Anime and Manga/Useful Notes: Difference between revisions

So remember, if you hear a character by the name of Akira being talked about, it's just as likely a male as a female. And likewise, a character named Tomoyo is going to be a girl. Also, there isn't a standard for Japanese-to-English romanization, so things can get a bit wonky when it crosses the sea. You'll want to see [[Japanese Romanization]] for that. One big thing to know though it that the 'L' sound [[Japanese Ranguage|doesn't exist in Japanese]], and will usually be replaced with an 'R' sound for non non-Japanese names and words in original dialogue. It's how you get names like [[Spell My Name With an "S"|Rorand turning into Roland]] once it's translated.

This isn't the place for a huge lesson on Japanese language, check out [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language The Other Wiki] for that, but there are some things simple things to mention that will crop up in relation to Japanese language in Anime and Manga. For instance, Japanese has '''three''' writing systems, Kanji, Katakana and Hiragana, which have different purposes. Kanji in particular represent ideas which can be grouped together to form a word or concept. These Kanji don't always have a set pronunciation, or can pronounced pretty much however someone wants to say they are despite established norms, so you can get people in Anime and Manga having to explain to others essentially how to [[Spell My Name With an "S"|spell]] or [[It Is Pronounced Tro PAY|pronounce]] their names a lot. Knowing Japanese is not at all necessary to enjoy anime, but knowing some (even just how to read hiragana and katakana) can be a benefit, since many anime works which are produced in Japan are never translated into English, and those that are often suffer from inferior quality to the original. This is the reason behind the ongoing [[Subbing Versus Dubbing]] flamewar, which never seems to end.