#mha 207

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Who Wants To Talk About Japanese Orthography In Manga???

Me, it's me, I do, and I have been chomping at the bit to get the chance to.

Orthography refers to the conventions of written language to represent sounds. That may bring to mind the idea of rigid grammar rules or spelling standardization, but in a linguistic sense, orthography simply describes observable trends across language use. This isn't about authority--I am not going to talk about what schools teach or say people should write one way or another. This is about examining how real people use written language creatively to convey different things in popular media.

This is a huge topic, so I'm only going to use examples from MHA to highlight Horikoshi's style.

First, let's get a run-down of the main parts of written Japanese and how they tend to be used.

We've got kanji and kana; kanji are logograms, while kana are syllabaries. Kana refers to both hiragana and katakana collectively, but we will delineate the two from here on.

The Wikipedia page for kanji, describing this more succinctly than I'm about to.

For clarity, I'm gonna color-code each one.

Let's take a quick look at all three in action.

Chapter 65

By virtue of being the syllabary that grammar particles are written in, hiragana can get away with a lot that kanji and katakana can't.

You can write simple sentences in hiragana alone, like so:

The sentence is perfectly comprehensible like this, but it reads as casual or perhaps a bit immature, like the person is either leaving out kanji for speed or simplicity (like online) or they aren't confident using kanji. Although, the word hito (person) is extremely common and its kanji is simple, so this would probably look more natural:

But there are also kanji for the word kawaii, so you could also write it this way:

On the other hand, writing the whole thing in katakana looks weird as fuck:

bECAuSE iT kINDA reADS LIKE THis, or maybe L I K E T H I S

It seems almost alien, overemphasizing the phonetic sound of the words, implying there's something notable or unusual about them.

But what if you write it like this?

Both ways use katakana to put flavor on a specific word. The first puts it on person, which could be used in a situation where someone hasn't been named yet, but the speaker tonally emphasizes your knowledge of them--like "oh, you know who."

The second emphasizes cute, which could read as sexually suggestive, teasing/joking, or even a threatening tone, depending on the context. "Real cute, ain't they?"

Basically, the connecting grammar bits need to be in hiragana, but nouns, verbs, and adjectives can typically be written in any of the three systems. That introduces choice into the matter, and these choices may have some cultural connotations.

This is a subtlety in written Japanese that manga loves to take advantage of. Orthography contributes a lot to characterization and tone, so individual creators develop little quirks as part of their own writing style.

Now let's finally take a gander at some of Horikoshi's!

Kanji instead of hiragana for semantic emphasis

Chapter 48

Best Jeanist could have used only hiragana for the word "good" (いい, ii), which is a very common way to write it. But he's not just commenting that they are nice kids, he's talking about them as "goodie two-shoes" and even puts brackets around the idea. The kanji emphasizes the cultural idea of a Good Child™, a well-behaved, morally upright, obedient young person.

Kanji instead of hiragana denoting a serious or severe tone

Chapter 36

Katsuki's "you" pronoun omae being written with kanji comes across as markedly serious, especially compared to how his dialogue is normally written. This is actually the only time Katsuki says omae and it is written with kanji--all the rest are in hiragana, which tends to read as more casual.

Hiragana instead of kanji denoting a gentle tone or youthful/childlike language

Chapters 129 and 183

Katsuki and his omae show us how kanji use can be seen as more mature and serious; Eri's dialogue does the opposite of this by using hiragana when it could use kanji, emphasizing her youth and innocence.

Katakana instead of hiragana or kanji for emphasis or slang

Chapters 209, 207, and 2

As I detailed above, one of katakana's most common uses is similar to italics or all-caps.

But you also tend to see slang written with it, and depending on the slang, the word being in katakana can immediately clarify it from other, perhaps more standard meanings. In Jirou's case, her personal pronoun uchi can mean a couple other things, so it being written in katakana clarifies her usage. It could arguably also imply she is taking a bit of an argumentative tone--Katsuki's slang is typically written in katakana for both of these reasons!

Katakana denoting regional dialect/accent, nonstandard pronunciation/muddled speech, or confused articulation

Chapters 102, 208, 394, and 2

Ochako gets flustered and defaults to her regional Kansai dialect. Instead of "chigau wa" (Tokyo dialect), she says "chau wa" repeatedly.

Katsuki and Toga both drop the w- sound from a word. Katsuki says "ore a" instead of "ore wa," while Toga says the word "kawaiku" as "ka'aiku" and "kawaii" as "ka'aii." Notice how the katakana which represents the vocal omission/hiccup is actually smaller than the others? That's also a little stylistic detail for communicating this kind of nonstandard speech.

