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Anime Japanese · Day 1 of 15

Why anime Japanese sounds different

Stylised speech, and why copying it backfires

Anime is the reason a lot of people start learning Japanese, and it is a genuinely good reason. It is also the reason a lot of learners end up saying things that make Japanese people laugh. Anime speech is written, performed and deliberately exaggerated, and today is about the gap between what a character says and what a person says.

The same idea, three ways

Anime on top, what a friend would really say in the middle, what you should say to anyone else at the bottom:

I'll do it
Anime
ore ga yatte yaru.
Real casual
ore ga yaru yo.
Polite
watashi ga yarimasu.

てやる adds a note of doing you a favour you should be grateful for. Dramatic on screen, rude in an office.

What did you say?
Anime
nan da to?
Real casual
e, nani?
Polite
sumimasen, nan desu ka.

なんだと is a challenge, close to say that again. It is not a way of asking someone to repeat themselves.

Stop it
Anime
yamero!
Real casual
yamete.
Polite
yamete kudasai.

やめろ is the bare command form. Real people use it in emergencies and arguments, not in daily life.

Why it works

None of the top lines is wrong Japanese. They are Japanese for a relationship you are not in: shouting at an enemy, challenging someone, ordering a subordinate about. Anime uses them because a viewer has to understand a character's position within one line of dialogue, and the writers do not have time to be subtle about it.

Why it is written that way

Four ideas that explain most of the difference:

yakuwarigo
role language
Speech patterns that instantly signal age, gender, class or type. Day 5 covers it properly.
daihon
a script
Every line is written, timed and performed. Nobody hesitates, repeats themselves or trails off.
otoko kotoba · onna kotoba
men's and women's speech
Far more separated in fiction than in modern life.
kyara
a character type
Also used about real people: あのひとは キャラが こい, that person is a strong character.
Why it works

Real conversation is full of false starts, overlaps, fillers and half-finished sentences. Anime has none of that, because a line has to be understood the first time at speed. That makes anime easier to follow than real Japanese in one way, and much less like real Japanese in another.

Correct Japanese, wrong person

Three lines learners pick up from screen and use in life:

Introducing yourself to a new colleague
From anime
ore, tanaka da.
With a real person
hajimemashite, tanaka desu.
おれ plus だ is normal between close male friends and startling from someone you have just met.
Asking a teacher a question
From anime
nā, kore nan da?
With a real person
sumimasen, kore wa nan desu ka.
なあ to get attention is for friends, and downwards. To a teacher it lands somewhere near oi.
Offering to help a friend
From anime
tetsudatte yaru.
With a real person
tetsudau yo.
てやる announces the favour. Even between friends it is either a joke or a boast.
Why it works

Notice the pattern: the anime version is not ruder in vocabulary, it is ruder in position. It assumes you are older, senior, closer or angrier than you are. That is the single most common way anime Japanese goes wrong in real life, and it is invisible if you learn lines rather than relationships.

Carry over, from earlier days

yamete kudasai.
Please stop.
hajimemashite.
How do you do.
sumimasen, nan desu ka.
Sorry, what was that?

Check yourself

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