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Untranslated Title

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Some works of fiction do not have their names translated when released in a foreign market. This seem to be particularly common with French and German films, for some reason. For anime series, this is rampant in fan-translations, which can be quite frustrating for those lacking a smattering ofGratuitous Japanese.

Just to be clear, this trope does not apply in the following cases:

  1. The title is apropernoun, such asAmelie orRos na Rún
  2. The title is nonsense or a made-up word, such asAzumanga Daioh
  3. The title isalready in a foreign language, such as "La Belle Dame sans Merci"
  4. The title is translated, but fans use the original title anyway; for example, fans ofCeres Celestial Legendtend to refer to the show asAyashi no Ceres.
Examples of Untranslated Title include:

Anime andManga

  • Ai Yori Aoshi (literally "Bluer than Indigo"; occasionally with the slogan "True Blue Love"—seeMeaningful Name for why)
  • Gurren Lagann, which literally means "Crimson Lotus Spiral Face" so it's no wonder it wasn't translated. Although it was shortened fromTengen Toppa Gurren Lagann ("Heaven Piercing Crimson Lotus Spiral Face")
  • Hikaru no Go ("Hikaru's Go")
  • Ikki Tousen (literally, "the strength of a thousand in a single breath")
  • Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu (see the show's page for an attempt to untangle the punny title; the official release shortens it down toHaré+Guu)
  • Kannazuki no Miko ("Shrine Maiden of the Godless Month [October]";The original Geneon release sometimes added the very loosely equivalent subtitle "Destiny of Shrine Maiden", though the Sentai re-release used the English title.)
  • Kodocha (left as the shortened form of the Japanese title "Kodomo no Omocha," rather than using a translation like "Child's Toy")
  • Koi Kaze ("Love Wind")
  • Kyou Kara Maou ("Demon King as of Today")
  • My-HiME andMai-Otome are partial cases of this. While the "Mai" parts of the title are changed to the English "My" (which may have been intended puns to begin with), the words Hime (princess) and Otome (maiden) are left alone.
  • Mushishi—while "mushi" is a proper term in the context of the series, the "shi" part meaning "user" or "master" is left untranslated.
  • Otogi Zoshi
  • Rurouni Kenshin (Although theOVAs andThe Movie were released in the US asSamurai X)
  • Sakura Taisen, depending on which piece of the franchise and which company has it.
    • Though the "Taisen" part is sometimes rendered as "Wars", the "Sakura" part is never translated.
  • Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei, with the subtitleThe Power of Negative Thinking added by Del Ray to explain the concept to readers of the manga.
  • Shakugan no Shana ("Burning-Eyes Shana")
  • Tenchi Muyo! (Sometimes rendered as "No Need for Tenchi," though apparently has an alternate meaning of "this end up," as on boxes and such.)
  • Tenjho Tenge ("Heaven and Earth")
  • Tsukihime (this word (meaning "Moon Princess") is always left alone, but the anime adds the descriptorShingetsutan, which gets translated as "Lunar Legend")
  • Urusei Yatsura, though this probably due to confusion onhow to translate it. The short-lived attempt at an English dub called itThose Obnoxious Aliens.
  • Utawarerumono (an interesting case, asADV was originally planning onre-titling it "Shadow Warrior Chronicles," until fandom/Internet outcry caused them to reverse the decision)
  • Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
  • Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
  • Yu Yu Hakusho - TheCentral Park Media dub of the first movie used the titlePoltergeist Report, while theFUNimation dub of the series was subtitledGhost Files, both which are approximations of the original Japanese title.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!! (Literally, "King of Games")

Film

  • Das Boot: The original (dubbed) release to theatres and pay-TV used the translated title "The Boat". Video releases of the longer and subtitled versions use the title untranslated (not that it's terribly hard to figure out).
  • Au Revoir, Les Enfants
  • Un Chien Andalou
  • Desparus
  • Ikiru
  • El Mariachi
  • Ran
  • La Dolce Vita
  • La Haine
  • La Strada
  • El Topo
  • Baise Moi (the English release added "Rape Me" as a subtitle, which is aBowdlerised translation)
  • La Cage Aux Folles; the translation of this title,The Birdcage, was used by the American remake.
  • Amores Perros (IMDB listsLove's a Bitch as an international alternate title, but the Untranslated Title was definitely used for the US theatrical release)
    • Fortunately so: while "Love's a Bitch" is a close approximation in English, the original title also plays on the homonym "Amor es perros" (meaning "Love is dogs"), which would otherwise be lost.
  • Y Tu Mama Tambien
  • Nearly every film from the USA is left with an untranslated title in Germany. It is ridiculous. It is not even funny!
  • The original Japanese versions ofThe Ring andThe Grudge were released with untranslated titles in America (Ringu andJu-on) in order to distinguish them from their American remakes.
  • Acción Mutante
  • Santa Sangre
  • Dodes'ka-den

