The first Hollywood film shown in Japan to carry subtitles on the screen was the Gary Cooper epic “Morocco,” released here in 1931. Up to that point, distributors had dubbed the actors’ lines in Japanese. But the talkies had only been around for a few years, the Sankei Shimbun (May 11) points out, and facilities for voice dubbing could not keep up with demand.

Fortunately, the Cooper film turned out to be a major hit, and audiences came to accept subtitles on foreign films.

More recently, however, film distributors have become increasingly aware that younger audiences are unable to comprehend subtitles on current films. To simplify things, subtitle producers have been ordered to reduce the number of words flashed on the screen to the bare minimum, and use of Chinese characters has been cut.

But the comprehension problem may also be indicative of the dumbing down of the nation. Young adult moviegoers’ lack of familiarity with many basic historical facts, says the Sankei, in some cases has not progressed beyond middle-school level.

As a result, distributors are rapidly switching over to voice dubbing—not only for animated cartoons, but also for conventional cinema.

The Sankei notes that up to the end of the Pacific War, Japanese subtitles appeared vertically on the screen’s right, with up to 13 characters per line and a maximum of three lines. After the war, the rule of thumb for reading speed was set to 4 characters per second, resulting in the maximum characters per line being reduced from 13 to 10, with a maximum of two lines.

Partly due to the boom in home video, around the mid-1980s, the characters per line—by this time appearing horizontally in the center of the lower screen—reverted to 13. The maximum of two lines remained unchanged.

More recently, however, many young viewers are finding this speed to be too daunting for their reading comprehension, and voice dubbing is making a comeback.

“We are devoting the utmost care to provide the highest level of voice dubbing,” says a spokesperson for distributor Toho Towa, which will be releasing three films between August and October. A spokesperson for Warner Brothers was quoted as saying that demand for dubbed versions of the “Harry Potter” film series has outstripped those with subtitles by a ratio of 60 to 40. “This trend has been increasing year by year,” he adds.

Subtitle length, however, is just one of the problems related to viewer comprehension.

“After a preview test showing of a certain spy film, members of the audience really surprised me by posing questions like, ‘What is the Soviet Union?’ and ‘What are Nazis?’” a production manager tells the newspaper.

“It appears that growing numbers of young people are unfamiliar with names and words that most Japanese take for granted,” remarks Koji Kikuchi, a veteran subtitler who has worked on some 1,000 films.

Latest 15 of 40 Total Comments Show All

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  HoDeDo at 01:28 PM JST - 14th May

  You're right kagunlapell, when I was a child I knew nothing of any of the topics you mention. When I was in highschool however, I was taught about all of them, in great detail. What the story fails to mention is the age of the young people in question. If it's a group of 13 year olds then I'm not surprised they have never heard of Nazis. If it's a group of 20 somethings, then there is most definately a problem.

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  Blue_Tiger at 06:34 PM JST - 14th May

  With the way the J-Government whitewashes Japan's war guilt and responsibilities for World War II in the Pacific, I can't say that I'm terribly surprised to learn that Japanese Youths (and really, whether they are 20-somethings or pre-teens is irrelevent: I knew what a nazi was at age 13) have no clue as to what a Nazi is, or anything about the Soviet Union....and it goes much, muuuuuuuuch deeper than mere subtitles on a movie screen.

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  KaptainKichigai at 10:41 PM JST - 14th May

  I remember the original version of Star Wars where Obi-wan disembowelled himself upon his lightsaber after admitting defeat to Darth. Shouldnt the Japanese history classes be a bit more detailed about the Nazis considering they were ALLIED with them? I would like to know how many Americans in any marketable demographic have ever seen High Noon or the Magnificent Seven?

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  viking68 at 07:44 AM JST - 15th May

  I saw a semi-complex attorney movie recently, Michael Clayton. It is a great movie with great dialog. Although it was a law movie, it was engaging and hopefully not incomprehensible to layman English speakers.

  I could only think of how it would be butchered by Japanese subtitles or voice overs replacing three sentences of meaningful dialog and outright prose with Sagoi, Hai, Saicou, Warui, Hidoi, Kakoui, etc.

  I have never subscribed to dumbing down society. If they don't understand it, get the dictionary out. Otherwise, the addage "you are what you eat" will apply.

  Unfortunately, the movie distributors are in the business of selling; the consumer are not willing to educate themselves; and the picture based written language doesn't lend itself to readily communicating new information.

