11418


The direct English translation of 進撃の巨人 ("Shingeki no Kyojin") isn't actually
"Attack on Titan", and the name seems like an odd translation because it
implies either an attack on a person/thing named "Titan" or an attack on or
taking place on a planet/place called "Titan," neither of which are the case
here. Have there been any official announcements on the translation/English
naming of "Attack on Titan" regarding why they gave it that name?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-19T23:34:03.140
11370
2016-06-04T23:28:02.363
2014-06-22T20:18:46.767
1908
93
question
attack-on-titan
Why is "Shingeki no Kyojin" translated as "Attack on Titan"?


With the lack of a good answer i'll flesh my comment out.

Google Translate translates 進撃の巨人 ("Shingeki no Kyojin") to [Giants
Advance](https://translate.google.com/#ja/en/%E9%80%B2%E6%92%83%E3%81%AE%E5%B7%A8%E4%BA%BA).
now Google Translate is machine translation so not good with sentances but it
does does help with single words as guidelines, so the 2 main parts of the
titles are

  * Shingeki (進撃) = [Advance](https://translate.google.com/#ja/en/%E9%80%B2%E6%92%83)

  * Kyojin (巨人) = [Giant](https://translate.google.com/#ja/en/%E5%B7%A8%E4%BA%BA)

Now の (no) gets translated to
[of](https://translate.google.com/#ja/en/%E3%81%AE) so putting all together we
get **Advance of Giant**.

Now why did the title then become **Attack on Titan** , well without any
explanation of the translators we can assume the words was changed to make the
title sound cooler as per Eric's (Listed as キルア) said in the comments to the
question

> it's just a typical grammatical abomination as a result of someone trying to
> make a cool and catchy English title

so how did they do that? well we can assume that _Advance_ and _Giant_ were
changed to _Attack_ and _Titan_ but why changed _Of_ to _On_ , the only reason
i can think of is in the original title _Shingeki no Kyojin_ , if you did a
partial translation it could be **Advance no Giant** , someone proably went
and reversed _no_ to _on_ so we get **_Advance on Giant_** , do the same word
replacement as mentioned above and we get **_Attack on Titan_**

Now this answer relies heavy on Google Translate, however this answer also
applies logic, you can find better explanation of Japanese Language
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/12658/function-
of-%E3%81%AE-particle-in-the-
title-%E9%80%B2%E6%92%83%E3%81%AE%E5%B7%A8%E4%BA%BA), while it properly
translates the original title and explains the use of の in it, it does to
explain how Attack on Titan came about so this answer serves to add assumed
logic behind such a decision.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-22T22:24:13.153
11417
2014-06-22T22:32:39.833
2017-04-13T12:43:49.183
-1
1587
11370
answer


To answer your questions, one must note one important thing:

  * The original English "subtitle" for 進撃の巨人 ("Shingeki no Kyojin") is in fact "Attack on Titan." (See the [volume one cover](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YIp8w.jpg) for reference.)

Semantically there is very little meaning that would connect the two titles,
and is likely to be attributed to an error, on the part of the author or his
editor/publicists.

The biggest notable change is the use of "titan" as a translation for
"kyojin."

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, [titan](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/titan) is defined as:

>   1. capitalized: any of a family of giants in Greek mythology born of
> Uranus and Gaea and ruling the earth until overthrown by the Olympian gods
>
>   2. one that is gigantic in size or power: one that stands out for
> greatness of achievement
>
>

In terms of simplicity, titan might be an very good choice of words, but in
terms of conveying the actual meaning, it falls a bit short.

"Kyojin" is a very simple word, consisting of two kanji which translate as
"gigantic" and "human" or "person" respectively. Naturally a more correct
translation of this word would be "giant", because it's simplest way in
English that we can to refer people are like humans, but are significantly
bigger.

"Attack" seems like a broad and simplistic choice of "attack" for "shingeki."
both share similarities to one another, the semantic connotations are a bit
different. "[Shingeki](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%80%B2%E6%92%83)" is a
very specific term for akin to a (swift) military advance/charge on the enemy.
Using "attack" oversimplifies this, and in combination with the preposition
"on" and the noun "titan" (which can also refer to one of Saturn's moon by the
same name), leads to an error in interpretation. Shingeki can also be used to
refer to a vanguard rally/charge, much like what the Survey Corps are.

But let's take a deeper look at the title itself and see what we can get from
it. It we directly translate and take it's meaning literally, the title would
be something like "Advancing Giant." This doesn't work well as a title and
probably isn't what I think the author intended on convey to his readers.

If we read the English titles as it is, "Attack on Titan," grammatically one
would infer that "Titan" is some sort of location rather than a person or
group. E.g., "Attack on Normandy." For this we have the preposition "on" to
blame. Initiating an attack "on" usually implies that whatever "on" refers to
is the thing being attacked, not doing the attacking. So the combination of
"attack" and "on" as a passive proposition, implies in the act of inciting an
act of aggression upon the following noun, "titan."

The Japanese particle "no" (in "Shingeki no Kyojin") is often seen translated
as either the preposition "of" or the possessive (-'s), as a marker of
possession.

In the case of the title, "kyojin" would be something possessed by "shingeki".
Therefore we can assume that the giant is something that belongs to the
advance/charge, in other words a giant pertains to a military advance/charge
of a vanguard.

Now what does all this mean? Is it referring to the Titans as a whole or
singling out on in particular? One can imply that the title is referring to
Eren Jaeger, as he is the one and only giant who fights on the side of the
humans, thus the giant who leads the way for their armies to finally make a
dent in the enemy forces, representing hope for the humans. So something like
"The Advancing/Charging Giant," or more appropriately something "The Giant of
the Vanguard." Essentially referring to the giant that would lead people
towards victory/salvation.

The original title was most likely intended to convey a great deal emotional
value, especially when the circumstances involved in the story. However, this
might not be as easily conveyed in English so they often to go with something
short and to the point for the English subtitle (which is typically only there
for the "cool" factor) and never intended to be used as the localized name.

For better SEO, sometimes localizers like to include the romanized Japanese
name or w/e the "engrish" subtitle might be, like in the case of Oreimo, this
way they can bring already associating links from the original source material
to their localized version, without needing to break the bank with
advertising.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-22T22:49:08.680
11418
2014-06-24T21:21:54.117
2020-06-17T09:17:53.303
-1
63
11370
answer