She's a Man In Japan: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:PRYellow 9794.jpg|link=Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|frame|Thus, we know [[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger|why the Yellow Ranger, unlike the Pink Ranger, has no skirt on her costume.]]]]

 

{{quote|"Give me a break, you two," Dax said. "If that's supposed to be a female, then she's lacking in... certain areas."

 

Sometimes things get [[Lost in Translation]], and occasionally this isn't so much "lost" as "[[Bowdlerise|purposely altered]]". Sometimes the "thing" in question is a character's sex.

 

{{examples}}

* Zoisite from ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' was a flamboyant male in love with Kunzite (Malachite) in the original anime, but was changed into the female Zoycite in the DiC dub (and most others). At least the voice actress was competent and gave "her" serious schadenfreude. In the Italian dub, they removed the [[Gender Bender]] element of the Sailor Starlights by having the Three Lights "replaced by their [[Half-Identical Twins|twin sisters]]" instead of transform. Presumably, they hung out in [[Hammerspace]] until they were called on [[Fridge Logic|or something]]. In France and Mexico, Zoisite and Malachite were brothers, in the original manga the two were portrayed to have brotherly affection (if even that, given they barely interacted at all) so this change is probably the least of an alteration.

** The Polish dub made him genderless, with a neutral voice and no pronouns!

* In the original ''[[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman|Gatchaman]],'' the villain Berg Kattse was a hermaphrodite, able to take on a male or female appearance. For the original dub into English, ''[[Battle of the Planets]],'' The two appearances became two ''characters,'' twin siblings; Zoltar and Mala. However one of the last episodes shown in the US did have the scene where Zoltar/Berg is partially unmasked before escaping leaving the characters to wonder if Zoltar was a woman. Its possible if the US version had continued, they would've just said Zoltar was a female cross dresser.

* The Latin American dub of ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' did this to Souji Okita, who the translator apparently didn't realize was a real historical figure.

* The Hungarian dub of [[Yu Yu Hakusho]] played it straight, turing Kurama into a woman, for at least the entirety of the first season.

 

* When Fawcett stopped producing superhero comics after losing their legal battle with DC, publishers L. Miller & Son, who had up until then reprinted the ''[[Shazam|Captain Marvel]]'' stories for the British market, decided to continue with [[Captain Ersatz|home-produced replacements]]. For Captain Marvel, British readers got [[Marvelman]], for Captain Marvel Jr. Young Marvelman, and for Mary Marvel ...Kid Marvelman. The editor thought a British equivalent to Mary Marvel would not be as popular with his young boy readers.

* [[Lucky Luke]]'s horse, Jolly Jumper, is a mare called ''Dolly'' in Greece. It is interesting that this gender change never conflicted with the story or caused confusion and as a result most people in the country consider the horse a female character. ...Until the #73th issue was translated, which was all about Jolly falling in love with a mare. To avoid making 'Dolly' a lesbian, the publishers decided to correct the horse's gender from that issue and onwards.

 

 

* In the first ''[[.hack|.hack//AI Buster]]'' novel, Watarai's assistant is made male by [[Tokyo Pop]]. No big deal, just a passing character, right? Ooooooor maybe it's the very ''female'' {{spoiler|Kamui, the [[Knight Templar]] bad guy of ''Legend Of The Twilight''}}. [[Handwaved]], since the series has documented players ''playing'' the opposite gender on a few occasions.

* Douglas Hofstadter's book ''[[Godel Escher Bach|Gödel, Escher, Bach]]'' features a series of dialogues featuring Achilles and the Tortoise from [[Lewis Carroll]] 's "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles." Like Carroll, Hofstadter wrote the Tortoise as male without thinking too much about it (because animals are [[Always Male]]). When ''GEB'' was translated into other languages, however, such as French and Italian, in which "tortoise" is a feminine noun, the translators made the Tortoise into a female character (''Madame Tortue, Signorina Tartaruga''). Hofstadter, who had subsequently become interested in the problem of sexism in language such as the male-default for characters in stories, was delighted by this. The episode is discussed in his book on translation, ''Le Ton beau de Marot''.

* In various translations (such as the Spanish ones) [[Terry Pratchett]]'s Death from the [[Discworld]] series was given female pronouns, usually due to Death being personified as female in many countries (which in turn is because "la mort" is a feminine noun). This has mostly been fixed in the translations of his more recent books.

** The French translations of the earlier books all feature a footnote [[A Worldwide Punomenon|pun]] about Death being male because he's a necessary evil;<ref>''"la Mort est mâle, car c'est un mal nécessaire"''</ref> the French words for "male" and "evil" sound the same. In later books, though, the footnote is still here, but basically saying, "Yes, Death is masculine. That's just the way it is."

