Gratuitous English/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Gratuitous English in Live-Action TV include:

  • In an episode of News Radio, Jimmy James' book "Jimmy James: Capitalist Lion Tamer" becomes popular in Japan, so for some reason he has the Japanese version translated back into English... and it ends up pure Gratuitous English. The title becomes "Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler", and the book now features lines like "Glorious sunset of my heart was fading. Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans, and pants to match."
    • "What did you mean when you wrote, bad clown making like super American car racers, I would make them sweat, war war?"
  • Ninja Warrior‍'‍ stages contain obstacles that are almost entirely named in complete or partial English. Aside from the competitors' names and periodic use of 'Sasuke' (the show's original name), this is all most watchers of the show are likely to understand.
  • Most Super Sentai series feature a usual amount of Gratuitous English for attack names and such, but Engine Sentai Go-onger deserves special mention for having the team uniform be covered with it. Extra-special mention for Hant (Go-on Green)'s Gratutious Japanese along with the English. ("Doki Doki Delight")
    • That is his roll call phrase, though he says it all in Japanese. The others' roll call phrases are mostly written all in English but said in Japanese or part English and part Japanese. (The phrases rhyme, too.)
    • Jiraiya/Ninja Black in Ninja Sentai Kakuranger indulged in this quite often. It helped that he was a faux-McNinja played by Kane Kosugi.
    • Gaku/Gao Yellow from Gaoranger was annoyingly fond of this habit.
    • As does Hoji/Deka Blue in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger
    • And Shurikenger in Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger makes it part of his whole schtick, baby.
    • Ironically, the page image is Takeru/Shinken Red from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, a sentai series with a samurai theme that tries very hard to convince the kiddies that kanji really is cool. (A lot of younger Japanese citizens, by this point, don't know kanji, preferring the phonetic alphabet to the fancy one.) It's also one of few series to keep the attack names in Japanese. Yet Takeru seems to own few shirts that aren't covered with Engrish.
      • Chiaki (Shinken Green)'s surfing T-shirts are worse, when you look at it, because he uses them Once an Episode.
      • Also, the names of the Shinkengers' weapons (except for Red's Rekka Daizantou and Gold's Sakana-maru): Water Arrow (a bow that shoots... well...) for Blue, Wood Spear for Green, Land Slicer for Yellow and Heaven Fan for Pink.
    • A LOT of the HUD in Go Go Sentai Boukenger, sometimes veering into Engrish territory.
      • One thing that is generally used across all seasons, it seems they use the English words for their Ranger colors more than the Japanese ones. Like in the current season, they're GokaiRed, GokaiBlue, GokaiYellow, GokaiGreen, and GokaiPink, with their Sixth Ranger GokaiSilver. Even in some of the older series, where the Ranger designations aren't always colors, they are in English (Spade Ace, Vul Shark, Change Phoenix, and so forth, though exceptions exist.)
    • During the transformation sequences in Denji Sentai Megaranger, English words scroll across the screen, ostensibly listing systems activation and computer jargon. It is, in fact, completely random words seemingly picked out of a dictionary-dartboard hybrid. Something about the "puppy canoe of hope".
  • The second Rider of Kamen Rider Kiva is named Kamen Rider IXA, which stands for "Intercept X Attacker". While this is a less oddball example compared to others on this page, it's still probably not something a fluent speaker of English would ever codename a hero. Other seasons of Kamen Rider can be bad or worse with this type of thing.
    • X Attacker is an apparent code name for Fangires. Emphasis on "apparent." Likely, it's there because X-es are cool.
    • In Japanese this would be an example of Fun with Acronyms; it sounds like the word "ikusa", which means "war".
    • There's also Arkivat from The Movie when Kamen Rider Ark goes into its One-Winged Angel form. Its faceplate falls off and the skeletal space spots off "Go to hell!" at the heroes below in Gratuitous English.
    • Some of the character songs are insane. "Get the Memory! Fight the scary!" "The bullet is running!" It Gets Worse.
    • The English bits added to the new version of Let's Go, Rider Kick from the OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders! take it Up to Eleven. "Rider Kick at the dark and black force! Rider Jump to the next generation! Rider Chop with the fighting in the truth! Let's go the hero, Kamen Rider!"
      • More fun with IXA and Gratuitous English, when Diend summons IXA in Kamen Rider Decade we get an inside view of his helmet, which has the words, "Return it to the life and the god" scrawled across the heads-up display, which is a crude translation of Nago's Catch Phrase "Return that life to God". As an added bonus, IXA's partner in this scene is Kamen Rider Psyga, who simply says "It's showtime!" - made even more gratuitous by the fact that Psyga's original actor was a Taiwanese-American and spoke perfect English. ("Good to see you guys. Taking care of all of you is also part of my job. Henshin!"). Decade's Psyga didn't. After "It's showtime," he yells "Let's enjo-oy!" before whooping like he thinks he's in a cowboy movie while firing. It's hilarious if you remember the real Psyga, but not so much if you liked the real Psyga.
    • And, of course, Kamen Rider 555 has...Psyga! There was no real reason for him to say all his lines in English, and strangely, nobody had trouble understanding him.
      • Though one urban legend claims that the actor's Japanese was so bad nobody could understand him, so the director asked him to translate the lines into English. This was worked into the script by identifying Psyga's user as a foreigner.
    • In one episode of Kamen Rider Skyrider, the villains are loading boxes of "DINAMAIT."
    • Kamen Rider Fourze continues this trope with the English being tossed around every few seconds. Justified in that its setting is based around an American High School, but it doesn't help that poor Gentaro has no idea what those words mean.
      • A very hilarious example was the first episode; the local Alpha Bitch called him "the trashiest of trash", but he thought she called the manliest of men.
  • The short-lived series Doctor Doctor had an episode in which a Japanese television crew did a documentary within the hospital. At the end of the shoot, they left several Japanese gifts for the hospital staff, including a t-shirt that said "DOCTORS ARE BIG SEX."
  • In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon "Episode Zero - Birth of Sailor V" prologue, the jewel thief Cutie Kenko (who can only be described as Tuxedo Mask being played by David Bowie) speaks gratuitous English as part of his attempt to be cool. While preparing the next heist he quotes the English expression "time is money", and answers each his minions' reports with a lazily drawn out "ooo-kay!"
  • In most Hispanic Soaps Operas (telenovelas) for adults or teens, preppy student and spoiled brats can be easy identified by the Gratuitous English they use. Girls will said "Daddy porfas" and boys " the veo en la party, brother". Oh and "Oseas...Hello!" is a classic.
  • Whenever Top Gear visits Japan, Jeremy Clarkson has a great deal of fun pointing the horrific Engrish to be found. The following was from the Japan segment of Motorworld, a solo side-project he did in the late nineties where he traveled to various countries and locales around the world to see their car culture.
    • "Full of sport mind & luxury feeling super potential winter wheel Iver"
    • "Just a roller skate grand touring. All over the physical ironic power."
  • Yomigaeru Iron Chefs! But damn if the Chairman doesn't make it sound awesome.
  • Annyong Francesca is a comedy about a Korean business man living with a family of vampires. This trope is lampshaded when the main character talks about Lunar New Year and then says in English, "Korean New Year." The lead female character quickly berates him by saying "Don't try to impress me by speaking English!".
  • Parodied to hell and back by The Fast Show 's Chanel 9. Like here!
  • Gutiérrez, a character in Colombian telenovela Yo Soy Betty, la Fea, does this a lot.
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