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Tanteikingdomkey
Joined: 03 Sep 2008
Posts: 2346
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:42 am
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TheTheory wrote: |
Tanteikingdomkey wrote: |
Also I am surprised no one has mentioned deathnote yet |
Probably because the title perfectly describes what the series actually is. |
DEATH note maybe that explains it better.
The topic is about titles that drive people away not titles don't accurately describe the series
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GracieLizzy
Joined: 26 Sep 2006
Posts: 551
Location: Sunderland, England, UK
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:18 am
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The only real issue with Death Note is that due to the proliferation of English loan-words in Japan that's what the authors thought such an item would be called in English. A more accurate but maybe less memorable name would be Death Notepad, or maybe even Death's Notepads.
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YotaruVegeta
Joined: 02 Jul 2002
Posts: 1061
Location: New York
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 1:13 pm
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Death's Notepad has less punch to it. Notepad sounds like you're going to kindergarten or early elementary school. I think some thought went into the naming. Also, shorter words roll off the tongue better.
Maybe it should have been called Death Notes, if you want to be better representative of a book of death.
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Dorcas_Aurelia
Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5344
Location: Philly
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 1:27 pm
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As much as I love Princess Tutu, blaming the name is the wrong thing here. Are any of you suggesting that it's not a show about a magical ballerina princess? The real problem is that the modern American impression of ballet is stupid frilly junk for little girls, and the only ballet people are familiar with is The Nutcracker, thus it's assume that it's all as treacly sweet.
[quote=vanfanel]Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge[/quote]
I checked out the manga version specifically because of the unusual name. It's hardly good English, but it does make sense in context. A decent story, too.
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GracieLizzy
Joined: 26 Sep 2006
Posts: 551
Location: Sunderland, England, UK
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:08 pm
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YotaruVegeta wrote: | Death's Notepad has less punch to it. Notepad sounds like you're going to kindergarten or early elementary school. I think some thought went into the naming. Also, shorter words roll off the tongue better. |
Whilst I actually agree Death Note sounds better as a title (I meant to say this in my initial post actually that I was just addressing the accuracy of the 'translation', not how good the title would actually sound), I am pretty sure the authors admitted they wanted to sound as though it was meant to be was meant to have been written in English. This was because English one of the most widely spoken human languages so that chances of someone being able to read it when Ryuk had dropped it would be increased.
But they had though "note" was literally the English word for ""ノート - nōto" meaning "notepad" or "exercise book" as they knew the word "ノート - nōto" was a loan-word from English but didn't realise that no Anglophone would naturally use the term to mean a booklet of any sort - it sounds more like the term "suicide note" than anything else. All in all I think yes Death Note is the better title but it is one born of a bit of a minor "oops" on the part of Ohba & Obata.
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YotaruVegeta
Joined: 02 Jul 2002
Posts: 1061
Location: New York
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:12 pm
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So, we're still assuming that the creators of Death Note didn't know what they were naming their series, right?
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Chrno2
Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 6171
Location: USA
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 4:17 pm
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Yeah that pretty much sums up anime titles. I mean for awhile I pretty much was curious about what 'Samurai Champloo' meant. Then they explained it then, I actually watched an anime where some character actually used the word referring to the type of food "dish". I felt good that I was a whole level smarter.
I often even feeling embarrassed period trying to talk about this stuff with my mother because she's listening then not listening. When you get older your listening level goes down and you're thinking about a whole bunch of other crap. The only time she's actually listening is when I mention something interesting about the afterlife, existentialism, etc... I just don't try anymore. I feel like we already went down this path where you didn't understand and now you sort of do. Keep parents out of anime unless they're geeky like you. But hey, my mom likes 'Twilight' does that count?
Well, I have a anime I watched , what I expected and what I got. Pretty Cure was right up that lane. I watched it because of all the damn "yuri" fan drawings. I was curious. What did I expect that it was going to be an interesting girl show. What I got was girls kicking a$$ all over the damn screen. And I was like, this is a show for girls? Now when you got DBZ director supervising. It's pretty, pretty a$$ kicking.
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vanfanel
Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1242
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:15 pm
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Dorcas_Aurelia wrote: |
vanfanel wrote: | Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge |
I checked out the manga version specifically because of the unusual name. It's hardly good English, but it does make sense in context. A decent story, too. |
It's English that's so weird, it crosses over into awesome. Might have to check it out on rental video sometime, or maybe pick up the novel.
Death Note is a title that is technically Engrish, but just happens to be really evocative as-is, even if it's referring to a notebook instead of some kind of note. I can see why that one wasn't changed, since a title's job is to get customers' attention, and no variation that includes "notebook" is going to sound as intriguing.
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YotaruVegeta
Joined: 02 Jul 2002
Posts: 1061
Location: New York
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:57 pm
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Bingo. In the end, it's about getting the audience you want to pick up your work.
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FMAvatard
Joined: 24 Jun 2009
Posts: 195
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 2:44 pm
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I made the mistake of telling my anime-savvy friends to watch a show called Oreimo.
And then I made the firer mistake of explaining the title.
Their eyes were filled with such contempt...
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YotaruVegeta
Joined: 02 Jul 2002
Posts: 1061
Location: New York
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 3:18 pm
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If I heard the name alone, I would go "Oh, a show about the cookie?"
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enurtsol
Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14756
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 3:56 pm
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YotaruVegeta wrote: | If I heard the name alone, I would go "Oh, a show about the cookie?" |
Editor's note: NSFW images are not allowed in the forums.
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rheiders
Joined: 05 Jul 2011
Posts: 1137
Location: Colorful Colorado :)
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 5:05 pm
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YotaruVegeta wrote: | If I heard the name alone, I would go "Oh, a show about the cookie?" |
Until you hear the full, translated title, that is! xD "My Little Sister Can't Possibly Be This Cute!" tends to raise a few eyebrows.
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feuerwerke
Joined: 13 Jul 2012
Posts: 149
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 5:43 pm
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I think some of the American release renames have been just as bad as some of the terrible original titles, if not worse. Quite frankly, nothing has been more difficult for me to convince others to watch than "Cat Planet Cuties". Bad move, FUNimation. Also in the world of manga, Tokyopop really should be questioned re; changing Kimi wa Petto to Tramps Like Us. Just. Really?
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writerpatrick
Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 671
Location: Canada
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 8:49 pm
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Death Note would probably have been better as Death's NoteBOOK since it was a book. But the title was clear enough.
Utawarerumono. It was the English company that was going to call it "The One Being Sung" which makes no sense.
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