Anime grunting - huh? uh? ah? oh? ahhh. er. AUGH. ah.

I don't know what this is called but it happens a lot in many different Japanese-to-English anime.

It's not actual dialogue, but sighing, gasping, grunting noises, as if they are embarrassed or shocked or "found out" or angry, emotional.

One character is making a speech accusing someone else or gloating over something, and everyone else is basically responding with "UHHH?" "ERR." "WAAAA??" "AIGH!"

It's... odd. But apparently common. I am noticing it again in Techni Muyo GXP.

edited 10th Jan '13 3:07:54 PM by Javik

It's usually referred to as Kiai when done in fighting series.

edited 10th Jan '13 3:11:07 PM by Demongodofchaos2

Do we have a page on Kiai? I think we do, but it's been a while since I last checked.

EDIT: Oh good.

edited 10th Jan '13 4:16:20 PM by Sabbo

I have the perfect video for this.

edited 10th Jan '13 4:26:15 PM by AMurderOfCrows

Except that it's not a Kiai that he's referring to. He's referring to the noises often made in reaction shots.

The Transformers Wiki actually keeps track of how many times this happens in the ill-regarded anime trilogy. Like many things they do, it's absolutely hilarious.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:16:18 PM by HamburgerTime

Hmm...

Are we sure this is a foreign language thing? It seems to me that every culture has their own "non-word sounds" that people make in conversation.

Hmm... Ehh? *grunt* *snort* and so on

Maybe we just don't notice our own sounds because it happens so often, but we notice it in foreign conversation because the sounds are slightly different then we are used to?

But still, how many people do you know who react to something with growling or a soft "oo-oh"?

I do that actually. I have no idea where I picked it up from.

Every one in every anime has the exact same gasp. That "guh-heh" that you hear everywhere.

Just because they're noises and not really words as such (sometimes) doesn't mean they don't have their own meaning. Especially when it comes to media, where there are certain conventions, so using a particular expression, whether it has a literal meaning or not, helps with the storytelling and conveying emotions in those scenes. I just wish we had a word for patterns like that...

But as mentioned, it's not limited to anime. Most such sounds in English have an H in them, since that's generally representative of breathing, or a "soundless" sound. You have "Hmm?" "Heh," "Huh?" "Ah!" "Oh?" and many others. This is also one area where the written language affects the spoken language, so if it's written one way, people tend to pronounce it that way, since that's how they frequently encounter it, and thus emulate it.

edited 10th Jan '13 11:42:21 PM by AnotherDuck

@murdercrows,

that is the Dragonball Z Constipation Power Hour! XD

Are you talking about like that "EEEEHHHHH?????" sound effect that the male protagonist screams at the end of a harem anime's first episode, when the female protagonist is suddenly moving in with him, and then they are showing a distant view of the house as he is like EEEEHHHH????

I think it's not just Japanese, every country has it's own sound effects. And as Another Duck said, these are further changed by having written down differently, and then people pronouncing the letters more consciously. Maybe words like "ouch", or "wow" or "hahaha" are distantly based on sounds that we all instinctively make, but their locally canonized forms are specific words.

It's the same reason why cat meowing got known as "meow" in english, and cartoon cats will pronounce it as a very clear "meow", while in Japan it's "nyan", and in most other countries, it's a variation of "miau", with a large emphasis on the "a" sound.

edited 11th Jan '13 4:26:25 AM by Ever9

That's just because cats in Japan speak a different language/dialect, obviously.

Japanese is crazy. They have an onomatopoeia for silence.

Think about that for a second.

So does english. It's spelled "hush" or "Shhh".

That's not an onomatopoeia, that's telling someone to be quiet. AFAIK, that's no actual onomatopoeia in the English language for absolute silence.

It's an animation thing. It's kind of hard to explain... basically, you can't really have a character respond to something with silence and lack of movement. It feels unsatisfying. So characters grunts and sigh a lot more than in real life. Anime tends to do it a lot because there's a huge focus on reaction shots, slow-down shots, and other individual-character focused scenes.

I'll admit, though, it gets annoyingly tiring to hear every female character cry with "kyaaaaa!" while the camera rolls quickly up them and to the sky. I mean, is that... is that supposed to be a cute trait or something in Japan?

@Byakuko

edited 12th Jan '13 1:02:29 AM by AMurderOfCrows

Here.

Some battle grunting, but lots of general anime grunting.

English may not have an onomatopoeia for it, but we do have the stock chirping crickets or blowing wind sounds used to signify quiet.

When it's someone responding (or listening) to what someone else is saying, it's called aidzuchi. It's basically back-channeling - letting the speaker know that you're in line with what they're saying, that you understand, and that it's okay for them to continue.

When it's grunts and such made in combat and motion, that's either kiai or just, y'know, effort.

Interesting. I do that "aidzuchi" thing a lot then. I noticed this a couple of years ago when I realized that I instinctively know how to respond to people as if I'm listening even if I'm not. :P

Bad voice actors me or maybe bad directors. They often lack the subtlety a real person would use when vocalizing an observation or revelation. Instead of "Oh, hmm, aha, grr," it is "Aaaa Ah...Aaha A!" In some shows the original actors will be emulating the cries of an athlete, soldier or something but the translator seems to miss the point and it comes out like constipation or tortured yelps. Sometimes it would be better to have no sound at all.

Kind of like fan translations that lack that same sense, where every reaction, disregarding context or repetition will be met with "What? What! what."

Thanks for the info. So the anime grunts are probably an expression of both of these plus emphasizing it all even more, for adding more depth and realism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aizuchi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiai