Daizenshuu EX

I'm really confused as to this. I've heard people use the word 'zenkai' a lot, describing Cell returning from a single cell, and so forth. So what the hell does it exactly mean?

Thanks in advance!

Power-ups from fighting. Usually referred only to the boost gained by a Saiyan experiencing a near-death experience.

EDIT: That is, as EX explains in his next post, an English-based fan terminology to describe said power-up.

"Zenkai" is a word in DB fandom that's exclusively popped up in English-speaking fandom (mostly forums) in only the last year or so. While the word is being used somewhat correctly, it is seen absolutely *nowhere* in this context in either the original manga or even official publications (as far as I can tell, anyway).

There is the verb 全開する zenkai suru (pre-conjugation) that literally means to "recover completely" (such as your health). There's also the noun zenkai that literally means "last time".

Of course, we have the song entitled "Detekoi Tobikiri ZENKAI Pawâ!" (the 1st DBZ TV ending theme)... but the word in said song title is written out in capital Roman letters. And even Julian chooses not to "translate" it, though in the lyrics, he does note:


The word in its use to refer to someone... say, a Saiya-jin... gaining a "power-up" after a near-death experience...

OK, I'm going to get in some trouble for saying this, but it's one of those terms that... (Argh, here we go...) dubbies use along with things like "ascend" for some reason. I don't know if it's because there's such a giant pool of feces out there for DBZ information and it all tends to get scrambled together in a perpetual cycle of stolen material, or what. But dem's the breaks.

So does this word make sense? Sorta. Should it be used in this sense? Eeeehhh.... . I don't think it's a good idea for fans to keep creating additional fan-given names for things. I realize that's somewhat hypocritical coming from someone who basically grew up with their fandom in the prime-time for fan-given names, but we're trying to grow past that. I understand that there needs to be (well, maybe "could be"... "need" is a very important-sounding word) something to describe something so easily.

I dunno. It just reminds me of illiterate kids pretending they know something in Japanese when they really don't. But I'm a jerk. What do I know?

EDIT: Oh. I totally forgot to mention that my biggest problem is the use of a verb as a noun.

Thanks a lot, Dayspring and VegettoEX. I can now die happy knowing that I know what 'zenkai' means.

It's been around much longer than that. I first found it during one of my internet searches for DB information back before the Android Saga had started. Maybe it's because I'm lazy, but I personally like being able to write "Zenkai" instead of "Near death Saiya-jin power-up".

But that's exactly what it comes down to: laziness. We KNOW that's not what Zenkai means, but we use it because it's conveniant.

It's essentially the same as when immigrants came to North America and we gave them new last names since the original names were too difficult to pronounce. Also, Zenkai only became popularly used- that is, more widespread- fairly recently despite its age. Look at these boards for an example: when the boards opened 2 years ago, we wrote them out as "near-deaths", a significantly better shortening, yet now we've all switched over.

Don't worry guys, I'll remain the last beacon of hope and vow to never use zenkai!

Heh heh.

I've always referred to a Saiyan's ability to become stronger after a near death experience as "Saiyan healing". I like that term because Saiyans don't just get stronger from "near-deaths" but lesser damage as well (at least that's what I've come to believe from Vegeta's "Saiyans become stronger after every battle" and Goku's explanation to Gohan in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber)