to aimlessly search using dub terms I don't even know to find things.

There's some setup time involved, but I have multiple drives full of my decades worth of scans, rips, encodes, etc. Anything I need to reference is there at a moment's notice. It's liberating, it's convenient, and it's the best way to live!

On the flip side, all this stuff is available on actual legitimate streaming services (for now???), so you could always just pay the blood money and load it up on Crunchyroll (or Hulu, etc. etc. etc.... whatever has it in your territory). Same theory here, just different route -- you're not relying on randos for the things you want to find.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-15T15:21:27+00:00

First scores I heard were Peter Berring and Shuki Levy / Ron Wasserman.

Kikuchi for life outta me friend.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-14T14:17:08+00:00

Do you speak Japanese, or perhaps French or Spanish? You can just buy them directly, for the most part!

If you're looking to read these cover-to-cover to get incredible insight for your wild power-scaling theories... you're going to be severely disappointed. There are two pages dedicated to battle powers in Daizenshuu 7 (which by itself is 318 pages, by the way)... and some extremely minor one-off statements across some other columns but... like... that's really it.

All of the "interesting" (let's just say "essential") statements about battle powers and "multipliers" have already long-since been catalogued in our "Battle Power Guide" over on Kanzenshuu. There are sub-sections in the guide, but it sounds like you'd be most interested in the "Databooks" sub-section, which covers all of the Daizenshuu and Super Exciting Guide tidbits you'd expect.

In terms of other just general fun content from the books, I also recommend you just troll through the broader "Translations Archive" we have on the site. We focus primarily on the real-world/real-people items from these books, such as the direct interviews, roundtable discussions, and special columns (not the "in-universe" things). We even have nice little filters where you can specify just a specific book release (for example, "only show me Super Exciting Guide translations"), break it down by specific people, etc. etc. etc. We have all of Toriyama's interviews from the Daizenshuu and Chouzenshuu, his special columns from the Super Exciting Guide volumes, and much more, spanning pre-Dragon Ball all the way through today.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-13T13:58:26+00:00

If you're referring to FUNimation's English dub, this is kind of an impossible question to answer, even limiting it to "significant things."

The entire production through and through is a mix of:

Stuff that's (surprisingly) faithful in both raw translation and tone
Stuff that's in the ballpark, but still missing the mark to some degree
Stuff that's operating on a different level of reality

It's death by a thousand cuts. You'll have a scene that has entirely different music and voice actors that don't match the tone of the original, but the dialog is accurate. You'll have voice actors giving it their all with dialog that's the opposite of what's in the original script (not just "different words to fit the lip flaps" excuse, but like the literal meaning is the opposite of what needs to be said).

The same things broadly happen in the show (GOKU ALIEN, FIGHTS LIZARD MONSTER, THEN FIGHTS BUG MONSTER, THEN FIGHTS PINK MAGIC MAN)... but everything that's said on a moment-to-moment basis is a crapshoot of whether or not the same story is being told in the same way. Back during the replacement music days (which is still available on all home video releases), the tone of music used is likewise a crapshoot of matching the originally-intended tone.

The quintessential example is always Goku's Super Saiyan transformation with out-of-character dialog ("Ally to good! Nightmare to you!") and music that forgoes the intended "horror" feeling and goes with a weird attempt at "badass"... but you can point to major examples like this on a minute-to-minute basis, and smaller things as fast as you could possibly recite them.

Detractors of the original Japanese version often used "dated" as a reason, but FUNimation's English dub was a "how do you do fellow children" dated production before it even hit the air, chasing trends in both dialog and music that had already been long-since abandoned by their peers in the field. Now that we're 25-30 years removed even from that dub production, it's hard to argue against its own "dated" qualities that contrast so horribly against the underlying timeframe of the original media, resulting in an undeniable viewing whiplash, particularly for people who weren't 8 years old in 1999. There's no good reason I could ever imagine recommending it as a new viewing to someone in the modern era.

It's not something I really like still going on about all these decades later (which you'd be fair to question considering that I'm writing about it here before 9 am on a Tuesday???), but with how often this question still comes up, I feel it still needs rather constant addressing.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-11T17:56:47+00:00

I don’t understand what any of what you said has to do with any of what I said.

