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Someone explain Deathsaurus to me (or is it Dezsarus?). That's about as crazy a name as I've ever seen.

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Beast Wars gave us some uninspiring names too, such as:

+ Cheetor

+ Tarantulas (is this a name or just a plural form of a common noun?!)

+ Rhinox

+ Tigatron (what's a tiga??)

+ B'Boom

+ Waspinator

...also not fond of reusing subgroup names as individual TF names (e.g. Dinobot, Insecticon etc.)

NB: I like these characters and toys, but ya gotta admit... they aren't terribly impressive names!

 

 

my girlfriend is getting pretty good at guessing Beast Wars figures names and only going by the animal they are. just saying. sometimes, there's a reason for the madness.

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Someone explain Deathsaurus to me (or is it Dezsarus?). That's about as crazy a name as I've ever seen.

 

Deszaras, Deathsaurus is how it sounds phonetically so in America he became known as Deathsaurus.

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>>> WINDBREAKER <<<

 

"Scat" means "faeces" (from the Greek "Scatolo") -- yet we have Transformers called:

Scattor (he throws poop?)

Energon Scattor (he throws Energon poop?)

Six Transformers called Scattorshot (they shoot poop??)

Scattorbrain (SH!T FOR BRAINS!!)

 

There are also three Transformers called Wind Sheer -- clearly using the wrong spelling of "shear". That's not just bad, that's downright illiterate! Speaking of illiterate names, there's also Lazorbeak.

 

Beast Wars gave us some uninspiring names too, such as:

+ Cheetor

+ Tarantulas (is this a name or just a plural form of a common noun?!)

+ Rhinox

+ Tigatron (what's a tiga??)

+ B'Boom

+ Waspinator

...also not fond of reusing subgroup names as individual TF names (e.g. Dinobot, Insecticon etc.)

NB: I like these characters and toys, but ya gotta admit... they aren't terribly impressive names!

 

Bugly's always been a silly name. Didn't like K-9 either... why couldn't they have reused the name of "Hound" for him?? Likewise BW Buzz Saw should've been called Bumblebee.

Megabolt is also a silly name.

 

 

Best TF name ever? Time Warrior! :D

 

 

I wonder if Mattel sold Hasbro a bunch unused Masters of the Universe names back in the early '90s?

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Someone explain Deathsaurus to me (or is it Dezsarus?). That's about as crazy a name as I've ever seen.

 

Deszaras, Deathsaurus is how it sounds phonetically so in America he became known as Deathsaurus.

 

I've watched all three Takara Japanese TF series in the japanese language.

 

I think the problems with most Japanese TF character media names. Is that theirs a japanese accent when the japanse voice actors pronounce english words. examples: Death-a-saurus-a, Starsaber-r. victorylio-or,convoy-er/or. Megatron-a.

 

Personally,I think the best way to pronounce the TF Japanese character names,Is by reading them off the toy boxes they came in during their first/original toy release. Obviously it might be a bit hard,if the japanese TF name on the box is in japanese & the translation from japanese to english makes a error or doesn't have that word in it's data base.

 

Personally,I love the name Deathsauras,because because it fit the media character. he's evil,causes death & kills so the death part works for me. the death part also has a hard core heavy metal music theme. as far as the "saurus" goes,he transforms into a bird like dinosaur or dragon or T-rex with wings,so the "saurus" words also fit the toy/media character.

