Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2005-10-07]
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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Another comment outside of the "classics" debate:
I'm not a native speaker or an expert, but this is my take on things: Generally, Japanese is pronounced by putting equal stress on all syllables. There might be slightly more emphasis on the first syllable of "Naruto," but I suspect it just sounds this way to our ears because unconsciously, we don't expect spoken emphasis to fall there. This is played out in the common mispronunciation, "Nuh-ROO-doh," as seen in the Toonami previews & commercials. The "Nuh" is the "schwa" sound, which is the same as many unstressed vowels like the first "a" in "canal" or the "o" in "action"--basically, when vowels don't have emphasis in a word, we often "reduce" them to the ambiguous schwa sound. ("To" becomes "doh" for the same phonetic reasons that "water" often sounds like "wadder.") As someone who knows a few things about Japanese, I also think that most of the dub name pronunciations are quite accurate, including Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura (I was expecting the CardCaptors treatment for her name   ). Sure, it's not quite the Japanese "r" sound, but that's a little much to expect.
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ACDragonMaster
 Posts: 405 |
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Actually, you're missing one key point there. In Japanese, the "u" vowel sound is often reduced to the point of being almost droppec completely. "desu" comes out sounding more like "des" in speech, similarly "sakura" sounds like "sak'ra". And so on. So putting the emphasis on the "u" in "sakura" or "sasuke", while technically might not violate any rules of pronunciation, does fly right in the face of the conventions of how Japanese is pronounced.
Also, there are a handful of Japanese words that sound so alike that the only way to tell them apart is by which syllable is stressed ("kaeru", "tadaima"), so it's not completely devoid of rules of stress. It only sounds that way to an English-speaking ear, since stress is so obvious in the English language. So yes, putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable of a name can be considered to be mispronouncing it entirely. On another note, as for anime clubs, I think that the column isn't entirely accurate. Yes, people can watch anime at home, but they have to have it first to watch it. Most people come to the anime club here because it's a dirt cheap way to watch a whole ton of series. You pay your membership dues, and you can watch plenty of stuff without buying the DVDs or tracking down the fansubs yourself. True, we do have hourly breaks during which people chat, but that's more a necessity of it being impractical to keep dozens of people sitting comfortably for three hours of anime at once. Gives an opportunity for bathroom breaks and the like. Our animeclub does do other activities, such as "manga socials", but actually only a small number of people show up for the majority of those. Most of the membership is only interested in coming in, sitting down, and watching anime. |
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Maceart
Posts: 76 |
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That is correct. I believe in the "sit down, watch anime" type of club. Just as an earlier poster said, a projector and 5.1 surround speakers can't really be duplicated at home. Besides, having many people watch one show and laughing and shouting at the same time is a nice experience.
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Iniksbane
 Posts: 62 Location: The great state of Mary |
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Well I thought I would take a crack at this whole "what makes a classic debate".
I've noticed that no one has undertaken the odious task of making an empirical definition for art/great literature. In fact, I've seen references that ranged from Toni Morrison, which certainly hasn't stood any sort of test of time, to Beowulf, which has but is far closer to manga than anything else mentioned. So really "the test of time" isn't an adaquate definition of art. The idea that the intelligencia sets the standard of art is as largely painful. Even they can't agree with each other. I've had one professor say the Great Gatsby isn't art, yet it is part of every 20th century literature class. I've had another professor say Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is art, but to me it's pretentious dribble. (I have to add that I hate stream of conscoiusness.) So if even the intelligencia can't agree what is "art" than the definition is most likely out of reach. Maybe the best definition of art is that it makes us think about more than just the story involved. While this maybe too inclusive, I think it's the only decent argument I've heard. That said I don't know whether any particular manga is art/great literature or not. I think some come to mind such as Ghost in the Shell and Evangelion, but perhaps art really is in the eye of the beholder. *whew* As to the villians of the Kyoto arc, I think if people can jump 6-7 feet straight up and land on their feet I think there has to be some serious suspension of disbelief. So the villians really didn't bother me sense the world was already set up to include unreal elements. Honestly Kenshin is one of my top seven anime mostly because it is the best example of it's genre. It combines history, well-developed heroes and villians and an interesting (if predicatable) plot. There are problems with it, but compared to Yu-Yu Hakusho it's about three steps above it. |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Personally, after attending my college anime club for about a year and a half, just hearing the phrase "anime club" made me shudder for months. I think it may have been better for me if the club had just been the "sit down and be quiet" type, but I was in a community filled with rudeness and general noise. Not that I'm against the occasional joke being cracked every once and a while, but having to put up with uncontrollable laughter every 10 seconds thrust me over the edge. To the point where I now generally hate anime fandom as a collectivity. Individual fans are okay, but I can't be near big groups for long spans of time without ear plugs. I do much enjoy interacting with you all, though.