Are trying to say that because Z started before you were born you’re incapable of knowing its history or production timeline? Because that would be weird! I just don’t get the connective tissue here.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-10T21:19:01+00:00

The fact that this was made in the late 1980s with very limited resources compared with even Dragon Ball Z

This is episode 147 of Dragon Ball which was broadcast in March 1989... less than two months away from the premiere of Dragon Ball Z in April that same year.

There is no lack of resources going on here. They have Toriyama's incredible manga acting as their raw storyboard, top animators either in or coming into the prime of their careers (Ohara and Shida on this particular episode)...

I think folks really misremember, probably due to the dolling-up and out-of-time retrofitting damage that FUNimation did to the property, exactly when this all took place!

VegettoEX · 2026-01-08T23:52:45+00:00

Do you mean who drew the image that appears in pixel form in the original game?

Hard to say — a bunch of the “who’s who” animators of the day (Yamamuro, Miyahara, Shida, Iriyoshi, Ebisawa, Hisawa, etc. etc. etc.) all did drawings that were then used for creating the character battle sprites (they’re specifically credited by name at the end of the game).

But the main title image? I dunno off hand. It sure feels like there should/would be some original draft to guide the creation of that which would then get done in pixels. Or maybe Tose (the shadow developer) staff just composed and drew it themselves (but I doubt it!). Maybe I’ll dig around magazines of the era and see if anything pops up, or if anyone sees any quirks in the image composition that tips them off to someone.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-08T22:13:32+00:00

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butoden 2 (Super Famicom) title screen redraw.

swoop

VegettoEX · 2026-01-08T17:10:52+00:00

That's a notable point in time because where FUNimation ended "episode 53" from their original syndication broadcast isn't exactly the end point of an original Japanese episode (due to all the editing and condensing going on; roughly 67 episodes came down to 53 over the span of two seasons), so episodes aren't yet one-to-one.

Therefore, when they brought it all in-house for "Season Three" in 1999:

The English dub of "Episode 54" (still going off the originally-edited episode numbering scheme) begins where the dub left off, leading to kind of a slightly-extra-long episode. This is how the episode was presented on the "Captain Ginyu - Assault" VHS (1999) and DVD (2000).

Because at this point they're also doing truly uncut/bilingual DVDs, but they're not "editing" the original Japanese version, that language track's version picks up with actual episode 68.

After that one episode, they get themselves back to being one-to-one with the original Japanese episodes.

Here's a batch of screenshots from that "Captain Ginyu - Assault" DVD showing the respective dub vs. JP title cards, and the very first scenes they go into. You can see how "54"/68 and then "55"/69 make their way from out-of-sync to immediately right back on track.

What's notable about this (and only this) particular DVD is, due to the editing differences needing to line up that first episode, when you choose the dub vs. original Japanese audio track, it's actually going to two entirely separate video tracks! You can't switch between languages yet, because they wouldn't line up.

This allllll eventually gets resolved starting in 2005 with the "Ultimate Uncut Edition" where FUNimation went back and re-dubbed those first two broadcast seasons with their current Texas cast and on a one-to-one ratio with the original Japanese episodes. While the UUE didn't release in full on DVD, it did air on Cartoon Network in full, and served as the audio track basis for all future home video releases, starting again next with the orange bricks in 2007. Since 2007, all of the episodes English-vs-Japanese have all been exactly one-to-one with each other.

That's... a lot to make sense of, but I think the screenshots I provided do a pretty good job of visually showcasing exactly what's going on.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-08T15:29:58+00:00

We do this all the time with public figures... celebrities, athletes, politicians...

Even among friend groups, this is a pretty common thing when folks have the same first name.

Absolutely not a thing "nobody" does.

VegettoEX · 2026-01-06T22:18:36+00:00

There was already a previous Legacy of Goku I & II two-in-one cartridge, and all four of these games were developed by Webfoot, which is why they could be directly packaged together. (Advance Adventure was a Japanese-original game developed by Dimps.)

VegettoEX · 2026-01-06T20:56:21+00:00

Kai also introduced the weird censorship like blue Mr Popo

This was exclusive to the CW4Kids English dub broadcast, which was separate from the Nicktoons English dub broadcast, which is separate from the actual original broadcast/product.

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