Animericanization

A few days ago I had a chat with TensaiMan (owner of Insanity Prelude) and talked about the possiblity of Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu or The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi's release on some American cartoon channel.

The fact that it will be shown on American soil isn't much of a big deal, but since it's a kiddie-friendly channel, the show will have to be "Americanized". The speculated resulting translations of the names that he and his friends came up with were hilarious, with the proposed title going as "The Antics of Harriet Susan Mayers" or something like that. It's funny but that's what usually happens when animes hit American shores.

I'm not too sure about where it all started but I first got a glimpse of "americanization" back in '96 when I visited the States for the first time. From what I remember, America was just beginning to embrace anime back then - more specifically, Sailor Moon and Dragonball. I barely recognized the two from the overhaul of names the dubbers gave 'em when I saw their first episodes. And you can just imagine how confused people got when they went online and checked for pictures of their favorite anime.

(it's like the name shuffling issue in Street Fighter, which is of a totally different nature but produced the same problems nonetheless)

Maybe the American distributors thought it best to gradually introduce America to those "weird neighbors" from the far east by filtering as much of the Japanese in the animes as possible, by removing traces of japanese names for starters, since the last time America really had wanted to do anything with Japan, 2 bombs exploded in Mr. Nihon's backyard, causing death and bad teeth. Talk about bad neighbors huh?

We did it here in the Philippines too. Remember Ghost Fighter? Yuu yuu Hakusho, the original title, translates roughly to "Ghost Visitor's Report". All the names were altered too, with the protagonist Yusuke's name changed to "Eugene" etc. Even Jeremiah's gender was altered. Apparently the dubbers thought she was a he when she first appeared and named her aptly as "Jeremiah".

Then we grew out of it, at least partially. Nowadays dubbers try to stick with what's given in Japanese and only deviate when it's necessary. We're no longer too surprised to mention an person named Azuma Kazuma or Kikyo even if it sounds funny in our native tongue.

I wonder when that sort of thing will happen to America though. Maybe not for a while I think. Pronunciation issues alone can make things complicated already. Try making an American man read "Futanaris" and "Tomoe".

So maybe I want to try it too. Suppose Death Note gets ported to the States and Americanized. What would it look like?

Title: Scribbles of Doom

Death in the title is too evil and the Note part is a bit abiguous. Here are the rest of the translations for terms:

Terms:
Shinigami (Death God)
- Angel of Death (to avoid issues regarding monotheism)

Characters:
Raito - Dwight.
L-San - Emerson.
Misa - Mary Sue
Ryuk - Luke

Suddenly it doesn't sound so cool anymore...