Lalala have a silly rant!

[effervescible]

I was all set to conserve my Bleach fangirling to a couple of posts a week (besides fic over at herdedcats, cough cough go look and friend) but despite early spoilers, the raw is not out yet (though the Chinese watermarked one is, eeeh) so fuck it, I am gonna leave the latest chapter spazzing for another post. So! Here's another post I've been wanting to make. It is maybe not bitchy enough to be a rant. Call it an anti-spaz.

Okay. I am gonna lay out my controversial position here. Are you ready?

I really fucking hate the term "nakama." For the uneducated, it means something like friends, but stronger than that--teammates, or comrades, the latter of which is my preferred translation most of the time, at least how they've been using lately. For some time now, translation group M7 has been leaving it untranslated, and it's spread through the fandom like a virus.

The rationale is supposedly that there's no specific English words that directly translates it, so they leave it with asterisks and footnotes. And I fucking hate it. I HATE IT SO MUCH.

There are a LOT of Japanese words that don't have direct English counterparts, and I'm not talking about honorifics or distinctly Japanese terms--I'm pretty fine with leaving those. I mean just common, everyday parts of speech--Japanese and English are very different languages, so YEAH there are going to be many words that are not going to match exactly.

But you know what? That's why we have a little thing called context. Sure, "nakama" means more than just an average school friendship. But that's obvious from the way Tatsuki uses the word when she's yelling at Ichigo, for example. It's obvious that Ulquiorra is not referring to "pals" when he refers to Ichigo's nakama in the current arc. I mean--we don't NEED this foreign word like it magically is more clear than using context and the many, many words English has for types of friends. Hell, the first time a reader sees it used in a scanlation, they're going to have to look at a footnote to understand WTF it means anyway! How is that better?

It's not like the word is so very special anyway. Orihime used it way back in SS arc, when they were waiting on Sokyoku Hill. "Rukia is not just a nakama." Except the word wasn't untranslated back then--it was just "Rukia is not just a friend." And you know what? No one had trouble understanding what Orihime was talking about because the sentenced lacked this magical fucking word.

It's just not necessary. I consider it only marginally better than inserting random Japanese like the fangirls do in bad fics. "I'd love to go to the movies with you demo I have homework to do!" JUST USE THE REAL WORD, OKAY. It drives me up a damn wall.

Clarity of language is a good thing. I'm not saying we shouldn't use any Japanese in English translations, but there's keeping the flavor of the source language and culture, and then there's just pointless pandering. I believe the use of "nakama" falls into the latter category.

Comments

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

It's funny that, when I find it in the translations, I sort of quietly accept it, but the occurrence of the word all over fandom just makes me "Gah fangirl Japanese." Perhaps I accept it from the translators because it's a translation issue, and while it isn't their only option it's a possible one. For fen to continue using it though just strikes me as laziness.

[jaina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm kinda with you there. I don't like it being used in the scanlations (obviously); it still bugs me. But the spread to fandom just makes me go %^$%@#$%#$%#$%#$. You're not Japanese! Stop trying to be!

[loveotter.livejournal.com]

WORD FOR SERIOUS! I despise anything that encourages the beyond-stupid practice of inserting random Japanese words into English prose. DRIVES ME UP A FUCKING WALL. And believe it or not, fansubbers/translators, there's this amazing thing called CONTEXT that clarifies words that don't have a direct-to-English translation! Go fucking figure!

[jaina.livejournal.com]

As much as I (obviously) think I have a good point anyway, it amuses me that my writing major/linguist friends are the ones who've most strongly agreed with me. We're sensitive about our language. ;)

[yma2.livejournal.com]

It can be a hard line to walk that one, but in principle I do agree with you. Sometime's it's neccesary to use a certain term to show a subtly of meaning in a context, but from what I know 'Nakama' is not one of those.
I mean, I'm currently writing Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic, and because of the genre I sometimes use 'Nii Sama,' and 'Aibou,' because in both contexts it's kinda important and it's very heavily recognised in fandom, but that and the occasional honoriffic is about as far as I go.
In general it can be a bit of a difficult line, but I thik the less the better as a rule and Nakama isn't so special a word that it can't have a translation. All langauge carries with it a subtly of meaning, if you're going to argue against every case like Nakama you might as well not bother translating it at all.

