{"id":7560,"date":"2012-05-07T22:05:52","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T02:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/?p=7560"},"modified":"2012-05-07T22:05:52","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T02:05:52","slug":"cultural-misunderstandings-in-space-brothers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/2012\/05\/07\/cultural-misunderstandings-in-space-brothers\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Misunderstandings in Space Brothers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The high point of Episode 5 of Space Brothers<\/em><\/a> is Hibito’s appearance on an American talk show. The American host gives a short statement introducing the famous Japanese astronaut. Hibito walks on-stage and they shake hands. Then the host puts his hands in the gasshou<\/em> position and bows.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThis symbolizes veneration and is normally used for praying, not greeting.
\n
\nHibito hesitates for only a moment, then returns the bow.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nI suppose this can be taken as a reminder to the show’s youthful target audience of how one should behave if a well-meaning foreigner misinterprets Japanese culture.<\/p>\n

Then we get a sort of reverse misunderstanding. Remember, everyone is supposed to be speaking English here. The host starts addressing Hibito as “Mr. Hibito.”<\/p>\n

Really how hard is it to understand that English speakers don’t use honorifics with first names? (At least, not between adults.)<\/p>\n

This is actually a pretty common mistake in anime<\/a>, though it usually takes the form of foreigners calling each other “first-name-san” when supposedly speaking English.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The high point of Episode 5 of Space Brothers is Hibito’s appearance on an American talk show. The American host gives a short statement introducing the famous Japanese astronaut. Hibito… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[503],"class_list":["post-7560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anime","category-japaneseculture","tag-space-brothers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7560"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7564,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions\/7564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}