Miyazaki's new movie "The boy and the heron" was released just last week in Japan. Not sure when it's coming to the west but it's the first movie by Miyazaki since 2013.
It's also quite unique in the sense that there was no trailer or marketing for this movie. Even in Japan.
Do you have any (linguistic) insight into why they changed the name for release outside of Japan?
One certainty is that it references a Japanese book also entitled "How Do You Live?" that would likely be unknown outside of Japan.
However, I was wondering if it was also an issue of connotation. The question, "How do you live?" can have a rather negative connotation in US English. It carries an accusatory connotation, as if the asker has a negative view of the subject's life or conduct and wants to know how the subject can bear to live or act in such a way.
But I suspect that in Japanese, it may be a more literal and connotation-free question?
Not the grandparent poster, but... I don't have any linguistic insight (there were some, with the sister posts about "How do you live" sounding condescending in English?), but a practical one.
I just saw the film last Sunday. The title "How do you live" has hardly any strong connection to the contents of the film. The film doesn't pose that question to the audience. The film doesn't much seem to explore the theme. (A little? Maybe, but not to the extent one would expect from the title.) The titular book by Yoshino Genzaburo (whose plot has no overt resemblance to the movie's plot) appears on the screen briefly, and one could guess that it'll prove a "Chekhov's gun" kind of an item, but this trope is entirely averted.
I think that it is only through a "meta" lense that sees the film as an autobiographical work, with a Miyazaki self-insert as two different characters (Mahito and the great uncle), that the title starts to make sense. It is Miyazaki's attempt to _answer_ the question – in the scope and perspective of his own life and work.
I doubt that this perspective would be readily available for an American viewer. They are unlikely to know the book and they are unlikely to be aware what kind of a person Miyazaki is, what is his connection to Ghibli, his movies and to his son Goro, something a Japanese viewer is much more likely to be aware through various interviews, documentaries and news coverage. Miyazaki has called this movie his "testament" to his grandson, and this certainly makes you consider these things.
If anything, the title "How do you live" would be misleading and disappointing to an American viewer. It makes the film sound more philosophical than what they are going to walk away with.
Titles are very frequently changed, this is because titles are supposed to sound catchy and what sounds catchy in one language often does not in another. Spirited Away in Japanese was also literally more so “Sen and Tihiro's mysterious disappearance. The Vanishing*'s original Dutch title was “trail-less” literally, which sounds good in Dutch, but very poor in English though I suppose “without a trail” would work.
I had a Japanese teacher who liked to talk about how surprised she was about the title in English.
She also gave me a little insight into the word 神隠し which, apparently comes from a saying. When children used to go missing, people used to say that "God snatched them away", which is why the first kanji 神 is 'god'.
Her translation of the title was "God snatched sen & chihiro away" which of course isn't a literal translation, but I thought it was interesting
"In Japanese folklore, spiriting away (Japanese: Kamikakushi (神隠し), lit. 'hidden by kami') refers to the mysterious disappearance or death of a person, after they had angered the gods (kami). There are numerous legends of humans being abducted to the spirit world by kami." [0]
It should be noted that “神” can probably better be translated as “spirit” in many contexts, and denotes a wide variety of supernatural beings, which actually makes “spirited away” an interesting choice.
I'm going to guess that for an English speaking market, there is a certain expectation for Miyazaki movies that has to do with whimsicality, children and some sort of anthropomorphized animal. and so that's the title format that they believe will sell better.
Americans in particular are likely to be put off by something that sounds like it's questioning their life decisions.
As an American I didn't read the title "How do you live?" as being somehow accusatory. I read it more in the sense of "what are the best known practices for living?". I didn't get any negative connotations from the title/question.
Americans in particular are likely to be put off by something that sounds like it's questioning their life decisions.
I think this 'good vibes only' aspect of US society is a side-effect of the country being only a few hundred years old and never having dealt with any real existential catastrophe. 9/11 is probably the closest thing to one the US has undergone, and I don't think the country has handled it that well.
