Lizzy-chan and Darcy-san

It seems to be obligatory for reviewers of translated manga to comment on the quality of the translation. Since I don’t speak or read Japanese, my opinions on the English translation of Aoi hana are next to worthless. However, it is worth noting that compared to other manga I’ve read, the VIZ Media edition of Sweet Blue Flowers is very westernized: signage and sound effects are converted to English only (as opposed to leaving them as is and adding a translation), and except for some food names the characters don’t use any Japanese vocabulary or expressions.

That aspect of the translation shows up most strongly in the complete absence of honorifics. The English subtitles for the anime adaptation of Sweet Blue Flowers use “A-chan” and “Fumi-chan,” “Manjome-san” and “Sugimoto-senpai,” but here it’s just “Akira,” “Fumi,” “Manjome,” and so on.

Manga critic and translator Rachel Thorn has expressed her opposition to indiscriminately retaining honorifics in English translations, for example, in volume 1 of her translation of Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son: “Retention of Japanese honorifics without good reason seems to me to be an affectation intended to make self-described otaku feel part of an exclusive club ….”¹ I’ve always thought keeping honorifics in translations was pretty harmless, but I’m beginning to see her point.

Suppose as a fan your concern is that the translation show the subtleties of interpersonal relationships. In that case, there’s a perfectly good way to do that in English, one that’s quite familiar to anyone who’s read a lot of eighteenth and nineteenth-century English literature. For example, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice contains English equivalents for almost all typical usages of Japanese honorifics (-senpai being the major exception): Mr. Darcy is almost always “Mr. Darcy,” is plain “Darcy” to his friend Mr. Bingley, and is never referred to by his given name “Fitzwilliam.” (We do not learn it until almost halfway through the novel, when Elizabeth Bennet’s aunt, Mrs. Gardiner, mentions it.)²

Similarly, Elizabeth Bennet is at different times and to different people “Miss Bennet,” “Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” “Miss Elizabeth” (used by the pompous Mr. Collins, who presumes too much), “Miss Eliza Bennet” (used condescendingly by Miss Bingley, Elizabeth’s more well-born rival), and (to her friend Charlotte and her sister Jane) “dear Eliza” or “dearest Lizzy” (similar to “A-chan” for Akira). It is a mark of his affection and the deepening of their relationship that at the conclusion of the novel Darcy addresses her simply as “Elizabeth.” However, for her he is “Mr. Darcy” to the end.³

Why don’t manga translators use this strategy? Probably because fans accustomed to ubiquitous informality in modern English usage would find such language incredibly stilted. They don’t want their manga to read like a Regency novel, instead preferring the satisfaction of knowing the difference between -san and -sama. The John Werry translation of Sweet Blue Flowers does have characters address each other either by given name or family name to distinguish degrees of formality, and Mr. Kagami is always “Mr. Kagami.” But otherwise it’s directed to the non-otaku reader.

This translator’s choice also bears on what I believe to be one of the themes of Sweet Blue Flowers: Western fans of anime and manga happen to live in societies that are relatively unmarked by hierarchies of age, class, gender, and so on—at least by historical standards. They do not know what it is like to live day-to-day in a society in which the very language makes explicit these hierarchies.

For example, Rachel Thorn notes that Japanese people will query others if needed to ascertain which of them is older, so that they may adopt the correct mode of speech. “There are no ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ in Japan: only ‘older brothers,’ ‘younger brothers,’ ‘older sisters,’ and ‘younger sisters.’ Even in the case of twins, one is arbitrarily defined as the ‘elder.’”⁴

I wonder how many Western fans of anime and manga would truly want to live in a society organized by age and seniority—just as, for example, I wonder how many present-day readers of Jane Austen would want to live in a society organized by class, with everyone expected to abide by a strict code of expression in speaking to their “inferiors” and deferring to their “betters.”

Moreover, the use of honorifics is not always a harmless exoticism (as Western fans might view it) or a mark of respect (as people in Japan or other Asian countries might consider it). Often they serve not just to mark hierarchies but reinforce them. In Yasujirō Ozu’s film Late Autumn, a young woman confronts three middle-aged men she accuses of meddling in the affairs of her friend’s mother. They invite her to sit, but she insists on remaining standing. One of them tries to regain the upper hand by addressing her as “Yuri-chan,” but she angrily retorts, “Call me Yuriko.”⁵

How does Sweet Blue Flowers view such hierarchies? I’ll have more to say about this further on, but I think this particular feature of the English translation provides a hint.