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 Words of Truth and Wisdom: Notes
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley
This column is going to be a little hard to write for three reasons. One, Anime Expo is coming up, and we're excited. Two, there's a certain video game that we're dying to get back to. And three, we came up with the idea for this particular column almost two weeks ago and weren't smart enough to write it down then. We thought about it, but we were obsessed with another video game.
Anyway, many of you are aware that, in the process of translating manga, we have to look up culture (pop and otherwise) references and write notes to explain what the characters are talking about. Of course there's no note in the Japanese, because to them, it's all common knowledge. But sometimes we'll come across some cultural thing and we'll be like, “Hey, didn't we just write a note for this? Didn't we just write a note for this in the last three books we translated? Doesn't everybody know what this is by now?” So we thought we'd talk about some of the things that come up So Often in manga that it seems like everybody must already know what they are by now.
First and foremost is Doraemon. I think at least half the titles we've translated have some kind of reference to Doraemon. Now, just because we see it all the time (we have to keep reminding ourselves) doesn't mean everyone else does, so for the people who have never heard of it, Doraemon is an anime/manga series about a cat robot from the future who has a magic pocket that he can take anything out of. Kind of like Mary Poppins' handbag thing. It being a series (and a long-running one at that), most of the references to it are different, so we're constantly finding new things about it that we have to look up. Though in most cases, we usually look up “something” and discover that it's a Doraemon reference, because we... actually haven't seen Doraemon ourselves.
According to Wikipedia, Doraemon has only had one English release--a movie that was shown in the DC area once. That's nowhere near enough for it to be common knowledge! We read an article at Anime News Network about Johnny Depp playing a cameo role in Doraemon in Japan, and reportedly, he agreed because, “It's Doraemon.” They say he must have seen it in France (in French, of course). And we say if it's good enough for Captain Jack Sparrow, it's good enough for the United States! And they should provide something for us to all know what all these Doraemon references are talking about, like a live action movie! We even came up with a cast (based on having seen just about nothing of the series)! Johnny Depp could play the main character's father, and Freddie Highmore could be the main character (though he might be a little old for Nobita now...). And Doraemon himself would be computer animated, and voiced by Will Ferrell. And as soon as they announced it, all the fans would be like, “Nooooooooooooooo!!!!”
In the meantime, it would probably be a good idea for us to start collecting the Japanese manga. As if we didn't have enough to read. Sigh.
Let's see, what else? Kappa. We always note these because we haven't seen them mentioned on American TV anywhere (maybe we're just watching the wrong shows?). They mention them in Harry Potter though, so maybe we're underestimating people? A kappa is a creature from Japanese folklore that looks kind of like a turtle... kind of like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, actually, since it's a little humanoid. More like Golduck with a shell, for you Pokemon fans, since it has a duckbill. They've been called river sprites, river goblins, and river demons, so I think you get the idea that they come from rivers. They can be really really evil (like luring people into the water and sucking out their blood), but usually they're just mischievous and annoying. And apparently they like to look up women's skirts, which is probably where the phrase “ero-gappa (perverted water sprite)” comes from.
The school year in Japan is different than here in the States. We don't always note this, because... I'm not sure why, actually; we just don't. Maybe we think people do already know. But for those of you who see them talking about the beginning of spring and then suddenly everybody's graduating to high school or something, and then summer break comes after that, and you're like, “Wha...?”, let us enlighten you. The school year starts in April in Japan. We've actually never looked up why, because that's never really been an issue. The important thing to know is that that's the case. Summer break then comes in the middle of the school year, usually accompanied by lots and lots of homework, which is why you'll always see characters talking about their summer break homework that they only have a day to finish (because they procastinated).
We tend to have to write notes about the various ways people address people without using names. Ojichan, ojisan, ossan, otchan (various degrees of politeness when referring to a middle-aged man that you don't know (or in some cases, that you do know)), oniisan, oneesan, aniki, aneki, etc. etc. etc. to infinity. It's like the glossary they have at the beginning of all the Del Rey manga, only with moooooorrrre. In fact, I think Negima! has just about every way you could possibly think of addressing somebody. No, on second thought, there are so many, I don't think even Negima! has gotten to all of them yet. Thinking about it makes me tired.
I'm sure there are a bunch more things that come up all the time, but that's enough for now. We have to keep reminding ourselves that just because we've written the note twenty-three million times (or, y'know, less) doesn't mean everyone's read it. Manga is gaining new fans all the time, and we have to make it more understandable, and thus more accessible! And that's why we're very thankful for “copy & paste.”
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3 February 2010
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