[EVA] Imperialism & nationalism in _Gunbuster_

[Codename V]

Well episode 3's point about *intentionally* making "Engrish" transliterations is interesting; that is, intentionally slurring them into Japanese pronunciations.  They didn't seem to do this that much in Evangelion; their spellings are usually accurate (unless we're going to debate that "CauNtion" had some higher significance :) which I doubt...)

The Toren Smith thing wasn't as politically charged as Jung Freud, at least not overtly; the American guy "plays by the rules" as is generally a positive character, but doesn't get to be in a relationship with Noriko.

As for episode 4, I've long wondered about the significance of when brand-name products appear in the background, if its supposed to hint at things we wouldn't understand because we weren't a Japanese audience in 1996.  (I made a really amateurish attempt at pointing these out here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iizFSmxWSs )

The biggest point is how Anno has been using "archaic" Japanese characters....I just thought they fell by the wayside with the passage of time, not that they were actually the result of a specific set of sweeping reforms after World War II ended; this would make them much more clearly associated with the "good old days" of Japan before they lost the war.  Also that they're using archaic, and thus hyper-Japanese, letters for very foreign words like "Evangelion"...is this a concerted effort to "appropriate" these foreign terms?




________________________________
 From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
To: The english-language evangelion mailing list. <evangelion at eva.onegeek.org> 
Sent: Saturday, December 3, 2011 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: [EVA] Imperialism & nationalism in _Gunbuster_
 
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> - https://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/imperialism-translation-gunbuster-introduction/
> - https://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/imperialism-translation-gunbuster-episode-one/
> - https://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/imperialism-translation-gunbuster-episode-two-nsfw/

And the series continues:

- http://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/imperialism-translation-gunbuster-episode-three/
- http://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/imperialism-translation-gunbuster-episode-four/
- http://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/imperialism-translation-gunbuster-episode-five/

Of these, I'd say episode 3 and 5 are the best. 4, while discussing
the ever interesting presence in _Gunbuster_ of Toren Smith, is pretty
short, while 3 and 5 are focused on still more of the subtle
translation (or lack of translation) issues which bring out the
impressively omnipresent imperialist allusions.

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net
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