Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Do Engrish Titles Only Sometimes Get Corrected For America?
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yaki-udon
Posts: 83 |
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As someone who posts here in Engrish on a regular basis, I'm surprised I haven't been banned yet. But my motto is "making mistakes is the only way to learn a foreign language".
I think katakana is the very reason Engrish exists in the first place. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Not only that, but Robotics;Notes sounds like, well, someone's notes on robotics, or some sort of educational supplement for a robotics class. I first heard of this series looking through the anime section at Fry's Electronics and thought that was what it was, as such a thing wouldn't be out of place at Fry's.
Quite clearly, it takes place after Girls Alpha and before Girls Charlie.
It's a case-by-case basis. For Viz's translation of Bleach, Tite Kubo provides spellings for all of the characters as they're introduced, but I don't know if there's any back-and-forth talk between him and Viz's English-adaptation team. For One Piece, Stephen Paul is allowed to ask any of Eiichiro Oda's editors, but Oda himself seems off-limits. Most recently, Paul asked about possible double meanings of the name of a character introduced a few chapters ago, though I can tell he didn't always have this privilege, as characters' names got retconned a bunch in the previous arc.
Supposedly, Eiichiro Oda has a nice big satisfying explanation for why the treasure is called that when it comes time to show what it is. This was back when he didn't have as good a grasp on English as he does now (and even now, any longer phrase used in the series is taken verbatim from music lyrics, indicating he still doens't have that good a grasp). Still, it is kind of weird to have a series sharing a name with a type of swimsuit. But hey, if you think about it, for fourteen years, it ran in the same manga magazine as a series whose name would translate to "Fishcake." spoiler[(That's Naruto.)] |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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It still is "Horizon On The Middle Of Nowhere" in the UK
That was how it originally went through the BBFC for rating, and the title on the box had to match.
It wasn't actually changed since Mongolian Chop Squad was the original subtitle in Japan. It was even originally released in the US as "BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad". They just dropped the "BECK" for the... fourth completed series release, presumably for legal reasons.
That actually annoyed me since I didn't see the point. I always felt the dichotomy was intentional, and worked even if it wasn't.
"Miniskirt Space Pirates" is presumably a reference to "Miniskirt Police" rather than being specically about fanservice, and it the name of the original novel. The anime title of Mouretsu [space] Pirates came with the English translation of "Bodacious" from early on, even before it was licensed.
When buzz first started up about it I couldn't help every time I saw the title flashing back to a pair of CHristian scifi novels from my childhood titled "Operation Titan" and "Assault on Omega 4"
I maintain that it should be called "My Little Sister Can't Be This Demonic!"
I've seen the formation elsewhere; most notably "No nipslip, no life!" and similar from Sakurasou.
Canonically I believe it is "Charcoal Feather Federation"; you see "cff" in a few places.
Isn't this a case where the Japanese pronunciation is based on a language other than English? Like how Evangelion has a hard "g" (as in the Greek), unlike the English word Evangelist which was probably filtered through Latin.
Tweeny Witches was attached to the show from the beginning, long before it was licensed. I even wrote Tweeny Witches on the discs I burned the (unwatched) fansubs to.
It's been a long time since I watched it (in part because the DVDs are unsubbed and the fansubs are lost somewhere in the same dusty pile as the above), but doesn't she in effect become his surrogate daughter and inherit his role, if nothing else?
On that subject, where the heck did "Origin: Spirits of the Past" come from? |
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hyojodoji
Posts: 585 |
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Yes, that is one of cases where Japanese people adopt the pronunciation of a Western term which is different from that of the Anglicised version when they mention a term which is related to continental European (and Mediterranean islands') culture. In the Japanese edition of Pioneers in Mathematics, the translator Matsu'ura Shunsuke, who is a scholar of philosophy of science, transliterated the famous exclamation attributed to Archimedes as 'エウレーカ 〔/eureːka/〕'. In the passages about the Greek mythological character Europe in the Japanese book 『ギリシア神話を学ぶ人のために』 (For People Who Study Greek Mythology), the author Takahashi Hiroyuki, who is a scholar of ancient Greek literature, wrote, 'エウローぺー 〔/euroːpeː/〕.' |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I wouldn't say she inherits his role. After the spoiler[explosion on the train] Chiko spends much of her time spoiler[looking for the supposedly dead Nijuu Mensou]. She forms "The Detective Girls" with her maid and her friend but doesn't become a thief. Also, as I said originally, she's an heiress but not his heiress. |
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russ869
Posts: 424 |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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And Blame!! (Which, while not a swear word, is most certainly NOT about encouraging people to dramatically blame other people.)
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9879 Location: Virginia |
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When Bastard!! came out on VHS in the US, one magazine reviewer stated something to the effect that "he literally is a bastard." I may have it a bit off but he used the word literally. Needless to say, I watched the whole show and no where do they discuss his parents including the presence or absence of a marriage.
 Perhaps his status was not that literal.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11438 |
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A little late to the party, but while "bodacious" may have been picked up by surfers and "An Officer and a Gentleman," in the 80s, it's been around since the early 19th century and was coined in the Southern US, where it can still be heard today. Most likely a blend of bold and audacious.
Translations of the title Ai no Kusabi are always fun because rather than going by what's written, people seem to be guessing from what they hear and mistake the Ai (間) for love. So we get Wedge of Interval, The Space Between, Love Wedge (the Italian picked this one up), and Ties of Love. However, rather than translating each word separately, dictionaries tell me the title (間の楔) is actually a term for a type of wedge that holds things together (e.g. a nail or a doorstop), or a bond or tie. Which makes a lot more sense. Probably best to just stick with the Japanese title. 
Night Head Genesis is another one I like. Since Night Head refers to the supposed 70% of our brains we don't use (which isn't even true, but never mind), I think they were going for something like Dormant Brain. Which I guess wouldn't have made it any better... |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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Ah, Akuma no Riddle. I honestly can't believe that Funimation went with the nonsenical, almost physically painful Engrish title, but I like how Seven Seas recreated the original Japanese release's putting both titles on the cover, with "Akuma no Riddle" clearly being the main one.
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SverreMunthe
Posts: 1 |
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I know it's an old tread, but I think it's interesting so I'm reopening it.
ハヤテのごとく is translated to Hayate the Combat Butler, but ごとく, or rather 五徳 if it was written in Kanji (I don't understand why it isn't) means "The Five Virtues" or a bit sloppy translated "A Well Behaved Gentleman", which, for everyone who's seen the series will have to agree (right?) is a much better characterisation of Hayate. So, why has it been translated like this? ごとく has only 2 meanings, as I know, "equal, like, as etc." 「如く」 and "tripod, family crest and five virtues" 「五徳」. Is there a way this can be "mistranslated" into "Combat Butler"? |
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