Kaji's (and Mari's) English

[ehh123]

Do you think Kaji's attempt at speaking English was intentionally bad? Everyone else was doing a pretty good job, especially Mari's actress even if she did have a slight accent. The people that Kaji was talking to seemed to be confused at what he was saying. Then again, I may be expecting too much from Koichi Yamadera, who is like the Frank Welker or Mel Blanc of Japan. Voice is one thing, language is another.

[chee]

No, I'm pretty sure that Yamadera's English was just shitty.

[subAtomic]

I noticed in all fansubs that "perfmafrost excavation" has been incorrectly translated as "permafrost extraction". He's saying "excavation".

[Sachi]

The other actors were meant to fill English-speaking roles, while Kaji is filling a primarily Japanese-speaking role. I wouldn't hire somebody whose only job is to speak English for two or three lines if they couldn't do it moderately. However, Kaji is Kaji, and Kaji primarily speaks Japanese.

I noticed in all fansubs that "perfmafrost excavation" has been incorrectly translated as "permafrost extraction". He's saying "excavation".

A lot of the words were incorrectly subbed, but the meaning of the phrase didn't really change. Intentional or not, it's no big deal.

[MugwumpHasNoLiver]

The idea that the guys listening to Kaji have no idea what he's saying fills my heart with joy. If I could be pretentious for a moment, which I will, I would postulate that it's a metafictional element meant to mirror the audience's own confusion in regards to Kaji's terrible English.

"El-en. Ker pow!"

[Killer Bee]

I thought that was the most hilarious part of the movie. Everyone at Bethany Base just looks at him like he's nuts. I can imagine them all whispering to each other...

"What the hell's he saying?"
"Is he Japanese or something? He doesn't look Japanese."
"Maybe he's retarded."
"I like his stubble."

And then when Kaji completely kills the "wild in bed" joke; Shinji, Toji, and Kensuke just look at him like... well, like he's a stranger who just walked up to them and commented on Misato's sex habits. And then Kaji turns and walks away, probably thinking about how cool he must've sounded. And the three kids are like, "What the hell just happened?"

[oOoOoOo]

The best part is how elaborate the English lines are. He's not all "OKAY SEE YOU LATER GUYS". I always have to pause at that point and read everything, because my brain is getting all confused by things that sound like English.

Surely they could have found some random gaijin to make a weird phonetic chart or something for Kaji's actor to read off. But for the average Japanese person, maybe that sounds suitably foreign to be believable.

Kira Bee-kun, I like the way you're thinking. That's totally Kaji, haha.

[GasmaskAvenger]

one of the goofier scenes in it, but its effective for what it is

[evaunit13]

always reminds me of this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcUi6UEQh00&playnext_from=TL&videos=5MtS6UH4G1A

[SaltyJoe]

This is what first came to my mind when i first heard him speaking.

Aslo, when i first watched the camrip, i thought he mentioned martini in there somewhere. Must be the Bond-like image.

[Eva 02]

Mari's actress even if she did have a slight accent.

You can hear when she goes from speaking to Shinji to answering the phone that its a different actress, I just noticed that not 30 minutes ago. Her accent also appears to be Ukraine or Czec or Even Lebanese. Its pretty clear english for a foreigner, almost seems like they assimilated into english language and is now forcing herself to put accent.

However, Kaji is Kaji, and Kaji primarily speaks Japanese.

I think the point was to show Kaji's multifaceted-ness. Granted he worked primarily in Germany, its safe to assume he spoke german as well. I seem to remember reading somewhere he can speak french and something else but then again,, if its not mentioned in the anime you dont always know where it comes from.

[ZapX]

You can hear when she goes from speaking to Shinji to answering the phone that its a different actress

No it isn't. That's all Maaya. I'd know that angelic voice in any language. Besides, she sings in english all the time.

[Eva 02]

Idk, listen to the difference right now. Its either a really bad cut or she's trying to imitate a different accent. The only way you can tell its Japanese is the tongue sounds.

[AuraTwilight]

It's the same voice actor as confirmed on the DVD. Maaya's just that talented.

Besides, it's nowhere near as much a crazy difference as Daisuke Namikawa or anyone like that.

[oOoOoOo]

It is because of Zappy-kun that I now have three albums by Mari's incredibly talented voice actor. She can do anything. The best part about her is that she seems like a regular girl, not some model-perfect idol descended from the celestial realm. She's also got the same crazy double-jointed arms I do. This is all very relevant to Kaji.

^^;

English is really like the modern Latin. I bet most people who could "speak Latin" back in the day were really shitty at it. English is already slowly changing into something many people in the Anglosphere (Britain and former colonies) can't really recognize. It isn't really "our" language anymore. I've seen Kaji-style lines in a few foreign films now. You go to some places and people speak crazy hybrids of English and the local language.

[Oz]

You go to some places and people speak crazy hybrids of English and the local language.

Have you been eavesdropping on Xard and me?

[Reichu]

I noticed in all fansubs that "perfmafrost excavation" has been incorrectly translated as "permafrost extraction". He's saying "excavation".

Just to nitpick, his incoherent English isn't being translated into another language; it's being transcribed into text so people can actually know WTF he's saying. The lines have been difficult enough (tons of revisions) that it's no surprise something slipped through the cracks. Good to know.

You go to some places and people speak crazy hybrids of English and the local language.

I heard plenty of that just lounging around at the community college campus here in New Jersey. People just flipflopping between Spanish or Korean or Chinese (not sure which Chinese) and bits of English.

Makes me kind of jealous. I want to spontaneously dump bits of non-English into my discourse all the time, but people either wouldn't understand me, or they'd tell me to stop being a weeaboo.

[BrikHaus]

I couldn't believe how fucking bad Kaji's english was. I'm a native English speaker, I can get by all right in Japanese, but I literally thought he was speaking gibberish when he first started talking. I had to rewind the movie to understand that his voice actor was attempting English. If he was that goddamn bad, why the fuck didn't they just have him speak all the lines in Japanese? Why did they bother to use English at all? I wish they would have fixed this for the DVD release.

I hope for the English dub, they have Kaji's "english lines" spoken in really broken, horrible Japanese. That would be sweet.

[ran1]

Have you been eavesdropping on Xard and me?

OH GOD DAT FINN-MONGOL-TURK-ENGLISH-HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE.

Onkohan Kaji puhuu Englanti

amidoinitrite?

I can appreciate Anno trying to make Kaji more "authentic" as a spy, but it indeed fails miserably.

[Oz]

amidoinitrite?

You silly American. Pfft.

First of all, remove "onkohan" (weird inflection, by the way) because Finnish questions aren't structured like they are in English. Directly modify the verb instead and place it first. You also forgot to inflect the object so it doesn't stand out as the object (englanti -> englantia). And in Finnish we don't use capital letters for languages. So the sentence should be like this:

Puhuuko Kaji englantia?

EDIT: For the English dub, they should force Kaji's voice actor to speak Finnish. Epic lulz would be guaranteed.