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In all fairness I don't think it's fair to include Japanese names in this discussion, because those names were clearly not intended for the Anglophone market, but for the Japanese market; and a lot of this is to do with the core phonological differences between English and Japanese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology

 

Another factor is cultural - names are often changed in different region to suit tastes. English speakers may find some Japanese names strange, but likewise a lot of Anglophone names would sound odd or somewhat less fashionable to the Japanese ear. There have been some Hasbro TF names adapted from Japanese that sound ridiculous, like Banzaitron and Kobushi. "Banzai" (万歳) basically means "long live the Emperor" and "Kobushi" (古武士) just means "Old Warrior." As TF names they just sound absurd! But of course, these names have only ever been used by Hasbro for their Anglophone markets and never by Takara for the Japanese market.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that, to most Japanese people, English is a cool exotic foreign language. Most Japanese do NOT know or care about what English words mean... they just think it looks or sounds cool. It's similar to how Romance languages like Latin, French, Italian etc. sound cool and exotic to many English speakers. Look at this scene from Matrix Reloaded:

To most English speakers it just sounds like smooth, sexy French. In reality he is saying the most vulgar, disgusting and offensive words in the French language. I remember when I saw this movie in the cinema, when this scene appeared most people in the audience just sat there and listened to the Merovingian speaking French... maybe thinking about how cool it sounds. A friend of mine, who is Parisian, fell off his chair and laughed his arse off. People in the cinema turned and stared at us with NO idea why we were laughing!

 

So I don't think it's fair to judge Japanese names by Anglophone standards, nor Anglophone names by Japanese standards. Rather I think we ought to stick to looking at Anglophone TF names that sound bad even to the Anglophone ear.

 

Why they went with that particular spelling, I'm not sure. It may have been trademark reasons. You can tell that (for instance) Scattorbrain is really Scatter Brain. Scatter, which means "all over the place" makes sense, but we can't say exactly that the other names are supported to be Scatter. Scatter Shot makes sense too.

Spelling "scatter" as "scattor" is just plain illiterate. As for the trademark issue, there are other ways to get around it... like "Autobot Scattershot". And Hasbro HAS been known to misspell words even when they still hold the trademark for it; a classic example is Grappel. Hasbro could have called it "Autobot Grapple" (as they did with the 2004 reissue), or heck even "Solar Storm Grapple" would have been fine. But no, they went ahead and misspelt it as "Grappel". And another anomaly is that there's a variant of Fast Action Battler "Grapple Grip Mudflap" where the toy is called Grappel Grip Mudflap. Grappel?!?

 

 

Scattor doesn't seem to be an actual word.

"Demolish" means to destroy, so by extension a "Demolishor" destroys things. So since "scat" means faeces, by extension a "Scattor" is someone who...

 

photocomic_scattorshot1.jpg

 

photocomic_scattorshot2.jpg

 

photocomic_scattorshot3.jpg

 

photocomic_scattorshot4.jpg

 

photocomic_scattorshot5.jpg

 

I mean, seriously now, Leobreaker? So be breaks lions? LOL!

You know what's even funnier? He doesn't even transform into a lion! He transforms into a robotic liger! (hence why his Japanese name is Liger Jack; a more accurate description of his alt mode).

 

Here's another one... PROWL 2. I can't believe that Hasbro actually named a toy Prowl 2. (o_O)

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Prowl_2

 

Other ones that sound weird or wrong to non-American English speakers:

+ Night Slash Cheetor: he pees in the dark!

+ Slapper: I guess Sky Byte is his pimp?

+ Spastic: ...I'm not even touching this one. Although Hasbro did change his name to "Over-Run" for non-US English markets... not that it matters much cos this toy was never released here anyway.

 

...then there's a name that's perfectly fine but Hasbro refuses to use: SLAG. Yes it can be a slang synonym for "slut", but there's this thing about language called CONTEXT. Slag is a Dinobot flamethrower and molten metal is called "slag" -- that's the true meaning of the word! Also, Slag was a VERY popular character in G1 Marvel UK comics where he was called Slag and there was never a problem with it! The objection against calling Slag "Slag" in TF Animated came from Hasbro USA and not any of Hasbro's other Anglophone branches (like Hasbro UK) afaik. That's just a case of epically failing to understand how the English language works...

th_facepalm_primeoptimusprime.jpg

 

P.S.: mille quingenti octoginta Transformeri habeo

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