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"Are you OK? BUSTAAHHH WOLF!"
This is not so much an Anime Trope as a feature of the Japanese language. It shows up prominently in anime and can easily be misunderstood by people who don't speak Japanese. The Japanese language includes many "foreign loan words" (Gairaigo). While a few of these words, like "tabako" (cigarettes) and "pan" (bread, from Spanish and Portugese), have been in use for over a hundred years, most date to the post-war period.
They are a common, everyday part of Japanese language with their own usage and meaning (often slightly sometimes very) different from the source, appear in dictionaries along side normal words (the same way that the word burrito appears in an English dictionary), etc. etc.
For example, a schoolgirl who feels she has just received a stroke of good fortune might squeal "Rakki!". This originates from the English word "Lucky!" (You can hear Mihoshi in Tenchi Muyo say this a few times.) She is not "trying to speak English because it's cool" but simply saying what a Japanese person of that age and education level would say in that situation. (Though tangential to the discussion it's worth pointing out that Japanese have traditionally perceived luck/good fortune in a different light that Westerners, explaining why a foreign word was adopted to express this situation.)
To clarify, there's three kinds of English in Japan. English the foreign language, English that becomes Japanese, and Japanese made English. It's interesting to note that the Japanese language has many loan words from English. Sometimes such words are often used in place of an equivalent Japanese term. That's in contrast to the French, who favor making new words based on French rather than using foreign words. Japanese made English is something else. It often falls under Gratuitous English. One famous example of this is the "walkman".
Occasionally, gratuitous English will be applied in an effort to give something an exotic flair, usually resulting in a lot of Foreign Sounding Gibberish. It can also appear on signs, books and particularly T-shirts (this is true of T-shirts in most every country though). Sometimes this use is grammatically proper, and sometimes it's just bizarre. The site Engrish.com has dozens, nay hundreds, of examples. What's odd is that Japanese consumer products have English not because it saves money on international sales, it's because it just looks cool. Japanese stereos have "Volume", "Bass" and "Treble" labels while they could've use the Japanese words for those. Can be extended to other "exotic" languages, but English is the most common. It's roughly the same reason why Western kids tatoo themselves with "Asian" signs.
Sometimes using Gratuitous English can be a convenient for Kotobagari. Foreign words can provide useful euphemisms for potentially offensive words.
Gratuitous English is so common in the Japanese language that it's said if a writer wants to pen a historical novel with accurate period dialog, it's going to be hard to do — foreign loanwords now saturate the Japanese language and those loanwords have often displaced equivalent Japanese terms. The irony of this is that the Japanese have far fewer English speakers than South Korea and China.
Gratuitous English is not exclusive to Japan: other nations also have their own versions. Germany, for example, has Denglish (Deutsch + English), German with English words mixed in between; "I ride my mountain bike", for example, becomes "Ich fahre mit meinem Mountainbike". China has Chinglish, English spoken by Chinese people with limited knowledge of English. In Korea it's referred to as Konglish. The Philippines has Taglish (Tagalog/English) and use of other major dialects sprinkled with English. Not surprising given that the Filipinos were under American rule for a few decades, AND is their official language.. Gratuitous English is also widespread in Mexico, where it's widely used in advertising and in youth slang (words like "cool", "fresh", "fashion" and "nice" are common among preppy youths), and is also part of Spanglish, a mixture of English and Spanish spoken in the northernmost states and within Hispanic communities in the USA. In France, Gratuitous English is so common that there are laws against using English when French will do. Irish-language shows tend to have dialogue liberally sprinkled with English words and phrases.
Anime theme songs are rife with Gratuitous English but these are tricky to put into the actual show, lest you have rampant narms. Mind you, this doesn't stop many from trying, and is especially common with characters that are supposed to be American.
Subverted in the cynic's opinion by Surprisingly Good English. Compare Bilingual Dialogue for a more surreal linguistic experience. See also Blind Idiot Translation. See also Gratuitous Foreign Language, Gratuitous Japanese, Gratuitous German, Gratuitous Spanish
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Most Magical Girl series. In Sailor Moon, each Senshi's name is in English, and their Transformation Sequence and special attacks are invoked using phrases in English, mostly in very strange grammar constructions. (You would think they'd be in the language of the lost Moon Kingdom, but apparently not.) One famous example is "Star Gentle Uterus", which, despite making some symbolic sense, is noticeably censored in the one English adaptation that featured it. Occasionally, the attack names combine Gratuitous English with words from other languages, making them even messier. "Sabao" vs. "Shabon", for one of the more prominent examples. Some plot element-type-things in the show are referred to in English as well (Moon Stick, Princess Serenity, all the villains' mineral names).
- Its live action counterpart, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, naturally includes the same examples, but it also frequently shows its girls wearing T-shirts and hats liberally splattered with English.
