Forum - View topicANNCast - Revenge of the 80s: It's All In The Reflexes
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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In this modern age of Internet civility, I can no longer post that "OMG! IT'S SON GOKOU NOT SON GOKU..." picture, much as I'd want to. But for what it's worth, I intentionally pronounce "Macross" the "Mack Ross" way that they'd say it in Robotech and the dub for Macross Plus. It's how I hear it spoken in the Japanese, save for the theme song where they enunciate each syllable. Even the people involved in that ADV dub pronounce it the way I do when talking about the series, so without checking my interview recordings I want to say that particular pronunciation was something the Japanese insisted upon. There was one guy in the 90s I met back when I was a teenager who'd say it that way instead, and it's telling that I don't actually remember his name or much of what he looks like. Just that he'd pronounce Macross "muh-CROSS," and it did kind of bother me. Perhaps the modern era equivalent of this phenomenon is people who pronounce Naruto "nuh-ROO-to" despite the fact that it's never said that way in either the Japanese or English editions or advertisements. I suppose that's how the word might look on the printed page? But whatever, my Japanese pronunciations are absolutely abysmal--"what do you MEAN I'm not supposed to place higher stress on syllables?!"--so I never take anyone to task for getting something wrong that I can't do right myself. To this day, I pronounce Utena's name "ooo-TEN-uh" instead of the more correct "OOO-tena" so I'm part of the problem. That said, I will gladly say YO, SURRENDER ARTIST, IT'S "FIST" OF THE NORTH STAR, NOT "FIRST."  I do kind of wish that nobody would have listed the items for people to read, since when they're laid out that way all of our justifications go out the window. Justifications are worth a lot. In fact, it's why the recording's as long as it is!
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bravetailor
Posts: 817 |
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I think they're both among Miyazaki's weaker films, but I actually prefer Nausicaa, preach and all. It has a more fully realized world and would set the template for most of the themes Ghibli would play with for the next 2 decades. Castle in the Sky is a crowd pleaser, but in many ways it smacks of typical anime cliches, the stuff you could have seen on TV in the 70s and 80s. I too caught many of these Ghibli films in Toronto this past month, but Only Yesterday is the only one that has gained significantly in stature in my rankings watching them on the big screen. Most Ghibli I have the same opinion as when I first saw them on DVD/VHS. I used to be ambivalent about OY back when I first saw it in the late 90s, but it keeps getting better with repeated viewings.
But does everything have to be emotionally cathartic in a film? Would it really be appropriate to her character or the film's ambiguous nature if Requinni launched into a speech about rape and betrayal of trust? OF COURSE she would try to brush it aside the morning after, that's who she is and more importantly, it's an absolutely believable reaction. Have you ever known a rape victim? Or even someone who's been violated in some way? Many would react JUST LIKE Requinni the morning after. They would want to forget it. The reality is that they shouldn't ignore it, of course, but it's actually a very human and a very common reaction to being violated, especially in cases where it's someone the victim KNOWS. I'm not saying the film handled the entire build up perfectly, but I don't have any problems with them leaving it unresolved. This is not a film about cathartically resolving every issue, it's about asking questions. And in some ways, the film DID show there were consequences. As much as there continues to be at least a spiritual bond between Shiro and Requinni at the end of the film, it is shown quite clearly that he permanently damaged any kind of future relationship they might have had. When they said their goodbyes, you had the feeling Shiro knew he could never come back again. Their relationship was damaged by him and he knew it. She also knew this. And perhaps her own inability to confront this issue out in the open also was a key factor as well. As troublesome as this scene is, by trying to separate it from the film and pretend it doesn't exist, we'd be doing the exact same thing Requinni is doing. This scene SHOULD encourage discussion and it SHOULD be an important point of consideration when analyzing the film. Because it does have a point in the larger scheme of the film--one could argue it is THE pivotal scene in the film that spurs on the final act--and excising the ugly parts of the film from the beautiful parts would be pretty much missing exactly what the film is trying to say. (I should note for the uninformed that although we're discussing this "rape" scene, it should be clearly noted that it is more specifically an "attempted" rape. Shiro does stop himself and immediately gets incapacitated. That said, there's no question that she has been violated.) Last edited by bravetailor on Sat Mar 31, 2012 11:26 am; edited 4 times in total |
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ZenAmako
Posts: 92 |
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The first syllable in "Macross" is pronounced (in Japanese) "mah" like "father." "Muh" is a common mispronunciation. Similarly, a lot of English speakers say "Uh-kira" instead of "Ah-kira." It doesn't help when English dubs botch the pronunciation. In Japanese, each syllable is held with equal length. So when you say "Akira," the "ah," "kee," and "rah" are all held for the same length of time.
To pronounce Utena's name in Japanese, you would say, "ooo teh nah," holding each syllable for an equal amount of time. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Or we can just say Youtena and continue on with our lives. Making a huge deal or pronunciation is grating, especially when people don faux-Japanese inflections when trying to pronounce them which annoys me more than anything. |
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ArsenicSteel
 Posts: 2370 |
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So the importance of pronouncing words correctly only corresponds to English word? Am I also free to pronounce Dieter as dye et ar or Isabelle as Aye Za belly?
This is so freeing. |
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ZenAmako
Posts: 92 |
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If you say "Youtena," I know what you're talking about, and I have had no trouble understanding the podcasts. I was only giving some input on the subject of pronunciation.
I appreciate it when English dubs do get it right, like the dub for FLCL. Last edited by ZenAmako on Sat Mar 31, 2012 12:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Saffire
 Posts: 1255 Location: Iowa, USA |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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I was afraid that it might be patronizing, but I think that some things need to be explained about the differences between Japanese and English prosody.
