This has nothing to do with women in comics, but it did irritate the fuck out of me, and it’s quickfire week, so!
The otherwise enjoyable New Avengers #31 has Wolverine shouting at a bunch of ninja: ‘[They’ll follow us] all the way! Ain’t that right, guys? それは右でないか。’
Now, that’s pretty much incomprehensible flavour text unless you can read even a very little Japanese. But if you can, you realize that ‘Sore wa migi denai ka’ is an extremely literal translation of the English ‘isn’t that right?’ where ‘right’ refers to the direction.
Wolverine is asking hordes of ninja if that way is the right! Like he’s somehow confused! With a far too polite form of the question participle! And a missing syllable! Wolverine the fucking samurai who is supposed to speak fluent Japanese! Shutupshutupshutup.
There are a lot of ways to ask if something is correct or whether you agree with the previous statement in Japanese, some of which would also handily mark gender, social class and regional dialect. You know, much like English. But if you want to use them, you actually have to put in the fucking research.
Don’t ask me for the right answer, because I’d say ‘Jarou?’ which is Bingo-ben, and thus more suitable for interrogating yakuza than ninja. However! I’m not writing the damn comic.
In conclusion: Altavista Babelfish is not an actual babelfish. If you want to use languages other than English – and I applaud this in theory! – get it right or {{do this.}}*
*Translated from the Finnish!
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