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classicalzawa wrote:

Some of my favorite stupid English titles?

Infinite Ryvius

You can't blame the translators or poor English skills among Japanese speakers for that one (as with the other three), as it's a pretty straightforward translation of the Japanese title "Mugen no Ryvius." Heck, it could've been worse if they'd gone with the more literal "Infinity's Ryvius."

And coincidentally, I just rewatched that show via the reasonably decent Vancouver dub, as well...

I'm rooting for Kaguya. I got a chance to see it, and it really stands out. For one, it's a very feminine movie, about a girl, her feelings and why they matter. I don't know what Song of the Sea is about, but all the other animated movies are about boys coming-of-age. Ditto for all the Best Picture nominees, which are all about men or boys (it could have been called "Childhood" and featured the sister as much as the boy. Would have been just as incredible).
Kaguya was also beautifully hand animated, which is such a rare thing these days. It's watercolor aesthetic is sophisticated, and matches its themes of family, life and death so well. It was just an overall emotionally mature movie, and featured the parents as much as the girl to emphasize the theme of the guesswork in parenting, which should really appeal to those older Oscar voters. I hope it does.

Big Hero 6 was a huge disappointment. Everything about it was generic and forgettable, especially the overdone superhero theme. I'll be upset if it wins just because Disney made it. I haven't seen Dragon, but I've heard it at least has some good storytelling chops. Boxtrolls looks amazing (and the Academy seems to like stop motion, seeing how Wallace and Grommit won Best Short), but I've heard it's story isn't that great. So go, Kaguya!

Testament of New Sister Devil is the most awkwardly titled anime of Winter 2015, but I think Dog Days" has the weirdest punctuation.

Justin Sevakis wrote:

This person may or may not actually have a decent grasp of English, but often they think they do, and they might ignore everybody's advice and come up with something that's basically the grammatical equivalent of a 3-year-old pounding on a QWERTY keyboard.

Attack on Titan
instead of
Attack on the Titans

I understand that Japanese has no concept of articles (like, they don't exist in the language) and frequently blurs the distinction between singular and plural (if more than one is understood from the context, there's no need for -tachi), but one "the" and an "s" would have made the meaning a lot clearer. Oh, well.

Last edited by GATSU on Fri Jan 23, 2015 3:49 pm; edited 1 time in total

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However, I can say that this year, Takahata actually has a pretty decent shot.

Yeah, I think we're in agreement. I actually was one of the few people who didn't believe it was going to get in for the same reasons Justin listed. That, and while I liked the movie, it takes forever to get to the pay-off, and you still feel empty with that ending. [I mean, it's all well and good that Kaguya 'phoned home', but what about her parents? What the hell did they go through all that crap of raising her for? Don't they at least get a happy ending, too?] But the voters decided to spite my horse, Giovanni's Island, which, stylistically and story-wise, is actually closer to what they would pick. But, they pulled a Beauty and the Beast-type coup on it, and shut it out.

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simply being associated with Studio Ghibli will earn him some brownie points,

Ghibli has nothing to do with it, or Poppy Hill would've gotten in, too. He had the fortune of competing in a really weak year. Don't care what anyone else says, The Lego Movie's a friggin' toy commercial, and the voters just simply called Warner on it. I mean, if it were eligible back then, would you give the 80s Transformers movie an Oscar? It's a decent tie-in to the show, and great nostalgia for older fans, but it doesn't stand on its own, and is still basically there to get you to continue buying into the product and watching the new series.

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Is Princess Kaguya a lock? Hardly. Song of the Sea, also a GKIDS release, has just as good of a chance.

No, it doesn't. It looks like effing Windwaker the movie. The only threat to Kaguya is Big Hero 6. And the voters hate anime, so they probably don't care about a film which makes nods to anime. [So why did it get in? See my above rant about Giovanni's Island.]
Plus, Kaguya has been the best-received of the bunch by audiences and critics.

unitmikey: Kaguya's coming to home vid in a month, so...

omiya:

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Did any Satoshi Kon movies get the minimum number of screenings to be eligible to be nominated for an Academy Award?

