What do you think of some of the Japanese titles given to foreign movies when they are distributed in Japan?

Have Your Say Jan. 11, 2013 - 06:02AM JST ( 17 )

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17 Comments

5

marcelsJan. 11, 2013 - 09:32AM JST

CONFUSING!!!!!!!
0

ItsMeJan. 11, 2013 - 10:36AM JST

Awful! Dreadful! The worst I've heard yet is calling "Raising Arizona" 赤ちゃん泥棒... So they give away what happens in the movie before it even starts! Its quite common that they take an interesting name that leaves intrigue, and dumb it down like the example above!
1

kaminarioyajiJan. 11, 2013 - 11:20AM JST

The renaming of western movies here seems a bit inconsistent.

The recent Total recall is named after the antagonist company in the film, and is simply rendered in Katakana here, whereas films like Jack Reacher and the other eponymous movie from Tom Cruise, Jerry Maguire are given either outlandish or pedestrian titles in Japanese (Jack Reacher & Jerry Maguire are Outlaw & The Agent respectively).

English - Napoleon Dynamite, Japanese - Bus man (hardly peaks one's curiosity).

Pixar's Up! (surely every Japanese knows the meaning of "up" as it's in a lot of borrowed phrases) is rendered in Japanese as "Old man Carl's flying house".

Too many to mention.
3

sakuralaJan. 11, 2013 - 12:53PM JST

I find it to be unneccesairy. Why not just change it to katakana and leave it like that. I have had so many conversations about movies that I haven't though I seen, and after hearing the plot, figure out it is a movie that I have seen. The worst is when they take a short title and make it long for no reason, like Pixar's "Up!"
0

tmarieJan. 11, 2013 - 01:24PM JST

Dumb. Either leave it in English or put it in katakana. No one has any idea what the title ares here. Karate Kid = Best kid, Fast and the Furious = Wild Speed... Leave the titles alone!
0

Marilita Fabie-FujisawaJan. 11, 2013 - 02:03PM JST

Les Miserables is Les Miserables, how come they didn't change that? I wonder who's idea this is? Who decides?
0

Marilita Fabie-FujisawaJan. 11, 2013 - 08:06PM JST

Annoying to the max! Kaku warui!, dasai!!
-1

ProbieJan. 12, 2013 - 09:39AM JST

Stupid, annoying, and childish.

Use the same name as the original.
-2

LowlyJan. 12, 2013 - 01:33PM JST

I disagree w/ most here, I think name changes often make sense in a foreign language and are done, or were, for good reasons.

These days however, katakana titles have become the norm, creating often long and very creaky-sounding names in Jpns that rarely have any meaning.

Look at j release titles of US and other movies from the 60s, 70s etc, and they are either direct translations of the original title or, if that would be nonsense in jpn, then usually a cool-sounding alternative was invented.

dai-ha-do, menn in burakku, etc, doesn't do it for me.
0

kiboushaJan. 12, 2013 - 02:11PM JST

It's "we don't get what you mean by that, we think this is a better title for the movie". That's why most popular ones like Harry Potter or Les Miserables don't get changed, because they "get" it. It's disrespectful imho.
0

FarmboyJan. 12, 2013 - 04:04PM JST

Well, considering what we did to the title and dialog in the early Gojira movies, it's perfectly fair.
2

himawariJan. 12, 2013 - 04:05PM JST

English - Napoleon Dynamite, Japanese - Bus man (hardly peaks one's curiosity).

Are you familiar with the movie/TV show Densha Otoko/Train Man? The title of Bus man is a play on this since the main characters of Napoleon Dynamite/Densha Otoko are weird, antisocial otaku types. (The similarities pretty much end there, though...)
-1

ProbieJan. 12, 2013 - 07:53PM JST

Are you familiar with the movie/TV show Densha Otoko/Train Man? The title of Bus man is a play on this since the main characters of Napoleon Dynamite/Densha Otoko are weird, antisocial otaku types. (The similarities pretty much end there, though...)

I haven't seen either, but I doubt they are related in the slightest. Which means that they should have no connection with the stupid name they gave it.
-1

Ah_soJan. 12, 2013 - 09:00PM JST

Name changes are made for financial reasons i.e. to make the movie sell better, not to placate the sensitivities of Westerners.
1

kaketamaJan. 13, 2013 - 03:07PM JST

That's fine. Most Japanese cant understand what a title means in English. It is good idea to let them know a clear sense of the show. I guess this kind of translation has been done in many countries other than Japan.
0

Thunderbird2Jan. 14, 2013 - 05:18PM JST

It's easy to knock the Japanese for retitling foreign films... but how about the west retitling Japanese films? Just as bad.