- The anime has one very memorable Monster Of The Week called Boxy, a priest turned into boxing-vulture-thingie. As he's a foreigner (the guidebooks identify him as such) and a parody of Japanese wrestlers he yells random Engrish like "I AM A CHAMPION, LOVELY PUNCH!" and also says "I am the King of Kings" at one point.
- Also lampshaded slightly in the episode in which Sailor Jupiter first appears: Jupiter launches her "Supreme Thunder" attack, and Sailor Moon, apparently confused about the attack's name, asks "Chou Creme Sundae?"
- Sailor Mercury's visor has random English all over it, most notably "Prime directives: 1. Serve the public trust, 2. Protect the innocent, 3. Uphold the law." (This last is also a Shout Out to Robocop, where it appeared in the same kind of Robo Cam view that Mercury gets through her her visor.)
- It gets worse. At one of the early episodes of Sailor Stars, Ami prints out a report from NASA's website for a student, and then offers to translate it since the original document is in English. And what is said document, you say? The lyrics to Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone"◊.
- The title of the 2005 series Mai-HiME is another good example. It's assumed that the (Japanese) viewer knows enough English to realize that the title is in fact a five-way pun in two languages, although the opening credits do graphically explain one element of the pun. In short: "Hime" means "princess", but it is also the acronym for a phrase in English that describes the Extraordinarily Empowered Girls in the show (hence the odd capitalization). "Mai" is the name of the main character, and is pronouned "my". This gives us a title that means, simultaneously, "My Princess", "Princess Mai", "My 'Supergirl'" and "'Supergirl' Mai". ("Supergirl" isn't really what it means, but it's good enough for a quick explanation.) Finally, "maihime" is a noun referring to a temple dance, and the character Nagi uses a repeated "dancing" metaphor when talking about Mai. (The pun was diluted somewhat when the North American dub was released under the title My HiME.)
- In Dragonball Z, most of Vegeta's attacks have English names. Here, it is allegedly used to portray the character's fighting style as uncouth.
- Both Mr. Satan and Gotenks have attack repertoires made up almost entirely of Gratuitous English names.
- Heck, many of characters names are form of Gratuitous English. Bulma, bloomer; Vegeta, vegetable; Raditz, radish; Frieza, freezer; Brolly, broccoli; etc.
- What about Bardock?
- Burdock
- While "Super" exists as a Japanese loanword, it is typically used for Supermarkets, and thus is paired with the Kanji for super in the term "Super Saiyan". The numbers (for Super Saiyan 2-4) are also pronounced in English rather than Japanese.
- In the Hellsing Ultimate OVA, Father Anderson manages to quote 1 Corinthians 16:22 in its English entirety. This actually is featured several times in the original material, with elements such as Hellsing's slogan: 'We Are On Mission From God', not to mention most of the characters names, which are not actually English, but just sound like it. Walters surname (Dorneaz) was probably supposed to be 'Donaldson', and Seras' name might even be a stab at Sarah. Victoria is a very unusual surname, but just about possible. Strangely, Alexander Anderson's name is an unusual stab at an anglicised Swedish surname.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, the title character is supposed to be a 10-year-old Welsh boy teaching English to 14-year-old girls. There are some scenes of an English class, with rather poor English from the young Welshman. (Added note: The textbook that is being read from is modeled after the New Horizons textbook that is actually used in Japanese English classes.)
- Since her mother is American, Cyndi Manabe in Gokujou Seitokai often uses gratuitous English (usually one or two words at a time, since the voice actress isn't fluent). Additionally, she rarely (if ever) uses Japanese. Of course, the differences between American English and British English aren't all that obvious to non-native speakers, leading to Cyndi using expressions such as "cheerio".
- Likewise, Yotsuba from Sister Princess is apparently half-English (she frequently wears Union Jack- and Sherlock Holmes-themed clothing), and her Catch Phrase ("Checky-checky!") is in English. Sort of.
- Azumanga Daioh features a quite few Gratuitous English jokes, most of which revolve around English teacher Yukari. The difference here is that the writers know they're using improper English and deliberately run with it.
- There was this one long sketch. Is Bruce Lee actually Blue Three? The joke is, Japanese would pronounce both buruusurii.
- In one episode, Yukari is supposedly speaking in fluent English with an American tourist, but the only thing we can hear is a long string of "blah blah blah".
- Kagura has a run-in with a western tourist who she tries to help, but he is unable to understand her. After scaring him by yelling "HELP ME" at the top of her lungs, she carries his bags for him and gives him an exaggerated thumbs-up after receiving his approval. The tourist also adds unintentional hilarity in the subbed version with his not-very-authentic pronounciation: "That herped me arot thanks."
- Even later still, Chiyo-chichi (the yellow cat...thing) visits Osaka in a vision and spouts off a few sentences worth of English, to which Osaka replies (also in English) "Oh my god!".
