I believe it is the Japanese equivalent of our "Z" (I can't say for sure, since I'm definitely not fluent in Japanese)...
At least (as I pointed out below) that is how they pronounce the title whenever it is spoken in the Japanese version (in the theme song)...
"Doragon Boru Zeta" is the general Japanese-spoken pronunciation of the title...
But Lexy's right... It just boils down to simply being "Dragon Ball Z"... No real meaning for the "Z" (or "Zeta")... Just a letter they stuck on the end to differentiate the two anime series... Kind of like they started making "Mega Man X" games...
Heck, it wasn't even the call of the original manga creator... The comic series went from beginning to end simply titled, "Dragon Ball"... The animation studio that produced the anime decided to split it into two series since the focus of the storyline shifted from mostly humor/adventure to mostly action...
It's been said that the "Z" symbolizes that it is the "end" of the series (as "Z" is the end of the alphabet... I've also read that "Zeta" itself translates to "final")
But whatever your theory...chances are, they just arbitrarily picked "Z" to tag onto the end...
"It's been said that the "Z" symbolizes that it is the "end" of the series (as "Z" is the end of the alphabet... I've also read that "Zeta" itself translates to "final")"
i doubt this because GT is after Z. Zeta is to Z like like Alpha is to A and Delta is to D. There just ways to make something clear when spelling it out. Although this is not there only use, its there only common use among common people. But most people use words like apple=a and boy=b. | |
I really think it was called Dragonball Z because it was supposed to be the end... this is a separate debate from whether or not there should be a distinction between Z and Zeta. Whether it's called Dragonball Z or Dragonball Zeta, the point is still the same... it's referring to the last letter of the alphabet, which is traditionally how you distinguish the last in a series, the end. Yes, GT came after Dragonball Z, but it's my limited understanding that Dragonball Z was the last series confined to the scope of the original story... so at the time it was adapted into a cartoon, it was intended to be the last, but because it made money, the producers kept going.
This happens all the time... Star Trek V is called "The Final Frontier." Why? Because it was the last Star Trek movie ever made... until they realized there was still money to be had and made 5 more. Which Jason movie is called "The Final Friday"? I don't remember, but it's sure as hell not the last one in the series. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ended his famous series of Sherlock Holmes stories by plunging the protagonist to his death off a cliff. The fans demanded more, though, so the series kept going. Douglas Adams, in order to be dead certain that the Hitchhiker's series was certainly dead, not only killed off all the characters but had multiversal reality completely rewritten to preclude their ever having existed at all, then just to be safe, he up and died himself. | |
Zeta is the Sixth letter of the greek alphabet....
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Exactly correct... DBGT wasn't intended when DBZ was named... So at that point, Z was supposed to be the end of the story...
But, they got greedy, and cranked out another series...which was not written by the original creator (whom would only draw a few character and scene designs for them... he wanted the series to be over, but it was out of his hands due to contracts and whatnot) | |
Oh god this is silly, Cant we just agree it DRAGON BALL Z, not Zeta, Zed or whatever. Its Z, and we really dont care if it is Zeta.
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Z is Z. Zeta is Zeta. There is a differnce. They are not the same letter. Its like saying 0.5 and half are exactly the same. They may be equal, but they are not the same.
What your saying is that it would be correct to call my sister Zetaara, not Zara, just because there is a relationship between Zeta and Z. Anyway, Im going to drop the topic since Im getting into an debate over the letter Z, and neither of us are going to change our oppinions based on what the other says. -DogMan | |
Wow. Little did I know the thread would escalate so much.
My only reason for wanting to know, is because I've seen a few different Dragonball games advertising "origional" source code, and still using the Zeta name. I was just wondering if Zeta was official, or if RaeKwon made a game that has just too much popularity (aside, of course, from the many rips). :P | |
Zeta is the same as Z in english, it is not japanese, because Zeta was a latin/greek letter, and english is based off of latin, it is the same thing. Zeta is just a catchy was of naming a game without confusing the fanbase. Another thing:
there are only four sagas: Dragonball Dragonball Z Dragonball GT (GT stands for Grand Tour) (cartoon network should be airing this in march of 2003) Dragonball AF (AF stands for Aftermath) (cartoon network MIGHT air this sometime in 2006) Dragonball follows Goku's childhood Dragonball Z follows the Z-fighters as main characters Dragonball GT follows goku's second childhood (he got wished back to childhood by emperor pilof) Dragonball AF cleans up the loose-ends left after GT, it just shows a little bit extra of the characters, sort of a "where are they now" (It's only 15 episodes long) Anyway, no, Zeta is just some ungodly creation made up by a child and another child. My only beef with those two: Raekwon: Decent ideas, but can't spell or map, Dracon: okay ideas, rips all of his icons, can't map, and won't take responsibility for letting the Zeta source out. Anyway, I liked a few of Rae's games, and I like the original Zeta, but Dracon just messed up, I have no real problem with these guys, but I'll just shut up. | |
l;et me clear this up:
Dragon ball Z is the end, you know why? Akira torayama made Dragonball, and dragonball Z, but someone else contracted some random guy to write Dragonball GT and AF. These two are NOT TRUE DRAGONBALL SERIES(ES?)! Have you ever noticed that there are huge differences between the anime and the original japanese manga, such as gregory at king kai's place never existed, and the snake queen thing never happened. You see, FUNIMATION ruined dragonball Z, I really do hate funimation. I own almost every original manga from DBZ (wait until UBU shows up) (OOH OOH OOH!) wait until you see SS3 Gogeta, he looks awesome!!!! | |
Perhaps you missed my posts down below on this thread...