Edit: I considered the Civil War, but internal strife is simply not the same as an external/natural disaster that overtakes the whole country.
Nope, it’s the legacy of Protestant Ideology and specifically ideas like Calvinist predestination. Everything is the result of God’s will made manifest in the world, so questioning it is sacrilegious. The rich and powerful are rich and powerful because God ordained them elect and so on and other such bullshit.
As a European from a country that lived under foreign rule (with varying levels of self-governance) from about 900 AD to 1991 ... lol. Self-inflicted existential catastrophes just don't quite hit the same.
In Spain we got three or four "officially" since 1492-1512 or 1714 depending on how the modern Spain it's stated. One of them with a dictator lasting down to 1975. Go back to the Iberian kingdoms and the fun starts back to the Romans and before.
I've already explained why I omitted the civil war. WW2 presented an existential threat to the K, prior to that, the country had experienced multiple partial or complete takeovers by foreign powers every few centuries, going back to the Romans.
I didn't say anything about 'crushing optimism.' Good vibes only is a contemporary American idiom that essentially says 'don't bother me with any negative opinions.' This can be a mild desire to socialize with chilled out people, or breezy way of indicating you don't give a shit about other people.
"The Boy and the Heron" couldn't be considered inflammatory to Western audiences plagued by guilt as opposed to presenting them with a question loosely meaning, "how do you live with yourself?".
Stop generalizing "The West" as if the West was just the USA.
I remember then internet users said that the West didn't get DBZ until 200s
where in Europe by ~1995 we already finished DBZ for months both in the manga and the anime.
Hacker news being an international community, I would say the relevant question is when it’s coming outside Japan. Let’s remember the average person lives neither in Japan / China nor in the west :-D
The use of average was just a joke.
My point is that most people in the world live outside Japan and the West (however you want to use that term). Even if most people in hacker news belong to the West (not sure that is true) I do appreciate if the comments don’t take for granted that things are said from a western perspective.
It was a pleasant surprise during our Japan trip and we went to watch 'How do you live' in the Toho Cinema Shinjuku on the second day. Very beautiful and touching movie, even with very limited Japanese skills.
If I had significant wealth, one of the things I'd do would be to try and commission Miyazaki to make another film in the same veins as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind or Princess Mononoke. Maybe adapting his earlier Shuna no Tabi manga, which was also great. I'd even settle for something more kid-friendly like Castle in the Sky or Spirited Away.
I know money probably wouldn't sway him, but a donation to something he cared about... maybe. It's just an unrealistic hope, anyway.
I can't stand that there's nothing else like Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa. The world needs more Miyazaki, and especially his adult-themed sci-fi and fantasy.
Miyazaki is a treasure. I'm going to miss having him.
If it's any consolation, I don't think Miyazaki could force Miyazaki to make another Miyazaki movie; having the right reasons seems to be intrinsic to his work.
Tales From Earthsea was a passable Le Guin adaptation with some wonderful visual moments... but From Up on Poppy Hill is just drop-dead gorgeous. It's not a spectacle, but it's just amazingly visually rich, and tugs at every heart-string you have, to boot. I love it.
Part-way through I thought, oh no, this is another overwritten thinkpiece that will ultimately conclude with "you see, the secret message of this art is ... capitalism is bad".
But no, the story here is more interesting. I don't want to do it a disservice by saying there's a discrete "point", but it hadn't occurred to me that the spirit of Miyazaki's films could only be arrived at by somebody who both retained enough of a child's sensibility to spend all of his life on animation and accumulated enough of an adult's sensibility to do so, apparently, to the effective exclusion of much of those extra-vocational things that are usually said to make life enjoyable. Except for making ramen, at least [1].
I just saw Miyazaki's latest "The Boy and the Heron." I'll refrain from commenting on it as I intend to respect Studio Ghibli's intention of giving audiences a fresh viewing without any prior notions.
Like with most Miyazaki films, the entirety of Japan is rushing into theaters. Tickets are difficult to get. I wish there were many more filmmakers that captured the public's attention like this.