Literature

  • Das Kapital, though it is known asLe Capital in French editions
    • Considering the only thing to translate is 'das' to 'the'(or just drop it) andXtreme Kool Letterz, does it really count?
  • Jorge Luis Borges'Ficciones
  • Mein Kampf. In a few other languages, it does change, however.
  • Les Misérables
  • Strictly speaking,The Iliad means 'A Tale of Ilium (Troy)' and is only one of many stories woven around theTrojan War.
    • This frequently occurs to works above a certain age, though it may be difficult to draw the line between 'untranslated title' and 'naturalised title.'Ovid'sHeroides,Amores, andMetamorphoses stand as a case in point. Others, such asXenophon'sAnabasis are known by multiple titles, including 'The Persian Expedition', 'The March of the Ten Thousand', and 'The March Upcountry'.
  • Similarly, theNibelungenlied is 'The Song of the Nibelungs'.
  • Natsume Soseki'sKokoro usually has the title left as-is in modern English printings, though it has occasionally been given the (somewhat clunky) translation of "The Heart of Things".
    • Bonus points for the fact that the novel opens with the sentence, "I always called himSensei." Considering the amount of times the word appears in the novel, it's a damn good thingsensei is one of the few Japanese words the average English-speaker can recognize.
  • A la recherche du temps perdu is often given untranslated. Partly because it was translated asRemembrance Of Things Past instead ofIn Search Of Lost Time for a while, and partly because if you're going to read Proust, you might as well be pretentious about it.
  • Emile Zola's novel of poverty and alcoholismL'Assommoir is most often known by its original title, which is an untranslatable French play on words.Assommoir was an old slang term for a low-class bar, derived fromassommer, to knock out or stun; the nearest rendition in English might be "place to get hammered."
  • Works by certain ancient Greek philosophers are frequently translated to Latin but no further. For example, Aristotle'sPeri Psyches is usually referred to by English speakers asDe Anima (the English would be something like "About the Soul").
  • Snorri Sturluson's history of the kings of Norway is frequently calledHeimskringla, never "The Circle of the Earth".
  • TheMuqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun is almost always given that title when translated into a European language, as the original Arabic title means "The Introduction". The book is actually a sophisticated early (14th century) work on sociology, political science, and the theory of history; it gets its title because it is supposed to be an introduction to avery long history of North Africa (or rather history of the world, with a special focus on North Africa). Since this history, while very good, is only of interest to Arab historians and Arabists, the use of the foreign title is presumably because people would get very confused by a book simply calledThe Introduction ("If this is the introduction, where's the rest of it?").
    • As an aside, Arabic avoids the problem throughPopcultural Osmosis: Everyone's heard ofIbn Khaldun's Introduction, so they just publish it with that title.

Live-Action TV

  • Seacht - the title is Irish forseven, but when it was shown onThe BBC, they kept the original title (and pronounced it horribly).

Music

  • Some popular songs translated into English left an Untranslated Title in their lyrics:
    • "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
    • "Besame Mucho"
    • "La Vie En Rose"
    • "99 Luftballoons"

Theatre

  • This is almost more common than not foroperas, at least the ones not named after a character. About half of these still refer to a character in some way. Some of the least often translated titles include:
    • La Boheme
    • Cavalleria rusticana
    • Cosi fan tutte
    • Die Fledermaus (which was presented four times on Broadway in the first half of the 20th century, each time under aCompletely Different Title)
    • Der Freischütz
    • La gioconda
    • Der Rosenkavalier
    • La traviata
    • Il trovatore
    • At least at one time,The Golden Cockerel was usually known asLe coq d'or, despite being a Russian opera.

Video Games

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