Seiyuu Appreciation Day - The Engrish Edition

When I first became an anime fan I was surprised at how often characters would say a random English word or phrase. I'm used to it now but it almost used to annoy me, especially when I was studying Japanese. I'd be watching anime and listening for grammar and sentence structure, only to have my concentration disrupted by... Engrish.

Someone told me that Japanese requires fewer sounds to pronounce than English: in other words, if pronouncing English requires 200 separate and distinct sounds, Japanese only needs 75, or whatever. So it's harder for Japanese people to pronounce English words correctly than it is for Americans to pronounce Japanese correctly.

Of course, that doesn't stop either side from mispronouncing the other's language all the time. XD Usually for us watching anime it's Japanese speakers mispronouncing English, but sometimes it goes the other way. In Zettai Karen Children there are two American secret agent characters, Ken McGwire and Mary Ford, who speak Japanese with horrible-sounding American accents - and it's very funny.

Most of the time though, as anime fans in the west, it's mispronounced English in anime that we hear. Before I launch into some of the best anime Engrish clips I was able to find on You Tube however, I need to say two things.

When I was growing up as a Japanese-American in California many years ago, I didn't care for the term "Engrish" as essentially it made fun of Japanese people for switching the "L" and "R" sounds in English. Times have changed though, and now a site like Engrish.com or anime fans using the term "Engrish" doesn't come from racist attitudes as it once did: it's more just an appreciation of how funny English can be when it's misused or mispronounced.

In other words, the term "Engrish" used to offend me, but I don't believe it's used in a racist way anymore so I don't see its use (especially in this context) as offensive.

The second thing I need to say is that while the point of posting anime Engrish clips is because they're funny, when I laugh at these clips I'm not laughing in a mean-spirited way. In fact, I have the opposite reaction - I think Japanese seiyuu are quite courageous to try and act in a second language and in a language that is hard for them to pronounce. If I were trying to act in Japanese it would be at least a hundred times more unintentionally hilarious than any of the clips below. Plus, as you'll see with the last two clips, not all seiyuu speak English poorly: some are excellent at speaking English.

So with these disclaimers - let's anime Engrish!



I THINK THE SPRINKLER IS BROKEN

I think this is from Itazura no Kiss. I love the man's monotone, almost mechanical-sounding English. =D

Masamune Date in Sengoku Basara clearly deserves his own Engrish clip:



LET'S PARTY

In case you were wondering why a Japanese general from the Warring States era says things like "Crazy Storm" and "Blast Off" and "Let's Party" in English, well... welcome to the world of Sengoku Basara. There is no other explanation. XD



GET IN MY HOUSE

In this clip from Junjou Romantica, young Shinobu is conversing with a gaijin classmate of his while trying to avoid his older lover Miyagi whom he's mad at. That's Kazuhiko Inoue (Kakashi in Naruto) as Miyagi, by the way. =D

The next two clips are from Azumanga Daioh.



CRAP IT'S A FOREIGNER

I find this one funny because of that frozen look of horror on the girl's face when the gaijin turns around. When I went to Japan, Japanese people would look at my Japanese face and speak to me in (naturally) Japanese. When I opened my mouth and said something in English, they would get that same frozen look of horror on their faces. XD



OH MY GAH

This one is just plain funny. XD OH MY GAH

Finally, two clips that will restore your faith in Japanese seiyuu speaking English. Both are from Kuroko's Basketball.

The first clip is the funnier of the two. Main character Taiga Kagami (the red-haired guy) was raised in America, where he used to play basketball as a boy with Tatsuya Himuro. Kagami and his teammates come across Himuro in Tokyo at a street ball contest. What's funny about this clip is that this is our first time seeing Himuro so when the characters begin speaking English, it's completely unexpected. I won't tell you when in this clip the English starts so you can feel the same surprise as I did. When it starts it's like a sudden assault. XD Here it is:



I AIN'T KEEPING A POKER FACE IT'S MY NATURE

The English is actually very good here. The first speaker, Himuro, is played by seiyuu Kishou Taniyama, and he stays in character while acting out the lines (as opposed to just reading them in English) quite well. The same for Yuuki Ono who plays Kagami, and Kenji Hamada who plays Teppei Kiyoshi, the third speaker. It's funny because you're not expecting the English but otherwise it's a fine example of seiyuu doing a good job acting in English.

The last example is the best English spoken by a Japanese seiyuu I've ever heard in anime. Here's Yuki Kaida as Alexandra Garcia in Kuroko's Basketball:



JUST SHUT IT AND PUT YER PANTS ON

I actually thought at first that they got an American voice actress to play Alex and then she started speaking fluent Japanese. When I looked up who played Alex, I realized why the English was so good.

Yuki Kaida lived in San Diego, California for four years studying drama and English. She played Fuji in The Prince of Tennis and China in Hetalia, but this is the first time I've seen her really using her English and she's fantastic at it.

