A weekly look into American otaku culture

So you can combine the words Web and Log to make “Blog.” Can you combine Ichigo and OVA to make “Go’VA?”

Fortunately, most titles in anime and manga are already written in English, so you don’t often have to bother with translating something as important and marketable as that. But every once in a while, there’s a title that’s so Japanese that it boggles the mind just how many different translations one can make from it. It seems like a lot of the time the original creator of the series will chose a English translation to settle it once and for all. Some of them are pretty good. “Saishuuheiki Kanojo (SaiKano)” translates to “Ultimate Weapon Girlfriend”, but the Japanese company chose a better title be calling it “She, the Ultimate Weapon.” Some of them are very weird, like Sunrise’s decision to call it “My HiME.” But this new series that premiered last night shows how sometimes Japanese really don’t know English.

It’s called, “Kore ga Watashi no Goshujin-sama.” Now, I’m not fluent in Japanese, but I study the first chapter of my “Teach Yourself Japanese” book many times over. It was all about introductions. So I can clearly understand that this title is a simple sentence in which a maid is introducing her master to whoever she’s talking to. The fact that it starts off with “Kore ga” implies that her master is standing next to her as she is saying this. When it comes to understanding Japanese, the situation is very key. Suppose that you are introducing yourself and your wife to someone. The English way of doing so would be “Hello, my name is —–, and this is my wife, —–.” And so my translation of the title to traditional English is “And This is My Master.”

So why does everyone keep on calling the show “He is My Master”? You don’t introduce your wife by saying “She is my wife” when she’s standing right next to you! You have to present her as a foreign entity that then you identify as being human, female, and your spouse. So I’m about ready to bitch about how all these people have the name wrong until I found out the fricken Japanese named it this! (-_-)

The reason why we make fun of the Japanese and “Engrish” is because they feel like they mastered the language and they plaster is all over their country. But it just doesn’t work. If they want to appeal to Americans, stop being so nationalistic and have a native English speaker handle the translation. True, it’s just a simple mistake that might not have an affect on the series at all. But still, you can’t help feeling annoyed that something was very unnecessary lost in translation.

[The Blogger notes that it is quite hypocritical to be bitching about the Japanese’s poor English when his own could be better ]