* In the Italian translation of ''[[The Ancestral Trail]]'', the (female) Guardian of Insects Kika was changed to a male.

* The Young Adult version of [[Clive Cussler]]'s Iceberg removes the fact that one of the [[Villainous Crossdresser|female villains is a actually a transvestite]]. The other one is a Post-Op Transsexual.

* In [[Soviet Russia]] (and most likely in Russia to this day), Bagheera the black panther is female, in both the book and the movie of ''[[The Jungle Book (novel)|The Jungle Book]]''. Same with the White Cobra. This particular sex change may have happened for linguistic reasons: in Russian, nouns that end with the vowel ''-a'' are (in most cases) grammatically feminine—such as the word ''pantera'' (panther), and the name "Bagheera" itself.

* Following that pattern is the March Hare in [[Alices Adventures in Wonderland]] who is female in the Spanish version of the novel. A lot of times, when a language does not have gender-neutral pronouns, an animal will be referred to as a "he" or "she" depending on the "gender" of the word of the species if gender is unknown or does not matter.

 

* The female Yellow Rangers in many of the ''[[Power Rangers]]'' shows were guys in the original ''[[Super Sentai]]'', presumably changed to try to avoid [[The Smurfette Principle]]. (The most noticeable clue to this fact is that while the Pink Ranger tends to have a skirt, the Yellow does not.) In fact, ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger|Zyuranger]]'''s Tiger Ranger, who became the first ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|Mighty Morphin]]'' Yellow Ranger, was, by a funny fluke, named ''Boi''. This hasn't happened since ''[[Power Rangers Wild Force|Wild Force]]'', though, because the Japanese ''Sentai'' series have been putting two girls in the cast more frequently these last years, as well as the fact it was becoming increasingly difficult to try to pretend that the morphed males were actually females.

** The occasional [[Monster of the Week]] has been voiced as the opposite sex of its Sentai counterpart, the most major recent example being ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'''s Crazar. Also, the [[Power Rangers Mystic Force|Snow Prince]] was a woman in [[Mahou Sentai Magiranger|the source material Sentai]].

** And now ''[[Power Rangers]]'' is headed towards an interesting conundrum involving this, thanks to ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'' (which is becoming the 20th anniversary season). The Gokaiger can change into any previous Ranger, with suits receiving a [[Gender Flip]] as appropriate. Thus, when Gokai Yellow turns into a Yellow Ranger who was originally male, the costume gains a skirt...which, as noted above, did not happen in ''Power Rangers''.

 

* Avalokitesvara, the (male) Bodhisattva of compassion, is known as the female Gwanyin in China and Kannon in Japan.

** In the classic Chinese novel ''[[Journey to the West]]'', possibly as lampshade hanging, Gwanyin is female but often takes male form when visiting the mortal world so that the ignorant are less likely to bother her.

** So in the TV series ''[[Monkey]]'', Kuan Yin is played by a man with a woman's voice, even in the English dub. It's even lampshaped: 'Kuan Yin? Her with the five-o-clock shadow?'

** Actually, looks the Bodhisattva Guanyin has ambiguous gender at least in China (also, see the statues in Buddhist temples in China).

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* In the Norwegian translation of ''[[Peanuts]]'', Woodstock is a girl named Fredrikke (a female name over there).

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* In a (sort of) in-universe example, the first description of the [[Ravenloft]] domain of Kalidnay depicted the darklord Thakok-An as male and the domain's god/ruler Kalid-Ma as female. (Presumably the name "Kalid-''Ma''" had implied a female gender.) Then the Ravenloft design team realized that the [[Dark Sun]] setting's histories portrayed Kalid-Ma as male, meaning they'd used this trope by accident while importing that character to the Land of Mists. A later update to the Ravenloft rules reversed these two characters' genders so they'd conform with [[Dark Sun]].

 

 

* In the ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' franchise Birdo is... confusing. In Japan, Birdo was a male [[Crossdresser]] named "'''Catherine'''". The US manual description says "He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called 'Birdetta'." (The last tidbit was ultimately removed). This gave gamers the impression that Birdo was in fact transsexual, an impression that has stuck ever since (in fact, the European ''Super Mario Strikers'' website still refers to Birdo as male.)

