23114


The Japanese title is Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabu Kome wa Machigatteiru with
subtitle My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong as Expected. The subtitle already
pretty much translate the Japanese title. So, what is the SNAFU in its English
name? How did it get there?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-08T07:39:33.730
23105
2022-01-14T21:13:21.827
2015-07-08T08:12:45.610
7866
7866
question
oregairu
What is the "SNAFU" in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU?


Here, the word for wrong - "machigatteiru" - is being changed into "snafu,"
which, according to [the
dictionary](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/snafu?s=t) is "a badly
confused or muddled situation"

When translating literally, we could just use "wrong" (as in the subtitle you
mention). However, an important thing to note about anime is that translations
are almost never exact. Whether it's just the dialogue, or the entire anime
name, many things can be changed to suit a western audience.

For instance, consider the title "chuunibyou demo koi ga shitai" (Literally:
Chuunibyou, but I want to do love) which in English is officially titled
"Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusions." A much more marketable title.

Similarly, with Oregairu, the English licencing company likely decided that
using a more "interesting" word like "snafu" would make the show more
intriguing to western consumers, thus improving sales.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-08T14:46:36.050
23114
2015-07-08T14:46:36.050
15060
23105
answer


I suspect that whoever decided to use the "SNAFU" translation for the title
was going for the original military acronym "Situation Normal, All Fucked Up",
rather than the contemporary non-military meaning of "something that has gone
wrong".

Why? Well, the title in Japanese is "yahari... machigatteru", which means
"...wrong, as one would expect". If that isn't a borderline literal (if less
vulgar) equivalent of "Situation Normal, All Fucked Up", I don't know what is.

(This is also, in my >opinion, a better translation choice than "...is wrong
as expected", which is relatively unnatural and pretty obviously directly
calqued from Japanese.)


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-08T16:56:15.927
23119
2015-07-08T16:56:15.927
1908
23105
answer


I would imagine, with the title being along the lines of "My Teen Romantic
Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected", that it could be for "Sonna Fuu Ni", which is
"Couldn't Be This Way". It's pronounced Soh-Na Fuu-ni, so Sxx-NA-FUx-xx. Just
a personal thought.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-14T21:13:21.827
66218
2022-01-14T21:13:21.827
65044
23105
answer