Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa
I feel very strongly about this!
Unless an official English title is also available right at the start, most series will end up with multiple 'official' English titles. Sometimes they vary between regions e.g. Samurai X vs Rurouni Kenshin, KO Century Beast Warriors vs K.O. Beast vs KO Century Beast Three Beastketeers, or Battle Vixens vs Ikki Tousen. Sometimes the fan name(s) and the name that's actually used differ because of artistic licence in translating the original e.g. Attack On Titan, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pretty Guardian/Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon. Most of the time, you can still figure out which series is being talked about. Sometimes, however, you can't.
I fancy that I follow western anime/manga news more closely than the average buyer, yet there have been numerous times when I have walked into a bookshop and been surprised to find some series on sale - often well into its run - which I didn't even know was licensed because the English-language publisher had rebranded it as something else. Some titles are easily guessable from the name, but there have been several cases where I didn't know something was even licensed because its original identity was erased and replaced with something completely different.
It's less common but it happens with anime too; take SNAFU, a well-localised title but not one I'd immediately recognise without having made the association when the name was first coined (note: I'm abbreviating its title because Amazon did and I thought it was funny). Or Ground Control To Psychoelectric Girl. I love that English title but I wouldn't be looking under 'G' if I had heard that Denpa Onna To Seishun Otoko was licensed without having read the press releases. And both of the adapted names incorporate pop culture references which make them just as hard to understand for people without much connection to US culture as the Japanese titles would have been in the first place.
It's my belief that the original title chosen by the creators was selected that way for a reason, especially for multilingual titles where part is written in Japanese and part is in English (whether it was in roman letters or katakana is also important). It simply is the name of the work, and anything else is an approximation.
Since I spend more time looking stuff up in Japanese than reading press releases from the US distributors, the US title isn't actually all that useful to me. I'm not going to get anywhere searching on Pixiv or Yahoo! Japan or on Amazon Japan if I only know the English translated title. In some cases I never even pick the western discs up at all; what relevance does the new title have to me then? If I'm watching Zettai Karen Children in Japanese and someone starts a chat about Psychic Squad, why would I know to participate without prior research? The titles are completely different!
If you travel to countries outside the English-speaking world, it gets even more confusing with further localised titles. I understand several languages well enough to be content buying content from those regions but I'm not going to get anywhere trying to have a conversation with English or Japanese people online about Cara dolce Kyoko or 'that manga Meteor Garden was based on'. The original title should always be the main point of reference for international consumers, surely.
Obviously, it's important to have a pronounceable and understandable title for international markets if a series is ever going to be a hit; I don't dispute that. But the original work is Japanese and I strongly believe that the original title has more weight than the arbitrary English title chosen in one particular region. If an alternate (non-gobbledegook) English title is provided right at the start then I have no problem using it as only the most pretentious of people would deny knowledge in those cases.
Among existing fans I see no reason why everything has to be localised into fluent English at all; isn't it more fun to explore our differences and learn a few (not very useful) words in Japanese as part of the hobby?
R
I feel very strongly about this!
Unless an official English title is also available right at the start, most series will end up with multiple 'official' English titles. Sometimes they vary between regions e.g. Samurai X vs Rurouni Kenshin, KO Century Beast Warriors vs K.O. Beast vs KO Century Beast Three Beastketeers, or Battle Vixens vs Ikki Tousen. Sometimes the fan name(s) and the name that's actually used differ because of artistic licence in translating the original e.g. Attack On Titan, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pretty Guardian/Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon. Most of the time, you can still figure out which series is being talked about. Sometimes, however, you can't.
I fancy that I follow western anime/manga news more closely than the average buyer, yet there have been numerous times when I have walked into a bookshop and been surprised to find some series on sale - often well into its run - which I didn't even know was licensed because the English-language publisher had rebranded it as something else. Some titles are easily guessable from the name, but there have been several cases where I didn't know something was even licensed because its original identity was erased and replaced with something completely different.
It's less common but it happens with anime too; take SNAFU, a well-localised title but not one I'd immediately recognise without having made the association when the name was first coined (note: I'm abbreviating its title because Amazon did and I thought it was funny). Or Ground Control To Psychoelectric Girl. I love that English title but I wouldn't be looking under 'G' if I had heard that Denpa Onna To Seishun Otoko was licensed without having read the press releases. And both of the adapted names incorporate pop culture references which make them just as hard to understand for people without much connection to US culture as the Japanese titles would have been in the first place.
It's my belief that the original title chosen by the creators was selected that way for a reason, especially for multilingual titles where part is written in Japanese and part is in English (whether it was in roman letters or katakana is also important). It simply is the name of the work, and anything else is an approximation.
Since I spend more time looking stuff up in Japanese than reading press releases from the US distributors, the US title isn't actually all that useful to me. I'm not going to get anywhere searching on Pixiv or Yahoo! Japan or on Amazon Japan if I only know the English translated title. In some cases I never even pick the western discs up at all; what relevance does the new title have to me then? If I'm watching Zettai Karen Children in Japanese and someone starts a chat about Psychic Squad, why would I know to participate without prior research? The titles are completely different!
If you travel to countries outside the English-speaking world, it gets even more confusing with further localised titles. I understand several languages well enough to be content buying content from those regions but I'm not going to get anywhere trying to have a conversation with English or Japanese people online about Cara dolce Kyoko or 'that manga Meteor Garden was based on'. The original title should always be the main point of reference for international consumers, surely.
Obviously, it's important to have a pronounceable and understandable title for international markets if a series is ever going to be a hit; I don't dispute that. But the original work is Japanese and I strongly believe that the original title has more weight than the arbitrary English title chosen in one particular region. If an alternate (non-gobbledegook) English title is provided right at the start then I have no problem using it as only the most pretentious of people would deny knowledge in those cases.
Among existing fans I see no reason why everything has to be localised into fluent English at all; isn't it more fun to explore our differences and learn a few (not very useful) words in Japanese as part of the hobby?
R