I must say that anyone who claims that DBAF is real loses all DB/Z/GT knowledge credibility in my eyes... DBAF is not an anime... It isn't even an officially published manga... The best reports suggest that it is a fanmanga... And I'm going to believe that above all else... If it were real, it would be all over the place by now... If anyone in the world had it, the DBZ fan "network" would have it spread everywhere in no time... Thus, since it seems to be nonexistant, it must not exist... At least not in a form that can be passed around... And if it were in animated form already, there's nothing that would have kept it from being ripped into real player files and passed around over the multitude of filesharing programs or eBay... We'd all have our own copy by now... As for Z-Zeta... The title is explicitly pronounced in Japanese as "Doragon Boru Zet-ta"... It's said out loud in the theme songs...and by Goku at the end of every episode when he says "Next time on Doragon Boru Zeta..." Watch a few Japanese episodes if you want proof... Yes, "Zeta" is a greek letter that basically corresponds to our "Z" (even though it's in a different order than our alphabet... but so is a lot of the rest of the greek alphabet... "gamma" is the third letter, while ours is "C"... etc) But also, "Zetta" is a Japanese character (seen in the Japanese spelling of DBZ after a hyphen... it looks like a small "J" next to a large, backwards "J"... I'd post a pic, but I'm too lazy...lol this spelling is seen on many of the DBZ posters and shirts and other various mechandise out there if you want to see what I'm talking about) And this is what the "Z" in DBZ really is in the original version... | |
Ter13 wrote:
l;et me clear this up: Please don't try to "clear things up" unless you really know the facts... Akira Toriyama made "Dragonball"...plain and simple... The stories covered in DB and DBZ all come from one manga series that was titled "Dragonball" from beginning to end... The animation studio that created the anime based off of his work split it up into two different names because the focus of the story shifted at the point between them and they felt that it needed a new name... but someone else contracted some random guy to write Dragonball GT and AF. These two are NOT TRUE DRAGONBALL SERIES(ES?)! No, it was not just "some random guy"... True, GT was not written by Toriyama, but the writers were employess of Toei Animation (the studio that animated DB and DBZ, and all of the movies)... Speaking of the movies, these were also all written by Toei writers... As for AF...my post near the top clears this up... This was written by a group of fans, and is not official in the least... (if it really even exists) Have you ever noticed that there are huge differences between the anime and the original japanese manga, such as gregory at king kai's place never existed, and the snake queen thing never happened. You see, FUNIMATION ruined dragonball Z, I really do hate funimation. I own almost every original manga from DBZ (wait until UBU shows up) Don't blame that on FUNi... Anything animated in DBZ that is not in Toriyama's manga was created by Toei Animation in Japan when DBZ was first created... Not by FUNimation, who only edits the series and dubs the english dialogue onto it... They had nothing to do with Gregory, or Princess Snake... Or Garlic Junior (which was also created by Toei and never appears in the manga) (OOH OOH OOH!) wait until you see SS3 Gogeta, he looks awesome!!!! Riiiiight... Gogeta appears in GT in level 4... And in movie 12 in level 1 (maybe 2)... Never in level 3... | |
Dog Man wrote:
Its like saying 0.5 and half are exactly the same. They are. If you think otherwise, you should get out of programming, because you're missing a crucial piece of logic. Try running this proc: if (1/2 != 0.5) world << "Dog Man is right!" else world << "Lexy is right!" Although I suppose you'll respond by saying that 1/2 isn't the same thing as half. Pre-emptive rebuttal: how many halves? You didn't pluralize it, so there's only 1. 1/2 is how you write "one half" in mathematics. | |
Zeta is no where near official in the sense that its an official DBZ Game. Im not sure why they would call it DB Zeta when it has "origional" code... Since the point of advertising that would be there not ripping off DBZeta.
-DogMan | |
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:
Riiiiight... Gogeta appears in GT in level 4... And in movie 12 in level 1 (maybe 2)... Never in level 3... Yeah, but in DBAF he not only appears in Super Saiyan 3, he fuses with Piccollo (Who had just fused with Krillin and Bulma) and goes Super Saiyan 5 just like Gohan. Then after that at the very end of the series, he goes Super Saiyan 6 Ozaruu. And thats only the Hidden Oolong Dragon Saga! -DogMan PS; If you cant tell, :P was pretty much intended throughout that entire story. | |
-AbyssDragon