- "Hallo everynyun! Howah yoou? Wai sankyoo." — "OH MAI GAAAH"
- Sakura Taisen features a flashback scene in which Ayame Fujieda (the well-traveled Japanese vice-commander) is recruiting Maria Tachibana (Russian-Japanese) for the team in New York. The two attempt to converse in incredibly slow English, to the point where a viewer with only minimal knowledge of Japanese can understand them better by reading the Japanese subtitling of the conversation than by attempting to make out Ayame's heavily accented English.
- In a scene at the end of episode 3 of Excel Saga, Excel is captured and interrogated by a group of soldiers who are apparently American. One asks Excel her purpose in being in their camp, except his English is so heavily accented that it comes out sounding like "What is a porpoise?" In the ADV dub, the soldier's question is in perfect English — "What is your purpose?" — but they slyly acknowledged the original performer's lousy English by changing Excel's answer from "I don't know" to "A really big fish?". Later on in the series, the first Recap Episode featured one of the "Beauty Theater" segments from episode 8 re-dubbed in nonsensical broken English ("You give... chewing gum?"); the ADV dub didn't even bother redubbing it, instead crediting the original voice actors (though they apparently couldn't find the names). And later still, in episode 17, Excel tries to communicate with some American thugs in broken English: "Hello, Merry Christmas! I'm Excel. You are dog!" (replaced in the ADV dub by a mish-mash of ghetto slang).
- In Super GALS! Kotobuki Ran, showboy character Kuroi Tatsuki has adopted plenty of gratuitous English (and some French) into his vocabulary.
- The Big O's Arc Words, "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty" appear in nearly every episode, and are just far enough from standard English usage to make their intended meaning more or less unintelligible (although variations on the phrase seen late in the series offer some tantalizing hints).
- This phrase has its origin in similar phrases that would be engraved on the swords of medieval executioners, the meaning being that their wielders were doing God's work and were not personally responsible for what they did with the weapons. By extension, this could be said to apply to what Roger Smith does with Big O.
- Keroro Gunsou features some Gratuitous English from recurring minor character Melody Honey, an actress/model from the United States. In episode 38, Natsumi gets stuck in an experimental exoskeleton suit that compels her to go on a rampage. Giroro has to deactivate the suit by getting close enough to Natsumi to push a button on the suit and shout, in thickly-accented Gratuitous English, the phrase "Natsumi, my love. Kiss me tender and hold me tight, forever!"
- Neon Genesis Evangelion has, among other things, the Absolute Terror Field (Or Ah-Tee Fieldu), which could probably get away with just sounding cool in an English production.
- There's also Misato's never-repeated "You numbah one!" to Shinji. This particular phrase was a standard "Asians mangling English" joke at least as far back as the Vietnam war.
- Actually while the "number one" phrase is common to many pidgin languages in Asia back through the postwar occupation, it does have a legitimate source. The word for "the best" in several Asian languages (including Japanese) is "number one". In Japanese "Ichiban".
- During the U.S occupation of Japan after WW2, Gen. MacArthur's headquarters were in the Dai Ichi Building in Tokyo ("Dai Ichi" meaning "number one" in the literal, postal-address sense, more literally "the first").
- Of course he's Number One. It's printed in big block numerals on his plugsuit.
- In both Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GX the main characters generally have cards that are named in English (Judai's Elemental Hero monsters, Yugi's Black Magician and Black Magician Girl, Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon).
- And of course, who could forget the infamous "Duro...MONSTA KAADO!"?
- There are more examples. American characters, most notably Pegasus, use the English words "me" and "you" as first person and second person pronouns. Pegasus himself spouts English words as interjections quite often, such as his famous "UNBELIEVABLE!". Edo Phoenix uses the English word "cemetery" instead of the Japanese equivalent "bocchi", since I guess he's supposed to be British (although he speaks Japanese quite fluently). Then there's Jim Crocodile Cook, an Engrish machine who comes up with lines like "That's a wonder monster!"
- The cast of Black Lagoon, solidly international, tends to render their lines in Japanese when all characters would be speaking the same language with only the occasional flavor English, but when a character busts out a language not known to all bystanders, it is rendered as such, leading to hilariously bad English, Spanish, and Russian lines. Worst of all, though, is the opening theme. At times it's outright impossible for even native English speakers to entirely understand just what the person is saying when they switch to English.
- "Fakking Airishu!"
- "Amen, hallelujah, peanut butter."
- Apparently most of the series is supposed to be "spoken" in English, which becomes especially jarring when the series goes back to Japan with Rock having to serve as a translator into Japanese for characters that have been "speaking" it for the entire series. Especially funny with Revy who's spouts occasional comments about how she has no idea whats going on.