[aurorn.livejournal.com]

I agree completely with everything you've said here. I mean, you have to take things in context for them to make sense. And since we're reading the whole story, where is the missing context that requires this use of this word?
Why isn't "friend", "companion", ""ally", "compatriot", "cohort", or "partner" good enough? I mean the english language is huge, there are many synonyms for any of the words I mentioned above. Use a thesaurus and a dictionary and you'll find something you can substitute that will work in the context to get the original meaning across.

[magi-balthasar.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're just trying to teach all the readers Japanese, one word at a time. Eventually, they'd only have to put the kana and kanji in romaji. Then they could start slowly changing those until they didn't have to translate at all!
Anyway, I agree with you on this one. In certain circumstances, it may make sense to leave a word untranslated, but this happens rarely. Most phrases that are uniquely Japanese can translated so that we can make sense of them. Something like "Gochisousama deshita" may actually mean "It was a feast", but you can easily translate it to something more normal-souding, like "That was delicious". Basically, it sounds like the translators got lazy, and most of the fans didn't care because they were all like "ZOMFG!1!1!1 A NU JAPAENS3 WORD I CAN UES AROUND MAH FREINDS 2 MAEK TH3M THINK I KNOW JAPAENSE!!1!1!1!!!!!!!1!!1 WTF LOLZ".

Here to offer my two cents...

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry that I'm just posting anonymously, but I don't have my on LJ, and I haven't really seen the need for one yet, as I'm a pretty withdrawn person, and I usually lurk in whatever fandoms I'm apart of.

The term "nakama" indeed does not have a precise translation, and context can be used to determine it. However, the One Piece fandom (which I'm also a lurker in) has been using it for years and almost always leaves it untranslated, almost to the point that it's an unanimous decision on the fandom's part. While it's true that most shounen stories focus on friendship, One Piece makes it the MAIN focus, the theme that pretty much takes precedence over all else. It can be argued, therefore, that the use of "nakama" is entirely justified in the One Piece fandom. So, what does this have to do with the Bleach fandom?

Well, the three most popular ongoing (read: currently still being written/aired) anime/manga series on the internet right now (that is, instead of the mass market/public, the three with the largest internet fandoms) is Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. And, chances are good that if someone likes one of them, they like of the others as well, or maybe even all three. Someone who likes both Bleach and One Piece probably started this trend. Then, those who have a fascination with Japanese probably picked up on it and started using it and spreading it everywhere, to the point where it is almost fandom wide. I agree that Bleach doesn't have nearly as much focus on friendship as One Piece (Instead, it seems Kubo likes to drop increasingly-less-subtle clues for romance, fueling the shippers' fire), so the justification of using nakama and not a near-equivalent English word is less justifiable.

Anyway, I hope you found this helpful. BTW, I found your journal from your signature on BF, where I was lurking in the IchiRuki FC. I've been thinking about joining, especially since the girls seem to like having a guy there, given their reaction to Adam, and I know that guy shippers like myself aren't too common...

Re: Here to offer my two cents...

[jaina.livejournal.com]

Hello, Mr. Nonny Mouse! Feel free to comment away. :) I do find it interesting to learn more about where the trend of the word usage comes from--mmm, etymology. I still think it's unjustified and it drives me crazy, but hey. Still good to learn.

I'm only just now tiptoeing into BF myself after registering there ages ago. It's a double-edged sword; there have been some really interesting posts and discussions there, but other times I despair because it seems like some posters want to turn my favorite characters into immature parodies of themselves, and I have to go bang my head against a wall. But I'm sticking around for now--hope to see you there.