Giving info so as not to see things out of control. This one there's a problem, the only kanji there are "状" "気", the others are Katakana (All of エクトプラズム) and hiragana (The の-particle indicating the relationship).
Looking at the meaning of individual Kanji is a helpful tool to find the intent of the phrase because many words share the same reading, it's a necessity depending on the case (It's not unusual for you to ask a teacher the meaning of some word and they request to know the kanji because the kanji will carry the intended meaning).
There are cases in which some extraordinary meaning is given by joining various kanji together, so looking at common usage is also sometimes a necessity (Which is why some stuff is always case by case, I'll never stop saying this). Also, dividing the kanji and putting them into MTL is not the same as doing the actual kanji meaning research, there is a lot of kanji that have intended meanings in Japanese but that can be used to describe varied English terms.
This is right. Just to explain, "エクトプラズム" is written using Katakana, which is a Japanese syllabary used mostly to describe words originating from outside of Japan, although you'll mostly find it being used to describe English words, like this case. It's written "Ekutopurazumu", which is just ectoplasm
The reason why a lot of TheTenno07's translation gave nonsense was because he was basically separating syllables, some of which have common usage on their own, while others didn't. If they instead used a corresponding word written with Kanji (Such as 幽物質), the results would be vastly different.
Anyway, "エクトプラズム状の気".
"気" is literally
Ki, and as Nullflowerblush stated, these translations were very open to describe it in various ways, even though it's basically a keyword in Dragon Ball, so keeping it as "
Ki" should be enough. The same thing happened with Janemba when statements of him being made of "Evil Ki" were being translated to "Evil Thoughts" or "Evil Spirits", even though the word already has enough context in DB to know what it means (Basically spiritual energy, has always been and I the Moro Arc even had a point in discussing this).
"状" does mean "Shape/appearance/form/state", so something akin to "Ectoplasm-shaped" isn't really wrong.
But yes, if you decide to translate it as "Ki of Ectoplasm-shape" or "Ectoplasm-state of Ki" wouldn't change that it's stating it's something made of Ki that is taking some form, so it's just Ki-control, but the Ki looks like a white ghost that explodes.
In fact, the following text makes that very clear:
"この気は自分で意思を持っており、またゴテンクスの命令に従って自由自在に動く。ゴテンクスは、この気をオバケと呼んでいた。"
"This
Ki possesses a will of its own and moves completely in control of Gotenks' commands. Gotenks called this
Ki a Ghost (Obake). "
The text constantly describes the attack by stating it's basically just
Ki, they are ghosts made out of
Ki. With this context, all the other images say the same.
The stuff from "Super Exciting Guide and Daizenshuu 4"
"気のオバケ" is "Ghost of
Ki". "気のお化け" is the same, it's just written with Hiragana and Kanji instead of Katakana.
In fact, I think that "Daizenshuu 2" stating "オバケのようなエネルギー体" (Ghost-like energy-body) is also evidence for this. "
のような" is used to describe something "seems like" or "looks like" something else. So, it's stating it's an "Energy body that looks like/seems like a Ghost". And, that is it.
The text is just saying that Gotenks has a
Ki attack (Whatever
Ki means in DB) that has a will of its own and follows what Gotenks says, and that
Ki has a shape that looks like a Ghost and Gotenks also calls it a Ghost. That is all.
