Forum - View topicEnglish backgrounds and props.
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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I have been watching more and more subbed anime and noticed something. Even though the production is in Japanese and drawn and marketed to the Japanese audience, significant portions of the backgrounds, written materials, signage, labels on control panels and food cartons and other props are all in English.
For example, watching Fractale I noticed the letter that Phyrne wrote was all in English. The character's narration read it in Japanese, which then again was sub-titled into English. In the credits East of Eden and Pani Poni Dash -- English printing. Many others are like that. I would expect that all of this would be in Kana and Kanji. Can someone explain why this is? |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, some productions are set in English-speaking locales, or with foreign characters who speak English (it is the world's foremost language), so I'm not surprised.
Also, when writers need to have a foreign (read: made up) language, English is an easy choice. It is suitably foreign to a Japanese audience yet is also familiar enough that fun can be had trying to read it. |
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naninanino
 Posts: 680 |
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Why would you expect that? I don't understand. If the creators vision is not to make everything appear Japanese, I don't see anything strange in it at all. I see things like this all the time in fiction and in real world. Absolutely nothing strange about it. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I'm not certain about every case but a great deal of the time, they use English words for the same reason the West uses kanji: because it looks cool.
Also, there are definitely times when they want to establish that the characters aren't actually Japanese and wouldn't really be speaking Japanese (for example, I know this is the case in Trigun, which exists in an English-speaking word according to the creator). Of course, very often the English text is not going to make any sense to someone who actually speaks English. I know FMA sometimes has text where the first line is relevant and the rest sounds like it was copied from a random encyclopedia entry. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7594 Location: Wales |
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In the case of Fractale the setting is Ireland, or at least based on it - there were the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garda_Síochána]Garda[/uel] in the first episode and also some ruins from that episode which have been matched to an actual building.
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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And, of course, the episodes of Dirty Pair, where a complicated technical computer-screen readout in English, to English viewers, will turn out to be the Star Trek cast, or a list of 80's science-fiction movies. 
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Jen526
 Posts: 124 |
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There's also the factor that it doesn't seem as rare for Japanese folks to encounter English in their daily life as it is for Americans to encounter Japanese. Google for images of Tokyo city streets, and you'll see a fair bit of English, or at least romanized Japanese, used in signage, right alongside the expected kanji.
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HaruhiToy
Posts: 4118 |
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OK, this is typical from a GIS for "Japanese Convenience Store" 
Not much English there. Yet in Hayate -- which is set in Tokyo (supposedly in Japan) -- the packaged groceries that Hayate and Maria handle typically have labels like Baking Soda or Milk without any Kana or Kanji. I'm not complaining, but I do find it curious. I was under the impression that anime was primarily intended to relate to the typical Japanese consumer, not the English-speaking one. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Perhaps that's a joke, much like the generic products in the movie Repo Man. That movie came out not long after white-box generic goods started showing up in American stores during an earlier recession. For instance, in that film everyone drinks beer that comes in cans with white labels reading "Beer." |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10364 Location: Virginia |
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If you pick up a Japanese anime magazine such as Newtype, you will find a surprising amount of English scattered through the magazine. Both in the headlines and in the ads. Some of the shows will consistantly show an English title along with the Japanese one.
It may be limited to the anime industry, but it has been consistent over a number of years. |
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RoverTX
 Posts: 424 |
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My Japanese copy of the 25th anniversary Newtype agrees. My Japanese teacher (who is a native speaker) last semester would always go on a tangents about how Japanese marketers like throwing random English words into ads, either in Katakana or Romanji because the marketers think it makes stuff look foreign or cool. Since she speaks fluent English (of course) she finds it kind of insulting, since a some of the time it doesn't even make sense. Its the same reason condos over there are called マンション(lit Manshon ie Mansion) |
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naninanino
Posts: 680 |
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Maybe, but having groceries in foreign languages isn't that much an oddity. Maybe it is in Tokyo, but not globally. I often buy groceries with no hint of my native language in them, except a sticker in the back attached afterwards. |
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HaruhiToy
Posts: 4118 |
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I wondered the same thing. Just by coincidence I watched that movie just a few days ago on my Netflix/iPad. I hadn't seen it for over 20 years but it was better than I remembered in many ways. In the end I don't think the props are intended as a joke. My take is that some big portion of Japanese pop culture sees itself as an international venue, so English artifacts seem natural to that. |
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wanderlustking
 Posts: 449 Location: Bozeman, Montana |
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Yeah, English is pretty popular in Japan.When I first got stationed there I didn't speak a word of Japanese, but was able to make my way around and interact with people just fine because so many people spoke at least rudimentary English, and so many of the signs had English.
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lilredphoenix
Posts: 156 Location: Honolulu, Hawaii |
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I agree with alot of the posters. English is starting to assimulate in all countries it has been mentioned also as being considered the univeral language of the world in some circles. So because of that thought in mind it probably makes sense.
Also the word is the Japanese like to imitate anything perceived as "western" aka USA/Europe. Look at the Lolita/goth/elgante' style. The younger generation bleach their hair blonde and wear blue contact eye lens. We can probably all name a bunch of shows where it is clearly seen as play/pun on an American restaurant/shop/store name. Alot of times you see McDonald's with the "M" upside to be a "W" instead. In Beck they had "Danny's" which clearly was "Denny's". |
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