Why do some anime in Japanese contain English?


It seems that many anime and manga aired or printed in Japanese, before they
are dubbed or localized, contain English text or lyrics.

I've tagged a couple of examples here.

The first is from _Digimon Tamers_ , wherein there are a couple English lines
within the otherwise Japanese title sequence:

![Digimon: Tamers](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4T42A.png)

And another example from _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ , where the text on the
monitors is printed in English:

![Neon Genesis Evangelion](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YORVK.png)

There are countless other examples (one I couldn't find was another scene from
_Tamers_ in which a beer can reads "BEER"); so, my question is:

Why do these English words make their way into otherwise entirely Japanese
productions?




There are two different ways that one can use English words in Japanese.

The first is through loanwords. The Japanese language was more-or-less
standardized during the Meiji Restoration, in the late 19th century. Before
that, Japan was a very isolated culture for a very long time, so a lot of
concepts simply didn't exist in the language. As a result, it was decided that
rather than creating new words for all of these concepts, they would just
borrow the words from other languages. Most of the words came from English,
though there are also some from other western languages.

In this case, the words are written in katakana (カタカナ). There are a very large
number of loanwords, but it's fairly standardized what is a loanword and what
is not. Also, some of the words are pronounced differently in Japanese than
English (e.g. energy becomes エネルギ _(enerugi)_ with a hard g sound). In case
it's ambiguous how to pronounce English words in Japanese, these are also
usually standardized.

That doesn't really represent a use of English, though. The loanwords are
borrowed from English, but both the meanings and pronunciations can be
radically different from the English words. They're better described as
Japanese words which are based off English words. The examples you've given
don't really fall into the above category, but there are many examples like
this so it's worth mentioning.

The other way they can use English is just by writing/speaking in English. The
examples you've given seem to fall in this category. This is done to
sound/look cool, because most people in Japan only hear and see Japanese for
most of their day, so it stands out. Since most Japanese people have at least
a passable knowledge of English vocabulary (it's part of the standard
curriculum), it's a way to make a statement, sort of like how stylized fonts
would be used in English except a bit stronger.

Now that we've made that distinction, we can answer the question. The answer
to your question "Why do these English words make their way into otherwise
entirely Japanese productions?" is that English is fairly common in Japan, not
just in anime/manga. This isn't solely a phenomenon about anime/manga, nor am
I convinced that it's particularly common in anime and manga. For instance,
you can probably spot several instances of English in this picture of
advertising in Osaka (I found 3, with another 2 cases of the Roman alphabet
being used to write non-English words, and quite a few katakana loanwords as
well):

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t9epZ.jpg)

So in summary, it's because English is common in Japanese culture. But that's
not a very satisfying answer by itself. Rather than answering the broad
question of why modern Japanese culture often uses English (which I think
might be better posed at [Japanese.SE](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/)
with some modifications) I'll address the particular cases you have mentioned,
in part because a full answer to the former question is probably impossible
and in part because it's off-topic.

* * *

Using English is very common in music, where whole lines may be written in
(oftentimes broken) English. This is not solely a Japanese phenomenon, as
Korean and Chinese pop artists also often use English (Indian pop artists do
so very frequently as well, but English is a fairly common language in India).
As far as I can tell, it isn't particularly common in anime songs, though of
course I don't have any statistics to back that up.

Essentially, it's done in music to sound cool, for the reasons I listed above.
It also somewhat expands their audience, since people around the world speak
English. I don't know if there's an analogy that would be familiar to people
who only speak English, but the closest I could come up with is that Latin is
occasionally used in English-language music.

In fact, English use in Japanese music predates J-Pop itself (which is the
genre that most anime music falls in). Japanese rock musicians in the 1960s
and '70s were mostly inspired by their western counterparts, most notably the
Beatles. For a time, Japanese rock singers believed that the Japanese language
was too restrictive to be able to sing rock-style, so most of them sung in
English (see
[here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-pop#Eleki_Boom_and_Group_Sounds)). The
first really successful band to sing in English was [Happy
End](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_End_%28band%29), but even after that,
people continued using English at least occasionally. It's possible to write
long academic papers on the use of English in Japanese music, but I'll stop
here for brevity.

* * *

For Digimon Tamers, and indeed many series, the title is displayed in English.
In fact, most series now have both an English and a Japanese title, which do
not always mean the same thing. In the case of Digimon, the word 'Digimon'
comes from two English words, 'Digital' and 'Monster'. Tamers is also an
English word. The title could be written 「デジモンテイマーズ」, but it's more authentic-
looking to use the English title. As for why the title was chosen in English
to begin with, again, this is best explained via the rule-of-cool, since
English sounds different and interesting. Of course, not all shows do this,
and it's mostly a stylistic decision, so it's probably impossible to give a
better explanation.

* * *

As for Eva, most computer systems, even in Japan, are based on English. Most
programming languages are also based on English. As a result, it seems more
authentic (or at least, it did at the time) to have computers and technology
things entirely or mostly in English. I don't know if this is changing, now
that there are Japanese-language programming languages, operating systems,
etc.

* * *

As for "BEER", it is not uncommon in Japan to advertise beer in English. [This
example](http://www.nagisa.co.jp/) is a fairly small company which I found
from reading Moyashimon, but it's certainly not uncommon for beer to be
written in English. I don't really know why. My suspicion is that this is
because beer originated as a western drink.

