![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Whoops!
This. This is why sticking random chunks of foreign text in your animation, in your comic panels, or on your spiffy merchandise is a bad idea if you have no idea what the text actually says. (ETA: More here.)
Case in point.
(Also, didn't something along those lines happen in a recent episode of Code Geass? Something about a chunk of some hilariously misappropriated prose showing up, quite legibly, on Lelouche's computer screen. Or something along those lines. Or maybe I'm confusing it with an incident in Haruhi? Argh, I can't remember.)
Anyway, I know it's common practice for Japanese comic artists to use English writing, particularly newspaper articles, as "filler" text in panels, or sometimes even as funky backgrounds in more surreal scenes. I.E., the illustration on the back of Pichi Pichi Pitch volume 02 had Kaito sitting in the middle of a bunch of English text cribbed from the Wall Street Journal. And I've lost count of all of the Japanese stationary items I've collected that make liberal use of random English newsprint for decorative purposes.
But yeah. If you throw that stuff around without having any idea what it actually says? Bad idea. This goes for you native English speakers, too.
Meanwhile, to counter the not-awesome:
HERE IS SOMETHING THAT IS FREAKIN' AWESOME.
Albeit at this point I believe that Tim giving Bruce a swift kick in the balls would be totally, utterly justified.
ETA TWO: Follow-up about JoJo's Bizzare Adventure is here. Warning: Post may induce spikes in blood pressure.
Case in point.
(Also, didn't something along those lines happen in a recent episode of Code Geass? Something about a chunk of some hilariously misappropriated prose showing up, quite legibly, on Lelouche's computer screen. Or something along those lines. Or maybe I'm confusing it with an incident in Haruhi? Argh, I can't remember.)
Anyway, I know it's common practice for Japanese comic artists to use English writing, particularly newspaper articles, as "filler" text in panels, or sometimes even as funky backgrounds in more surreal scenes. I.E., the illustration on the back of Pichi Pichi Pitch volume 02 had Kaito sitting in the middle of a bunch of English text cribbed from the Wall Street Journal. And I've lost count of all of the Japanese stationary items I've collected that make liberal use of random English newsprint for decorative purposes.
But yeah. If you throw that stuff around without having any idea what it actually says? Bad idea. This goes for you native English speakers, too.
Meanwhile, to counter the not-awesome:
HERE IS SOMETHING THAT IS FREAKIN' AWESOME.
Albeit at this point I believe that Tim giving Bruce a swift kick in the balls would be totally, utterly justified.
ETA TWO: Follow-up about JoJo's Bizzare Adventure is here. Warning: Post may induce spikes in blood pressure.
no subject
Yyyeah.
I still don't understand why creators DON'T research foreign language to death when they're using it, just out of the fear of looking totally ignorant and possibly offensive. I've always feared that. Even just the former- it's like, "OH NO SOMEONE MIGHT READ THIS AND TELL THAT I DON'T KNOW MY SHIT I HAD BETTER COVER MY ASS WITH CROSS-REFERENCING FIRST!"
no subject
It's one of those things I'm always paranoid about. Which is why I don't buy any shirts or bags or whatever with foreign writing on them unless I have at least a guess at what it says, because I like to know what my possessions are saying. And definitely in anything I wrote, I'd have it checked before releasing it to the general public.