- This is in fact rendered most odd when, according to Wikipedia, the reverse is true, ie the characters are, apparently, speaking in English, but are translated into Japanese. In fact, Wikipedia goes on to comment "While the English voice acting in the anime is heavy in Japanese pronunciation, nearly all occurrences of English lines in the manga are accurate.". So... the anime is Gratuitous, but the manga has Surprisingly Good English? Odd.
- The anime has Surprisingly Good English in the arc set in Japan. Revy's English lines have some degree of Japanese pronunciation, but you can generally tell what she's saying, and her lines are gramatically correct in most instances.
- Even stranger when the Thai inscription on Revy's gun is actually quite good.
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, all humanoids speak Japanese regardless of origin, but Midchildan artificial intelligences speak English, while those of Belkan origin speak German. While the pronunciation is fine, due to native English-speakers performing the dialogue, the actual lines sound like they were run through a free Internet translator site—especially in season 2, when they start speaking full sentences. One wonders how many tries it took for Donna Burke to say "It can be done. As for my master." without cracking up.
- There is also an American human character, Alisa, whose use of English is limited and not as highly amusing as, say, Raising Heart's.
- Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer uses phrases like "Entry angel!" in the tournaments, but the real gem is the computer screens, which misspell character names as well as saying things like "the rest time un till end of the game" next to the time clock.
- The weapon names in Tokyo Mew Mew are supposed to be English puns, but they make no sense with English syllables, causing much confusion. Take Mew Ichigo's Strawberbell (strawberry + bell = sutoroberuberu). The Tokyo Pop manga misinterpreted it as Sutoro Beruberu, Strawbellbell, Strawberry Bell and Strawberry Bell Bell, sometimes within the same volume. Anime fansubs mostly didn't bother with the puns, only leaving one of the two "fused" words.
- Tokyo Pop's translation also made the series sound even more Engrishy than it was in the Japanese by directly translating the Theme Naming. The readers were left wondering "what parent in their right mind calls their kid Lettuce Midorikawa?"
- One of the anime filler episodes had a woman speaking English (which didn't sound perfect either, since she was apparently voiced by a Japanese voice actress), with Ichigo and company attempting to communicate with her. "I am a Ichigo!"
- Zakuro's first episode also shows her speaking English to an American director. As they are both being voiced by Japanese actors, much Engrish ensues.
- A hunk of background music in the anime Bleach, used in particularly menacing situations, features whispering voices chanting 'deeeemon' and 'eeeeevillll'. It's actually a bit goofy and off-putting to English speakers; if they were speaking in Latin, German, or some other language one didn't speak, it would probably sound cool.
- Don Kanonji shows a fondness for Gratuitous English, spouting catch phrases like "Spirits are always with you!" and "Smells like bad spirit!"
- Then of course there's Ichigo's jivey powerup theme song, "Number One" sung by Hazel Fernandes, that plays just about whenever he does something cool or makes an entrance. Though catchy, it can be very out of place in certain situations.
- And then there's the manga chapter titles, all in English after a certain point. One notable chapter is titled "Four Arms to Killing You."
- There's also all the Gratuitous Spanish going around with the Arrancar. While for the most part its quite good, this Troper challenges any familiar with Spanish not to grimace at the title Cuatro Espada.
- The TYPE-MOON staff make absolutely brilliant works, such as Tsukihime, Fate Stay Night, and Kara no Kyoukai. The Nasuverse in general, really. That said, there should be a legally enforced ban on them using English unmonitored.
- Fate/stay night includes both gratuitous Gelman (all of Rin Tohsaka's spells) and gratuitous Engrish (Archer's famous "I am the bone of my sword" speech — as well as the title of the anime itself, which apparently doesn't mean anything).
- The Melty Blood series of Fighting Games, based on the Tsukihime story, is likewise filled with hilarious Engrish, including the title, which is the Arc Drive of one of the main characters. Oh, and 'Arc Drives'. And the fan favourite, "Severe! Break! SLIDER!!!"
- Most of the original chapter sub-titles for each Kara No Kyoukai chapter are the same: "is nothing id, nothing cosmos".
- Don't forget Tsukihime: "Blue Blue Glass Moon, Under the Crimson Air"
- In Mai-Otome, virtually all text seen on-screen, printed and hand-written alike, is in English, and it's actually good-quality English most of the time. However, it does occasionally slip into horrendous Engrish, like "Materiarise◊" and "Arinko,Save US!!◊". The manga does the same, once when an android claimed she had a memory "lock" the very large label displays "ROCK".
- Nearly every song from Gravitation (like most J-pop) centers on a mock-English phrase, often slightly misused. The title sounds like gratuitous English, but it's actually from a conversation between Tohma and some American businessmen.
- The opening song to Lucky Star appears to parody this, as the entire song is composed of gratuitous-English-style gibberish, even the parts that are in Japanese.
