Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Are Official Names For Anime And Manga Developed?
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 943 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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I expect in that case, someone in the production who (more-or-less) speaks English just came up with that as a direct translation of "koe no katachi", either not knowing (or caring) that it sounds pretty awkward in English, or that the manga already had "A Silent Voice" as its official English title, and put it in the title cards in the film. Meanwhile, marketing and distribution in the English-speaking world continue to use "A Silent Voice"; apparently able to either convince or ignore whoever said it should be "The Shape of Voice", which remains in the film because it'd too much effort and expense to change that when probably only half the English audience are even that bothered by it.
Probably the first episode or two (or at least the credits/title cards) were already finished. If working from the finished product, yes it is quite a bit of effort to adjust the text and not have it look out of place. If working from the original materials it's less difficult, but still involves re-rendering the whole thing. Either way, generally more trouble than it's really worth, when the Japanese fandom doesn't know or care and the English fandom is largely used to title cards not exactly matching official English titles.
Also, in some cases the decision is made to stick with the Japanese title (or a common abbreviation thereof) even when a reasonable and official (from the Japanese end) English title exists because it's already gained enough popularity with the English-speaking fandom that the original title does sell it better. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2117 |
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Well, on the other hand, sir, you have peaked my curiosity... |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2482 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Its title on US Netflix is “Atelier”, which is classier, perhaps more so than the show deserves. It’s a j-drama about a “textile otaku” who gets her first job at a high-fashion bespoke lingerie company. Pretty good, TBH. But don’t call it “Underwear”. |
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nargun
Posts: 930 |
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The japanese title for little witch academia is リトル ウィッチ アカデミア, Ritoru Witchi Akademia, not 小さい魔女学園. The japanese title for Diabolik Lovers is ディアボリックラヴァーズ, Diaborikku Ravāzu, not... 魔人恋人 or whatever. This may go some distance to explaining why the licensors made the choices they did. |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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I generally ignore the American titles and use the Japanese ones. In cases where the English title is actually part of the Japanese series, like Hagane no Renkinjutsushi/Fullmetal Alchemist and Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan then the English title is fine, but if it's a clear name change like Detective Conan > Case Closed or Candidate for Goddess > Pilot Candidate, I generally ignore them.
But then there's weird cases where the slang fan name for the series is used as the official American title, like Oreimo and Haganai. I mean, sure, we call it that, but for the official American branch to use that name for a release seems a bit lazy. -Stuart Smith |
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luisedgarf
Posts: 669 Location: Guadalajara, Mexico |
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You don't get it: Both names in the Spanish dubs are kept in English even in the Spanish dub, even if the names of both series can be easily translated to Spanish effortlessly. |
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Zendervai
 Posts: 201 |
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In the case of Bakemonogatari, it's actually a pretty good thing they didn't just translate the title. Because while you can get Monstory out of that, the future titles vacillate between puns that are much more difficult to translate and titles that aren't puns at all. (Nekomonogatari is not a pun. It just means Cat Story.) If you don't translate the title, you get a really distinctly titled series that stands out, but if you do translate the titles you get a bunch of really generic titles or weird puns that don't work very well. Because that's the other thing. Sometimes not translating the title gives you something that, while a non-Japanese speaker won't know what it means, will result in something that stands out and is immediately recognizable. And other times, you get the official English title, and it's really obvious something went wrong on a very fundamental level. Like, Erementar Gerad is very, very obviously supposed to be Elemental Gelade. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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To be fair, "To-Love-Ru," as a phrase, is completely meaningless in English too until it's explained. I always found that case to be pretty amusing in that, because it's a pun on two English words, the author is convinced any English speaker will understand it immediately.
I don't know anything about how the title for Cat Planet Cuties came about, but I do remember mention on this site years back that Bodacious Space Pirates WAS because the Japanese rights owners demanded they call it that. The word "bodacious" does not necessarily have to relate to attractiveness, though it most commonly is used in such a context. So technically, if they mean "bodacious" as an alternative to "awesome" or "amazing," they are correct. They just don't realize that not only has the word "bodacious" become rare almost 30 years ago, they don't get the connotations behind it. (Still better than a sighting of the word "hullabaloo," which went out of vogue over a hundred years ago.)
Perhaps on the off-chance that they'll listen to suggestions from the Anglosphere for once.
I wouldn't have had ANY inkling that was the premise of the series just looking at that promotional image. My impression would've been another soap opera kind of show that's mostly set inside a fabulous mansion, like a Japanese Dallas, especially as the mannequins don't stand out much. |
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GracieLizzy
 Posts: 551 Location: Sunderland, England, UK |
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I have only just now gotten that pun thanks to these posts. I mean I'm not a To-Love-Ru fan so I never really thought about it but it done that "Once you see it, you can't unsee it" thing. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 943 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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For reasons I mentioned in my previous post, I'm generally okay with them doing that. In the case of Oreimo in particular, it's definitely a better choice than translating the full title to "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute", which makes it sound worse than it actually is, or keeping the full title in Japanese, which is just daft. |
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Lactobacillus yogurti
 Posts: 852 Location: Latin America |
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Quick, stupid question. Where were they dubbed, Spain or Mexico? |
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kgw
 Posts: 1184 Location: Spain, EU |
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It's strange, most of fans use to complain "Oh, why did you translate this beautiful Japanese title" than "Random English words! I cannot anymore! Speak this country's beautiful language!"
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Oh, they're still doing that. They're just now mostly in the realm of either the hardest of the hardcore or the people just getting into anime (and maybe manga) and are excited with the Japanese-ness of it all. I mean you still also have the people who believe anime and manga should never be translated at all and that anyone who wants to watch or view them should go learn the Japanese language. (I knew one such person...who subsequently had to eat those words after he got a C in Japanese I and wound up failing Japanese II. After that, well, he stopped being into anything Japanese.) |
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belvadeer
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Not surprising. The Japanese come up with weird English because they simply like how it sounds when they say it aloud. They generally have no idea what most English words mean due to their unwillingness to actually learn the language. XD |
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scrwbll19
Posts: 87 |
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Ultimately, the problem is that certain things just do not translate well because languages and cultures. All words have certain cultural baggage with them that do not get fully carried over into the translated language. However, things like titles, poems, names, metaphors, alliteration, figures of speech, etc. are especially bad for this kind of thing. People who lack the ability to correctly translate but think they do are probably the worst offenders of this, regardless of how well-meaning they are. This applies not just to anime titles but any translated work you can think of.
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