Forum - View topicNon-Japanese accents in anime.
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CoolinaCUP
Posts: 17 |
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Does anyone know of any shows in which the characters speak with non-Japanese accents in the original track? How would one tell? Do they do that in Code Geass?
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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I think that is limited entirely to series with actual foreign voice actors in the original dub like Blood the Last Vampire, Nanoha, Eden of the East etc.
If you mean Japanese spoken with a non-Japanese accent then I can't even imagine how that would sound. |
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Wervyn
 Posts: 14 |
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Oh, this absolutely happens and it is on occasion quite hilarious. The most recent example I can remember watching is Ga Rei Zero, with Michael (the naked guy with the afro who makes all the crazy weapons). He speaks in a stereotypical impression of gaijin Japanese, with emphasis on all the wrong syllables and a literal attention to each kana that ignores the natural cadence of the Japanese language. I don't know how easy it is for a person with no Japanese to distinguish this, but it stands out a lot when you can.
I have not noticed anything like this in Code Geass, though, at least not that I can remember. Not that there weren't different accents, but Japanese dialects vary in different ways than we typically think of accents in English, where distinctions are less often tonal and more often based on unique word choice and conjugations. "And don't even get me started about the French." |
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Kimiko_0
 Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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Didn't Excel Saga's Pedro have a 'foreign' accent?
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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Samurai Champloo features a Dutch guy who speaks very strange Japanese- you can defintiely tell it sounds wrong, since he puts accent on various words where there should be none, and when you hear all the other characters speak it is quite obvious that although all of them speak with accents typical to their region (which is something I would not be able to distinguish at all). I think the guy who did the voice for him was Japanese, all the others non-Japanese characters were done by Japanese people as well.
I think it comes with listening to a lot of Japanese, I speak only a little bit, but even though I think at some point it became easier to distinguish between different 'accents' and ways of speaking, and 'foreign' accent is really easy to pick up on, since very often characters also use wrong grammar (by that I mean- wrong level of politeness). It's like watching a film in English lets say, you defintiely hear the difference between British accent of American accent, or English spoken by a foreigner. Even for a non native speaker of English it is something that is more easily picked up on when you listen to more and more of the language. |
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bahumut75
 Posts: 65 Location: Rochester, NY |
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Yea, Pedro definitely speaks a rather exaggeratedly bad version of Japanese 
Like Wervyn said, it might be easy to pick out if you speak some Japanese. I've certainly noticed it in series other than Excel Saga, but for the most part its intentionally done for comedic effect, at least in the series that I've seen. |
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Skylark
 Posts: 827 Location: ORE NO TSHIRT |
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Kaichou wa Maid-sama recently did an episode wherein Usui pretended that he was a foreigner and put on a terrible Japanese accent; again where the flow of the sentence was broken and the pitching was all wrong. It was only briefly used so he wouldn't be exposed, and mostly played up for comedic effect though. Effectively, too; it had me in stitches.
EDIT: Kaichou wa Maid-sama not Kimi ni Todoke.... T.T |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Oh sure, this is frequent in anime. Foreigners seem to have a larger presence in the stories, nowadays, than they used to. In the old days, non-Japanese were postulated foreigners. Their names were foreign, but their behaviour, speech and cultural mores were completely Japanese.
Nowadays, there are more foreign-as-foreign characters in anime. They're still caricatured -- placing the emphasis on wrong morae in speech, or having stereotypical speech patterns (no, Chinese people speaking Japanese don't actually end every sentence in de aru). In Asobi ni Iku yo, there's Jack, the absurdly named CIA control officer, who does the whole emphasis-on-wrong-syllable thing in a hugely funny way: pronouncing Manami's name "Ma-NAH-mee", instead of "MAH-na-mi", for instance. In Durarara!, there's the black russian working in Russia Sushi, Simon, who also misemphasises Japanese words. When they speak Russian, however, it's equally mangled. Maybe Simon just has a speech impediment? 
Turning to another aspect... it seems to me that there is less attention being paid to regional dialects in Japan, than before. Ten-fifteen years ago, we had anime characters representing local dialects with some quality (e.g. kansai-ben in Mahou Shoutengai Abenobashi and tohoku-ben in Mahoutsukai no Taisetsu na Koto). Now, we have a series like Asobi ni Iku yo taking place on Okinawa -- and pretty much everyone speaks hyōjungo, Standard Japanese. - abunai |
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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And certainly what the British think an "American accent" is (go hard on your R's, say "dammit!" a lot, and try to sound like a character from a 40's movie), is different from what the Japanese think an American accent sounds like (ohh, YEEESS!)-- No, seriously, what accent is Principal Kunou from Ranma trying to aim for?? |
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ArsenicSteel
 Posts: 2370 |
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Japanese love to give some foreigners horrible Japanese pronunciation and flow.
Jason Ozuma in Hajime no Ippo and various foreigners in Detective Conan all get the funny sounding gaijin speak. There is no uniform accent base on country of origin, just plain bad Japanese. |
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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It works both ways I guess, most Americans seems to think that everyone in the UK speaks like the Queen
But funnily enough, wherever the English speaking characters in anime come from, they speak what Id still consider a variation of what Japanese people seem to think is American accent. There is a few American soldiers in Samurai Champloo, and I think I have seen a few other characters speak English in a different shw, cant remember which one now, and they all sounded pretty much the same... But decent enough. I think they did an OK job with the 'english accent' part. |
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DavidShallcross
 Posts: 1008 |
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So, from these postings, it appears there is "stereotypical Chinese" speech and "generic Westerner" speech (in Japanese, I mean). Statistics available on-line suggest that the countries contributing the most foreign residents to Japan are Korea, China, Brazil, and the Philippines. Has anyone noticed stereotypical speech for characters from these countries, other than China?
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Beck has a lot of American characters who speak with different accents in English. If you are listening to the (excellent) English dub and come to a scene in which Koyuki looks confused, switch to the Japanese language track and listen to characters speak in actual English in a variety of mostly accurate accents-it's fun!
I also thought of Ranma and Shampoo, who's Chinese and is introduced with some bad Japanese skills. She's supposed to be a ditz, so I don't think that's supposed to be offensive. The Chinese tourguide at Jusenkyo, HE's considered offensive! 
On inter-Japanese accents: I was so excited the first time I was able to distinguish Kansai-ben from standard Japanese! I've heard people say that Holo in Spice & Wolf is supposed to have a "distinct" accent. I've never seen the show, but I'm curious- as to what type of accent she uses. |
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Not an accent, a dialect. Different concept entirely. Horo speaks an archaic form of Japanese, consistent with her being a fairly ancient supernatural being. Of course, we have to imagine that this is not actual archaic Japanese, but that it corresponds to something similar in the (indubitably) non-Japanese setting. "Archaic Japanese" in anime tends to be pretty theatrical, and not (I am reliably informed) very similar to actual archaic Japanese. Imagine going to a RenFaire -- how many of the people slinging "thees and thous" about actually have a grasp on Elizabethan English grammar? - abunai |
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ArsenicSteel
Posts: 2370 |
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Nope. Although I can only mention two examples; a series of episodes in Detective Conan where 2 of the characters were from Brazil; one spoken fluent Japanese and the other didn't talk. Also Michiko to Hachin the entire anime seems to take place in Brazil and there are no noticeable stereotypical differences to the dialogue, unlike some Chinese characters. About Holo(EDIT:had an R there. Guess I was tired) her distinct speech is more of a honory or high court way of speech. Which is just another way to flaunts herself being above Lawrence. Last edited by ArsenicSteel on Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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