- Lum's Catch Phrase in Urusei Yatsura is her name for Ataru: "Darling", which in the is pronounced something like "Dahleen" in the Japanese dialog. Also from that show is a hilariously bad conversation between Ataru and some Hawaiian girls with Engrish on both sides.
- The Japanese version of Sonic CD's ending song are a weird example: the male vocals are pretty solid English, but the female vocals are... well, not. The opening song is more predominantly JUST bad english.
- Many of the goofy one-shot villains of Konjiki No Gash Bell speak quirky English phrases, from Victoream's "Very melon" (and its counterpart "Very shit") to Belgim E.O.'s "Maximum good".
- Soldiers of Britannia, soldiers of The Empire of Code Geass, respond to commands with "Yes, My Lord".
- Jeremiah Gottwald uses quite a bit during his Crowning Moment Of Awesome, but this is somewhat justifiable because he's got brain damage AND cybernetic implants of questionable quality. This troper eagerly awaits to see how Crispin Freeman will handle this scene in the English dub.
- "All Hail Britannia!!"
- The Britannian anthem of the same name certainly counts, too. For the most part, it's in perfectly grammatical English, but it's pronounced so badly that it's nearly incomprehensible to the untrained ear. This troper initially mistook it for Latin.
- The title of Death Note deserves special mention because it's supposed to be real English. Ryuk wrote the notebook in English, "the most popular human language," and presumably meant to entitle it "Death Notebook"; however, since the Japanese word for notebook is "nôto" (ノート), which corresponds to the English "note"; the translator screwed up. They did a decent job on the instructions for the notebook itself, although it's a little narmic when Light writes names in the Death Note in Japanese, then in English below.
- During the anime, when Raye Penber is riding the train, you can briefly see an English advertisement. This troper can't recall the exact phrasing, but it was an ad for a relaxing 'crise'.
- Death Note is also infamous for the author's attempts at producing English-sounding names, which gave us "Mail Jeevas", "McQuillsh Wammy", and perennial favorite "Backyard Bottomslash".
- That's intentional. For a bunch of characters, the author used names (From Yagami Light to Mc Quillsh Wammy) that he was sure did not exist in real life so as to not offend anyone.
- Galaxy Angel and the Galaxy Angel Gameverse both fall very, very guilty. Theme Naming is obscured by cutesy spellings (Ranpha Framboise, Mint Blancmange and Mille-feuille Sakuraba wouldn't have been cute enough) and signs on the ship read things like "EMERGENCY ROCK".
- Kuchiki in Genshiken is constantly spouting random English phrases, and can't pronounce a single one of them correctly. The rest of the group are not amused.
- In the manga, there is a scene in which Ohno and Kasukabe show off their excellent english skills to each other, to the bewilderment of the others present. While this particular scene was not shown in the anime, a couple episodes from the second season involve two Americans in Japan (both with surprisingly Japanese accents) forcing both Ohno and Kasukabe's voice actresses to speak in Engrish for the entirety of the episodes. This will cause your average English-speaking viewer to break down in either tears of laughter or tears of frustration, depending on their take of the show.
- Gundam loves this trope, generally in writing. As◊ evidenced◊ here◊. At least one — "He is a CHAR!" — has undergone Memetic Mutation into a meme in its own right.
- Martian Successor Nadesico has a Japanese actor deliver some VERY stilted English to the UN (or their equivalent) in the third episode, playing the part of a black character. He is translated with Japanese subtitles along the side of the screen. When Yurika appears, she too attempts to converse in English. This entire scene becomes somewhat confusing in the English dub due to the fact, unless you watch the original Japanese dialogue, you will have no clue as to why there are both Japanese AND English subtitles (translating the Japanese subtitles of the English dialogue... got that?) in the scene, not to mention why the translation is much different from what is being said by the dub actors.
- Not to mention a scene where Akito is painting a giant robot model for his deceased fellow giant-robot-nut Daigouji Gai. The letters he painted on in English? "G A Y".
- And how can we forget the epicness that is the Theme Tune, "You Get to Burning!" (yes, that's really the title)?
- s-CRY-ed had "I believe in Drastic my soul!"
- Quite a few characters in Gun X Sword use it. The first episode introduces us to Lucky Roulette, who repeatedly uses "Lucky" (even when he means just "luck") and "Unlucky". The sixth episode has a young couple after Van's armor who use a lot of random English, and the episode "Thank You Ocean" has Keiji, whose dialogue is about 75% English. And then there's Van's invocation to activate his Humungous Mecha: "Wake up, Dann."
- Parodied on Sakigake Otokojuku when the team is fighting an American Boxer — they try to insult him with random English phrases like "I am a boy" and "Sorry. I got sweat. In my hand.", as these are all they can remember of high school English. And then there's the finishing move... "Quiche!".