* * *

I could probably go on for a while, but I think this answer is already too
long and there's no point to continuing to list examples, so I'll end it here.
As I said above, this might make a good question on
[Japanese.SE](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/) if you phrase it
appropriately. It could also make a good question on the proposed [Japanese
Culture](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34330/culture-of-japan)
site.




There are two different ways that one can use English words in Japanese.

The first is through loanwords. The Japanese language was more-or-less
standardized during the Meiji Restoration, in the late 19th century. Before
that, Japan was a very isolated culture for a very long time, so a lot of
concepts simply didn't exist in the language. As a result, it was decided that
rather than creating new words for all of these concepts, they would just
borrow the words from other languages. Most of the words came from English,
though there are also some from other western languages.

In this case, the words are written in katakana (カタカナ). There are a very large
number of loanwords, but it's fairly standardized what is a loanword and what
is not. Also, some of the words are pronounced differently in Japanese than
English (e.g. energy becomes エネルギ _(enerugi)_ with a hard g sound). In case
it's ambiguous how to pronounce English words in Japanese, these are also
usually standardized.

That doesn't really represent a use of English, though. The loanwords are
borrowed from English, but both the meanings and pronunciations can be
radically different from the English words. They're better described as
Japanese words which are based off English words. The examples you've given
don't really fall into the above category, but there are many examples like
this so it's worth mentioning.

The other way they can use English is just by writing/speaking in English. The
examples you've given seem to fall in this category. This is done to
sound/look cool, because most people in Japan only hear and see Japanese for
most of their day, so it stands out. Since most Japanese people have at least
a passable knowledge of English vocabulary (it's part of the standard
curriculum), it's a way to make a statement, sort of like how stylized fonts
would be used in English except a bit stronger.

Now that we've made that distinction, we can answer the question. The answer
to your question "Why do these English words make their way into otherwise
entirely Japanese productions?" is that English is fairly common in Japan, not
just in anime/manga. This isn't solely a phenomenon about anime/manga, nor am
I convinced that it's particularly common in anime and manga. For instance,
you can probably spot several instances of English in this picture of
advertising in Osaka (I found 3, with another 2 cases of the Roman alphabet
being used to write non-English words, and quite a few katakana loanwords as
well):

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t9epZ.jpg)

So in summary, it's because English is common in Japanese culture. But that's
not a very satisfying answer by itself. Rather than answering the broad
question of why modern Japanese culture often uses English (which I think
might be better posed at [Japanese.SE](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/)
with some modifications) I'll address the particular cases you have mentioned,
in part because a full answer to the former question is probably impossible
and in part because it's off-topic.

* * *

Using English is very common in music, where whole lines may be written in
(oftentimes broken) English. This is not solely a Japanese phenomenon, as
Korean and Chinese pop artists also often use English (Indian pop artists do
so very frequently as well, but English is a fairly common language in India).
As far as I can tell, it isn't particularly common in anime songs, though of
course I don't have any statistics to back that up.

Essentially, it's done in music to sound cool, for the reasons I listed above.
It also somewhat expands their audience, since people around the world speak
English. I don't know if there's an analogy that would be familiar to people
who only speak English, but the closest I could come up with is that Latin is
occasionally used in English-language music.

In fact, English use in Japanese music predates J-Pop itself (which is the
genre that most anime music falls in). Japanese rock musicians in the 1960s
and '70s were mostly inspired by their western counterparts, most notably the
Beatles. For a time, Japanese rock singers believed that the Japanese language
was too restrictive to be able to sing rock-style, so most of them sung in
English (see
[here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-pop#Eleki_Boom_and_Group_Sounds)). The
first really successful band to sing in English was [Happy
End](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_End_%28band%29), but even after that,
people continued using English at least occasionally. It's possible to write
long academic papers on the use of English in Japanese music, but I'll stop
here for brevity.

* * *

For Digimon Tamers, and indeed many series, the title is displayed in English.
In fact, most series now have both an English and a Japanese title, which do
not always mean the same thing. In the case of Digimon, the word 'Digimon'
comes from two English words, 'Digital' and 'Monster'. Tamers is also an
English word. The title could be written 「デジモンテイマーズ」, but it's more authentic-
looking to use the English title. As for why the title was chosen in English
to begin with, again, this is best explained via the rule-of-cool, since
English sounds different and interesting. Of course, not all shows do this,
and it's mostly a stylistic decision, so it's probably impossible to give a
better explanation.

* * *

As for Eva, most computer systems, even in Japan, are based on English. Most
programming languages are also based on English. As a result, it seems more
authentic (or at least, it did at the time) to have computers and technology
things entirely or mostly in English. I don't know if this is changing, now
that there are Japanese-language programming languages, operating systems,
etc.

* * *

As for "BEER", it is not uncommon in Japan to advertise beer in English. [This
example](http://www.nagisa.co.jp/) is a fairly small company which I found
from reading Moyashimon, but it's certainly not uncommon for beer to be
written in English. I don't really know why. My suspicion is that this is
because beer originated as a western drink.

* * *

I could probably go on for a while, but I think this answer is already too
long and there's no point to continuing to list examples, so I'll end it here.
As I said above, this might make a good question on
[Japanese.SE](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/) if you phrase it
appropriately. It could also make a good question on the proposed [Japanese
Culture](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34330/culture-of-japan)
site.