Japanese is a pitch language with no stress and a strict (C)V or N syllable structure. Which is to say that it can have only syllables of a consonant followed by a vowel or a consisting of a syllabic nasal and does not vary the length or loudness of syllables. (I'm omitting talk of morae since I'm too rusty at this to be up to that) English, by contrast, is a stress-timed language that allows far more baroque syllables (I think it's something like (C)(C)(C)V(V)(C)(C)(C). What this means is that when the Japanese pronounce an English word, the syllables must be adjusted to fit, usually by inserting a /u/ after consonants in clusters or in syllable-final positions (So that nasty /kr/ in Christmas and the /s/ at the end become /kuru/ and /su/) When an English speaker pronounces a Japanese word, the syllable structure isn't a problem, but the transition to a stress language is. Trying to pronounce a Japanese word without any stress feels and sounds wildly unnatural, especially in a sentence. As such, the English speaker will typically apply stress to some of the syllables. This accounts for the vowel distortions. Stress doesn't just change length and loudness, it also changes the realization of vowels. Consider photograph versus photography. The stress pattern, at least in most dialects, changes when -graphy is affixed to photograph. Also consider words like record; it can be a noun or verb depending up where the stress is placed. The word for a now old-fashioned thing for storing music (record) and the word for fixing information in a medium (record) do also vary in the pronunciation of their vowels, but that change occurs because of changes in stress. The underlying sounds are the same, but when their phonological environments change, so do the surface realizations of the sounds. (For another example, hold a piece of paper loosely in front of your mouth while alternating between saying tack and stack; you should notice a puff of air that accompanies the /t/ in the second, but doesn't occur in the first) Very often when a syllable is not stressed, its vowel is reduced to a schwa (that 'uh' sound). So if we pronounce Macross with stress on the second syllable, the vowel of the first is reduced, making it sound like a Scottish clan name. Absent a word of God from the Japanese creators, the source language, which rendered it /makurosu/, conveys no information as to the correct stress pattern, so the English speaker has to either sound unnatural and awkward by retaining the prosody of another language along with the pretense that he is using a foreign word to speak English, or guess at how to apply that of his native language. Also, don't get too hung up on what things look like when written. Written language is not the same as spoken language, but an abstracted representation of it. Ultimately, all of this is no more English than this is a pipe.
Sonofabitch! Just in case anybody tries to call me on it, Mellowlink is what the encyclopedia uses. At least I fixed having switched the attributions of Jac and Zustin's lists before anybody saw it.
I understand, but what people will want to know can't really be helped. I think that top ten lists, though to a lesser degree than review scores or grades, are innately a little silly, especially the ordinal rankings. Still, I doubt that anybody who would only look at the list would have listened to the discussion anyway. A few people might just look into some of that stuff even so. Last edited by Surrender Artist on Sat Dec 08, 2012 9:44 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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The more I hear about those first couple UY films, the more I want to track them down. I wonder about whatever happened to Beautiful Dreamer's scheduled release several years back.
Not quite. Pronunciation corresponds to the phonomes common to English, which are in turn emphasized differently according to dialect. Were you under the impression every other language had achieved native-level English pronunciation? Don't get me wrong, it's great that your egalitarianism leaves you open-minded to Japanese pronunciation, but if you demonize everyone who isn't on that train, yours will be a lonely lot. |
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ArsenicSteel
Posts: 2370 |
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Well I've never been one to find comfort in numbers. I just don't find it offensive to try to pronounce names correctly in respect to the originating language.
I like it when words sound right, sue me. |
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timeldred
Posts: 32 |
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I used to get all bent out of shape over pronunciation until I understood that since most of us encounter these made-up words in text form BEFORE we hear them, we can't help but lock in our own pronunciation bias. Especially with words that can have multiple spellings.
The reason "Char" (with a hard R sound) turns me into Punchmaster is because it isn't heard that way in the show. They say "Sha," so I learned to pronounce it "Sha." The R version showed up in Engrish pretty early after MSG, and we all know how reliable early 80s Engrish was. Some of it will never be untangled. Anyway, it always seemed kind of important to me that when you're communicating verbally with someone about this stuff, you don't invent sounds that can clog up understanding. Sha vs. Char a wash now with decades behind us, but it will never stop irritating me. Oh, also--the refusal to understand that Japanese works phonetically different from English. Examples: Arale pronounced "a-RALL." Nue pronounced "Nooo." Hokuto pronounced "Ho-KOO-to." I have heard all these and more come out of the mouths of people who should have known better. |
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DRWii
 Posts: 636 |
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You know, I was going to complain about Justin's "no one under 20" comment, but then I remembered I just turned 20 a few months ago. So I can't really dispute that.
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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You're moving the goal posts, buddy. Nobody has a problem with your personal preferences, people just take issue when you obnoxiously nag them for failing to meet your expectations. |
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treatment
Posts: 149 |
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Lol! No. Even I wouldn't go that far. To me, it was just more of disbelief and sadness that the three stooges had to make a really dumb effort and stooped that low to deliberately mispronounce something. Not like there isn't some 30yrs worth of hearing and listening to it correctly pronounced as "Ma_Cross" in plain english, you know. 
Well, I'm just hoping Mike Toole has not been infected with this latest shenanigan from the ANN crew. Mike will probably just do it, anyway. Just for laughs or something. And it'll be ok since HE is the Mike Toole. Since I tuned out, I don't know if Mike was even in the show. If he wasn't, he definitely should be. Can't be an 80's thing without Mike Toole. 
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timeldred
Posts: 32 |
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Huh. Until now I wasn't quite sure what a troll was. Thanks for clearing that up.
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