Yes, but, again, the voters hate anime, and Dreamworks and Sony hate campaigning for anime. Because crap like The Spirits Within and Shark Tale is so much more worthy of being honored. Rolling Eyes

Shay: Dragon 2's not even going to be considered past a nomination, because no one gives a fark about DWA, anymore, including DWA. And Boxtrolls just looks like a really lazy rejected Saturday morning cartoon idea that people are only giving a pity vote to, because of Laika's other stuff.

unready wrote:

Attack on Titan
instead of
Attack on the Titans

Yyyyup. The first time I read that title, I envisioned a sci-fi series set on one of Saturn's moons.

I just had to say, I disagree. It was absolutely not a weak year for movies whatsoever. There was so much great stuff for tons of different tastes. Birdman, Gone Girl, Whiplash, Nightcrawler, Grand Budapest Hotel, Boyhood, Days of Future Past, Interstellar, Edge of Tomorrow, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Fault in Our Stars, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, How to Train Your Dragon 2, you already mentioned Kaguya and Song of the Sea, and there's plenty more. It was a great year for film.

I am a pessimist and think that Big Hero 6 will win best animated picture solely because it has Disney's name on it (it is a popularity contest), but I am at least happy Kaguya got a nod.

Haven't seen Kaguya, but I plan to. Honestly, though, I'm more excited for Song of the Sea.

Greg Aubry wrote:

unready wrote:

Attack on Titan
instead of
Attack on the Titans

Yyyyup. The first time I read that title, I envisioned a sci-fi series set on one of Saturn's moons.

Same here. For the longest time I thought it was about large aliens attacking a human colony on Saturn's moon.

Kiddy Grade has a rather suspect title for English users, and let's not forget ChäoS;HEAd. I can't decide if the umlaut or the semicolon bothers me more.

Localized names that somewhat miff me:
- Demon King Daimao (Original being "Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao")

This is literally the same exact thing that native english speakers make fun of japanese for (Literally repeating the name but in a different language) but we decide to go ahead and ignore the double standard. It's a shame for names like these because there's so much meaning behind the title name. There are avenues like "The Demon King/Overlord in the Back Row" or "The Demon King in the Far Back"

- Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts (Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu)

Similar problem as above. Is saying "Idiots" a taboo thing? Doesn't using Baka in the name only help reinforce the negative weeaboo/japanophile/wapanese aspects of how the anime viewing culture is STILL perceived? What's wrong direct translations? ("Idiots, Tests, and Summoned Beasts" or replace idiots into Baka if you're so high strung about it)

Then there are wacky titles like "asobi ni iku yo!" that shay guy mentioned before that look like they were ripped off the early days of mangagamer or something.

The reason why they irritate me so is because we then get shows like watamote and anohana which are done literally or gracefully. If anything, the fact the cover for watamote having the entire name translated derives a few chuckles from me as it perfectly encompasses how absurd these light novel names are becoming, and fantastic discussion topics for those less aware about the medium.

There's a reason for my irritation besides watching content get lost in translation (being equally fluent in Korean, Japanese and English is ESPECIALLY enjoyable). When I have to discuss titles like these outside of forum communities and actually verbalize it, I simply neglect to mention it because it just sounds stupid saying it..... until it comes back to bite me and someone inquires about them out of pure curiousity...

Last edited by Paiprince on Fri Jan 23, 2015 4:26 pm; edited 1 time in total

Another recent case of being lost in translation: Hataraku Maou-sama! becoming The Devil is a Part-Timer!. I guess Working Demon Lord doesn't really get that oomph to Westerners.

There's also Working!! which got changed to Wagnaria!! but this is because of legal reasons with the former already copyrighted by a different property.