So the next time you're tempted to think that Japanese seiyuu just can't do English, just remember Kaida-san. "Hey! Who the hell are you guys?" XD

A Mysterious DVD Release and Upcoming New Seasons of Old Favorites

An eagle-eyed anime fan spotted a possible U.S. DVD release for the Mononoke anime series!

At least - we think that's what's being released. The news caused a lot of chatter at ANN as everyone speculated if this was indeed Mononoke, the spinoff series to Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales.

The distributor was initially listed as Cinedigm (apparently a legitimate distributor of Zatch Bell, Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon in the past), but is now listed as "New Video Group," which sounds like a (bad) joke.

The commenters at the ANN forum were also wondering if "Mononoke" was a typo and it's actually a re-release of Princess Mononoke. Adding to the confusion is the fact that Cinedigm actually has released Studio Ghibli movies in the past.

The Amazon page is no help:

Mononoke Amazon Page

There's no picture of the box set. The price has also mysteriously dropped from $19.95 initially to $13.97.

The release date is July 15. I'm seriously thinking of just pre-ordering it and seeing what comes in the mail. At $13.97 it's not going to break my bank account and if it actually turns out to really be Mononoke, I don't want to risk it selling out before I can get it.

It's been a good week for news of new seasons for old favorites.

The crazily over-the-top Sengoku Basara is getting a third season. The anime that portrays the generals of Japan's Warring States era as the rock stars of their time is way too much fun to miss. If there's any way I can watch this legally, I'll be there.

And finally:

The second season of Durarara!! will be coming our way this year.

I liked Durarara!! a lot when I was watching it, but with the passage of time it's kind of lost its luster for me. As others have noted, the first half of the series was great but the second half suffered from some believability issues (*SPOILER ALERT* - I just never could believe Kida as the leader of a street gang. He didn't seem tough enough. But a second season makes sense to tie up some loose ends. Plus, Celty has to get her head back sometime...).

Nevertheless, I still liked Durarara!! enough that I will watch the second season. The love-hate relationship between Shizuo and Izaya (I'm convinced it's more love than hate - lol) was a lot of fun and I do like the cool way Ikebukuro was presented as a kind of world unto itself (instead of being just another one of Tokyo's wards).

Durarara!! initially seemed more style than substance, much like K, but like K it redeemed itself as it went along and one became engrossed in the plot and characters. So if Crunchyroll streams the second season as it did the first season, I'll be there. =D

Too Many Bishonen Warlords Are Never Enough

Okay, so I just posted last week about Sengoku Basara and how it treated the samurai warlords of the Warring States period like rock stars.

Now here comes Sengoku Paradise Kiwami, a new anime based on a mobile video game aimed at females, in which the Warring States samurai warlords (Date, Tokugawa, et al.) are otome playthingsportrayed as bishonen:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-09-11/sengoku-paradise-mobile-game-community-gets-tv-anime

Sengoku Paradise Kiwami debuts on October 3. Will I be watching? Uh... yes. ;)

Too Many Samurais Are Never Enough

As the summer anime season winds down and a number of series will end soon, I thought it would be a good time to add some older series to my watchlist.

The two latest additions to my watchlist are pretty samurai-intensive. I can't seem to get enough of the samurai aesthetic. Even when it's over the top:



The Warring States period of Japanese history is too far in the distant past for my tastes (I prefer late Edo/Meiji era settings), but I can't resist a show like Sengoku Basara that features Shingen Takeda, Kenshin Uesugi and Nobunaga Oda as if they were the rock stars of their day. Loyal retainers hoarsely shout their undying fealty to their warlords, armies clash, arrows fly and swords take off the heads of hundreds. The action and dialogue are so overblown that I have to believe Sengoku Basara was meant as a send-up of the genre, not to be taken seriously but just to be enjoyed almost like a video game.

It also gets you into a samurai mood quickly. Try screaming, "A CASTLE GATE SUCH AS THIS SHALL NOT THWART MY SPEAR!", "NO MATTER HOW GREAT A WARRIOR HIS OPPONENT IS, MY LORD FACING DEFEAT WOULD BE AN IMPOSSIBILITY!" and "THE ANCESTRAL GLORY OF THE HOJO FAMILY, PASSED DOWN THROUGH THE GENERATIONS, WILL NOT BE DULLED BY SUCH A THING AS THIS!" at the top of your lungs. You can almost feel that sword in your hand, can't you?

Sengoku Basara is fun and so is Gintama, but the latter involves more outright comedy and downright strangeness.



Gintama posits a late-Edo Japan where aliens from outer space opened the country to the world and not the Americans. The result is a half-feudal, half-modernized Japan with old machiya buildings interspersed with skyscrapers and cars, where Gintoki the samurai watches TV and reads Shonen Jump when not doing odd jobs with his team.

Teenage gross-out humor abounds and familiar faces such as the Shinsengumi drop in, looking strangely appropriate in this upside-down world. I have some 200-odd episodes to go so it's too early to say what I think of Gintama, but its pleasantly absurd premise is enjoyable so far. Even a modernized samurai fighting aliens is still a samurai after all. ;)