KAWAII DESU WA

Hey guys, who loves anime?

Those of you who don’t can probably skip this post, since I rarely see the following issue in fiction written by non-weaboos. However, you can feel free to read on if you really want to.

Anime fans, sit tight and stay with me.
This is important.

I have to break something to you. You might not want to hear it, but listen to me:
You… can’t… speak… Japanese.

(Unless you actually can. But shhh, this is for the ones who can’t.)

Furthermore, most of your readers can’t read Japanese. And even if they CAN, they still wouldn’t appreciate reading a story with random Japanese words sprinkled throughout.
It’s annoying.
If you’re writing fanfiction, it makes you look like an insane weaboo. If you’re writing an original fiction that you want to get published, it’s a sure way to get your manuscript thrown right out.

Now, I know that in anime, certain phrases may be used frequently and a fan might want to use them in their fanfic in order to properly capture a character’s personality. Let me say now that some Japanese is acceptable. For example, honorifics are okay… if they are the exact honorifics used by those characters. Pay attention, get it right, you’re in the clear.
Also, depending on the anime, words like “sensei” or “senpai” may be acceptable. Other words may work too, but please take the time to think about whether the English equivalent might not be just as effective.

But please, refrain from words like “baka”, “kawaii”, “kuso”, and so on. Please do not randomly replace English words with Japanese words. It’s so painfully annoying, you have no idea.
The same goes for phrases. I don’t want to see someone say, “Watashi wa Asako desu. Let’s go fight evil!” Not only is it disorienting and confusing even to someone who CAN understand that, but to someone who doesn’t understand it’s absolutely incomprehensible. What this character just said was “I’m Asako,” but your readers didn’t understand that. Congratulations, your readers have no idea what your character’s name is.

Now, you might have an original character that’s Japanese, who speaks Japanese and who may conceivably use Japanese words or phrases in their otherwise English dialogue. I’ve seen it done, and I’ve seen it done well. However, due to frequent abuses of this excuse, I’m going to put some restrictions on this right now.
Do NOT use this excuse if:
- You are a little kid. (Below the age of 15, I’d say?)
- You haven’t taken the time to study the language. (Anime doesn’t count!)
- You’re just doing it because you’ve been watching too much anime.

Also, before you have your Japanese character spout lots of Japanese all over the place, try to think about why they’re mixing their languages so much. Do they not speak English very well? Maybe they don’t always remember how to say what they want to in English. Perhaps they might have an accent and/or say awkward sentences due to their inexperience with English. Take some time to think about what sort of accent and speech quirks this character might have as a result of their mother language not being English. You might actually have fun coming up with a believable dialect for the character!

Also, perhaps consider if it might not be just as cool to have your character be, you know, NOT Japanese. Chinese, perhaps? Korean? Laotian? Or maybe they could be from any OTHER continent, besides Asia?
Just a thought.

Not that I have anything against Japan or the Japanese language. I’ve been studying it, myself, and I’ll admit that it’s a really fun language. I do, however, have something against annoying non-Japanese kids pretending to speak (or be) Japanese because they think it’s cool. I’m also really sick of everyone making their original characters Japanese just because they’ve been watching a lot of anime lately. Yes, Japan is pretty cool. Yes, they have a cool culture. But hey, lots of other countries and cultures are cool too! Just because, say, Russia or India doesn’t make Naruto doesn’t mean they don’t have rich histories and cool languages.