Romanisation (E/J)

[Tom Mes]

Point taken. I should catch up on my Hepburn.

Still, I'm not entirely convinced yet.

>Personally, if it is unweildy, then just use the accepted English 
>release>title.

Good point, but what if there isn't one? There are situations where sticking 
to romanisation according to the rules can present a problem with regards to 
practicality and the proper comprehension of titles by the reader. What to 
do with the following title for instance:
?V?E???O???????@?u???@?????????E?H?[?Y

For those who don't see the kanji properly displayed, we could romanise this 
as: Shin Daisan No Gokudo Boppatsu Kansai Gokudo Wars.

The problem arises with the katakana of the final word, which represents the 
English word 'wars'. Sticking to the rules means this would have to be 
written (please correct me if I'm romanising this wrong again) 'uozu', with 
possibly a macron on the o.

This film does not have an English release title, which means I would need 
to use Shin Daisan No Gokudo Boppatsu Kansai Gokudo Uozu  throughout. In 
this situation, very few (even those who are familiar with katakana) would 
realise that 'uozu' stands for the English word 'wars'. 'Uozu' may be 
consistent and in accordance with the rules, but it does not properly 
communicate the title and its meaning. It would therefore require separate 
clarification, which to all intents and purposes is unwieldy.

How do we solve this problem? If we romanise the katakana as 'wars' we do 
communicate properly. We could then provide, for the purpose of those who 
need to do further research, the original title in kanji and katakana. The 
latter is of course not always possible, which brings us back to the 
problem.

I'd be interested to hear people's opinion on this particlar situation.

Tom

Midnight Eye
http://www.midnighteye.com


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