Everyone loves the Bardock TV special, right? It’s great but it has a problem: the full Japanese title of the Bardock TV special is one of the most frustratingly ambiguous titles in the entire Dragon Ball franchise. In fact, it’s so ambiguous that Japanese Dragon Ball fans and fans in the English speaking world don’t even agree on what it means. In this edition of Dragon Ball Dictionary, I break down the title of the Bardock TV special and show why the term Z warrior almost caused me to go crazy.
NOTE
This video is about the ambiguity that exists in the full Japanese title of the Bardock TV Special (ドラゴンボールゼット たったひとりの最終決戦〜フリーザに挑んだゼット戦士 孫悟空の父〜, Hepburn: Doragon Bōru Zetto Tatta Hitori no Saishū Kessen ~Furīza ni Idonda Zetto Senshi Kakarotto no Chichi~). It points out how the term zetto senshi can be interpreted as referring to both Kakarotto/Kakarot and Bardock. It also points out how many people in the Japanese Dragon Ball fandom interpret zetto senshi/Z warrior as referring to Bardock but in the English translations zetto senshi/Z warrior refers to Kakarotto/Kakarot/Goku.
Special thanks to Dr. Shinichiro Fukuda of the University of Hawaii.
