Heroes

[MadamePapillon]

Am I the only one freaking out about the new series?

Spoilers Ahead!

Ok, I have a habit of flying off on a tangent when talking about heroes but....

So Sylars alive but I have a feeling he's not the main bad guy because when Molly was talking to Mohinder she called Sylar the boogeyman but she said there's someone/thing worse than the boogeyman. Who? I dunno. But I'll bet at some point or another Sylars going to be allied with the other heroes.

Another thing. What's up with The Haitian? Who's he really working for?
And Claude. Who was the person that he left the Company to protect?
And what's up with Simones father, how's he connected to Peter? One second he's dead the next he's popping up in a vison and giving sage-like input.

And I know somethings up with Nathan and Peters mom. She's way to connected and my sister thinks she also has powers. I agree.


Well, I could go on and on but let me finish by saying: HEROES RAWKS!!!

 

[GodEmperorLeto]

Considering that this is the JREF forums, I think I'd like to give a shout-out to how awesome Mr. Sulu is in this show. George Takei's Japanese is also really darn good, I suspect he'd been speaking it since he was a kid.

I really think it would rock if this show got syndicated in Japan, too, but I really doubt they'd be that into it, considering 90% of the action is in the U.S.

 

[MadamePapillon]

Actually, I heard that they were talking about a release in Japan. They released it in China so I don't see why they wouldn't.

 

[Elizabeth]

Considering that this is the JREF forums, I think I'd like to give a shout-out to how awesome Mr. Sulu is in this show. George Takei's Japanese is also really darn good, I suspect he'd been speaking it since he was a kid.

Huh ? Are you sure you're good enough to judge whether he is good enough??? I've never watched, but may be a blessing cause I heard it was really bad (the Japanese that is, I may be missing something tremendous if I could listen to that)...


Hiro Nakanumra and Ando in Heroes NBC

 

[Nuala]

I can't wait for Season 2, the first season blew me away. We need more Hiro! <3

 

[GodEmperorLeto]

Huh ? Are you sure you're good enough to judge whether he is good enough??? I've never watched, but may be a blessing cause I heard it was really bad (the Japanese that is, I may be missing something tremendous if I could listen to that)...

I dunno. It sounded fine to me. And my friend is fluent (he passed 1-kyuu with a 98%), and he thinks Takei has been speaking it since he was a kid.

Maybe I'm no judge, but I can tell the difference between Kansai-ben and Tokyo-ben, and I'm not perfectly fluent by a long-shot.

 

[epigene]

I haven't seen Heroes yet, but I've heard George Takei speak Japanese (not in the show but in an interview he gave when he came to Japan) and think his Japanese is very good but not quite (that is compared to native-speaker level).

The only Japanese American actor I know who spoke Japanese like a native was Pat Morita.

I've heard that the young Japanese actor in the show (Masi Oka??) was born in Japan and grew up here until he and his family left for the US when he was a teenager. So, his Japanese must be good.

I'm not one to say anything about the Japanese dialogue in the show, but if the Japanese sounds awkward, it must be due to the show's scriptwriters. It happens often when the writer is not writing in his/her first language (as it happened in the Letters from Iwojima where the Japanese actors reportedly demanded revisions in the script that did not sound like natural Japanese speech when it was first submitted to the actors). You can also see it in the awkward English dialogue in Japanese "doramas" (unless it was done deliberately).

 

[GodEmperorLeto]

The only Japanese American actor I know who spoke Japanese like a native was Pat Morita.

I think he was born in Okinawa , but I could be wrong. I imagine Takei was raised as a first- or second-generation Japanese American, so he was probably exposed to a lot of it as he grew up (much like I was exposed to Italian and German by my family).

I'm not one to say anything about the Japanese dialogue in the show, but if the Japanese sounds awkward, it must be due to the show's scriptwriters. It happens often when the writer is not writing in his/her first language (as it happened in the Letters from Iwojima where the Japanese actors reportedly demanded revisions in the script that did not sound like natural Japanese speech when it was first submitted to the actors).

That's absolutely true. Japanese don't speak like Americans. That's why movies and shows translated directly from Japanese to English sound different. It's not language so much as how the two peoples express themselves. The Japanese speak more melodramatically than Americans in certain situations, for example.

I should actually look into this. It might make an interesting paper....

 

[MadamePapillon]

That's absolutely true. Japanese don't speak like Americans. That's why movies and shows translated directly from Japanese to English sound different. It's not language so much as how the two peoples express themselves. The Japanese speak more melodramatically than Americans in certain situations, for example.

I think that's one of the things that turns many people away from watching asian shows is that compared the the way we speak japanese can sound really harsh, especially in the movies when the actors are haming it up. It can be a bit much when you have two macho male characters going at it verbally.

When I was young I thought that they always sounded angry But then I've heard that English sounds flat and nasal to people who don't speak it. I wouldn't know, having never heard English from a different point of view