Gratuitous English/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'': Senbee, Marller's assistant, peppers his speech with plenty of English words, if not full sentences at times. Made all the more awesome by his voice actor, [[Norio Wakamoto]].

* In the ''[[Ai Yori Aoshi]]'' episode that introduces [[The Ojou|Mayu]], the scene where Tina runs into her is played differently in the Japanese original and English dubbed version. The latter uses grammatical English, while the former is heavily accented broken English, unlike what you'd expect from someone educated in England:

'''Mayu''' (''dub'')<ref> This version gives Mayu a British accent, to indicate to the viewer that she is speaking English, rather than dubbed Japanese</ref>: Twit! Watch where you step! What on Earth were you thinking?! This is not the Grand Prix! }}

* [[Crazy Awesome|TK]] of ''[[Angel Beats]]'', in accordance with his funky attitude, almost always communicates in English song lyrics. His English ''is'' grammatically correct, but because he communicates in song lyrics, he says stuff that no English speaker would say... Despite having a North American voice actor, even in the Japanese version.

*** "Desees a penn!" Though, to be fair, England's accent is better than America's.

**** Justified in that particular example as he was trying to teach Japan English.

** A recent episode has Japan wanting to learn English after he sees two Japanese men, saying:

(both walk away, laughing) }}

*** This exchange was left unaltered in the English dub, presumably because it was just ''too'' appropriate given the context of Japan wanting to learn English.

* In ''[[Bakuman｡]]'', Kaya Miyoshi often wears shirts with English phrases, such as "MINE MAKES YOU HAPPY." Aiko Iwase once greets Eiji Nizuma by saying "nice to meet you" in English.

** Mashiro also thanks a classmate in English in the first episode.

** However, nobody can beat the amount of gratuitous English used by Eiji, which goes hand in hand with his other [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]] antics.

* One episode of ''[[Bamboo Blade]]'' had [[Genki Girl|Kirino]] holding up a bottle of skin cream called "Beautyful Life". Not to mention Carrie's introduction in the anime, where she speaks heavily-accented English for the first few minutes -- and continues to do so on occasion throughout the series.

** It's even funnier in the CD drama when it sounds like [[Final Fantasy VII|Cloud Strife]] saying it because of the [[Takahiro Sakurai|voice actor]]. Later in the same CD drama there's an "OH, JEEE-SUS!" and a "SLENDER BODY" thrown in there.

* ''[[Dominion Tank Police]]'' has an [[Image Song]] called ''Tanky Boys, Tanky Girls''.

Woah-oh! Mighty cups! Light your fire! }}

* In ''[[Dragon Ball|Dragonball Z]]'', most of Vegeta's attacks have English names. Here, it is allegedly used to portray the [[Eagle Land|character's fighting style as uncouth]].

** Speaking of songs, [[Dragon Ball Kai]] gives us Ginyu Tokusentai <ref>special squad</ref>, which prominently features the phrase "Yes we are!" at the beginning of each chorus. Given that the Ginyu Force is a parody of the [[Super Sentai]] genre (and the [[Awesome Music|quality of the song]]), it isn't very much out of place.

** The anime adds a scene telling the legend of the Dragonballs. The song that plays over it (and is reused later) has lyrics such as:

Dragonball I'll get it! }}

** The Italian anime OP/ED often do this as well. The OP for the first series, ''Dragon Ball'', starts with cries of "Dragon Ball! Blastin' thru the clouds! Dragon Ball! Fightin' underground!" (or perhaps "on the ground") And who can forget the GT one? ''Dragon Ball GT/is for you and me/in a world that wants really to be free''. Come on...

* All of the episode titles in ''[[Eureka 7]]'' are in English, written in Katakana, and are [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] to various songs by both Japanese and non-Japanese artists. The episode "Papermoon Shine" (''Pēpāmūn Shain'' ペーパームーン・シャイン), for example, is reference to "It's Only a Paper Moon" by Harold Arlen.

* In a scene at the end of episode 3 of ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'', Excel is captured and interrogated by a group of soldiers who are apparently American. One asks Excel her purpose in being in their camp, except his English is so heavily accented that it comes out sounding like "What is a porpoise?" In the [[ADV Films|ADV]] dub, the soldier's question is in perfect English -- "What is your purpose?" -- but they slyly acknowledged the original performer's lousy English by changing Excel's answer from "I don't know" to "A really big fish?". Later on in the series, the first [[Recap Episode]] featured one of the "Beauty Theater" segments from episode 8 re-dubbed in nonsensical broken English ("You give... chewing gum?"); the ADV dub didn't even bother redubbing it, instead crediting the original voice actors (though they apparently couldn't find the names). And later still, in episode 17, Excel tries to communicate with some American thugs in broken English: [http://youtube.com/watch?v=7x39Jp-z61M "Hello, Merry Christmas! I'm Excel. You are dog!"] Replaced in the ADV dub by a mish-mash of ghetto slang and Gratuitous Spanish.

** The Mexican dub renders Excel's Engrish as normal English spoken with a heavy Hispanic accent.

*** Even Excel's '''very name''' is [[Gratuitous English]], as she pronounces it as "Exceru" sometimes.

* The first of many notable instances of this in [[Gintama]] is a scene where Kagura shouts out "Health me," only to be corrected by a "It's 'help me!'" from Gintoki. When Shinpachi [[Big Creepy-Crawlies|sees what the two were making a racket about]], he proceeds to shout "Herpes me!".

