Japanese in Heroes - Part IV
This video may contain SPOILERS. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
9 - Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman : 0.2)
10 - Claude Rains (Christopher Eccleston : 3)
First off - how on earth did Matt Parkman (played by Greg Grunberg) know that the language Noah Bennet was thinking in was Japanese? Hmmm… Intriguing. Thanks for hanging in with me and catching the last of this series. I think I explained fairly well in the video about why I’m so harsh to Jack Coleman. I think that Christopher Eccleston’s part is just too tiny to warrant any kind of meaningful commentary. So, I think I’ll just broadly close this out.
I’m a big fan of mixing it up in the media. I’ve wanted to encourage the slow steps forward that are being taken. Even when they are incredibly hokey attempts at Japanese - like the Kill Bill films, the Kevin Brauch opening to the American version of 料理の鉄人 (Iron Chef America) and dubbed version of the original, the 3 Ninjas trilogy (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the most recent 2 films…which technically create a quintilogy…ugh). One of my most recent favorite attempts at mixing it up with an Asian language was the Joss Whedon show, Firefly, which was later extended and ended with a film called Serenity. It had a plot that featured a future where Chinese slang and expletives had entered English language. Sweet. I like hearing foreign languages used in fun ways. The cool thing about Heroes, though, is that it uses a foreign language in real conversational situations as well as improbable fictional situations. It’s great!
Now, for quick tease. I’ve only seen the first episode of the new season of Heroes. That means I’m 3 behind. But, having glimpsed only the first episode, I’ll say the following. At least one new foreign language appears to be used between a brother and sister. Japanese is going to continue to play a big part - but Kaito Nakamura speaks in English during at least one scene. There is a really interesting foreigner-in-Japan storyline to follow up, as well as a new Japanese plausible-love interest. Assuming that the languages will continue to pop up, I’ll be watching the new season, and jotting down the good moments and make a new set of videos. This time, maybe it will go according to plan and I’ll actually do a good job analyzing them. (This time I’m just lucky to have gotten them up without a computer.) Thanks for hanging with me! Feel free to comment below and rate the characters for yourself. Best? Worst? Thoughts?
One last recap:
1 - Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka : solid 9)
2 - Ando Masahashi (James Kyson Lee : 8ish)
3 - Boss at Yamagato Industries (Tohoru Masamune : 10)
4 - Detective Furakowa (Tadao Tomomatsu : 5)
5 - Charlie Andrews (Jayma Mays : 3)
6 - Kaito’s Assistant (Brad Greenquist : -320,782.002)
7 - Kaito Nakamura (George Takei : 9)
8 - Kimiko Nakamura (Saemi Nakamura : 9.5)
9 - Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman : 0.2)
10 - Claude Rains (Christopher Eccleston : 3)
[UPDATE: For those of you who want a more detailed look at the Japanese used in Heroes Season 2, doing some searches will yield some promising results. These articles were more for entertainment than for academic analysis, in retrospect.]
on October 16th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
new series has a lot more japanese in it and i think its spanish as the other language.
on October 16th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Thanks for the info, Sod. I’m stoked! (I dislike being behind in the show, but I heard that new content was pushed back to make room for recaps already? Is that necessary? Either way, it means that I haven’t missed as much as I could have…or something.)
on October 16th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
How about rating the Japanese language ability of the actors in the show too? I’m not the best Japanese speaker myself, but even with my limited ability I can recognise Masi Oka/Hiro’s Japanese sounds well dodgy (he’s been living in the US since he was 6).
on October 17th, 2007 at 2:57 am
I don’t see how it’s so hard for people who give a decent effort to recognize the Japanese language. I was able to recognize it before I started studying it, and I am admittedly no rocket scientist. It’s not necessarily a fact to be explained in the series, especially if this happens in a big city such as New York or Los Angeles. I know French, German and other languages when I hear them, despite my poor knowledge of them. I think it’s a bit unfair to judge on that.
Also, I don’t think they want to make the discernable languages too difficult if they want people in the States who can comprehend the language to decipher what is being said. Just a theory.
on October 17th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Majestyk - what do you mean? You mean in the new season? I thought I did rate the Japanese language ability of the actors in the show… Gimme a reply and I’ll see what I can do.
Kellen - you know, you’re right. On second thought, that really reflects more on me than it does the state of language awareness in the United States. I’m from South Carolina, where, well, let’s face it - there are very few Japanese people. As a result, before studying it I was incredibly ignorant of it. So…that must have been me projecting.
Thanks for your opinion - it’s accurate.
on October 17th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Actually I see Asian commercials on youtube and other sites where the commentors rarely can guess the language. They often say, “cn somene translate the Chineze plz?” Don’t underestimate the ignorance of people.
As for that scene, I think the actors that could understand Japanese were having a laugh behind the scenes.
on October 18th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Thanks Clay.
on October 18th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Hi, I’m the one who wrote the “promissing result”.
An entry for S2E02 is in progress now.
Thanks for the link and encouragement
on October 19th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Hi there, Ita. Anytime! I look forward to it!
on October 19th, 2007 at 11:18 am
the Japanese was just AWFUL, giving a 0.2 was too forgiving rofl
on October 19th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Ha ha ha - you hear that, Mr. Coleman? Elle says your Japanese is even lousier than a 0.2! Harsh. Ha ha. Elle, would you still rate him higher than Mr. Greenquist from Part II of this series? He’s still, in my opinion, the worst.
on November 29th, 2007 at 9:00 am
[...] RockingInHakata <–>Jamaipanese<–>KeepingPaceInJapan (talked about Heroes in his interview) [...]
on December 19th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
has been fun reading these, but I do have one thing to add.
isn’t the poor level of Japanese the fault of not only the actors but the director/producer/whoever is responsible for these types of things, for not ensuring, with the help of some real live Japanese people, that the accents/pronounciation/intonation/etc was accurate before filming?! I mean, especially for those who have very few lines (and who incidentally scored least well on the Deas Richardson Japanese-o-meter) wouldn’t it have been good just to drill it into them. It surely doesn’t take long to teach one person the correct way to pronounce “chichi no hi omedetou”. thats 4 words!!! 4 words!
an oversight on the part of the production team perhaps….if you’re bothered by things like this….
on January 20th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
As far as the Japanese goes, I’m impressed with the non Asian actors they have on Heroes. The language coaches have done a great job. I remember cringing at Sean Connor’s horrific attempt at Japanese in the (equally horrific) movie, Rising Sun. I thought, “How can somebody being paid millions of dollars not bother to even try to hide his Scottish brogue when speaking in Japanese.” But these Heroes guys have it down great.
What DOES bother me is this continuing Hollywood problem of hiring Asian people to play the part of Japanese people when there are 130 million Japanese people sitting over here all waiting for their big break. Ok, I’m just kidding about the big break — but you can’t tell me that the director was NOT aware that Ando was Korean before forcing him into the role. He sounds like all of the Korean exchange student we have studying Japanese at our university here. I just wish Hollywood would finally get a modicum of International Politically Correctness (is that a word?) and stop assuming that all Asians are essentially the same culture.
At least Commander Sulu of the Starship Enterprise does a good job of the Japanese as Hero’s dad. Beam me up, Scotty!
Mike’s last blog post: Japanese banks: Reinventing the wheel
on January 21st, 2008 at 9:50 am
Hey Mike, and thanks for the comment. I agree with your grievance against Hollywood for making the entirety of Asia one big monolithic cultural entity. I’m going to write a post about it soon, actually. Thanks.