- Wolf And Spice's ending theme ("The Wolf Whistling Song") is in complete Engrish, rendering the already peculiar lyrics even more bizarre. "I danced with the peanuts for the fly"? (peanut butterflies) "I'm a little oof inside a car"? (wolf inside a girl) Few lines turn out to be what you would have expected.
- The theme song for Berserk is entirely in highly-accented English. Some parts actually can't be sung in non-accented English without ruining the rhythm. Still, the lyrics fit the show pretty well...
- In Blue Drop, the Human Aliens use the term "Commander" and "Master Commander" to designate The Captain of a Cool Ship so frequently, it became forever associated with lesbian battleship captains for this troper...
- In Strawberry Panic, Amane's rival/Evil Counterpart Kaname (who is secretly in love with her) challenges Amane to a "duel" to convince her to accept the challenge of running in the Etoile election so she can properly beat her, and blurts out, in English: "You are the choosen one!" It's unintentionally hilarious.
- In Loveless magical battles are fought by each side speaking various English words and phrases to describe what they wish to do. The more complex the word (ie, the more syllables) the stronger the action, and the stronger the person performing the attack has to be. However, this makes things interesting if you watch an English dub, since it appears things happen by just speaking.
- Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl has a brief scene at NASA in episode 1. This actually starts off as Surprisingly Good English, sadly, despite the speakers being actually American it slides in Engrish by the end ("A call to the president!" "Estimated arrival time is, figured!"). It's also badly acted and the lines are all cheesy and sound nothing like something a real person would actually say ("I'm afraid that, that's the fact" "Aliens attack, you say?").
- Cowboy Bebop's cosmopolitan future features a lot of Gratuitous English and Russian signage, but not so much in the dialog. This becomes rather disconcerting when you see the Engrish signs in the background while listening to the excellent, excellent English dub.
- Except for the episode "Cowboy Funk", in which would-be cowboy Andy randomly spews out phrases like "Dangerous!". This may well be intentional given the character's behaviour throughout the episode.
- Clannad's Sunohara does this quite a few times in the Visual Novel. While he tries to use English to impress others or show his knowledge level, (When he is actually the Butt Monkey of the series' game and show) the sentences he spouts out usually don't make any sence of the current situation or in general. Some example's include "Are you pretty dog?" and "Thank you my friend from New York!"
- From the same series, at the end of Kotomi's arc, the message within the suitcase containing her present from the parents are written in English, and spoken in Gratuitous English... and then it goes to Gratuitous other country's language, from Arab to even Indonesia.
- In the Visual Novel version (and we can expect this in the upcoming bonus Episode 24), we are treated with Tomoyo speaking English, being a top student for a school representative, got awarded as the best one, but still, you can't help but cringe on how it's blatantly a very very Engrish sounding speech. Or maybe it's a Shout Out to Nadesico since Tomoyo is voiced by Yurika's seiyuu (who at one point, as stated above, attempted an Engrish speech).
- Pixy Misa in the Pretty Sammy series takes this to an art form. Every other sentence is badly mangled English.
- Most of the names and half the attacks in Pokemon and Digimon are like this.
- One Piece loves this; Most of Luffy's attacks are English words for different weapons, like "Pistoru", "Rocketo" and "Bazooka". Nami does it too, woth attacks like "Sanda bolt Tempo!" Sanji actually uses gratuitous French because he is a master chef. Most (if not all) major villains in the series have English attack names, and some characters have gratuitous foreign language names like Captain Smoker (Su-moka taicho) God Enel, Rob Lucci, Garp, etc...
- Then there's Robin, whose attack names are a combination of Gratuitous Spanish, Gratuitous French, and Gratuitous English; in that order. (Example: "Tres Fleur, Clutch")
- Fist Of The North Star has an opening song which contains the Engrish phrase You wa Shock ("You're In Shock"). This becomes so well known that the opening song is sometimes referred to as that, not its original title — Ai o Torimodose.
- The second series has the title song Tough Boy, which has even MORE Gratuitous English than Ai wo Torimodose. This troper nearly died laughing at the lines "KEEP YOU BURNING!" and "WE ARE LIVING! LIVING IN THE NINTIES! WE STILL FIGHT! FIGHTING IN NINTIES!".
- Mic Sounders the Thirteenth. "Yeah! Kamon Rokkenrooru! Disc M — set-oun! Giragiraan... daburu bui!" The other American characters in GaoGaiGar also routinely blurt out, "OH NO!" or "MY GOD!" every other episode, but Mic is the biggest example, simply because he does it more or less every other sentence, especially when in his goofy Cosmo Robot form.
- DOGS has English inserted here and there, but the most notable example is undoubtedly "Fuck up, gentlemen!" Context doesn't really help.
