Fun with Japanese: The Language of Battle
Monday, May 16, 2011
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| What's a shonen anime without a good fight? |
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| Mue la Flagga, doing what he does best, throwing insults and being a badass. ^^ |
Kono yarou!
This is basically the Japanese version of "You bastard!", though alternately, it can also mean "Take this!" You'll see it practically everywhere and is translated in a number of ways depending on the speaker and the level of maturity of the perceived audience. There are a couple of scenarios where is can be used. It can be used when someone has been beaten down by an opponent and is cursing them out, or it can also be used as a power yell, or just when hurling generic insults or expressing frustration. Naturally, when there's an annoying mobile suit flying around you trying to shoot you down is another time you will probably here this, and that is exactly what's going on with Mue La Flagga in this scene from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.
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| Before the fans attack me for doing Sasuke a disservice by not showing all of his face, I'm telling you, it looked like that to begin with. |
やれ
Yare
This is a derivative of the verb "Yaru." When it comes to ruder situations such as fights, characters will throw around variations of this verb all over the place. In this instance however, it is being used to literally mean "Go for it!" or "Do it!" Naturally this would suggest that it is commonly used in situations where there's a team battle going down and someone just came up with a crazy idea. Either that or the leader is just giving out orders, as Kakashi is doing with Sasuke in this shot here from Naruto.
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| Sorry Renji, but any genre savvy person knows that if someone who isn't the hero says this, you can almost guarantee the speaker will end up getting creamed. |
おれはあなたをたおす！
Ore ha anata wo taosu!
It pretty much means what it says. Literally "I will throw you down", or "I will beat you down." It's often translated as "I will beat you!" or "I will defeat you!" Sometimes it is shortened "taosu!", depending on how much the speaker cares about proper grammar, but the meaning is pretty obvious. Someone is about to at least attempt to open a can of whoop-ass on someone else. Whether or not this succeeds has more to do with the context, but generally success can be determined by a couple of factors, like how close you are to the hero (if you're his best bud and this is a shonen anime you are almost guaranteed to be in trouble because how else is he gonna save you?) In this case, Renji from the anime Bleach is definitely putting up a good fight, but unfortunately, Byakkuya trumps his epicness.
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| "Kisama ga this!" "Kisama ga that!" It's a good thing their mother's aren't here to listen. |
きさま！
Kisama!
This is probably one of the rudest things you can call someone, literally, it means "You!" but it carries the additional inflection often attributed to "Damn you!" (as well as some of the nastier phrases where the speaker is cursing someone out). It is used for both forms about equally, and will also often be used in sentences where less impolite pronouns are used in order to inject a whole lot more vitriol. For instance, in this scene from Inuyasha, the title character and his brother Sesshomaru trade this pronoun between each other quite a lot. It clearly shows how much they dislike each other.
This is probably one of the rudest things you can call someone, literally, it means "You!" but it carries the additional inflection often attributed to "Damn you!" (as well as some of the nastier phrases where the speaker is cursing someone out). It is used for both forms about equally, and will also often be used in sentences where less impolite pronouns are used in order to inject a whole lot more vitriol. For instance, in this scene from Inuyasha, the title character and his brother Sesshomaru trade this pronoun between each other quite a lot. It clearly shows how much they dislike each other.
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| The dub translated this line as "Enough" but however you do it, when you hear this, the talking is officially over, at least for the time being. |
Urusai!
Literally, this means "Noisy!" although most often it is translated as "Shut up!" or "Be quiet!" depending on the context of the scenario. Perhaps the opponent was talking trash, or maybe just telling him the reason why there's no way in hell he's going to win. However the conversation went, this usually ends it as the speaker decides it's time to do less talking and more fighting. Such a situation occurs in this scene from Rurouni Kenshin where Kenshin was just trying to talk Sanosuke down from fighting him and Sano wanted none of that. He probably should have listened.
And that's our five phrases. See you next week folks!
Images taken from Bleach, Inuyasha, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Naruto, Rurouni Kenshin, and Soul Eater
Literally, this means "Noisy!" although most often it is translated as "Shut up!" or "Be quiet!" depending on the context of the scenario. Perhaps the opponent was talking trash, or maybe just telling him the reason why there's no way in hell he's going to win. However the conversation went, this usually ends it as the speaker decides it's time to do less talking and more fighting. Such a situation occurs in this scene from Rurouni Kenshin where Kenshin was just trying to talk Sanosuke down from fighting him and Sano wanted none of that. He probably should have listened.
And that's our five phrases. See you next week folks!
Images taken from Bleach, Inuyasha, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Naruto, Rurouni Kenshin, and Soul Eater