Izuku repeats All Might's words, chikara wo, in a confused daze because he isn't following All Might's point. By removing the kanji especially, this kind of katakana emphasizes him sounding the words out without recognizing the underlying meaning.

Basically, Japanese has some excellent ~vibes-based~ orthography because of how the language is structured!

Of course, you find this kind of thing in English as well--especially in the age of the internet, where people note that "how dare u" reads as tonally distinct from "how dare you." As you develop language fluency, you tend to pick up these things subconsciously more than anything, but it's one of my favorite things to analyze and compare.

These are just a few examples and my own interpretations of them. I'm sure there are many more uses and flavor-nuance I'm not picking up on. Since any given choice can be read a few different ways, context is very important. My examples aren't definitive proof of anything, but it can be fun to keep these kinds of details in mind while reading.

Shueisha and Shonen Jump surely have in-house standards for text, and mangaka must operate within that range. That said, I have indeed seen every one of these examples in other manga as well.

And on the independent side of things, doujinshi and online manga are basically the wild frickin' west--I have seen tons of totally crazy, highly creative ways to take advantage of the unique flexibility found in Japanese, but that's a post for another day.

I will probably write more about this kind of thing in the future when I can pinpoint some more observations, but I hope you all enjoyed the ride. <3

[cryoverkiltmilk]

I posted 7,972 times in 2022

That's 1,658 more posts than 2021!

190 posts created (2%)

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Blogs I reblogged the most:

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I tagged 3,943 of my posts in 2022

#bnha - 293 posts

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Longest Tag: 138 characters

#'i got distracted by becoming a councilor and within two days viktor carved runes into himself to try and become some sort of magic cyborg

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

369 notes - Posted October 18, 2022

#4

just another day in the dungeon

385 notes - Posted September 7, 2022

#3

They are FAT. They are DUMB. i LOVE them.

452 notes - Posted February 27, 2022

#2

See the full post

1,802 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

"Do you enjoy doing math?"

"I do not."

"How about live improv?"

"Not at all."

"Okay... but what if there are dragons?"

"...keep talking."

26,325 notes - Posted January 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[animehime94]

Bruhhhh Hisashi literally means LONG TIME NO SEE. It was a good opportunity to introduce Deku's dad. But we get a Deku vs Muscular fight instead. Here is my current mood:

[purple-mind-slave]

BNHA 307 SCANS

[prohero-fatgum]

I know I haven't posted leaks in two weeks now, I've been busy with work and life.

But I gotta pose the question once more:

Where the absolute FUCK are fatgum and suneater? You can't hide them forever and we need to start making some pentagrams to summon them.

[day-dreaming-and-eating]

Deku, you're literally 166cm. Calm down

[earlysignsofineptitude]

Bakugou’s family is so OP, even his mom has an ultimate

[puraiuddo]

he pout

[starfangssecrets]

This!!! THIS!!! I cannot tell you how freaking proud i am of my boy!! He's come so freaking far! He saved Jirou!! He now understands that to save is to win, and to win is to save!! Gah!! So much pride! Goodness, i love Bakugou!💛

[bakugou-ou]

Bakugou saved Jirou in the recent chapter (when I read the raw) and I’m 2837474748% living [I decided to squeal over this w you since I now discovered you like BakuJirou!]

SORRY TO EVERYONE AVOIDING SPOILERS BUT I TAGGED THIS AND IM SORRY BUT IM SO EXCITED EEEK

I have no idea who you are, anon, but oh my gosh, yes, I just read the chapter and I’m L I V I N G.

More than because it’s good food for my not-BakuShima OTP, I love this chapter, and that ending for it, because of the growth it gives Katsuki. Katsuki saving someone. Holy shit. And that someone just happens to be my best girl and the only other person I ship him with? B L E S S. Thanksgiving gave me more to be thankful for ahhhhhh!!!!!

I have a lot of feelings about it, and I’m gonna need some time to work through them all… But I’m very, very happy about the chapter, about Katsuki’s development, about Katsuki saving Kyouka, and about my ship.

[saragirl32]

Boku no hero academia 5th season - Episode 9

Manga vs Anime

[one-cherry]

Uhh...you good?

[plusultraspecial]

I was avoiding spoilers for season 5, and I’m catching up with unread manga chapters, after the episodes.

Wow.

Bakugou panels.

Boy look magnificent!

[terrible-horrible-mind-of-aspen]

@samexebin​ made this and I love it

For context, Monoma was yelling some annoying stuff during the joint training, and his team was getting fed up with it.

[everyjirou]

[divasy]

BAKUGOU SAVING JIROU OMFG