The Portuguese version of Dragon Ball has always been considered funny by the original fans, and completely “cursed” by people abroad, of course, because it is a super different version from all the others. After all, in addition to the recognized and sometimes “silly” Portuguese humor (“Let me laugh now so I can have it tomorrow!” or the also well-known “Ahaha! Very good! Will it be better than Big Show SIC.“), some names are also completely different from the original version.
In fact, there are even some videos of YouTubers reacting to our version of Dragon Ball, with an air of complete shock.
Let's understand why?
Dragon Ball: Portuguese Version has strange names. Do you know why!?
At the time, at SIC, this was the image quality!
Therefore, as you may have already noticed, some names in the Portuguese version are completely different from the names in the original version of Dragon Ball, sometimes without any relationship between the two.
For example, Piccolo is Satan's Little Heart, Muten Roshi passed to Genius Turtle, Kakarot turned into Sperm Whaleand of course, the Saiyan race changed to Space Warriorsamong other small details.
The reason for all this is simple…
It is a mix of the famous Portuguese “desenrascanço”, with our own originality, and of course, with the very important fact that the version that passed here in the 90s was translated from the French version!
In other words, our Dragon Ball was not translated from the original Japanese, nor from the also widely recognized English version of the North American version. It was translated from the French version, which in turn already had some very creative freedoms in place, as well as a lot of censorship in the mix.
Fortunately or unfortunately, at the time, France was the only European country with direct contact with Toei Animation, and was therefore responsible for distributing the animation throughout the continent.
Could it have already been “corrected”?
Of course. But for what?
Despite the strange names and the jokes that nowadays no longer make any sense… I'm very honest, I wouldn't change our version for any other! It is part of the childhood of many of us.