** Other amusing examples include:

'''Hijikata''': "[[Sengoku Basara|ARE YOU READY GUYS?]] [[Actor Allusion|LET'S PARTY!]]" }}

* Since her mother is American, Cyndi Manabe in ''[[Best Student Council]]'' often uses gratuitous English (usually one or two words at a time, since the voice actress isn't fluent). Additionally, she rarely (if ever) uses Japanese. Of course, the differences between American English and British English aren't all that obvious to non-native speakers, leading to Cyndi using expressions such as "cheerio".

** Character also occasionally say "thank you", "your welcome" "sorry", etc.

* [[Leiji Matsumoto]]'s erotic comedy ''Hotaru no Shuku'' has a sex-scene with an english noble woman and her servant. This scene features the following [[Sarcasm Mode|lines of poetry]]:

Fuck animals in midnight!! }}

* Keiichi Maebara of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' often speaks (gratuitous) English, especially when he's in [[Hot-Blooded|Kool Mode]]. However, [[The Scrappy|Satoko]], the resident [[Bratty Half-Pint|trickster]] spoke [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5zB6kUOyZI English] in her [[Image Song]]. However, it was [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome to the max]].

* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': Kouji Kabuto, pretty much the one who started the [[Calling Your Attacks]] for anime, called out almost all his attacks in English. The only one that subverted this was the Photon Beam, spoken in Japanese as "Koushiryoku Beam".

** The Toei dub has theme songs sung entirely in English by famed anime singer [[Isao Sasaki]]. Though it is not nearly as gratuitous as the version [[Ichiro Mizuki]] did, which was pretty much nonsensical.

''[[Bragging Theme Tune|swim in the sky]]''<br />

''[[If It Swims, It Flies|He can fly beneath the sea]]''<br />

** All the participants of the game are referred to by First, Second, Third... up to Twelfth. Needless to say that they're hardly ever (if not never) pronounced right...

* A ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'' [[Omake]] gives us this exchange:

'''Jean:''' ''No!'' Jules Verne! }}

** And of course, there's "Don't forget to try in mind!" (which apparently ''means'' something like "Don't give up on your dreams") from the opening theme.

** LET'S DANCING!

** One episode had a friend of Mamoru's from England come over to visit. While the Senshi spoke (fairly) good English, Usagi... um... didn't. "I am... eigo... no no, can't, ne?" Later on she got drunk and started saying things in English, then rhyming them with Japanese (e.g. "Nice to meet you, cream shichu!"). Also [[Played for Laughs]] when the Inner Senshi greet the English guy.

'''Makoto''': THANK YOU! }}

* ''[[Saint Seiya]]'': Nearly all characters call at least one of their attacks out in English, not matter what their country of origin is. Seiya ("PEGASUS RYUSEI KEN!" "PEGASUS ROLLING CRASH!") or Shun ("Nebula Chain!" "Nebula Storm!") are good examples. One of them (Hyoga) is half Russian, so he also uses [[Gratuitous Russian]] in at least two attacks. Also, the main characters are named "Bronze Saints" and their armors' names usually to be on English (Pegasus, Dragon, Swan, Andromeda, Phoenix, Eagle...).

* Yotsuba from ''[[Sister Princess]]'' is apparently half-English (she frequently wears Union Jack- and Sherlock Holmes-themed clothing), and her [[Catch Phrase]] ("Checky-checky!") is in English. Sort of.

* The opening song to ''[[Sky Girls]]'', "Virgin's High!" by MELL (the title itself even being a case of Gratuitous English) contains these as the first four lines, which do not make any semblance of sense whatsoever:

...do want to do? }}

* The Japanese version of Sonic CD's ending song are a weird example: the male vocals are pretty solid English, but the female vocals are... well, not. The opening song is more predominantly ''just'' bad English.

** This phrase has its origin in similar phrases that would be engraved on the swords of medieval executioners, the meaning being that their wielders were doing God's work and were not personally responsible for what they did with the weapons. By extension, this could be said to apply to what Roger Smith does with Big O.

** The show's theme song has a few lyrics, sung in English. They completely mangle the [[Arc Words]] and the common phrase of "We have come to terms" from the show, notable because the ''rest'' of the show uses the phrasing more or less accurately.

We have came to team" }}

** Really, just adding a word like "are" between the "ye" and the "not" would have improved the phrase considerably...

* The ''[[Trinity Blood]]'' anime has all its episode titles in [[Gratuitous English]]. Pronounced just as horribly as one would expect.

* The TYPE-MOON staff make absolutely brilliant works, such as ''[[Tsukihime]]'', ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'', and ''[[Karano Kyoukai|Kara no Kyoukai]]''. The ''[[Nasuverse]]'' in general, really. That said, there should be a legally enforced ban on them using English unmonitored.

'''The actual title of one of their ''[[Melty Blood]]'' games:''' Actress Again <br />

'''Another Nasu novel's title:''' DDD, short for Decoration Disorder Disconnection. }}

** ''[[Tsukihime]]'' also has the subtitle "Blue Blue Glass Moon, Under the Crimson Air"

** ''[[Fate/hollow ataraxia|Fate Hollow Ataraxia]]''. What is "resumption mimicry"?

** This is followed by the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th days of "Heaven's Feel," each with their own [[Gratuitous English]] subtitle.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' managed in the process of theming its titles to fail in spelling the term, "weak square" (It became "week square" instead).

*** "My witch is golden dreamer, it's magical Gohda chef! I'm gonna piss in fire for magical breeding power."

** In Episode 4, Ange coolly delivers this line just before {{spoiler|shooting EVA}}:

** In Episode 5, we have {{spoiler|Furudo Erika's <Good.>}}

*** Also Dlanor's <Die The Death!><Sentence to Death!><Great equalizer is The Death!>