Interesting enough, if you try to look back and think about classic titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Mobile Suit Gundam, they don't much sense for native English speakers. English wasn't my first language so a lot of anime titles didn't sound illogical to me in hindsight. Rolling Eyes

ANN's very own Justin Sevakis wrote:

I once asked a Japanese teacher how the hell you can tell what someone's name is by looking at how it's written, and her answer was, "you ask them." I can only imagine how well THAT works when you're sitting in a waiting room.

Not only that almost all kanji characters have multiple, everyday readings (some have just on'yomi reading, some kokuji have only kun'yomi reading), but there's also ateji (kanjis used for their phonetics only, with no regard for the meaning, e.g.: 煙草, 'tabacco'), gikun (a combination of kanji used for their meaning and are read/pronounced is a special way, e.g.: 今朝, 'this morning'), special combinations (Common surname is 小鳥遊, 'kotori-asobi,' can be read as 'takanashi'). Add to that the nanori (name reading), which is basically old and disused ways to read kanji (希, 'hope,' usually read as 'ki,' 'ke,' or 'mare.' As a given name it can be read as 'nozomi' for females, 'nozomu' for males). Lastly, with the globalization, a new, unique reading can be given by the parents (花, 'hana,' flower. Can be given as a given name with the reading フラワー 'fu-ra-wā')

All that is the reason why in almost all official, and legally-binding, documents, there's a small line for the rubī characters (hiragana and katakana). The problem is for the end-user, such as viewers on TV, who can see the kanji only, without the rubī).

That can, and has, create misspelling and misreading of a lot of Japanese names.

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For instance they used the wrong master tape, the packaging fell apart, or the sales were better than expected and they decided to dub said series and they offered a trade in program people who bought the sub only disks.

Or, in the case of Animeigo's Kimagure Orange Road TV series box set release, Woodhead left out the opening and closings altogether in the hopes that fans wouldn't notice or care. Rolling Eyes

What a rude awakening he was in for.

I don't know what he did with those defective discs in the exchange program, but chances are good they ended up being re-released in individual volumes.

unready wrote:

Attack on Titan
instead of
Attack on the Titans

Honestly, I think "Attack of the Titans" might be the best translation.

Paiprince wrote:

There's also Working!! which got changed to Wagnaria!! but this is because of legal reasons with the former already copyrighted by a different property.

And also Googling reasons.

Shay Guy wrote:

unready wrote:

Attack on Titan
instead of
Attack on the Titans

Honestly, I think "Attack of the Titans" might be the best translation.

If you translate "no" as possessive, then the full translation would be Titans of the Attack, which is worse Engrish than Attack on Titan. It's the titans that are getting attacked, not the ones doing the attacking.

"Attack of the Titans" would be "Kyojin no Shingeki."

classicalzawa wrote:

Some of my favorite stupid English titles?

Tweeny Witches
Angel Beats!
Martian Sucessor Nadesico (ok, Nadesico is the name of the space ship, but the other two words? Useless, except to imply it takes place in space)

Actually don't really see anything stupid about any of them.

Tweeny Witches is a fairly clever twist on "teeny" (because the girls are pretty small in the series) tweaked for their ages.

Angel Beats! - Okay, you can legitimately argue about the exclamation point, but the otherwise the name is very fitting with a very spoilerish double-meaning. (Major spoiler follows: spoiler[It actually refers to the fact that the girl commonly called Angel literally has the heart of the male lead beating in her chest due to an organ transplant.] That's one of the defining story element of the whole series.)

Martian Successor Nadesico - Well, Nadesico was the ship, it did have multiple characters on it who were originally from Mars, and its existence was due to battles that started on Mars. Seems very fitting, even clever, to me.

Yeah, Bleach is one of those that I always wondered about. A couple of other series names that I always thought made little sense were Blue Gender and Tears to Tiara. For names that make little grammatical sense, there's always Towards the Terra and the infamous Chrno Crusade (thankfully corrected for the English release!) and Brain-Powerd (also thankfully corrected for English release).

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