Nihongo Lesson 04/03/15

TEAM JUMP girl breaks down Japanese words associated with "voice." 

By John Bae April 03, 2015

Welcome to the Nihongo Lesson feature. We strive to give you useful manga-based Japanese language tips and maybe even a glimpse into the translation process. This week’s lesson will focus on voices in the manga and anime world. Many of your favorite Weekly Shonen Jump series have anime premiering in the next few weeks. Professor Jump’s Jump-filled adventure continues as he goes to fight the demon lord, Workload! So once again, I, the new TEAM JUMP girl, will be taking over this page. We should all know by now how much I love voices!

KOE (こえ)

KOE means “voice.” Voices and speech in manga come in multiple varieties. You have your text in balloons, thought captions and sound effects. Sometimes it can be difficult to discern who is talking when you read manga. In One Piece, Oda Sensei uses mysterious floating text a lot. One of the most memorable scenes is when the Straw Hats bury Merry Go at sea. Merry apologizes to the crew and thanks them for caring about her. It was a very touching scene.

Nl Raise Voice 1

SAKEBU (さけぶ)

SAKEBU is the verb “to scream” or “to shout.” Shouting is pretty common in shonen manga, especially in series where there are a lot of battles. Manga authors tend to use a lot of exclamation points in dialogue. In the English Weekly Shonen Jump, we tend to limit our exclamation points to maybe three at most. But in Japan, it’s pretty common to see as many as five. In Toriko, the Four Kings were screaming their lungs out when they thought Komatsu died. Just look at all the exclamation points!!

Nl Raise Voice 2

SEIYUU (せいゆう)

SEIYUU means “voice actor.” Voice actors in Japan are different than voice actors in America. In addition to voicing anime characters, they also do dubbing for foreign (American) movies, drama CDs and video games, and they sing and model. They are kind of like our celebrities. Weekly Shonen Jump anime tend to get very popular voice actors in Japan to attract new fans to the series. Food Wars!, Seraph of the End and Nisekoi all have very talented voice casts, so I hope everyone is looking forward to the new Weekly Shonen Jump anime as much as I am!

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