26695


Related to this question: [Questions about nationalities and languages in
Death Note](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/26614/4484)

It seems the Death Note 2015 series tries to incorporate the English language
when appropriate, but even though Watari, L and Near are supposedly Western,
they speak Japanese to each other. I guess it would be weird if they were
played by Western actors even though their characters are supposedly Western.
Artistic license and all that.

In the anime and manga (or Hell even in the films or series), is it safe to
assume that the Wammy's House members speak to each other in English?

I guess it's obvious that when Mello and Near hear about L's death, they speak
in English to each other and w/ the person who informed them about L's death.

What about for instance when Mello and Near were talking in the SPK place or
whenever L and Watari talk privately? It's in English right?


CC BY-SA 4.0
2015-10-18T08:04:08.627
26678
2022-05-27T11:07:56.373
2022-05-27T11:07:56.373
4484
4484
question
death-note
Do the Wammy's House members speak to each other in English?


It seems safe to assume they're speaking English. This most likely is an
example of a [translation
convention](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranslationConvention).
As the first two paragraphs of that TV Tropes page put it:

> When a group of people whose native language is not English are together,
> away from any English speakers, the audience may nonetheless hear them
> speaking perfect English.
>
> This is not a case of Translator Microbes, in which an in-universe device is
> performing actual translation: We are meant to assume that the characters
> are really speaking their own native tongue, and it is being translated
> purely for our benefit (or the benefit of the casting director who is then
> free to hire English-speaking actors), like the dubbing of English dialogue
> onto foreign-made films.

Most of the time, when a translation convention is employed, the writers don't
bother indicating that the characters are actually speaking another language,
because the audience most likely doesn't care; the audience just wants to know
what they're saying.

Further down the page, Death Note is discussed:

> In the Japanese version of Death Note, the scenes at which Interpol convenes
> and speaks with a British detective, as well as Near's dealings with the
> American SPK and Mello's conversations with the US Mafia are all presented
> in Japanese; presumably, they're actually speaking English.
>
> However, in the live-action movie, Lind L. Tailor, L's decoy, was voiced by
> an American, while a Japanese translator made a voice-over.
>
> This is how it was done in the manga as well, although only the voice-over
> is shown. This is assumed to be in effect for Wammy's House as well, unless
> we are to believe that all the residents of an orphanage in England speak
> Japanese as their default language.

There's probably no real evidence anywhere in the series that the characters
are speaking English (I certainly don't remember any in the manga). The
audience can assume they're speaking English because they're at an orphanage
in England. However, as part of the translation convention, we see them
speaking Japanese on screen. It's presumed that the audience doesn't care that
much to hear them actually speaking English, so the writers just cut to the
chase and show them speaking Japanese.

Note, this is different from the situation where L, Near, et al. speak to
characters whose native language is Japanese. There, we have to assume they
are speaking Japanese (or everyone is speaking English--unlikely, as
characters like Misa and Matsuda who probably don't speak English are seen
communicating effortlessly with L). But when the Wammy's House members are
speaking among themselves, it seems safe to assume they're actually using
English and we see it as Japanese under a translation convention.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-10-19T01:42:04.507
26695
2015-10-19T01:42:04.507
7579
26678
answer