RosenkreutzXIII
Kouhai
- 30 Jul 2019
- 30
- 1
I was having a discussion with someone the other day regarding the meaning of a song title from a OVA soundtrack, the title in question being "SATSU-JIN〈殺陣〉." From what I could gather it appeared that "satsujin" meant "murder," "slaughter" etc. However, I also came across examples which stated that it could also mean "sword fight." The other person pointed out that it would be "murder" if it was written as "殺人," but since the kanji next to the romaji title was "殺陣" it would instead be "sword fight" and that it typically referred to stage combat. They also mentioned that "殺陣" apparently used to also be written as "殺人," but it was later changed, presumably because it seemed a bit too sinister for something like a choreographed fight scene in a film or play.
I decided to look more into it and eventually I came across a soundtrack for a game titled "Live A Live" which featured a track titled "殺陣!" The interesting part was that it had also been released on iTunes with official English translations and said track had been translated as "Slaughter!" I wasn't familiar with this game so I didn't know the context behind this track title, but luckily the other person happened to know. Apparently in that part of the game you can clear the stage by either using stealth or by killing 100 enemies, the title seems to be alluding to the second option as it serves as the battle theme for that chapter. Additionally, in the aforementioned OVA the term "slaughter" seemed a lot more applicable than "sword fight" within the context of the scene where the music played. While there are swords involved in the scene, the battle is so utterly one-sided that it's really more of a slaughter than a traditional fight.
After I brought this up they stated that perhaps both "sword fight" and "slaughter" could be valid depending on the context, but they didn't seem entirely certain about it. Thus, I was curious to see what others thought about this, can "殺陣" and "殺人" both be interpreted as "slaughter" depending on the context it's used in?
I decided to look more into it and eventually I came across a soundtrack for a game titled "Live A Live" which featured a track titled "殺陣!" The interesting part was that it had also been released on iTunes with official English translations and said track had been translated as "Slaughter!" I wasn't familiar with this game so I didn't know the context behind this track title, but luckily the other person happened to know. Apparently in that part of the game you can clear the stage by either using stealth or by killing 100 enemies, the title seems to be alluding to the second option as it serves as the battle theme for that chapter. Additionally, in the aforementioned OVA the term "slaughter" seemed a lot more applicable than "sword fight" within the context of the scene where the music played. While there are swords involved in the scene, the battle is so utterly one-sided that it's really more of a slaughter than a traditional fight.
After I brought this up they stated that perhaps both "sword fight" and "slaughter" could be valid depending on the context, but they didn't seem entirely certain about it. Thus, I was curious to see what others thought about this, can "殺陣" and "殺人" both be interpreted as "slaughter" depending on the context it's used in?