- Beck, a manga, and later ananime about a band, contains a lot of Engrish, since some of the members are American, and their songs also contains a lot of Engrish. Late in the series they go to America, which results in even more Engrish. Given the that the vocalist is a real member of a popular band, and it's a really good manga and anime otherwise, the Engrish really hurts this.
- Then the dub comes out, and it's really good. It fixes up all the strange discordance in normal conversation, and fixes all the songs to regular English.
- G Gundam's Chibodee Crockett, being comprised mainly of stock American stereotypes, naturally uses this a lot.
- There's also the scene where someone is using a targeting system and instead of "LOCK ON" it says "ROCK ON".
- Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex has masterfully written English songs in place of Ominous Latin Chanting... retaining an air of mystery for Japanese viewers, and distracting viewers who actually understand what is being said. Granted, what it is being said is generally somewhat metaphorically related to the plot, but it's still distracting...
- Captain Matthews from Xenosaga wears a cap with the wonderful slogan "CAUTION — I AM A BOOZER — BANZAI! BANZAI!".
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has its attack names in Engrish, in some cases, i.e. "GIGAHHH... DURIWWWW... BUREAAAKAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" This doesn't stop the move from being made of win, even if it does lead to confusion if it's suppose to be "Break" or "Breaker".
- Little-known manga Kyo Kara Ore Wa has the main character, Mitsuhashi meeting a foreigner. He uses every bit of Engrish he can think of, including "kechappu" (ketchup). Finally, he politely states "Goh hoh-m yankii!"
- In Ninin Ga Shinobuden, Onsokumaru says something in English from time to time. It usually makes sense in context, too.
- 'Top (Garden) Ground Gear Force. What do you mean it's not Japanesse nor animé!
- The Trinity Blood anime has all its episode titles in Gratuitous English. Pronounced just as horribly as one would expect.
- Blue Seed not only has some memorable gratuitious Engrish "swearing" from one if its characters, but also the appropriately named opening song "Carnival Babel" which begins with the delightful lyrics, "Mysterious Tokyo, take it easy dangerous night! Mysterious Tokyo, pick me up foxy night game!"
- In The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya Kyon is fond with peppering his speech with random English, somewhat lampshaded in the concert for the series. It's worth noting that in the dub his original line of "Why?" in English followed by "Naze?", or 'why' in Japanese, was kept intact, but reversed.
- Jojos Bizarre Adventure. Two words: "ZA WARUDO!"
- Don't forget Joseph's "OH. MY. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!"s, "HOLY SHIT!", or "SON OF A BITCH!" All examples given were actually written in English in the manga, funky text (mostly) included.
- Autobots in Transformers Headmasters and Masterforce frequently use English phrases when transforming. This is particularly jarring in Headmasters, where the Japanese dialogue is supposed to be due to the Translation Convention.
- Excalibuuuuuur, Excalibuuuuuur~
- The opening of the German dub of Naruto is in English. The German dub of a Japanese series, and the opener is in English (and also So Bad Its Horrible).
- Full Metal Panic brings us the phrase, "Everything is gonna happy."
- The Japanese opening of Transformers notably ends with the phrase "We hope the only world".
- In a chapter of D.Gray-Man, a character was writing a report in what, at first, looks like Surprisingly Good English. Until you realize that the text had been copied from a random article that has absolutely nothing to do with the what the report is supposed to be about. They did something similar in the anime with an article from that other wiki, only that time the text matched the subject (a city the exorcists were being dispatched to).
- In the Master Mosquiton OAV, featured prominently in episode 3 on a cruise ship, is a man heavily implied to be Edwin Hubble. He speaks in a combination of Japanese and terrifyingly, and hilariously, bad English, throughout the entire episode. Such examples are "oh my pardon me excuse me" (all as one sentence without any pauses) or "My God gasoline!"... once again, no pauses. There's a few nameless characters in this episode who also follow this.
- ''Naoko no Tropic Angel'' (as if the title didn't already count) has the Engrish-speaking Jenny, who spouts such gems as "Thanks a lot for help me!" and a fairly garbled sentence apparently containing "mouth" and "please."
- The Prince Of Tennis: "You still have lots more to work on"
- Edgar receives a letter in the fifth episode of Hakushaku To Yousei that definitely falls into Gratuitous English. It's supposed to sound sinister but...um..."Your life is plundered with Tacaraken!"◊
- Macross is bad with this one. The signs of places are in English but most of them are not even close to how it's spelled in English. My favorite one has to be what is supposed to be called Restaurant is called Rest Rant. Narm at it's best.
Film
- In Armour of God, when the characters chase a villain to a British-owned restaurent, the maitre d' tries to speak to them in rather dodgy English. Jackie Chan's character angrily tells him to speak Chinese instead.
