Fun with Japanese: The Language of Death

It may seem a little bit odd to classify death as an aspect of Japanese culture that could ever be fun, but in the world of anime it's all over the lives of characters we encounter, and is often an intimate part of them (such as in the case of Seras Victoria, newly turned vampiress from Geneon's Hellsing OVA, who was the reluctant recipient of this coffin). Some have lost a loved one, others are trying to keep the people around them from biting the final bullet. Hell, some are already dead themselves and still kicking, somehow. Characters such as Kikyo from Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha come to mind, but there are plenty of other varied characters who don't have to be gone from this world to deal with death on a daily basis. Whether they're trying to initiate the deaths of others, like Kenshin used to do before he became a wanderer in Nobuhiro Watsuki's Rurouni Kenshin, or trying to figure out who killed the poor stiff on the other end, like Conan from Gosho Aoyama's Detective Conan, dealing with the dearly departed requires a vocabulary in order to properly understand the situation. With this in mind, I've selected five common words and phrases you will hear in relation to death scenes that could be handy for the amateur translator. At the very least, the language nerds in the audience can have some fun. Oh, and for those of you who can't read kanji, or your computer can't read kanji, I'll have the romaji under the Japanese text for your reference. So let's break out the dictionaries and get started.

殺す

ころす

Korosu

An important one to know. If you ever hear someone say this to you, with nothing else attached to it, you'd better get out of the room fast, because otherwise, you may be in trouble. This is a plain form verb that literally means "to kill" but often it's used in dramatic moments where someone has that sword pointed at the main character's throat, and then very menacingly, they'll utter this word, basically saying "I'm gonna kill you." One such epic instance occurs in episode 30 of Rurouni Kenshin in which Kenshin is dueling to the death with Hajime Saito, and since talking is apparently as much of a free action in anime as it is in RPGs, they pause the fight to engage in some banter about whose line this is supposed to be.

人殺し

ひとごろし

Hitogoroshi

So a lady just watched her brother being mercilessly slaughtered by some horrible murderer. She's likely to scream this at the fleeing attacker. Literally translated, it's the noun "hito" which means "person" paired off with an altered form of the verb "To kill" as noted above. Put'em together and you have a "killer." Such an event happens in volume 2 of Tezuka Osamu's manga, Dororo, on page 111, when Hyakkimaru, one of the protagonists has just slain a demon who had taken the form of one such lady's older brother. She screams it after him just as he and Dororo, his little thief companion are leaving town. I apologize for not posting the panel itself, but I didn't want to ruin the manga that I bought in Tokyo by flattening it out and trying to put it through a sub-standard scanner. Hyakkimaru is on the left, and yes, those swords are actually his arms.

彼が死んだ

かれがしんだ

Kare ga shinda.

Someone has died. That's the word, and this is one phrase that is often said when this happens. Note that I'm using the general pronoun "Kare" here. It generally means he, but the example I'm pointing out here uses a different noun, "kanja" in it's place, meaning 'patient'. Sorry I'm using an extra Tezuka Osamu derived work for this, but this classic artist is worth it in my humble opinion. As you can imagine, Black Jack would be surprised to hear this phrase seeing that most of his patients survive when he does surgery on them. If you watch the movie "Black Jack, The Two Doctors of Darkness," you'll understand why he looks so shocked. His operation had been a success after saving the poor lady from being murdered by Dr. Kiriko (to the left here), but then she walked out the hospital door with her kids and they all died in a car accident. Oof, death by irony. It hurts. 

亡くなった

なくなった

Nakunatta.

An alternative form of saying that someone has died. If you watch a lot of mystery dramas, you will hear this one and its cousin in definition, "shinda" (as demonstrated above) a lot. Especially in a series like Detective Conan, where one can safely predict that, on average, one death will occur every episode. Sometimes more if you've got a serial killer. It is generally used after the person determining the status of the victim has checked their vitals and has ruled them deceased, which the police detective, Miwako Satou (to the right and behind the panicking guy on the floor) is about to do a few seconds after this screenshot from episode 146. Note that it should not be confused with the other "nakunatta" which is spelled and pronounced the same, but uses a different kanji and means someone has disappeared.

死ね

しね

Shine

Basically, you just told someone to die. This is a common one in fight scenes where the stakes are actually life and death. Such as in episode 15 of  Inuyasha when the title character remembers the situation before he stole the shikon jewel and it seems like Kikyo betrayed him. She screams this very loudly at him with her bow drawn and ready to fire directly at his heart. And it isn't just Kikyo who uses this. It seems like almost all the characters tell Inuyasha to die at one point or another, with the exception of Inuyasha himself and maybe Kagome. Naraku, the big bad villain of the series says "Die, Inuyasha!" so much, it may as well be his catchphrase. Please note that there are two syllables in that, so it sounds more like shi-neh rather than the English word shine and making that mistake can have some very dire ramifications. Regardless, it's probably unnecessary to point out that in Japanese, it's not a very nice thing to say to someone, so you should try to avoid using it in polite conversation. Okay?

In fact, as a general rule, it's probably best not to use these in normal conversation unless things are really serious, but I'm sure you were smart enough to figure that out. So, until next time, practice up, and keep those dictionaries handy. You never know what interesting terms you might find out there.

Images taken from Black Jack, Detective Conan, Dororo, Hellsing, Inuyasha and Rurouni Kenshin.

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