This might sound pedantic, but neither of those statements are quite right. It's not called "How Do You Live" in Japan, it's called Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka. And it wasn't "renamed" for the "international" market, it was given an English name that it didn't have until then.

I'm irked by this because this is something I've been constantly correcting people with, mainly to indirectly challenge English-language exceptionalism (anything not Japanese is English - we don't know the French or German titles yet), but also a reminder that any publication worth its salt up have emphasised that "How Do You Live" was a tentative title.

Again though, I readily concede that your online interactions may be very different from mine—just wanted to add my 2¢ :-)

But yes, it wasn't renamed. It just has another name. Nobody's hiding the original name from you.

(I agree the OP's comment is ridiculous.)

Kinda like saying that Rome is not the actual name of the city. It’s Roma because that’s how it’s called in Italian and the city is in Italy so that’s the actual name.

To be honest, I'd probably disagree with this too—the way I see it, in English, Rome is the actual name of the city. (It's not the "native" name, of course, but English isn't the native language of the city, so that's not relevant either way.)

Still, even if the parent post is indeed technically correct I don’t think it really matters the same way it doesn’t really matter if you call Roma Rome or Milano Milan or Venezia Venice.

  kimi-tachi     wa    dou iki-ru       ka
  you-and.others TOPIC how live-NONPAST QUESTION  

Those are always fraught for cinema—the Russian release of Inception was titled Начало načalo “beginning”, which of course wasn’t the translation of the titular concept during the film itself (that was внедрение vnedrenie “integration, infiltration”)—but if you have to give something to an English-speaking audience, it’s probably as good as it gets. (Specifying the translation is on shaky ground would be good journalistic practice, of course.)

Any other post about this movie, in any other language, is going to make the same "mistake".

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54110592

0 - Like how the Japanese videogame titled "It's a Wonderful World" had to have its named change to "The World Ends with You" in some (all?) regions because of copyright issues. https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/04/17/breaking-the-languag...

This is needlessly pedantic. By that logic, your use of Romaji is "incorrect" and Euro-centric exceptionalism, because the official original movie poster uses Hanji/Katakana.

It's an English-language article about a Japanese movie. Saying "titled 君たちはどう生きるか and renamed The Boy and the Heron for the international market" would make no sense because the audience of English readers won't be able to make sense of it.

It's not "English-language exceptionalism" to provide information in English when writing for an English-speaking audience, especially when it's clear in context that the information is a translation.

Needlessly pedantic?? This... is... Hacker News!

I stand corrected.

I think you're right. My Japanese is very rusty at this point, but I was taught that titles were always written in katakana, similar to how titles in English are always written in title case. But う is hiragana, for example.

I'm curious if anyone has an answer for this.

Whoever taught you that is wrong, titles are not written in katakana. Katakana is mostly only used for loan-words and onomatopoeia. English titles of foreign movies will be written in Katakana, maybe they were confused by that?

You attempting to gate-keep it isn't something anyone I know would appreciate.

The justification offered about 'people being tired of marketing' sounds absurd, and more like they are finding excuses to skip work because they are old & exhausted, and another step in winding down Ghibli. I expect lower box office than it deserves; even Hayao Miyazaki can't release a movie with zero marketing and expect no effect...

It's not an adaptation, but 君たちはどう生きるか is the name of a book for young adults that the Japanese audience might be familiar with; the reference will be lost on an English-speaking audience, draining it of some of its meaning and nostalgia. Imagine a film called "The Little Prince" or something...but of course, The Little Prince isn't the same book, with the same themes, as 君たちはどう生きるか. And even if there were a book which the reference mapped onto well, it still feels like referencing a different title in the translation would be egregious.

In that sense, I'm somewhat fond of "The Boy and the Heron", though I acknowledge it isn't ideal and, as someone who prefers more literal translations, wouldn't necessarily be the route I'd take. Without injecting any specific (and thus wrong) reference, it evokes the nostalgic feeling of English childhood fables and aphorisms - and it lends it their feeling of moral weight, too, just as the Japanese title does. It's a good and evocative title.

The literal translation everyone's using, "How Do You Live?", also isn't ideal. There's a couple of grammatical mismatches between the two languages; whereas the "you" in English can be both singular and plural, the Japanese is explicitly plural; and Japanese doesn't explicitly differentiate present and future tense, and here the meaning is actually likely more future tense. But the big problem is that, to my ears, it sounds deeply accusatory in English, along the lines of "How do you live with yourself?" - and given Miyazaki's views and temperament that wouldn't have surprised me! But in truth the intended Japanese meaning is more inquisitive and philosophical. The original title, in the original novel, is from a book inside of the book, left as a question to the reader. In prose I might translate it as, "How will you, readers, choose to live your lives?", but there's countless variations I've considered; none of them are quite right, and to be honest none quite have the original's punch of a good title!

(disclaimer: I'm a reasonably advanced student of the Japanese language but not a native speaker. Apologies if I've gotten anything wrong.)

Huh. I read the new English translation of the book and came away with just that sentiment: Copper lets his friends down and has to figure out how to go on.

Based on his past work, he doesn't seem like the sort of person who sees money as a way of keeping score. And this isn't the first time that he's retired and come back to make one last film.

Maybe he just wanted to tell another story, and didn't feel like bothering with the whole palaver of drumming up interest and courting the press?

He knows he's famous and it will do very well without marketing. Why optimize a metric you don't care about? I don't find the cynical laziness explanation as convincing as the stated motivation tbh.

You are commenting on an article in the Verge for a movie which has only been released in Japan and won’t be out in the USA for months. This article is one of many in most western publications. A lot can be said about this movie but having a low level of discussion is definitely not one of them.

What’s the point of a marketing campaign when you have so much organic reach?

