Forum - View topicLearning Japanese for anime perks?
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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I have a lot of reasons for studying Japanese - people, literature, employment, and whatnot. One major bonus I'm just coming into taking advantage of is I care less and less about subtitles which is cool as anime and movies were sort of the "gateway drug" for me.
So I've gotten to wondering if there is a trend out there for people to just learn Japanese for the sake of never having to care about the crutches that are subtitles. There are certainly some more than others dedicated to their hobby and it seems like a logical step. |
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RedSwirl
 Posts: 344 |
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I have a friend who says he's studying Japanese because he likes how musical the language is.
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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I wonder if anyone invests enough time into anime/manga that acquiring the language would be beneficial enough to them though. We always have to deal with some degree of nonsense because of the regional differences, so in eliminating the middleman you have eliminated those issues.
I think it would be a boon to manga reading in particular. You wouldn't be paying as much, there would be no more waiting for licenses, and no extra censorship to deal with. On the other hand while you'd at least have access to DVDs and Blurays available in the Japanese market it's more of a gamble - there will be some stuff that will either never get released here or get released unsatisfactorily. But at least you have another option. So with all the potential benefits of removing the language barrier I wonder if some people would learn if only for the sake of them. |
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SalarymanJoe
 Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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I wouldn't say that I started learning Japanese for anime and manga; I was into martial arts as well as anime and I thought about more technical translations as a (feasible) career. However, it is now about all I use it for. Not great at it but I can get by with most of the stuff I watch or read.
Yes and no. I can get adult (seinen and jousei) manga much more readily and I can read one of my favorite authors, Adachi Mitsuru, by actually buying his books. On the other hand, I pick up a few weekly serials here and there (usually if I am flying somewhere) and I can get exposed to several titles all at once, which is always a mixed bag.
I have access to Japanese audio tracks here on DVD. I can also turn subtitle tracks off. And, the best part - they're half the price of the Japanese releases! No Blu-Ray player for me and even then, the handful of Japanese-only titles (as of now) doesn't warrant me purchasing one, though it does get rid of the region lock prohibition. I still hunt down a lot of Japanese LaserDiscs though. =========================================== Long, boring personal story time:
That was about the same thought I had when I was thirteen or so; getting heavily into anime, especially subtitled anime, was that I could get stuff so much faster if I could understand Japanese. Of course, this was over ten years ago and the anime market was much smaller than it is even now. At the time, it was kind of a what-if and side benefit as I started to learn it. As I got older and kept up with it, I toyed with the idea of being a full time translator/interpreter or journalist with it more than just watching cartoons. Once I was in my first year of college or so, it was merely a hobby in itself, which I used to expand other hobbies (martial arts history, anime/manga, girls) or make some side cash. Things changed in university as they usually do and I found another career and skill set that's more profitable, which means I can just use the moonspeak to enjoy some good comics or cartoons. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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Cool. Why laserdiscs? For the art?
I can think of things like Police Story that got onto laserdisc when Criterion was first releasing titles which since have never been available with the end credit outtakes, I guess there's stuff like that for anime too. |
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Cyan Bloodbane
 Posts: 117 |
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If you're taking a Japanese course in college just for anime...do your sensei a favor and go do something more productive with your/their time.
Nothing crushes a teachers spirit more than knowing that all they trained a weeaboo monkey to do was be able to watch tv shows better. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6871 Location: Kazune City |
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Although keeping the anime interests on the down-low isn't a bad idea. |
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SalarymanJoe
Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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I agree with Zalis and Cyan's points, too. The few classes I took and all of my studies outside of them were focused on the material at hand, not on what cartoons I was going to be watching.
It varies. A lot of the anime I am most interested in came out during, or were ported to, LaserDisc as the high quality audio-video-phile format. It's good to have a fall back option to still be able to get a hold of a product that saw some financial contribution back to the creators but DVDs aren't readily available or the title isn't licensed. A personal perk of mine is getting a hold of titles where LD was the best quality format around at watching them at on that format. Sure, some of them look just as good, if not better, on DVD but you can scale them up so much that they might actually look poor on Blu-Ray. Occasionally I'll run into a title like Bandai Visual's US release of GunBuster, where I found out after I pre-ordered that a piece of music was changed. Never seeing the original, I found some used LDs online and bought them. I watched the DVDs and it all seemed great and then I watched the LDs (different shipping times and schedules) and there was a piece of music changed but it wasn't a big deal in the long run. Or, my current hunt right now, is that ADV's release of Aura Battler Dunbine did so poorly here that the last couple discs will go on auctions for hundreds of dollars by themselves (excluding the extra hundred or so I would spend on volumes 3 through 10), when I can get the TV series all for $300 on LD? Which makes more sense. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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Hmm if it is old enough to have an LD release it should benefit from remastering at higher resolutions. Of course I suppose that doesn't stop anyone from releasing upscales but that's a problem more commonplace with modern anime AFAIK. Even without HD video a Bluray could still at least supply lossless audio and a much higher bitrate than anything DVD could offer.
