Gratuitous Japanese: Difference between revisions

* Particularly egregious is ''[http://archives.eyrie.org/anime/Ranma/Narrabundah/ Narrabundah 1/2]'' by Urac "Ratbat" Sigma, where you not only have to struggle through vast amounts of unfootnoted Japanese, you also have to deal with transcribed Scots and Welsh accents, obscure Anzac slang, and some just outright bizarre character speech patterns, all of it in obsolete [[Script Fic|script format]].

* The ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' fanfic ''[[Tenshi Trail]]'' takes this to ''ridiculous'' extremes, making completely unnecessary word substitutions in both the dialogue and actual writing. What makes this even more baffling is that the show does not take place in Japan and ''none of the main characters are Japanese.'' Some examples include:

''He looked yuki white with dark ruby and kuro eyes.'' }}

* ''[[My Immortal]]'' uses quite a bit of Fangirl Japanese -- in a ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fic.

* Played straight in the ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' fanfic ''[[Digital Prey]]'', though it's mostly limited to the names of the canon characters and their attacks, and occasionally using Japanese honorifics when the characters address each other.

* Parodied in the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' [[Meta Fic]] ''[[Those Lacking Spines]]'' with Pence in the [[High School AU]] chapters, who speaks in a garbled mix of Japanese, Spanish and English.

''And, even more ridiculous: "Naminé-sempai is so gaijin she komo dachi tomo teriyaki sukimura sakura the Rearu Fork Brues... Iie, iie, no way Jose."'' }}

* There is a [[Dragonball Z|DBZ]] fanfic out there where the author uses "baka" straight. As a noun. ''He pluralises it by adding -s.''

* The [[Deva Series (Fanfic)|Deva Series]] has quite a bit of [[Gratuitous Japanese]], often in the form of common statements such as "Hai" and "Gomen nasai", and occasional phrases (?Ohayo, minnnaaaa-ssaaaaan!?).

* A horrific example of this very nearly destroyed the Improfanfic series ''Final Fantasy Legacy'', and was the very first instance of an Impro part actually being pulled ([[Canon Discontinuity|entirely removed from the series and disregarded by all future authors]]) to save the story. The original author for the sixth chapter (of what would go on to be a 60+ chapter story) committed multiple sins, including killing off half the characters, throwing a brand-new story into ending mode, and spewing rivers of gratuitous Japanese into a story which, at that point, had used ''absolutely no Japanese whatsoever''. Some of the worst examples:

"Kore ga ore no daiichi no osoroshii kachi da! Ore o mitte soushite osorete! Ningen o koroshitearu! Shoukan shite iru kaibutsu o koroshitearu!!" }}

* ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'' does this a lot, although it may be intentional.

* In ''[[Cannibal! The Musical]]'', the characters meet a tribe of Indians called the Nihonjin, who speak Japanese.

* In ''[[Erik the Viking]],'' the oarsman taskmaster is inexplicably Japanese, who hilariously insults the galley slaves:

You, who have never committed ritual suicide in your lives! }}

 

== オペラ <small>(Opera)</small> ==

* The march of the Mikado's troops in ''The Mikado'' is an actual Japanese marching song, not an invention of [[Gilbert and Sullivan]], although the very, very old-fashioned Romanization might make it hard for a modern speaker to figure out:

Toko tonyaré tonyaré na? }}

** In the first act finale, the chorus drowns out Katisha by singing "O! ni bikkuri shakkuri to!" This roughly translates as "surprise, with a hiccup." But http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Mikado-in-Translation-290255.html declares that it's "Demon, you surprise and shock us!"

* ''[[Death Smiles]]'''s entirely western cast includes a girl whose English parents named her [[Aerith and Bob|Sakura]]. A very rare Japanese example not played for humor.

* Piston Honda in the NES version of ''[[Punch Out]]'' behaves kind of like a [[Japanese Tourist]], because they put this into his character. The following is one of his between-round quotes. Seriously:

** Remedied in the Wii version, where he is now Piston Hond'''o''', and pretty much a [[Samurai]] boxer.

* In ''[[Clean Asia]]!'', you can see some katakana at the bottom of the screen when you enter an area.

* In ''[[American Dad]]'', one of teenage son Steve Smith's nerd friends is a stereotypical Japanese boy named Toshi (or possibly Toushi). He's so stereotypical, in fact, that he exclusively speaks fluent Japanese. While the viewers get to see subtitles whenever he speaks (and his dialogue is often quite humorous), it's evident that Steve and his other friends have no clue what he's saying. At one point, Toushi goes into a lengthy monologue in objection to something Steve had asked him, and Steve responds along the lines of "Wow, that's a lot of words for 'yes'."

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' has two memorable examples. One is from the "Mr. Sparkle" episode, which featured [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnaLRbbc-54 this advertisement] in a company video sent to logo-lookalike Homer. The second one is in "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo", in which Homer and Bart show off their [[Omniglot]] skills once again.

'''Bart''': ''Dame yo, are wa gaikokujin da ro!'' (No, they are foreign devils!) }}

** And let's not forget, also from the second one:

* Splinter will occasionally use this in the second ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' with honorifics and such, as will the characters from the ''[[Usagi Yojimbo]]'' universe (a convention imported from the comic books). However, a more egregious use occurs in ''Fast Forward'', where a race of vaguely bird-like aliens with no established connection with Japan are named the Inuwashi Gunjin.

* One episode of [[Robot Chicken]] involved a fake advertisement set in Japan with Sarah Michelle Gellar. The dialogue was authentic Japanese, but consisted almost entirely of meaningless aphorisms, such as ''Saru mo ki kara ochiru'' (''"Even monkeys fall from trees"'').