First results are in by the way. Second highest results for the opening weekend of a Ghibli movie. I think they will survive the lack of marketing.

Far out, thank you for this, I was under the impression Gwern was anonymous - I’m glad you don’t need to assume anything.

At Hayao Miyazaki level, having no marketing IS a very clear PR move. The article states it clearly, it's adding mystery to the movie. Everyone knows that it's not going to be a bad movie since it's a Ghibli one, but also no one knows what it is about so everyone is impatient to go watch it and discover all that mystery.

Since the opposite is true, I've lost interest in movies when the trailer revealed way too much, I can see this as a clear move in the opposite direction.

Now that I'm mildly spoiled by Verge I have to go watch it. damn. Hopefully they don't mandate suit and a tie.

But, but Hayao Miyazaki could not give less fucks about the effect...

He doesn’t care. He won an Oscar and didn’t show up. The Oscar is still at Disney.

> new Miyasaki flick

are all the marketing I need. Even the poster is superfluous. As long as somebody reminds me when the film lands in the States, I'm there.

In particular, Tokyo Godfathers hits in a way that not even Miyazaki can replicate IMO. Satoshi Kon probably wasn't as consistent as Miyazaki. But damn, the good Satoshi Kon movies were just beyond excellent.

Mamoru Hosoda is also pretty good. Wolf Children is one of the most "hits you in the real feels" movie that I've seen, despite its surface-level fantasy premise. A true masterpiece, though other movies from Hosoda aren't quite as good IMO. Still, his Digimon and Summer Wars are fun watches.

-----------

There's that off-branch of Ghibli, Studio Ponac too. I've only seen their collection of 3x short films: Modest Heroes (one about a crab family, one about an egg allergy, and one about an invisible guy), but its extremely "Ghibli-like".

Modest Heroes is that mix of fantasy but very much down-to-earth storytelling that reflects upon life, in a child-friendly storytelling style. "Ghibli-style" as people might say.

Well, aside from a few small projects, he only made four movies and one show, and in my estimation they're all excellent. Paranoia Agent I would say is deliberately uneven, being assembled from various unused ideas from past projects, and is quite effective in that way.

Every time it comes up, I have to shill Kuuchuu Buranko as something anyone who enjoyed Paranoia Agent should watch. It, along with Tatami and Paranoia, are my personal trifecta of shows that use the medium to the max.

Just watch them in order of release!

I prefer Miyazaki movies dubbed in English, rather than as subtitled Japanese.

This is not true for ANY other non-English movie, where I always prefer the original language with subtitles.

Why? Well, it's anime and the characters aren't "really" speaking Japanese anyway, so there's less lip-mismatch. And apparently the Man himself doesn't mind them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ghibli/comments/7jef8m/miyazakis_vi...

Granted this was one of the earlier Ghibli films and Miyazaki reportedly clamped down on these shenanigans on future dubs.

1: https://screenrant.com/studio-ghibli-castle-in-the-sky-engli...

Miyazaki has had his fair share of bad dubs (including one of the Castle of Cagliostro ones), but I think it's fair to say that he's fared the best of any major Japanese anime director.

https://youtu.be/jM6PPxN1xas

Only Yesterday is a very good movie. A true anime for adults, not one that mistakes "adultness" for "naked people and/or gore".

Re: dubs. I haven't watched the English dub of too many Ghibli movies, mostly because if I watch a dub, I watch it in Spanish. Judging by the only one I've seen in English too -- Princess Mononoke -- I'd rate the English dub the worst, with flatter and less inspired voice acting. The Spanish version of Mononoke is actually tied in quality with the Japanese version in my mind, while

I used to believe I could only detect bad acting in my native Spanish. Mononoke told me that no, I can spot bad acting in English too! I don't know what the hell Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver and all those well known actors were doing...

So, I'd only really like a dub if it was a multilingual sound track produced by an original, multilingual team. That should include the original director, writers, and (preferably) actors and producers. To me, the original creative team needs enough fluency to review the alternate language work and keep it from diverging. Otherwise, it's about as satisfying as reading a Cliff's Notes summary of a novel instead of the actual novel.

I'd also often prefer subtitle translations if they try to hew closer to the original language including temporality. I'd rather read slightly tortured English subtitles to deliver translated parts of speech in roughly the same order they are being spoken in the original language, exposing a bit of the original language's grammar and remaining correlated with the actor's tone and timing.

"Spirited Away" (2001) - Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, and Susan Egan.

"Princess Mononoke" (1997) - Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, and Billy Bob Thornton.

"My Neighbor Totoro" (1988) - Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning.

"Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) - Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, and Billy Crystal.

"Ponyo" (2008) - Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, and Liam Neeson.

"The Wind Rises" (2013) - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci.

"Porco Rosso" (1992) - Michael Keaton and Cary Elwes.

"Kiki's Delivery Service" (1989) - Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman, and Janeane Garofalo.

Can be screened on Max/HBO, for now anyways.

Miyazaki films, being popular, big budget theater releases didn't suffer as much from cheap dubbing as TV series.

Who came up with this atrocious design language? Ironically, the polar opposite of Miyazaki.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/f0E4br6.png

https://ibb.co/Fm0zz35

Not everything on the internet is astroturfing or whatever.

That said I rarely see movie marketing anymore. Only movies I know are out are barbie and Oppenheimer due to the meme and my friend insisting we go to both.

I just don't see ads much anymore.

Nitpick:

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_Japan... - it shows Demon Slayer at ¥40,430,000,000 (2020) and Spirited Away at ¥31,680,000,0000 (2001). This is like comparing $220 million to $290 million so it's not exactly 'demolishing' IMO.

31 yen in 2001 -> 32 yen in 2020