My native language is English. Yours might be. It might be another language, I donât know. Chances are, if you are reading Kotaku, you understand Englishâwhich is why you donât hesitate to use the #corrections tag when we seemingly donât.
Not everyone understands English, and thatâs fine. Millions of Japanese people live productive and happy lives without knowing a lick of English. Thatâs also why itâs not unheard of to see children wearing shirts that read, for example, âfuckâ.
The English word âFuckâ exists in Japanese as a loan word: ăăĄă㯠or âfakkuâ. Many people are familiar with the term, and would certainly not dress their children in it.
Not everybody knows the word. In that way, itâs like the word âhikikomoriâ, which was added to the Oxford Dictionary of English. Not all English speakers know the term; ditto for âfakkuâ in Japanese.
A few weeks ago, I was outside when a neighborâs kid whizzed by with a hat that read: âFuck The Policeâ in English. The kid had no idea, Iâm positive, and knowing his parents, they were equally clueless.
This is why the English âfuckâ has been known to pop up on clothing. Since itâs written in English, even those who know the Japanese equivalent might overlook it and write it off as white noise. Thereâs written English all over Japanâon clothes, in shops, on billboardsâyou name it. One of the unrealistic things about Cars 2 (ha! one) was the lack of English on Japanâs urban street signs.
The other side of this coin is the fascination Westerners have with Japanese kanji characters, which can result in hilariously wrong tattoos
Itâs not only bad words, but slogans that are simply not acceptable in Japanese that can slip under the radar in English.
Japanese light novel Ro-Kyu-Bu!, which spun off a manga, an anime, and a PSP title, follows the adventures of a high school student named Subaru Hasegawa, who becomes the coach of a sixth grade basketball team after itâs previous coach came on to one of the team members.
Japanese cosplay company Cospa planned to launch a Ro-Kyu-Bu! t-shirtin black with the following slogan written in white: ăŸăŁăăăć°ćŠçăŻæé«ă ăïŒé·è°·ć·æŽ
(Cospa)
Thatâs a line from the showâs third episode, and you could probably wear that shirt most places in the U.S. without raising an eye, but not in Japan. Wear something like that, and many people would think youâre creep or a child molesterâor a creepy child molester. Then, theyâd wonder who the hell Subaru Hasegawa was.
In English, the slogan ăŸăŁăăăć°ćŠçăŻæé«ă ăïŒé·è°·ć·æŽ translates to âIndeed, primary school students are great!â
With increased pressure on how underage characters are depicted, shirts like this could make retailers political targets. One Japanese chain that specializes in anime goods, Animate, cancelled all its orders for this shirt. Cospa ultimately decided to yank the shirt and not release it.
Instead, Cospa released another Ro-Kyu-Bu! shirt, which reads, âPrimary school girls are great!!â in English, even adding âgirlsâ to be extra clear. The shirt is now on sale via Cospaâs site and is priced at „2,900 or US$38. It comes in one size: XL.
This is a break from English-looks-cool motivation that inspires businesses and clothing makers to compose odd, yet often interesting, sentences. Cospa obviously knows what this means, and is releasing the slogan shirt in English to ruffle fewer feathers.
Here, English is subterfuge and pulling a fast one. The meaning might not be great, but hey, itâs pretty fucking clever.
Culture Smash is a daily dose of things topical, interesting and sometimes even awesomeâgame related and beyond.
(Top photo: Cospa)
You can contact Brian Ashcraft, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
