A question about Japanese anime and culture.

[RATED-RKOFRANKLIN]

I've been watching some Super Sentai and subtitled Yugioh!. I noticed when many villains are trying to kill the good guys they tell the good guys that they're going to hell. If the the villain kills the hero then the villain said the hero is now in hell. Some bosses will tell their men to send(kill) innocent people to hell. What? The good guys are going to hell? It's not like someone is saying in anger "go to hell".

I don't understand this concept. Is there a strong belief in Japanese culture that only hell exists?

 

[RyanA]

I think it's mainly because of the translators.

 

[Des]

it's because most anime is VERY POORLY WRITTEN. especially the examples you mention. if it bothers you, watch better stuff.

 

[crimcrim]

it's because most anime is VERY POORLY WRITTEN. especially the examples you mention. if it bothers you, watch better stuff.

what. not all anime is poorly written. you wanna start ****? moheter ****er. there is-

you know what i dont care ignorant american go eat burgers

 

[RyanA]

what. not all anime is poorly written. you wanna start ****? moheter ****er. there is-

you know what i dont care ignorant american go eat burgers

Language, please 3:

 

[Lunarea]

@Kilim:

Knock it off, please. I get that anime is important to you, but please refrain from insulting people. Your post content that can incite arguments or flaming replies from other people. That's against the forum rules.

@RyanA:

Don't mini-mod, please! If you feel someone is out of line, report them.

 

[Xeon]

Maybe you are just looking at it from a modern Christian frame of reference. It might simply be intended as a generic reference to an afterlife. Hel, She'ol, the underworld, or some generic after-death spirit world. In Norse, Greek, and other mythologies, only the great and pure heroes died and went to wonderful places like Valhalla or the Elysian Fields. Such concepts shifted, merged, and changed over time.

Perhaps the anime just referred to a generic afterlife where everyone goes. Perhaps the villains meant it as an insult and implied that the hero would go to the place most souls go and not the afterlife that the heroic souls go (meaning to imply that the hero wasn't heroic or pure enough), or perhaps it was a translation error and there wasn't a good word for it. Obviously there are some distinct differences between eastern concepts of spirituality and western spirituality so that can make such communication a problem.

 

[Tsukihime]

Is there a strong belief in Japanese culture that only hell exists?

Do you have the original transcript? Cause a lot of subbers tend to "localize" the language so that "native english speakers" can understand it better.

And it's also mainly based on the subber's understanding of japanese culture in general. It might not even be based on japanese culture, but some other culture completely and the subber is unaware of this.

You can read stories about how subbers don't understand a particular concept well enough and completely miss the point.

 

[Kaiser]

Anime and games fall in that same catagory. The way how the villian or the hero says it it is seen as a threat and a challenge at the same time. But really we should be instead of worrying about hell...what about the shadow realm? Eh? Eh!? Or how about Other World? Oh! Maybe even H.F.I.L!

 

[Nemoide]

Japan is, for the most part, a very non-religious culture. When a villain says "you'll go to hell" it's basically "I'm going to kill you"x2.

I know in many forms of Buddhism, "hell" is generally seen as a place the spirit goes to be purified between incarnations. There are a few from which there is no more reincarnation though. I don't know enough about Shinto to properly comment, but Hell Girl seems to depict this level of hell with no hope of reincarnation as the only hell.

But yeah, when I say Japan isn't very religious, they're even LESS Christian. So their supervillains are written to basically be face-value threatening rather than implying any kind of cosmology. I normally see HELL hell only appear in goofy shonen series like Dragon Ball Z or Yu Yu Hakusho - nothing that warrants too much analysis IMO.

(Oh, to answer your other question, there is a Japanese heaven too, tengoku. As opposed to hell, which is jigoku. The reason you don't see it as often is because I don't think it's seen as being 'cool' or threatening!)

 

[Chaos17]

RATED-RKOFRANKLIN : This is only a form of expression, there is no need to worry. You will find in any language different expressions.

 

[Espon]

I don't think it would sound as villainous if he told the hero he's going to "Send you to heaven!" It just doesn't have the same impact.

 

[Samven]

It's just the Japanese equivalent of western action movies recycling the same four or five one-liners over and over again. Nothing too unique.

 

[sabao]

Some of the dialogue may have lost some of its weight in translation. It may not be the translator's fault though--some expressions in one language may not necessarily have a direct equivalent in another. Close equivalents are used, often affecting the gravity of the statement.

... This is super sentai though. I really wouldn't read too much into it.

 

[Warpmind]

Also, I suppose "you're going to Hell" sounds somewhat better than "I'm sending you to Purgatory" or "Go to the Afterlife"...

There're just a few phrases in every language that Just Don't Translate Well.

 

[Volrath]

I've enjoyed a lot of anime, but I kind of agree with Des in the sense that I find it hard to believe people would hold up Yugioh or Super Sentai as examples of good writing...especially compared to stuff like Monster or Paranoia Agent.

To the issue at hand, I suspect it's more akin to something like "I will send you to the great beyond!" but winds up being translated as "hell" cause English-speakers are used to that idea.

Also, anyone who insults burgers will have to deal with me. They are delicious and have no business being dragged into an argument for no reason. :angry:

 

[RyanA]

I've enjoyed a lot of anime, but I kind of agree with Des in the sense that I find it hard to believe people would hold up Yugioh or Super Sentai as examples of good writing...especially compared to stuff like Monster or Paranoia Agent.

To the issue at hand, I suspect it's more akin to something like "I will send you to the great beyond!" but winds up being translated as "hell" cause English-speakers are used to that idea.

Also, anyone who insults burgers will have to deal with me. They are delicious and have no business being dragged into an argument for no reason. :angry:

Especially with bacon on. :3

 

[Lone Wolf]

To seriously answer the question, translators generally use "hell" for the similar connotation, because "purgatory" would sound like a euphemism. "I'll send you to purgatory" would just make the villain sound like a wimp. The English dub of YuGiOh used "Shadow Realm" because they needed an appropriately threatening euphemism, though it worked out in their favor because the Japanese was only really using jigoku in the general sense. Ironically, "I'll send you to hell" is a bit more kid-friendly in Japan then "I'll kill you."

I don't know enough about Shinto to properly comment, but Hell Girl seems to depict this level of hell with no hope of reincarnation as the only hell.

Jigoku Shoujo is tricky, if only because it so thoroughly mixes native-Japanese (lossely Shinto) imagery with Japanese funeral imagery (which is primarily imported from Buddhism). The contract with Hell Girl specifically denies paradise, i.e, the usual cleansing of karma before reaching tengoku/reincarnation. So while most people will eventually reincarnate, the contractor and victim will be trapped there for eternity.