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  omEigaMan at 10:43 AM JST - 15th May

  Just a thought, but I wonder if the trend toward dubbing has to do with the amount of information on-screen. Most movies these days, esp. action films, are a fast-paced montage of images to create excitement (sometimes in lieu of actual excitement). It's hard enough to see what's going on without trying to read subtitles at the same time.

  But I agree with most posters here that subtitles is the way to go. For me, dubbing loses not only performance, but often there is an effort to try to "fit" the dubbing into the mouth of the person talking and a proper translation often won't work in that case.

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  OhioDonna at 06:17 AM JST - 16th May

  kagunlapell: I am an American and I know who they are. I did not get my information from movies. I am not a great fan of the movies but I do love to read. (I do not limit my reading to pro-American views. )

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  rranta at 09:21 AM JST - 17th May

  Well, I can belive this without the documentation due to knowing some kids who are in school now. They have a terrible understanding of comon history events, how things work and worse of all, nobody seems interested in teaching them different! I also am a anime fan and find dubbing and subtitling are bothersome, unless you know the language. I'm trying to work on that, but till then, I can live with sub titles as long as they don't completely change the story.

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  NorikoT at 11:09 AM JST - 19th May

  Somebody should also tell the kids that after WW2, millions of German civilian were starved and frozen to death in open camps. Guards who gave them food were punished. Let history be known from a factual perspective, not only from the victors perspective. As general Eisenhower said after the war. I hate Germans. Was not the whole point of the wars and post war dramas simply to destroy the proud German race? Of course we cannot question the holocast, as we may be put in prison. Is that not strange that examination of a so called historical fact is a crime. Are they hiding something? The nuking of the civilians in Naga, and Hiro, when Japan had already offered to surrender, were war crimes. As senseles as that seemed, was not the motive to instil fear in future generations, to be very afraid of those who wield the big stick? So Nazis? Why not tell them the whole story, unless the US is still censoring Japan Today.

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  gifu at 05:52 PM JST - 20th May

  It's not just history. A lot of my students lack basic geographic knowledge of the region. Most can't find Micronesia on a map (= ex-Japanese colonies, very close Pacific neighbours) or even the Ogasawara Islands (Japanese since the Meiji era). These came up in a discussion with my 3rd year uni students last week. Of course, this dumbing down isn't limited to Japan, but all of these things, plus the Nazi and Soviet histories mentioned in the article, are mandatory topics in the Japanese senior high school syllabus.

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  Nessie at 09:02 PM JST - 20th May

  A lot of my students lack basic geographic knowledge of the region. Most can't find Micronesia on a map

  Well duh. It's Micronesia!

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  DigitalMirai at 06:28 AM JST - 22nd May

  Wow! How intelligent. Instead of educating the youth to read properly and/or study more of world history, let's cater to their ignorance and stupidity by making it easier for them to remain that way. Typical Japanese solution to a major problem. Indeed the future of Japan certainly looks bright. NOT!

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  kdfz808 at 08:42 PM JST - 22nd May

  Maybe, call me weird, "reading" may be a good way to learn instead of films and T.V.

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  cwhite at 11:43 AM JST - 27th May

  no way, with the reading of more junk on the internet and mobiles as well as Manga speed reading kids of this age should be reading 200% faster.

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  JoiceRojo at 01:41 AM JST - 28th May

  no way, with the reading of more junk on the internet and mobiles as well as Manga speed reading kids of this age should be reading 200% faster.

  Trouble is the laguange used on the internet. My native language is Spanish and English is my second language, I do participate in forums either in Spanish or English, and even though I try to use a correct language the abuse of the "LOL", "BTW", "PLZ" does not allow a young man/women to learn the language properly. I support reading, good books not junk... reading gives you velocity so the lenght of sentences in subtitles should not be a problem. Sometimes I have bought some movies in Japan, so I watch them in their original language (usually English), I don't like dubbing that much, since sometimes the emotions of the actor/actress are lost with bad dubbing.. About the Nazi thing... It is extraordinary that some can miss that since there are still people that consider themselves "Neonazis"... and there are a lot of movies that could explain the nature of that party members such a good one like "Schindler's List" (Oh wait, it cannot be dubbed because they can't pronounce the name of the protagonist - pardon my sarcasm)

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  Africanist at 03:32 PM JST - 29th May

  NorikoT:

  As general Eisenhower said after the war. I hate Germans. Was not the whole point of the wars and post war dramas simply to destroy the proud German race?

  Say what? Don't you realize that Eisenhower is a German name? He said he was ashamed to be German, not that he hated Germans. Do you really think he was out to destroy his own race? Or are you so racist you can't comprehend that the war was against a hideous ideology of ultranationalism?

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