I wonder if there's any way to encode your analog LDs to a digital file? You probably heard about Pioneer's finishing their production of LD players a whole 30 years after the tech was introduced! ---- When it comes to diehard anime fans I suppose there's a stigma for being a social retard and/or just being voluntarily obnoxious. That's probably a reputation that's been well earned. I know way better than to ask x Japanese lady about what she thought of x obscure Go Nagai OVA but I recently got cheeky and thought perhaps someone was familiar with the (in)famous cult classic Sister Street Fighter. Turned out kinda but not really. I get the impression that some shadow court sentenced all the oldschool chambara fans in a 500 mile radius to a life of solitude in a mountain somewhere. Oh well. @Cyan: -insert joke w/Dragon Orb here- I disagree; in my experience nothing crushes a teacher's spirit more than someone with a critical opinion. It turns out that there's no such thing as stupid questions, there's just people who are stupefied by questions. |
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RedSwirl
Posts: 344 |
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By the way, even though I had the choice of Japnaese, I took German in college because I had already spent two years living in Germany and an additional two taking it in high school.
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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Nope, I would never take to learning the language just for the sake of watching anime. It's a whole huge world out there, and Japan is just one small part of it, I wouldn't devote all my attention to one single foreign culture like that, especially just to watch some shows and read some books that I can already get translated anyways.
I'm just not much of a Japanophile. I appreciate the culture, the language, and the entertainment; but I also see a lot of problems with the culture and am interested in a large number of other cultures as well. I wouldn't mind visiting Japan, but if given the option to choose a destination to visit in the world. I freely admit that Japan would not be in the top 10. It's a vast, great world; and while I may enjoy anime, it doesn't dominate my life to the point of choosing what languages or careers I might follow. If I was to pick a language, I'd probably go with Spanish, French or Italian. Spanish is useful in the US today, and French isn't bad to have in MN either since businesses around here often deal with french-canadian people and companies. I've always loved Italy and the language, so that would be my inspiration there. Otherwise, I might go with one of the fading languages, or languages of older cultures that are fading in to history, especially Native American languages. Dutch or other scandinavian languages have some appeal as well since most of my ancestry can be traced to that region and my last name itself is Dutch. Heck, even sign language has some appeal since it can be so useful and a lifesaver for those who rely on it, even if they are few and far between. So really, learning Japanese is actually nowhere near the top of my list, and watching anime and reading manga is really just about the only benefit doing so would provide. That's just not enough to make it any sort of priority for me. |
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Mushi-Man
 Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
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I've always thought about learning a little bit of Japanese. I wouldn't take collage courses over it or anything, but just a little bit. It would mainly just be for fun, nothing big or anything, just enough to know how to say "Were is the Bathroom" and other such classics of foreign language.
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grave_digger18
 Posts: 106 Location: quebec city |
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I wouldnt normally take japanese courses simply for anime and manga but it seems like the stars are aligning in just the right position. I got to take 2 language courses for my major and there is this great 6 credit intensive offered in the summer...
and i know it'll prob be easier to take spanish or german but i already speak 4 languages (english, french, hebrew czech) so i'm looking for something different, not to mention that it'll go well with my martial arts courses |
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eyeresist
 Posts: 995 Location: a 320x240 resolution igloo (Sydney) |
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I'm sure many long-term anime fans have contemplated learning Japanese, especially since just watching passively leads to picking up a few basic terms. For myself, I did buy a second-hand book on learning Japanese, even though I have NO gift for learning languages (I would never even think about learning the written language!). The introductory chapters were interesting and useful.
I also have a Japanese/English dictionary which comes in handy occasionally, when I want to clarify a particular word, or when I sense (usually correctly) that the subtitles have been less than true to their source. |
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TheresaJayne
 Posts: 70 Location: UK Berkshire |
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I definately am trying to learn how to speak japanese so that i can partake in the anime without the "mis" translation of someone else interpreting it for me, I also do like the culture and deep down feel that if more countries had a similar outlook the world would be a better place.
There is an issue with the Xenophobia the country has at the moment as well as the older generations not accepting of Gays and such even when lots of anime have characters that would be hated by older generations. I tried a lesson and found the memorisation of Hiragana hard, Kata Kana even harder. The problem is it was so boring, what we need is a Japanese speaker to run a course aimed at Anime watchers so that we can learn by watching anime, so we hear a sequence on anime clips and then have the explanation. If there was one thing i wish that the fansubbers would put in, would be exact translation subs, so that you can listen to the line and read the exact translation so you know what that no in the middle of Zero No Tsukaima actually means etc. I would find that a really helpful way to learn. |
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