English in non-English anime

RyanGlazner · Post by **RyanGlazner** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 6:21 am

Possible spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen any of Excel Saga.

Why is it that in Japanese dubbed anime, some of the people speak certain sentences in Engrish? I mean, in Excel Saga episode 3 or 4, these military types built a doghouse for Menchi, and in that scene one of the guys says, in amongst a Japanese sentence, "Bigu mistaku". Why?! There's gotta be a Japanese phrase that means "big mistake"... and the rest of the sentence (and dubbing) is Japanese...

temjin · Post by **temjin** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 6:24 am

because the military types are american. excel falls from that cute martian space station thing, into an american army base thing

RyanGlazner · Post by **RyanGlazner** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 6:39 am

But they speak Japanese the rest of the time... besides, it happens in other anime also.

temjin · Post by **temjin** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 6:45 am

we say bonjour, aurevoir, adios, and a bunch of other foreign phrases all the time. maybe they have just adapted some of ours. vash even says danka in an episode of trigun.

danka = german for thanks

and i only recall the soldiers speaking english. well, i wasn't really listening too much to the voices as much as i was reading, so i might be wrong

RyanGlazner · Post by **RyanGlazner** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 7:07 am

I'm sure this is the case sometimes, but many of the places this happens don't seem to be "popular" phrases (like those you mentioned). They just seem to randomly pick stuff... I could be wrong, and you're probably right, though.

skanks · Post by **skanks** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 8:36 am

Do the same us we do I guess

"Sayanara," western movies use that alot. same sort of thing really.

temjin · Post by **temjin** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 8:38 am

skanks wrote:Do the same us we do I guess

right!

BaHaRa · Post by **BaHaRa** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 8:49 am

well as some said, they often say certain phrases in English the same way we say some in other languages. In Excel saga, some spoke in English because the people were supposed to be American I believe, so a couple sentences were spoken in English to have that effect. The reason they didn't stick with it seemed obvious to be: first of all, they seiyuu obviously did not know english, everything was mispronounced etc.. plus the sentences were quite broken, i think it was just supposed to be funny. Also, if you notices, they had to subtitle it in kanji for the Japanese viewers and I'm sure they didn't wanna make the viewers read subtitles to whole time...

thewhacker · Post by **thewhacker** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 9:05 am

why does integra and arucard speak in english sometimes.

arucard- (japanese blah blah blah) Oder me order me my master-(pronounced) oda me oda me my masta

Integra- (japanese blah blah blah) search and destroy search and destroy

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 9:29 am

It's added for coolness factor...

Alot of japaneese thing western culture is cool, alot of teens do atleast. So why not pepper up the story with some choice *EXCITING* sounding engrish words.

Scryed has the main character screaming 'Blitzu' with his special attack.

Soultaker has a bunch of engrish lines.

The Excel Saga engrish statements I believe are put in there for humor. It's really funny when excel goes to America and she tries speaking american <a href="http://home.attbi.com/~klinky/excel.wav">"HELLOOO MERRY CRISPMAS, MY-A NAME ISSA EXCELOO..."</a>.

You'll hear alot of words that have no meaning... :p Sonic Punchu, Blaster cannon.... most of the time engrish is used as a shock statement, or to get people excited.... Basically the seiyuus usually belt it out really loud..

~klinky