 ANN is like a haven for intelligent discussion and sanity. To a degree.
As far as the manga as literature debate goes, I'll stay out of it except to say that Maus is the most emotionally powerful graphic novel I've ever read and Art Spiegelman is a genius. And WHO CARES what category manga falls under? Just read it and love it. You think I care whether Kiriko Nananan's work falls under manga or alternative comic or high art or literature? No way. I know that it's great and I love it, so that's all that matters to me. |
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DKL
 Posts: 1938 Location: California, USA |
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You know, I think I'll join in too... (Even if I don’t really know anything) I remember reading something at my college back home that said that the saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" isn't necessarily a true statement when it comes to something being considered "artistic" To be “beautiful”, several requirements need to be fulfilled My understanding of it is like this: Take a sentence: "He picked up the gun” To make it “artistic”, you’d have to include a ton of extraneous information in order to window-dress it or something: “He picked up the gun; bold, black and beautiful firearm, it glistens a dark shade of black across his face and highlighted the madness in his eyes” 
(No, that isn’t a good example, but you get the idea… hopefully… yes, I just tossed it together haphazardly) The first thing that came to my mind after reading that perception of “what is beautiful” was: “Good god, whoever said that was full of it” So, if I think something is great but it doesn’t fulfill these, what I consider superficial, requirements, then it isn’t? Does thinking otherwise make me stupid? If the answer is yes, so be it... I'd rather be stupid than full of myself While I agree that you need an education to learn how to write, draw, direct, paint, analyze, etc. Sometimes I feel that you don’t really have to be a snob about it and wave your credentials in front of everyone’s faces just to convince them that you’re unanimously correct and that they are completely wrong Anyway, to be honest, I’ve never really willingly picked up a book in my entire life (The first will probably be when MADDOX releases his book) … I think the reason why I haven’t done it is mainly since I’m dyslexic and lack (don't have) an imagination, but that doesn’t hide the fact that I haven never read anything of "great importance.” The thing is, when I see some people talk sometimes, I think I’d prefer wallowing in my unsophistication instead (to a certain degree) ------------------------------------------------------------ So yeah, I’m with the others who say: “If you think it’s brilliant, then it is” That simple... (I still am iffy on the argument of what one may consider the worst thing ever... yes, I still remember that thing) I may have contradicted myself somewhere there... but whatever "If you're gonna shoot me, do it now... or go away" (no, don't go away  )
... on a side note, I think you guys just helped me come up with my research paper o_o About the concept of aesthetics I mean... I wonder if I can make one based on that? |
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Zalis116
Moderator
Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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Hijacking this back to the language for a moment--
Yeah, I guess I did leave out the "whispered vowel" bit. Wouldn't want to scare the average forum-dweller 
Part of what I saw to be good about the dub pronunciations was the de-emphasis on the "u" sound in "Sasuke," making it sound like "Saske." Impressive, since I was expecting "SuhSOOke." And I could be mistaken on this as well, but for those words that look the same, I've read that there can be a pitch difference, like with shiro (white) vs. shiro (castle), where the word for castle has a higer pitch on the second syllable to distinguish the two. Of course, I need more practice to be sure. And luckily, other differences can help out, like with kaeru (change) vs. kaeru (return home), since the first is ichidan (drops "ru") and has conjugations of kaeta, kaemasu, kaerareru, etc., but the second is godan (acts like verbs ending in aru/uru/oru and u/tsu) and has conjugations of kaetta, kaerimasu, kaereru, and so forth. Okay, this is probably O/T enough now to draw teh eternal wrath and ire. |
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ACDragonMaster
Posts: 405 |
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You forgot about kaeru (frog) there. ;p That one basically has the 'e' emphasized, so kaEru. As a verb, there's a slight emphasis on the first syllable and the 'u' begins to diminish, so you have KAeru.
Some Japanese words though *do* sound exactly alike so it's purely context that differentiates between them. |
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