TMHT
Posted on January 23, 2005
I just finished watching Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, the Japanese version of the first TMNT movie. There are obviously some changes made to the movie, which all add up to one important thing. Japan has removed any reference to itself in this movie. I don’t know if they’re ashamed of all the super dated 80′s references or what, but Japan has completely divorced itself from the “hero” turtles. Every instance of “Japan” is dubbed over with something, like “homeland” or “Korea.” Obviously the turtles are not ninjas anymore, and now practice the ancient art of “combat” or just “fighting” sometimes. The most obvious changes come whenever Splinter talks. He can’t meet a new character without giving the whole “I learned ninjitsu from my master, Hamato Yoshi,” speech, but that contains shameful references to Japan. So now Splinter is from Korea, and he learned the art of combat from his master Kiyamo Yang. Shredder was Oroko Saki (a kind of fakey Japanese name to begin with) but apparently that was also shameful, so now he’s Hyung Kyu (a name that could never be anything but Korean). They fought over Thang Shin, a COMPLETELY not Japanese name that gets mentioned once, but that had to change too, just to make the flashback more interesting, so now she’s named Tai Ying (Chinese?). I’m not positive Tatsu’s name is ever mentioned except in the credits, so his name doesn’t change, nor does his saying “kuso” (“shit” in Japanese). Did I spend too much time thinking about this? Maybe. I’m just confused as to why Japan would feel so compelled to separate the idea of ninjas from four giant pizza eating talking turtles. Was the movie that bad? Its instantly dated by horrid 80′s slang and jokes, and some scenes are basically just commercials for Dominos Pizza, but come on guys. I loved this movie. This is probably the 25th time I’ve seen it, so thats got to count for something*, right? Right, well that had entirely too many parentheses in it, but there’s no helping that now. Just remember: ninja animals are not welcome in Japan. But Samurai Pizza Cats are A-OK.
*note: no, it does not
rei
On January 26, 2005 at 05:10
quite possibly the strangest thing to come from japan yet–that’s too funny though, cause we all know korea is really where bad 80s japanese things come from. really.