Forum - View topicAnime Names?
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philg
 Posts: 193 |
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Why are some anime names or titles out of place or just random to the series or movie. Like Love Hina or Rurouni Kenshin or the Pat in Patlabor. Some do explain their title like Azumanga Daioh (in a very strange but funny way) or Peacemaker or Haibane Renmei. I just find that some names seem out of place, but that's probably because they are translated to English exactly which sometimes doesn't make sense. Or in the case with Rurouni Kenshin I haven't actually seen the very first episode where they may have explained the Rurouni part. At the moment I can't think of anymore but there have been many instances where I have wondered where the hell they got their titles from! Right now I've just got a complete mental blank...
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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At least for most of your examples, it's because you simply aren't paying attention or are jumping too quickly to conclusions after seeing only a handful of episodes.
"Rurouni" is a term more or less coined by the manga artist, Nobuhiro Watsuki, as a play on the word "ronin." In the series, Kenshin uses it to describe himself as a wandering swordsman.
The OVAs explain the term in the intro, and the DVD cases for the first two movies have it right on the back. It's a shortened form of Patrol Labor. |
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Arkard
 Posts: 677 Location: Poland |
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The thing you must know is that, when watching anime, or visiting Japan, you will encounter various names, that try to imitate english but simply dont make any sens. As i am sure you know, one language system in Japan is based strongly on english. That means they have ALOT off english vocabulary which sometimes proves to be a real pain in the ass because there are 3 ways to write/pronounce one word. Take water for example: mizu, but a few of the japanese use the onyomi reading: Sui, and dont be surprised if alot people will simply say Woota (water
 ). Anyway, the thing is that the Japanese tend to use english alot in their language, and whats more improtant, connect foreign words to form completely new ones which would never occure in the US. Afuta Sabisu. Do you know what that is?
And mostly, the Japanese tend to connect alot words together or shorten them. Combeya (Convenience Store). Patrol Labor = Patlabor etc etc. They also tend to twist existing words and form completely new ones. Like Rurouni formed from ronin. How do they know what exactly those words mean? I will quote my kanji teacher now (japanese person); We ALWAYS know... So if you happen to encounter a title that just seems unfitting dont jum to conclusions. Think about it. Maybe the answer is hidden in the series. Maybe its a pun of some sort, and maybe its just another sick japanese word twist. Who knows? |
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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And in the case of Love Hina, they live at Hinatasou. And they certainly seem to enjoy their time together there. So Love Hina.
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Japanese, like any language, has adopted foreign words into common usage. It's a common feature of all languages. Japanese has German imports (e.g. arubaito, "part-time job", from Arbeit, "work") , Portuguese imports (e.g. pan, "bread"), and imports from many other languages. However, by far the most popular language to borrow from is English, and the Japanese have gone a step further. Apart from the genuine English imports, they've begun to create neologisms based on imperfect English. This isn't "Engrish" (i.e. bad attempts at actual English) - it's a whole different category of words. These are Japanese words, formed from English roots - and they are fundamentally very strange to English speakers. The collective term in Japanese for Japanese "English" neologisms, is 和製英語, wasei eigo ("Japanese-made English"). Examples of imports from English:
Note how (as Arkard pointed out) the Japanese often shorten imported words - this is a general feature of Japanese, that is applied to all words, including proper names (e.g. Saishuu Heiki Kanojo becomes SaiKano). Examples of wasei eigo:
I'm particularly fond of the last one...
For an excellent example of precisely the sort of pun Arkard is talking about, see my trivia note to the anime series Tactics, which I'll reproduce here for your edification:
- abunai Last edited by abunai on Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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BoygetsfireD
 Posts: 475 Location: earth |
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Arkard
Posts: 677 Location: Poland |
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Abunai: I guess I was reffering more to the GaiRaiGo subsystem. At least that is the term I learned here, at the Japanese Department. As i am sure abunai knows what I am talking about, I will explain that the gairaigo subsystem contains all foreign words (except chinese) used freely in the japanese society. As you may have guessed the gairaigo is dominated mainly by english. But, just like abunai said, and as I wanted to say, the subsystem is common for joining words (english-english, japanese-english) on a basis which would never occure in an english speaking country. Those are the neologisms abunai was talking about, and hence, the ones I wanted to talk about but somehow lost my thoughts in the midts of writing the previous post
I find it really entertaining to look for any sort of words that the Japanese had adapted into their language. So far the funniest word I found out was Noo-Suriibu (come on, guess what it means). |
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Ah.... Rurouni Kenshin is るろうに剣心 in Japanese. If you really want to, るろうに may be counted a "new" term coined by Watsuki-sensei. However... it's really just an abbreviation of 流浪人 (rurounin, "wanderer"). Note the close kinship of this word with 浪人 (rounin, "lordless samurai", the same word that is used today to describe students who've failed their entrance exam as well as people who are out of work). Note also that there is a fundamental difference between 流浪人 and 旅人 (tabibito, "traveller"), in that the latter word implies having some sort of goal, whereas the former implies aimlessness. - abunai |
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