- The American characters in Godzilla: Final Wars (most of whom are Badasses to some degree) never say anything in Japanese. This makes sense for the New Yorkers, and even the two working at Godzilla's Antarctic prison, but you'd think Gordon and Kazama would have taken a "rooma-shi ni toki" attitude by now...
- Suicide Club — though spoken fairly understandable, an antagonist shouts out "Welcome to my pleasure room!" in an otherwise completely-Japanese film.
- L from Death Note is supposed to be half-British and fluent in English. Which goes a long way to explain why he speaks it so slowly, deliberately but ultimately badly in L: Change the WorLd.
Live-Action TV
- Professional Wrestling in Japan provides a pleasing real-life example of this trope. Since the conventions of pro. wrestling were adopted wholesale for the Japanese version of the sport ("pueroreso" — itself an example of Gratuitous English), all the names of the moves are the English ones (except those invented in Japan, like the enziguri), which the announcers faithfully reproduce in commentary, even when they sound ridiculous. Examples include "DIIIIVING BOOOOOODY AAAAAAAAAAAAATAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!" and the famous "LAAAAAAARIIIIIIAAAAAT-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!"
- and the now-ubiquitous "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING WIIIIZAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
- In an episode of News Radio, Jimmy James' book "Jimmy James: Capitalist Lion Tamer" becomes popular in Japan, so for some reason he has the Japanese version translated back into English... and it ends up pure Gratuitous English. The title becomes "Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler", and the book now features lines like "Glorious sunset of my heart was fading. Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans, and pants to match."
- "What did you mean when you wrote, bad clown making like super American car racers, I would make them sweat, war war?"
- Ninja Warrior's stages contain obstacles that are almost entirely named in complete or partial English. Aside from the competitors' names and periodic use of 'Sasuke' (the show's original name), this is all most watchers of the show are likely to understand.
- Most Super Sentai series feature a usual amount of Gratuitous English for attack names and such, but Engine Sentai Go-onger deserves special mention for having the team uniform be covered with it. Extra-special mention for Hant's Gratutious Japanese along with the English. ("Doki Doki Delight")
- The second Rider of Kamen Rider Kiva is named Kamen Rider IXA, which stands for "Intercept X Attacker". While this is a less oddball example compared to others on this page, it's still probably not something a fluent speaker of English would ever codename a hero. Other seasons of Kamen Rider can be bad or worse with this type of thing.
- In Japanese this would be an example of Fun With Acronyms; it sounds like the word "ikusa", which means "war".
- It's a minor miracle that this page has made it this far without mentioning Texas Mack, the American Super Robot from the Getter Robo series, or its pilots Jack and Mary King. If you know even a bit of Japanese (or English, for that matter), click the link and prepare to cry for ear bleach.
Music
Real Life
- Real Life example: Aya Hirano, Voice Actress for Suzumiya Haruhi, wore a shirt saying "Did you Cum Twice Too?" and "Feel so dirty!!! I need a Tongue Bath!" at an official concert. Fans are pretty sure she didn't actually know what those words meant. Although you can never say for sure...
- Seeing how Aya has written lyrics for a English (well, more like very, very Engrish) song, you might want to reconsider that.
- The German discount store chain Lidl advertised 'body bags'. They meant backpacks. Many, many producers still call their backpacks 'body bags'.
- This web site automatically generates Gratuitous English slogans.
- It goes the other way pretty often, too, especially where tattoos are concerned. The website Hanzi Smatter shows photographs of Chinese and Japanese characters used for shirts and tattoos and the like. It's Engrish put on its head.
- This editor purposefully and knowingly purchased a shirt bearing the Japanese words "Baka Gaijin" (literally, "Stupid Foreigner").
- This troper bought a similar shirt and wore it in downtown Kyoto during his trip there. Combine this with a large afro and there were many staring eyes indeed.
- Perhaps the funniest of the Engrish.com examples is Dick and Uprise, simply because it's impossible to tell what meaning was supposed to be conveyed there.
Video Games
Western Animation
- Parodied in South Park (episode 801, "Good Times with Weapons"), in the fight-sequence song "Let's Fighting Love". However, the real joke was in the Japanese lyrics. Since Trey Parker is fluent in Japanese, rather than being Foreign Sounding Gibberish, it was actually...
This song is kind of stupid
It doesn't make sense
The English is all fucked up
That's okay [we do it all the time!]
[Hey hey, let's go] fighting
The important thing is to [protect my balls]
I'm baaaad, [so let's fighting]
[Let's fighting love — let's fighting love!]
- That phrase "Let's fighting" is an example of what is, tragically, a very common Engrish construction in Japan. The bowling episode of Mega Man NT Warrior has a bunch of characters repeat the catchphrase "Let's bowling!" — making it perhaps the only one that's more painful to watch subbed than dubbed, ShoPro and all.
- This troper could h
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