Rising Sun of Nihon reports on some of the nitty gritty of Japanese cinemas — for those ESL teachers who just have to watch American movies. Why travel to Japan to watch Charlie’s Angels? (Come to think of it, why travel downtown here to watch Charlie’s Angels?) In any case, according to the bloggers’ experience the following observations are true:
- Foreign movies are usually shown in the language of the maker with Japanese subtitles
- More and more complexes are appearing with 10+ screens in 10+ smaller cinemas
- More complexes have elevated seats so the guy in front of you doesn’t block your view
- Movie prices are Y1000 – Y2000 depending on what you see and when you see it
- The late showings are the bargains at Y1000 (about $8.00)
- Snacks, Japanese style are available… ncluding popcorn… but NOT those giant buckets
- Japanese homemade movies do NOT have English subscripts
- English seems to the language of subtitles for those who do not understand Japanes (?)
Very sad I have to import Japanese movies from other countries, so that I can watch them with subtitles. I was actually able to enjoy more Japanese cinema when I lived in Sydney. Missing SBS.
There are a significant number of films released with Japanese audio dubbed, but these releases are in addition to the subtitled versions. Typically, a movie that will appeal to young children (who can’t read the subtitles) will get the dub treatment. Most movies that air on TV are dubbed with the original audio as the alternate audio channel.
Regarding the last point, in the anime fandom the most common language used in fansubs is English. In fact, many fansubs translations in other languages are made by translating the ones English, instead of making it straight from Japanese, i.e. a translation of a translation.
i have a copy of Takeshi’s Great Yokai War which has English subtitles,plus,Japanese thru one channel and what I guess to be Cantonese, thru the other (simultaneously!)..now a few years ago, Arden started to learn Mandarin, but she said that this effect of hearing Japanese & Chinese at exactly the same time was truly,truly bizarre….well I replied that the movie itself is little surreal, so whatever is happening audiowise just heightens the effect…
rem.