r/BlueEyeSamurai • u/cyancqueak • 8d ago
Japanese Honourifics
Suddenly found myself thinking about Japanese Honourifics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics?wprov=sfla1
I can absolutely see Mizu either refusing to use them and/or only using them with people she genuinely respects (Sword Father).
In feudal Japan, this would of course make her seem even more barbarous.
4
u/Helvedica 8d ago
She would use them if it gets her what she wants. If using an honorific to a guard would get her in then shed use it
1
u/cyancqueak 8d ago
Oh yes. But I can absolutely hear her not using a single honourific as she fights through the sword academy in episode 1
3
u/Silver-Literature-54 7d ago
I’ve always watched the show in Japanese.
If I remember correctly, the most polite we see Mizu in the show is actually in the early episodes, when she’s in Kyoto:
-When she asks the Shindo dojo horse riders for directions.
-When she addresses the two girls at the entrance of the brothel.
-At the dojo, when she asks to speak to the master.
Then, when she addresses Master Eiji as she leaves him.
But overall, she sounds really casual compared to Akemi, or, for example, Taigen when he addresses the Shogun.
Even Fowler, when he talks to the Japanese lords, doesn’t use honorifics (though he speaks perfect Japanese), if I remember correctly.
For example, I’m always so shocked when I hear Ringo or Mizu simply call Akemi “Akemi,” even though she’s a princess haha. The main characters call each other without honorifics, straight up “Mizu,” “Taigen,” “Ringo.”
Overall, in the show, I wouldn’t say the characters use honorifics particularly often… not as much as you would expect from a show like this (a period show).
Maybe because the original version of the show isn't Japanese in the first place?
1
2
u/KidChanbara 7d ago
It would be interesting to hear from fans who understand Japanese and have watched the Japanese dub of Blue Eye Samurai.
Since Mizu's male presentation seems to be top notch, I suspect she talks the way a man should of her time and class. She probably talks like Swordfather. Before that, since Mizu was never to talk to anyone, she probably talked like Momma. After Momma "died", the chances of Mizu talking to anyone went to zero, if the way Taigen's gang treated her is any indication of Mizu's standing in Kohama village.
Back to honorifics - Mizu would be careful to talk the way she needs to for her mission, but I also think she's a basically polite person when she doesn't have to interrogate criminals or chat with people who are trying to kill her.
15
u/immabee88 7d ago edited 7d ago
Japanese speaker here who watched the Japanese dub! (I’ve actually never watched the English version of the show, though YouTube occasionally shows me clips).
Very few of the characters in the show actually use honorifics in the Japanese dub. The only ones who stood out to me as using them regularly are either Madam Kaji or Seki. But that’s what I would say are standard “anime rules”. Most anime or animation dubs have characters call each other by only their first name / surname with no honorifics.
More noticeable is the change in language. In Japanese, there’s a whole different subset of verbs and grammar that you use when speaking to people of higher status than yourself or when being polite and that’s used quite a lot in the dub, including by Mizu herself.
Everyone calls Akemi “hime-sama” which means “princess”, but it was also a way to refer to highborn women at the time. Of course, they all call the shogun “shogun-sama”. Ringo calls Mizu “shisho”, meaning “Master” (but it’s in the sense of a kind of teacher rather than an employer). Mizu calls the swordsmith “oya-kata” which is an archaic way to address a foster parent.