Japanese in Heroes - Part II
This video may contain SPOILERS. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
4 - Detective Furakowa* (Tadao Tomomatsu : 5)
5 - Charlie Andrews (Jayma Mays : 3)
6 - Kaito’s Assistant (Brad Greenquist : -320,782.002)
*it seriously sounds like “Furukawa” when he says it…but it’s listed this way.
Alright, let’s dig in. Let me first add a note about this series: not every bit of Japanese dialogue is included here. I thought that would be a little over the top. Instead, I opted for scenes where you can get a good feel for the Japanese used. It’s a sampling. The actual series has more Japanese in it than is presented here. Anyway, as I did last time, I’ve placed the actors’ names and my completely subjective (read: exaggerated) Japanese language rating on a scale of 1 to 10 in parentheses - 1 being lousy and 10 being stellar. This time we’re dealing with some characters who make only brief appearances in the first season. Detective Furakowa is the NYPD detective / translator who is assigned to Hiro when he first finds himself in New York City. I gave him a 5 in spite of his name flub. We’re not meant to assume that he is Japanese, I think. I took him to be a Japanese American or an American with some Japanese heritage. But he obviously has been separated from the language to some degree. I also may have bumped his score for the unnecessary translation he does about Star Trek. Made me giggle. Cheap, I know. Charlie Andrews is a waitress in the middle of the desert…who shares a precious bit of storyline with Hiro. Ultimately her part comes to an end and a the takeaway moral of the story is “you can’t save everyone.” At least, I think that’s what it was. Jayma Mays was hard to call. Her Japanese wasn’t very good - but according to the storyline everything she said in this clip she learned in a week from a book. She knew the kanji for 「場違い」 (ばちがい / bachigai / out of place)… Given that that’s the case, Detective Furakowa should be ashamed that she’s on his heels so fast. Lastly, we’ve got Kaito’s Assistant. This guy is supposed to be fluent enough in Japanese to be the henchman for Kaito Nakamura, and yet…his Japanese makes flowers wilt and babies cry. It’s bad. He says the word 「欲しい」 (ほしい / hoshii / to wish or desire) as though it is pronounced “ho-see.” My Japanese teacher told me on the first day that I should rejoice for having chosen a language that is impossible to mispronounce. Kaito’s Assistant proved that wrong and then some. I actually chuckled and then groaned the first time I saw him speaking. I’m not trying to bash his acting, but he seriously needed a speech coach…being threatening (or trying to be threatening) while uttering what must have seemed to be a random collection of mumbo-jumbo syllables has got to be hard, though - so I give him due credit there. Agree with me? Disagree with me? Let it be known in the comments! This brings us to the half-way point in the series. 2 more videos to go.
Already covered:
1 - Hiro Nakamura
2 - Ando Masahashi
3 - Boss at Yamagato Industries
Coming soon:
7 - Kaito Nakamura
8 - Kimiko Nakamura
9 - Noah Bennet
10 - Claude Rains
Come back soon for Part III!