Another Adventure In Bad Parenting

[BeenThereDoneThat]

If your local library has DVDs, you might be able to borrow it from there, too. (Ours had it, and I do recommend it!)

Thanks! I always forget about the library when it comes to things other than books...

[EricKei]

Aye. You'd be surprised what films a library may have on DVD. I was able to check out (James Clavell's) Shogun at mine, a few years ago. The 8ish-hour miniseries version, too, not just the abridged edition ^_^ It was a nice treat.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Aye. You'd be surprised what films a library may have on DVD. I was able to check out (James Clavell's) Shogun at mine, a few years ago. The 8ish-hour miniseries version, too, not just the abridged edition ^_^ It was a nice treat.

I remember watching that when it was new on TV...man I'm getting old!

[EricKei]

I recall watching it on TV (the long version), all at one clip, starting at like 8pm one weekend on PBS....I think I stayed up for the whole thing, bad Japanese and all (note --- still not as bad as the Japanese you'll hear in most anime, but still not...quite right, according to sources that know far more about the subject than I do)

[XCashier]

Aye. You'd be surprised what films a library may have on DVD.

Yeah, our library has a great selection. Silent films, classic films, foreign films, BBC miniseries, documentaries, concerts, Broadway musicals, you name it. To hell with cable, I've got a library card!

[AnaKhouri]

That's so weird, I just started watching "Shogun" on DVD from Netflix. I read the book last year and loved it, so far the miniseries is sticking pretty well to the book.

Also, Toshiro Mifune. And I'm starting to see why middle-aged women love Richard Chamberlain.

[vikingchyk]

That's so weird, I just started watching "Shogun" on DVD from Netflix. I read the book last year and loved it, so far the miniseries is sticking pretty well to the book.

Also, Toshiro Mifune. And I'm starting to see why middle-aged women love Richard Chamberlain.

Mmmm.... Anjin-san....

[EricKei]

As it happens, watching it as a kid was my first exposure to John Rhys "Eh! INGLES!" Davies. He and Chamberlain were at the top of their game, and it sure as hell looked like Davies was having fun doing it, too.

[Geek King]

(note --- still not as bad as the Japanese you'll hear in most anime, [...])

Er, what? Not sure what shows they're talking about, but seeing as the Japanese spoken in anime was how it was actually aired on TV in Japan, I'm going to assume they're speaking the language correctly with variations according to local dialects. You hear quite a bit of Osaka-based dialect, for instance. Maybe they're talking about the difference between the proper spoken Japanese and "street-level" Japanese? Sort of like the difference between proper spoken English and how we actually talk to each other?

[Andara Bledin]

Er, what? Not sure what shows they're talking about, but seeing as the Japanese spoken in anime was how it was actually aired on TV in Japan, I'm going to assume they're speaking the language correctly with variations according to local dialects.

Yeah, that has me a bit confused, too.

You hear quite a bit of Osaka-based dialect, for instance.

You know you watch too much anime when you can recognize someone speaking in an Osaka accent.

For the uninitiated, Osaka is often used as the "country bumpkin" sort of accent.

^-.-^

[EricKei]

GK - to a certain extent, yeah. Again, as I said, i am speaking as someone who's taken courses (3 years, but my last course was a decade ago, so it might as well have been 3 months), not as a native speaker or expert, by any means.

I would have to look up the issues people have with the style of speech in Shogun, as (a) they were carried over from the books and (b) They're likely too subtle for my tin ear to catch The only one that stuck out to me was Watakushi -- today, even when it's used, it's used as an extremely polite, female-only (usually) version of Watashi.

The "politeness level" used in anime tends to come across as a bit rough or brusque; not necessarily rude, per se, but odd enough that native speakers would look at you funny for talking "anime Japanese". ^_^;> In other words, *always* using boku or sometimes even ore for Watashi (I/me), even when most people would use Watashi.

Since it looks like you guys have taken it, too, think of it this way: Many anime have their charas speaking mostly in Plain form/~~da instead of ~~su/desu, as opposed to what you might normally hear in everyday life. e.g., a chara might end a sentence with da (for NON-past tense/plainform situations) where pretty much every lesson and every textbook screams that you should be using desu in order to avoid sounding...odd. If you ever read the old Mangajin, I'm talking about Politeness level 2 (desu)/borderline 1 (da) in anime, as opposed to PL2~some PL3 (desu/gozaimasu) in everyday speech.

A really good example would be "fighting" anime in general (Ranma 1/2, Dragon Ball, Bleach, et al), which tend to be almost ALL PL1/da -- a chara who speaks in an elevated tone is either a noncombatant, a minor character, or a villain who is insulting the good guys simply by "speaking above their level". I actually ran some of that "fighting show Japanese" past my old teacher once for a class project (We were basically doing a skit wherein one character was supposed to be a rude, crass foreigner) -- she more or less fell out of her chair laughing, saying that nobody speaks that way in real life, but that it made sense for the character. However, is it understandable to natives. Even the American teachers I have studied under would see something made for a "higher" audience such as Wings of Honneamise, and tell me that they thought it was great..."just don't talk like that in public" ~_~

More modern shows, and those that deal more with the "human" side of things, are much better about this -- including (more) accurate portrayal of dialects. As Toyko-ben is considered to be more or less "standard" Japanese, Osaka-ben is often used in anime to indicate a character who either literally is from that area, or one to whom they wish to assign a somewhat negative perception. Let's face it, US shows do that all the time Having a random character show up on stage who speaks in a semi-intelligible "hick" drawl is (sadly) shorthand for "uneducated"/"don't take this guy seriously" or other, less pleasant sterotypes.

And yes, the way these sound was how they were aired -- so a perfect parallel is to listen to how voice actors -- especially the bad ones -- speak in US weekly cartoon shows from before, say, 2000, whether anime imports or otherwise. Much of the dialogue sounds just...awkward. I suppose that's the point I'm trying to make. Nobody talks like Bugs Bunny in real life unless they're trying to make a point or a joke. Same basic idea here.