Films

During the Christmas holiday season, many films were broadcast on TV, some of which were Japanese animations. I watched “My neighbour Totoro, となりのトトロ” and “Howl’s Moving Castle, ハウルの動く城”. They have voice overs and some of the translated dialogue is ‘interesting’ to me. I’ve watched “My neighbour Totoro” many times before in Japanese so I remember some phrases and notice the differences. The younger sister in the film who is too small to pronounce “とうもろこし” correctly, she calls it “とうもころし” and it was really cute, however in the English voice over, it wasn’t referred to, she just calls it “corn”. Her name is May and her sister’s name is Satsuki. In Japan it’s common for names to have an associated meaning, Satsuki means May, so it’s interesting that the character “May” does not. In the Japanese version, May calls her sister “One-chan” it means “elder sister” and it’s very common to use however the word can’t be translated in England so it changed to “Satsuki”. Even though some of my favourite parts disappeared, I found some good points within the voice over. All of the actors and actresses in the voice over are professional; the actresses for Satsuki and May’s voices were recorded by real sisters which is amazing. In the Japanese version, Satsuki’s father was played by a copy writer who is famous, but his profession was never acting.
I also watched “Memoirs of a Geisha” on Christmas Day although the story doesn’t relate to Christmas. I was wondering why they broadcast it on such a special day maybe no one watches TV so it doesn’t matter.
I read the story in Japanese and I liked it I also bought the original English novel to understand the story better however I didn’t finish reading it yet. I was avoiding the movie because I had a strong image of the main character Sayuri however it didn’t match the actress Chan ti ye. Recently, some of my friends who are interested in Japan watched, and asked my opinion about the movie. I therefore decided to watch it this time afterwards my impression changed dramatically. It wasn’t dominated by Sayuri, but the sub castings were wonderful too. Before watching the movie I complained about the nationality of the actresses because Sayuri and some of the other important casts were performed by non-Japanese actresses however now I understand the appeal. I enjoyed watching the movie, all except the ending; I was really disappointed by the happy ending. If this was a Disney movie, I could understand however this was not just for kids. A happy ending may help tickets sales, but it changed the story into a fairy tale. I like the book better than the movie.