Wednesday 5 December 2012

Name differences of the characters of Doraemon

This is a list of name differences of the characters in Doraemon between different media, as far as I know. The media mentioned here are the comic book (I'm referring to the translated Malay version by Tora Aman that I used to read when I was a child) and the TV anime series (Malay dub broadcast on NTV7). The Doraemon comic books translated to Malay by Tora Aman sometimes change the names of some characters to reflect the Malaysian culture. The anime series does the other thing, preserving the original Japanese names instead. Both of them do not include the Japanese honorifics in the character's names, except in certain occasions.

The real written Japanese name of each character (I've written here in romanized version instead of the Japanese kana and kanji for your convenience) is bolded.

Doraemon (no name change but in Malaysia it is spelt as "do-re-mon", not the usual Japanese spelling which is "do-ra-e-mo-n" or "do-ra-e-mon" despite the airing of the opening song on NTV7)
Nobita (no name change; in Japan he is sometimes named as Nobita-kun or Nobita-san, the suffixes after his name are Japanese honorifics, the same applies to the other characters)
Shizuka (written as "Sizuka" in the comic book published by Tora Aman, in Japanese she is sometimes named as Shizu-chan)
Gian (written as "Giant" in the comic book published by Tora Aman)
Suneo (written as "Sinyu" in the comic book published by Tora Aman)
Dekisugi (was known as "Chong Meng" in the comic book published by Tora Aman, in the anime series on NTV7 he is known as Dekisugi instead)
Jaiko (I first know her as Hana in the comic book published by Tora Aman, another name of her besides the usual Jaiko that I've heard in the anime series on NTV7)
Nobisuke (Nobita's father's name, I first know him as Tanaka in the comic book published by Tora Aman; not his real name actually)
Sumire Hoshino (In the second story about Sumire Hoshino, a character in Perman, in the Doraemon comic book published by Tora Aman, she is known as Fauziah Latiff! Fauziah Latiff is a Malay singer who was popular in the 1990s; she is not popular in Japan. At one time I was so excited and compared her name in the comic book published by Tora Aman to the real Fauziah Latiff in a magazine. The real Fauziah Latiff is sometimes called by fans as Jee. I think Tora Aman have changed her name to give emphasis that she is a singer. But in the anime series she is referred as Sumire instead)

1 comment:

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