Movie: Dragonball

[Shadow Skill]

He's asian, his anime drawn skin is not exactly white. Unless his pigments changed to that beige/tan-pinkish colour from years of training and gaining muscles. :P

His eyes don't exactly scream out "Caucasian".

So he's asian, case closed. :P

I'm quite sure Japanese language has gone through some changes since 20 years ago. Less slang back then. :P

A lot of Japanese courses tend to teach Japanese with slang now... which I think pollutes the minds of those to try to learn the language. Best advice, find a 60 y.o teacher who's Japanese and get lessons. :P

[Animeniax]

A lot of Japanese courses tend to teach Japanese with slang now... which I think pollutes the minds of those to try to learn the language. Best advice, find a 60 y.o teacher who's Japanese and get lessons. :P

That's a bad idea. Japanese is one of the most evolving languages, as they often adopt words from other languages, make expressions old-fashioned and obsolete, and shorten words and combine them into new terms.

If you learned the classical language from an outdated source, you would not be able to converse in the real world. Girls would call you kakko warui, and most Japanese under 40 would just not understand you. Also, the language in anime and other media would sound weird to you.

@animus: I doubt it. Were there any other characters with slang anatomical names?

[XanBcoo]

His eyes don't exactly scream out "Caucasian".

Every one of Akira Toriyama's characters have the exact same eyes, no matter where they're from. They're cartoon eyes and don't really scream out "asian" either. There were actually some characters had very Asian looking eyes, like General Tao, and Goku looks nothing like them. I have no doubt that Toriyama probably envisioned Goku as a Japanese kid, but there's nothing in his design to confirm it, and nowhere in or outside of the show is it ever stated. These arguments are just going to keep going in circles.

Edit: But don't get me wrong. Chatwin was the worst possible actor to portray Goku. That's obvious.

I'm quite sure Japanese language has gone through some changes since 20 years ago. Less slang back then. :P

Every generation of every language has its 'slang". It's just not a slang you would be familiar with.

So was Bardock a name made up by the studios then? I can't make anything out of it.

I remember reading that it meant "potato" or "root" or something. I really have no idea, someone who speaks Japanese would have to make a guess . It's annoying because the American studios romanized a lot of the names improperly, so "Buruma" became "Bulma" instead of 'Bloomer". Bardock could just be a weird romanization of some Japanese word.

[darkshadow]

Every one of Akira Toriyama's characters have the exact same eyes, no matter where they're from. They're cartoon eyes and don't really scream out "asian" either.

Mai's eyes are different from bulma's or chi chi's. She is also the only one that resembles an asian somewhat ( stereotyping).

[animus]

I remember reading that it meant "potato" or "root" or something. I really have no idea, someone who speaks Japanese would have to make a guess . It's annoying because the American studios romanized a lot of the names improperly, so "Buruma" became "Bulma" instead of 'Bloomer". Bardock could just be a weird romanization of some Japanese word.

Yeah, apparently Burdock is a root used in cooking I guess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_burdock