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punkbakugo · 6 years

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Does Bakugou actually say fuck? Does he swear at all? If so how much?

this is kind of a tricky question and one i get somewhat often so i’m gonna try to explain this the best that i can.

first off i’m gonna quote a really good article about localization and japanese to english translation i’ve read recently:

Basically, Japanese doesn’t use “swearing” as we do. Instead, Japanese consists of multiple politeness levels, and depending on your social standing between you and the speaker, your intent, and such stuff, you pick from the appropriate politeness level. You talk up to your teachers for example, while a department head at a company will talk down to his subordinates. There are different levels, and one of the lowest levels to talk to someone is the closest equivalent to our swearing.

A quick example of “eat”. Here are a bunch of different levels of telling someone to eat.

Omeshiagari kudasaimase

Omeshiagatte kudasai

Tabete kudasai

Tabete kure

Tabete

Tabero

Kue

The proper word to use depends on who’s talking, who’s being spoken to, what their relationship is, what the intent is, and other context things. By going against what’s proper, you can talk rudely, which is what swearing accomplishes in our language (and other similar languages).

Even words like “kuso” have multiple translations, you could call it the “shit” in one case, while in other case it could be as harmless as “dang it!”. You’d even hear “kuso” in Pokemon anime I’m sure, for example. I know I heard it in Beyblade often enough.

Because all of this is so subjective, swearing in translation can vary pretty crazily depending on the translator. Generally, the more experience, the better the swearing turns out. That’s why with fan translations (particularly anime and manga) you tend to see tons of swearing in what would seem to be kids’ shows or what have you.

Also, because of all this, I really doubt the Japanese rating system takes this politeness level stuff into account, since it occurs everywhere in Japanese entertainment. It’s also not taboo. You don’t want to talk in everyday situations the way they do in entertainment, but you’re not going to go to hell or get your mouth soaped if you use the wrong level.

(and if you have any interest in this kind of thing i’d really recommend reading the whole article sometime. it’s on the localization process of the fan translation of the game Mother 3 and the guy clearly put a lot of thought and care into it which i really appreciate. also i can empathize w/ the level of nitpicking lol. spoiler warning for the first chapter of Mother 3 tho)

so to answer your questions in order: not in a literal sense since there’s no real direct japanese equivalent (other than the actual english word fuck which, no, he doesn’t use lol) so it depends on the translator, he does but i have an issue with how much some translators have him swear, and it once again depends on the translator

to elaborate: bakugou uses ‘kuso’ pretty liberally in ways that i would definitely consider swearing (tho the intensity of it greatly varies) but a lot of what has been translated as swearing isn’t actually that, it’s the way he talks. honestly speaking, i think defaulting to swearing is a lazy way to get across coarse speech patterns but on a theoretical level i don’t have issue with some of bakugou’s coarser speech patterns being translated as him swearing and in fact there are times i myself would translate lines as him swearing if i were localizing instead of directly translating. but it has to be done thoughtfully. so what i have an issue with is how liberal and careless fan translators tend to be about it.

and what i mean by that is they don’t look at the context of what he’s saying, who he’s saying it to, his tone, and how it compares to how he speaks at “baseline”. he’s got different levels. and bakugou’s baseline is impolite, yes, but you also have to keep in mind that that’s kind of the default for a lot of guys in shounen manga (and i’ve said this before but characters in japanese entertainment don’t talk like real people). my friend @tobjo made a post about this the other day that i wholeheartedly agree w/ and like she said, todoroki also speaks pretty impolitely but he’s never translated as saying fuck every two words.

an example of something that sometimes gets translated as swearing is the use of ‘てめェ/temee’ which is literally just a rude way to say ‘you.’ the thing is, bakugou uses it pretty casually so whether or not i find it a valid translation choice to have him swear in the sentence is entirely based on context

this translation, for instance, i think is perfect. it shows that he’s speaking gruffly without being explicit. (well, if i were the one localizing it i would’ve gone with “Hey, kid. You too, go participate.” but y’know. details.) now, this is mangastream which is pretty hit or miss w/ the bakugou localization and there are definitelyparts where i think they overdo it but nothing is as bad as FA which added so much unnecessary bs that i feel like they were just actively trying to be edgy (let’s not forget the time they had shigaraki call magne a transphobic slur for no fucking reason! real cool!)

classy. another casual use of temee where i wouldn’t even put light swearing.

left is FA, right is viz. the original is “てめェらの’個性’知らねぇ何だ!?” which, if you were to ask me to localize rather than just directly translate, i would translate to something like “I don’t even know what your quirks are! The hell!?” because that’s what feels organic to me here. (and the goal of any good localization should be to a) get the feeling of the original text across accurately and b) make sure dialogue feels organic)

but go through FA translations and you’ll see 394843985 instances of ott swearing and nastiness where bakugou’s not even using coarser language in the original text like the panel where “fuckwipe” came from in the above mentioned ch.117 title where bakugou literally just said “oi” lmao

and some translations like the one mentioned in the above linked post still carry on this tradition of excessive swearing bc FA ingrained it so deeply into the fandom

basically my point is you can absolutely choose to translate bakugou as casually swearing and to what extent is dependent on the person’s taste (and skill level) but translations that are too liberal and excessive with it tend to push an image of him being overly volatile and juvenile rather than just a teen w/ a sailor’s mouth or something of that ilk. it warps his character. no thought or care is put into it and i get the feeling they don’t realize that there are ways to be gruff or even abrasive other than swearing and insults and ways to swear other than saying ‘fuck’ all the time lol (and some people really just do not know what a person that swears a lot actually sounds like)

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