Japanese Honorifics: Difference between revisions

More and more often, they are [[Too Long; Didn't Dub|used without explanation]] in English translations.

=== Honorifics used only as suffixes ===

=== Honorifics also used as regular words ===

=== Other things ===

* ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' has power and hierarchy in relationships as a major theme, so it's no surprise that honorifics are used in all sorts of interesting ways to reveal this. (The dub tries its best to get the idea across, but can't always manage.) There's ''lots'' of examples, but one of the major ones is Anthy's habit of using ''-sama'' for the current winner of the duels. At the beginning of the show, she always addresses Saionji as Saionji-''sama'' (translated here as "Master Saionji"). Then, after Utena defeats him, Anthy emotionally devastates him with one sentence:

* As expected in a series revolving around the concept that words are spells, in ''[[Loveless]]'' honorifics are so important that the English translation of the manga simply decides to keep all of them.

* In the dub for one of the sequels to ''[[El-Hazard: The Magnificent World (Anime)|El-Hazard: theThe Magnificent World]]'', Nanami runs around a castle calling for "Makoto-chan".

* Haruhi always uses -senpai when talking to Tamaki, who is in the year above her, in ''[[Ouran High School Host Club (Manga)|Ouran High School Host Club]]''. When she does the same thing during summer vacation, he shouts at her "I'm not your senpai! I'm just an acquaintance."

* In ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', Haruhi refers to Koizumi as "Koizumi-kun" but Kyon just as [[Hey, You|"Kyon"]], implying more familiarity with the later. The uber-polite Koizumi addresses all the girls as "-san" which translates as "miss" in the English dubs ("Suzumiya-san" becomes "Miss Suzumiya.") Kyon also addresses the girls as "-san" except Haruhi, with whom he is on [[First Name Basis]], but doesn't use honorifics when speaking to [[Vitriolic Best Buds|Koizumi.]]

* In ''[[Ranma One½ Half(Manga)|Ranma ½]]'', teenagers Ranma and Ukyo have pet names for each other using the truncated name + ''-chan'' structure ("Ranchan" and "Ucchan", the latter doubling as a pun on her Kansai dialect). These date back to their initial friendship at age six. At least one background character, upon hearing their use, commented that this was "little kid stuff". These are carried over largely without explanation in the English dub, though Ukyo's habitual "Ran-chan" is often translated as "Ranma-honey" instead. Likewise, Soun and Genma always refer to each other as "Saotome-kun" and "Tendo-kun", reflecting their status as old friends and fellow students of Happousai. In their case it's supposed to sound more adolescent than juvenile.

** Ranma repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the ultra-rich buffoon Tatewaki Kuno's insistence that Ranma show him the respect due an upperclassman by addressing him as "[[Sempai -Kohai|sempai]]". The dub translates this mostly literally as demanding to be called "Upperclassman Kuno."

*** Whenever Ranma ''does'' use ''-sempai'' he tends to either deliberately mispronounce Kuno's name so it sounds more like "no abilities" than "nine abilities", or (in the manga, naturally) use katakana to denote a mocking pronunciation of the term.

** Likewise, Nabiki invariably refers to Kuno as "Kuno-chan" (translated as "Kuno baby" in the English dub) as a sign of contempt.

** Ranma and Akane consistently address each other using ''yobisute'', and the lack of honorifics underlines both their status as the [[Official Couple]] and the ambiguous [[Will They or Won't They?]] nature of their relationship. The reason Kuno first gets mad at Ranma for addressing Akane so casually was because Ranma was using ''yobisute''.

** Kodachi will usually refer to Ranma as "Ranma-sama" ("Dearest Ranma"), which was translated as "Ranma sir" in the early manga and "Ranma Darling" in the dub.

** Kasumi, as one might expect, uses (and receives) textbook-perfect honorifics (erring on the polite side) underlining her status as the resident [[Yamato Nadeshiko]]. She always uses "-kun" for the boys. Her sisters, being family, get either "imouto" or ''yobisute'', and Akane and Nabiki refer to her as ''oneechan''. It's worth noting that Ranma, who tends to be either sloppy or sarcastic with his honorifics, ''always'' speaks respectfully to Kasumi, and even calls her "Kasumi-oneechan" ("beloved big sister Kasumi") on occasion, just like the girls do. Kasumi herself addressed Ranma as "-chan" right after their very first meeting, when the Tendo sisters still thought she was just a girl.

*** To take it further, to refer to ''oneself'' as "-sama" is considered ''extremely'' arrogant and rude.

* In ''[[Tenchi Muyo (Anime)|Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki]]'', Afterafter discovering Tenchi's royal ancestry, Princess Ayeka almost invariably calls him "Tenchi-sama". In the dub this is translated as "Lord", matching the more archaic usage. (She also speaks in an [[Keigo|archaic, formal Japanese]] which is rendered in English by the device of a British accent.)

** Washu (who is 20,000 years old and the galaxy's greatest scientific mindgenius) [[Insistent Terminology|insists on being called "Washu-chan"]] ("Little Washu" in the dubbed version) by everyone (except Ryoko, who she insists should call her "Mom" instead), ''especially'' ultra-formal Ayeka. She generally refers to Tenchi as "Tenchi-dono", indicating her age.

* In the English translation of ''[[Excel Saga (Manga)|Excel Saga]]'', Hyatt almost always refers to Excel as "Senior Excel" or just "Senior" -- a reasonable, if not exactly standard, usage that reflects the Japanese "Excel-[[Sempai -Kohai|sempai]]". Il Palazzo, their immediate superior, addresses Excel (as an example of its use in a context other than schoolboys) as "Excel-kun".

** Sai starts out calling Naruto "-kun" and Sakura "-san", but after becoming friends with them in the "Sasuke and Sai" arc and reading a book suggesting that continuing to use honorifics makes becoming closer to friends easier, decides to start using yobisute to become closer to them.