** Also in the Japan game Captain Rainbow, Birdo was arrested for [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|using the girl's room]]

*** Apparently no one's told the writers of ''Nintendo Power'' about the company's official position... From issue #250 (January 2010)

{{quote|At once a male crossdresser and a female love interest for Yoshi, Birdo is an enigma, and determining his/her gender is one of life's biggest questions. Then there's the fact that Birdo shoots eggs out of his/her mouth...hole...thing.}}

* Poison the "punk" girl member of the Mad Gear Gang from ''[[Final Fight]]'' who later becomes Hugo's manager in ''[[Street Fighter III]]'' is actually a [[Even the Guys Want Him|really hot]] male-to-female crossdresser in Japan, although most people didn't know that at the time since [[All There in the Manual|her true gender was only mentioned in the manuals for the home versions in Japan]]. When a Capcom USA team decided to do ''Final Fight Revenge'', they had Poison develop a romantic interest towards Cody, likely unaware that "she" was a "he". The Japanese localization of ''Final Fight Revenge'' corrected this by stating that Poison was still a man, but kept the romantic sub-text anyway. When ''[[Street Fighter IV]]'' producer Yoshinori Ono was asked about this in an interview, [[Word of God|he clarified that Poison was still a man in Japan, but that she was a post-op transsexual in America]], [[Flip-Flop of God|and then]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140223151116/http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/egm-interviewyoshinori-ono/ changed his mind] saying there is no official answer.

* In the Japanese version of ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 3'', secret boss Serenade is said to be a man that looks like a young girl. The gender is ambiguous in the US version.

* Poor Noah in the first ''[[Phantasy Star]]''. Always supposed to be a man (as well as {{spoiler|the first incarnation of Lutz}}, but [[Dub Name Change|that's a whole other trope]]), but the English translation freely flip-flops between using "he" and "she" when referring to him.

 

* The Canadian/American ''[[Transformers]]: [[Beast Wars]]'' has Airazor, who was turned ''male'' for the Japanese production from being female. Of course the toy was originally conceived as male too but they made the pre-production decision to add a female to the cast and Airazor looked serviceable. The fact that the Japanese dub was a [[Gag Dub]] doesn't help matters. It also turned out more than a little bit weird that Airazor and Tigatron got paired up just before they got fired into space. (Lampshaded with <s>Rattrap</s> Rattle wondering what their ''[[Ho Yay|deal]]'' was immediately afterwards.)

* The French dub of the original ''[[Transformers: The Movie]]'' made Starscream and Shrapnel into women.

* Spanish-language dubs of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' originally referred to Nermal (whom, for some reason, was [[Dub Name Change]]d "Telma") as ''gatita'', the word for a female kitten. It was finally changed in the later episodes.

* You know "[[The Ant and the Aardvark|The Ant and the]] <s>Anteater</s> [[The Ant and the Aardvark|Aardvark]]" from the ''[[Pink Panther]]'' cartoons? For unknown reasons, the anteater became a woman in the German dub. (A woman with a very deep voice, but still unmistakably a woman.)

* In the Mexican dub of [[Chowder]], Ceviche is referred as a girl in the character-introducing episode "The Apprentice Games", anyways is referred as a boy in later episodes. The character design...well...doesn't help.

** The main character, a [[Hermaphrodite]] in the original French version, was re-written into a [[Cute Shotaro Boy|very effeminate, touchy-feely boy]] for the English dub, likely due to being [[Cross-Dressing Voices|voiced by a man]]. This went all fine and well, albeit with a little [[Ho Yay]] [[Dub Text|subtext]], until the series hit a cluster of episodes including one that all but confirmed the main character's (current) biological sex as female. Those and later episodes retconned her back into a female, though [[Dub-Induced Plot Hole|the already dubbed episodes were not fixed]].

** She was just plain turned male in the Hindi and Italian dubs, with dialogue altered to explain away dodgy-seeming scenarios. Why? The initial [[Viewer Gender Confusion|Translator Gender Confusion]] just stuck.

* Essentially every ''[[My Little Pony]]'' in the first cartoon, except for six or so Stallions who popped up for one episode, were girls. In order to add more gender diversity to the cast certain European countries made certain ponies into boys, typically the ponies with lower voices.

** Generally, in every language thet has gender-specific adjectives, stallion toys are referred to with feminine ones.

* The Hebrew dub of ''[[KaBlam!]]'' turned June into a boy, "[[Dub Name Change|John]]". Why? Absolutely no reason at all.

** Unless you add vowel points, both would be spelled the same way in Hebrew (this is the English-phonetics "John," obviously, not its original Hebrew Yoḥanan), and "John" is a much more common name. So it's possible someone just saw it in print and made an assumption.

 

* In some countries, the [[Grim Reaper]] is female, especially in Eastern Europe where "death" is a feminine noun in many languages.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Translation Tropes]]

[[Category:Gender Blending Tropes]]

[[Category:Sublime Rhyme]]

[[Category:Shes A Man In Japan]]