The reason Toriyama made Super Saiyans blonde revealed

As we all know, he wanted to save ink on the B&W pages, but he never said why of all colors he decided on yellow. Or so I thought. From the French edition of The Legendary Manga guide:



Si en Super Saïyen, il a les cheveux hérissés sur la tête, c'est parce qu'au Japon il y a une expression qui dit être fâchée au point d'avoir les cheveux dressés sur la tête. Je les voulais blonds pour donner un côté glamour. En plus, c'est moins fatigant que de les colorier en noir.

If in Super Saiyan, his hair stands on end, it's because in Japan there is an expression that says being angry to the point of having your hair stand on end. I wanted them blond to give a glamorous side. In addition, it's less tiring than coloring them black.

He says he wanted to make it look glamorous. Oddly, this quote doesn't appear in the Spanish edition:



La razón por la que se ponen los pelos de punta al transformarse en supersaiyano viene de la expresión japonesa erizarse los pelos de ira y el cambio de color de pelo realza más la transformación. Además, pintar el pelo de Goku era un fastidio.

The reason why the hairs stand on end when transforming into a Super Saiyan comes from the Japanese expression to stand up with anger and the change in hair color further enhances the transformation. Plus, painting Goku's hair was a pain.


@Eu sou Perfeito @Dagon Y'all got the Italian and Greek versions of this page?

I don't, I'm still looking for a complete set.

It seems like the French version took enhancement to mean glamorous. Probably the source text said something like it make them look more striking or eye-catching or visually appealing.

The Spanish version doesn't specifically mention blonde hair at all, but the French version does.

It's not uncommon for some things to get lost or missed in translation, which is why I'd like to see the other Italian and Greek versions to compare.

This is actually from the 35th issue of the Legendary Manga guide. I'm not even sure if the Italian or Greek editions got that far

Edit: nvm they did lol

You got the Japanese?

The book was originally written in Japanese but that version was never released

Are there other interviews where he talks about it, especially ones that are available in Japanese?

The Daizenshuu, Dragon Ball Landmark, Dragon Ball Forever, Super Exciting Guide, Chozenshuu, 30th Anniversary books, etc. Probably any of those

Kenshi actually told me about this years ago.

Yoshi said:

Kenshi actually told me about this years ago.

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Maybe about Toriyama wanting to save ink, but I'm probably the first person who's mentioned Toriyama saying he wanted it to look more glamorous in the French translation of the Legendary Manga guide.

ScottyFamalam said:

The Daizenshuu, Dragon Ball Landmark, Dragon Ball Forever, Super Exciting Guide, Chozenshuu, 30th Anniversary books, etc. Probably any of those

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So then I wouldn't put much credence on the "glamourous"/"enhances the transformation" part, unless it's in one of those Japanese sources too.

Toriyama says a lot of things in The Legendary Manga guide that he didn't say in other guidebooks. For example, he talks about being inspired by a TV show he watched with his son when he designed Super Saiyan and he says the reason the hair goes up is that it's basically an exaggeration of piloerection (when one's hair raises due to their mood or nerves. Specifically, Toriyama says he based it around idioms or expressions like "this is making my hair raise!" said to convey fear or surprised). He talks about this in both the Spanish and French versions of these pages, so clearly it was there in the original Japanese text.

The point is that the Legendary Manga guide had new information that you wouldn't find in most other interviews or guidebooks at the time and he even echoed a few of the things he revealed here in later books.

Yeh but that part's a bad translation, since the French and Spanish don't match. Who knows which one is true (enhances vs glamorous).
If the stuff with his son is the same in the French and Spanish, then I'd put more credence on it.

Also btw how'd you translate them? It's an image. Is there a way to do that? Google Lens? Turn a confused boomer into an ok boomer.

The French edition came out first, so I'm inclined to believe it's the best translation of the Japanese text. The other editions probably just used the French version as a base, but lost some things in translation or localization.

DB Wiki says "
"There is seemingly an unreleased Japanese version of the text, as the different language version of the guidebooks appear to be translated from the same source."

So they'd all be from Japanese directly.

The Greek version was for sale here, but it's out of stock. You can buy National Geographic instead if you want though. There might be one about the history of blonde hair.

The French was used as the basis for the other translations because it's easier to translate from French to Spanish, Italian, Greek, etc than it is from Japanese

How do you know it was translated from the French?

If it was from the French, why would it go from "glamorous" to "enhance" in Spanish.

The French uses "glamour" for glamorous.

Deepl translates the phrase "Je les voulais blonds pour donner un côté glamour" to "un aspecto glamuroso". Google Translate to "un lado glamoroso".
Reverso Context gives examples with "un côte glamour" as "el estilo glamoroso", "los elementos glamorosos" and other examples with "glamoroso". The only free-of-cost Reverso example using another adjective is "elegante". Wordreference gives "glamoroso" or "glamur" or a secondary translation of "encanto". SO ALL GLAMOROSO OR ENCANTO.

In English, Glamoroso translates to "glamorous".
Encanto translates to "charm", "lovely person", "attractive", "delight", "spell", "enchantment", "glamour", "allure", "dear" (British). So nothing that means "enhance" or "highlight".

Meanwhile the Spanish of ELMLDARIO uses "pelo realza más la transformación". It doesn't track with any translation of the French "glamour" into Spanish or even with any English translation.
When "pelo realza más" is put back into French in Reverso Context, it comes up with: "cheveux", accentue", "ameliore", "flattent", "augmentar". These words mean: "emphasise", "to stress", "escalate", "take an accent", "improve", "enlarge", "increase", "intensify", "raise the price of", "flatter".
When the verb "realzar" is put into Wordreference to French, it comes up with "mettre en valeur", "rehausser", remonter" "surélever" - according to Collins, Cambridge and Wordreference dictionaries these mean "to highlight", "to draw attention to", "to look good with", "to enhance", "to showcase" "to lift", "to boost", "to make higher", "to raise", "to go/swim/roll/sail[etc] up", "to resurface", "to go back up", "to get back on", "to put back together", "to reassemble", "to wind up".
NOTHING LIKE "GLAMOROUS", REALLY.
The CLOSEST to "glamourise"/"make glamorous" is "to lift", since Wordreference gives the example "
"Un joli maquillage rehaussera son visage" = "Some pretty make-up will enhance her face". But that's a very tenuous link.

Ofc you're right French and Spanish are closer to each other so easier to translate - in which case if it was done from French to Spanish then its meaning shouldn't have changed so much. Why wouldn't it just be "glamoroso" in Spanish?

BASELESS