lebateleur | Being a Posting of the Anti-Fangirl Japanese Manifesto

To mine own lj. Having cut out all the pieces of the original post which sparked this,

I dislike fangirl Japanese in fanfics. Granted, I've spent the last 1/3 of my life studying Japanese, but I don't think this has much bearing on my dislike. Rather, it has much more to do with the fact that fangirl Japanese often lowers the qualities of the fics in which it appears. I've heard it argued that if one doesn't go overboard, fangirl Japanese is okay. Yet even if a particular fanfic is not in danger of collapsing under the weight of a far too liberal application of the stuff, its author should still keep these points in mind:

1) If one is going to use fangirl Japanese to give one's fic "Japanese flavour," make sure the Japanese is used correctly and in situations when Japanese people would use the words. Otherwise, the fic gains stupid flavour, not Japanese flavour. This applies to context as well as grammar - men like Genjou Sanzou and Spike Speigel do not think in terms of "Waaaaaiiiii!" or "kawaii". Ever.

2) Do not use fangirl Japanese as a crutch. If one needs to insert a "baka" or a "sugoiiiii" every two sentences to remind readers that one's characters/setting are based on a Japanese original, one needs to improve one's writing. Fangirl Japanese will not convince readers that a one's characters are in fact Muraki and Hisoka if the characters one's written aren't acting like it.

3) Most important of all: There is NO need to use Japanese in a fic when English words will suffice. Using honorifics or vocabulary for which there are no English counterparts (itadakimasu, gokurousama, etc.) is fine. However, there's no reason for characters to be spouting "nani!?" every other line when it's easier on English-readers for those characters to say "what!?". When a reader has to stop every few sentences and think about what's being said, the flow and pace of the story is disrupted. From a writing perspective, this is a Very Bad Thing.

It should be noted that these three points hold true whether or not the assumed reader of one's fiction speaks Japanese. Fangirl Japanese doesn't bother me because "it's dissing the |\|0bl3 Japanese language!!!1!" but because it generally makes for a poorer piece of writing. Using a few arigatou's or keeping honorifics attached doesn't ruin a fic, but beyond those points it's very hard to use fangirl Japanese without making the fic worse than it would have been without it.

これで以上です。