With the internet making hte world a smaller place and anime being more and more known, it is now becoming the trend not to change the names of the ANime Shows to the extreme they did in the 70s and 80s.
Cardcaptor Sakura is known as CardCaptors here in the U.S.
Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is simply known as Sailor moon.
Most of the time, titles are changed either beccause it would not make sense translated in that respected language or it would be offensive. the word Chico, means guy in spanish but in Japanese is slang for peeing
and many words also may sound the same but mean different things, like Casa , in Japanese it means umbrella, in spanish House.
SOme things translated literally make no sense, so adaptations must be made to fit the language as well as the Culture
That sounds like a good point, until I remember that when I was little I saw the serials on TV (traduced to Spanish) and yes, it was named Flash Gordon. Even with the popularity the serials had with the little ones like me (in the 70’s in Central America), the comic people refused to change the name back, bringing home the silliness of that folly: I always wondered what was Ming the Merciless doing in the Roldan comic!
And yes, sophomore humor had a field day by mentioning Flash Gordo!
Apropos of that: Beanie & Cecil (named Benito Y Cecilio) had once Cecil becoming a cartoonist and showing ideas to an editor: One of the ideas Cecil presented was “Flushed Garden” (a plumber astronaut) In the Spanish version, the narration used “Flash Gordo” and the editor killed the idea by saying: Nah! Astronauts are not fat! Yeah, that was lame, but I am amazed now about the effort Spanish dubs did in those days, with such surrealistic fare.
As for Pokemon, I tend to agree that the name changes of the pokemon makes sense. For example, “Nyan-nyan,” based on the sound that a cat makes as written in Japanese, became “Meowth” in America. However, the human name changes make less sense. How did Satoshi become “Ash Ketchum?”
Satoshi is the name of the creator of the Game Boy Game, and Shigeru (“Gary”) is an old rival of his. “Misty” kind of makes sense, as a more or less direct translation of the name Kasumi.
[really obscure trivia] Because they didn’t rename or re-dub Pikachu, you will often hear him say, “pi-ka-pi!” That’s Pikachu’s way of saying “Satoshi.”[/really obscure, geek-proving trivia]
And then there’s Digimon Adventure, where they couldn’t change the monster names because their transformation sequences had the names scrolling in the background, in kana and romaji. If I recall correctly, though, they kept the original Japanese names for the human characters, too.
From my little geek friend who speaks near fluent Japanese
Pikachu - is a pun on the word Pika, which means “to twinkle”
Alot of the names in many of the Japanese children’s shows and Animated series even their live action sentai series have characters that are puns and could only be understood if you knew anything about Japanese popculture or History.
Many times the name sounds extremely vulgar to english ears.
I don’t know many, but my favorite was seen at the video store in Japan where my favorite movie, Army of Darkness was renamed Captain Supermarket. Gotta say, I kinda like it (even if it does have incredibly little to do with everything but the last five minutes of film).
Ayanami Rei
Otonashi Kyoko
Morisato Keiichi
Amano Ai
Urameshi Yusuke
Tendo Soun
Granted, some Japanese character names are puns (Otonashi, Urameshi, and Yugi, who I mentioned earlier), but I don’t see that as a reason to change them.
Nice idea for a thread! BTW, I think daring would be a more fitting translation for temerario.
I feel your pain! Once I actually was all pumped up to watch The Flash on TV, when I realized it was actually Roldán el Temerario*, the guy from the comic strip.
Did you ever see Defensores del Universo (the English name escapes me), a TV show where FG, The Phantom, Mandrake and the whole bunch were reunited (similar to Superfriends). That was the BOMB! (And the song was catchy as hell).
As to my contribution, why change Star Wars to La Guerra de las Galaxias? Always bothered me…
Cheers,