18 October 2005

"the entire United States wept"

Why I love WaiWai. (articles like this)

The article is a translation from the magazine Weekly Playboy (japanese playboys can't wait once a month for their magazine fix evidently) focusing on translating the jargon of Tokyo teens.

I found this pretty funny:
Zenbei ga naita --- literally, "the entire United States wept." Means nothing important.

One might be moved to wonder how the above expression could take on such an unrelated meaning. After checking the blogs, your reporter came up with this explanation: When many U.S. films open in Japan, they are accompanied by posters claiming that American viewers were moved to tears. But such films have little emotional impact on viewers here. So japanese film goers have learned, apparently, to disregard such promotional claims as largely meaningless.

I don't know why that tickles me so. Maybe cause movie posters can be so dumb the world over. Who do these marketers think they are fooling?

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