Saki, Yoshi, and Shen... the confusion of names

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

You guys do realize in 1984 the internet did not exist, right? I think a lot of you are forgetting that most people had no idea what was going on in the outside world outside of the local news and newspapers.

Its not like Peter Laird could go on google and type in Japanese names back in 1984.

That's exactly what I just said.

Still, it should've been possible to find some, though likely not an entire baby book, with a library visit or two. Worth the effort for the kind of comic they were making? Maybe, maybe not.

[plastroncafe]

They could have gone to the library.
If they were serious about making an accurate portrayal of Japanese feudal culture, and not a white guy 80s parody of it, they could have.
We went to the moon with less computer power than the average person has in their smartphones today.

Please stop perpetuating the notion that the world was a desert of knowledge prior to the mainstream access to the internet.

Hell, I found Mirage Studio's address via the card catalog at my local library, back when most Apple IIEs needed a cartridge to load a CD ROM.

They didn't do the research because they didn't felt they had to.
Because this was a joke between two white guys who didn't know any better.

[CyberCubed]

Did libraries even have that kind of foreign information though? Even then what you would find in the 80's was probably outdated encyclopedias from a decade ago or whatever.

Granted I haven't been to a library since I was like 13 because god bless the internet, so I have no idea what's there anymore.

[Cipher]

Perhaps it should be pointed out that these guys also managed to misspell f*cking "Michelangelo," so let's not make too many excuses for them on the research front.

Re: Cubed, a little MA library probably wouldn't have had an entire book of Japanese names, but it almost certainly would've had some text they could pull three names from.

[plastroncafe]

Cyber, just when I think you can't possibly shock me with your ignorance...you do and then some.

Yes. Yes it would have been possible to find information about Japan, and about Japanese Culture, and Japanese names at the public library. And yes in the 1980s. You know we did have Japanese people living in the United States in the 1980s too.

They were lazy, stoner, slacker Art Students dicking around while watching television.

Just as a point of order Cipher, it would have been a New Hampshire library, because they were living in Dover at the time.
And secondly, North Hampton has some really freaking famous universities around it.

[Xav]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

They were lazy, stoner, slacker Art Students dicking around while watching television.

I don't know if they were lazy, stoner, slackers, they did put a whole comic together, and Eastman claims there were no drugs involved.

[Prowler]

Eastman and Laird did a very poor research of Japanese culture, yes. They gave Shredder a girl's name(although some Japanese names are gender-neutral, dunno if Saki's the case...) and inaccurately depicted Ninjas. I don't thin kit's much of a farfetched excuse that it wasn't that easy to access data back then... but Hergé, a Belgian author, was pretty accurate with his depictions of different people and cultures(except for Tintin in Congo and The Blue Lotus which are quite racist...). And he was drawing comics back in the 40s, 50s and 60s. I bet it was waaaaaaay harder for him to do some proper research back then than it was for Eastman and laird in the 80s.

It doesn't bother me much, anyway, since I've never seen the TMNT as a guide for Japanese culture; but if I was an author, I'd try to do some proper research. Especially if I want to depict something accurately. I guess Eastman and Laird just didn't care much about an accurate portrayal of the Japanese culture and Ninjas in their work. And I can see why some people would be disappointed and upset about it. One of my least FW episodes was the one they went to Lisbon, Portugal. Nothing in it was accurate. It's like they initially wanted to set the episode in Pamplona, Spain; but for some reason decided to switch location in the last minute. Inaccurately representations of culture in the media can be pretty damaging considering the media is a powerful force that can really shape people's minds.

[CyberCubed]

Kevin Eastman didn't know anything about Japan beyond Bruce Lee films. I mean these were two white men in the mid 80's, what did anyone know about Asian culture back then beyond karate, sushi, and Chinese take out?

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Sweet Mother, Cubed, it's NOT that hard to do a little research! My local library has SEVERAL books on Japan and it's history and culture, which all include REAL Japanese names- and most of those books are older than TMNT. Not to mention there are books on martial arts, too. In fact, it's not hard to find books on either subject. It would've been even easier back then, given that libraries devoted more of their space and budgets to actual BOOKS, unlike today where nearly half the space is for computer use.


Also, Bruce Lee was not Japanese, nor did he use karate. Geez, at least get THAT part right, would ya?! (And AFAIK, his movies were mostly set and/or made in China or Hong Kong, not Japan.) Gah, now I'm correcting Cubed- how did it come to this?!

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Kevin Eastman didn't know anything about Japan beyond Bruce Lee films. I mean these were two white men in the mid 80's, what did anyone know about Asian culture back then beyond karate, sushi, and Chinese take out?

Well, ye, like I've said, they could have put more effort into it, but I don't really blame them either since it wasn't that easy to make some deep research back then as it is today.

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Just as a point of order Cipher, it would have been a New Hampshire library, because they were living in Dover at the time.
And secondly, North Hampton has some really freaking famous universities around it.

Fair points, but I disagree because this is the Internet and I will not concede!

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Xav

and Eastman claims there were no drugs involved.

There was probably a couple off sandwiches involved

[plastroncafe]

If this thread has shown us anything, it's that you can have home access to the internet and STILL not know anything about Japanese Culture and Heritage.

Maybe...visiting a library might help. Where one could go up to any librarian and say:
Gosh, I'm writing a story about three Japanese people and need help finding names.

[HotJuicyBurgers]

As was mentioned before, I don't think Kevin and Peter bothered doing much research because they really didn't think much of the "future" of the book. I'm sure if they had planned on making a whole series they would have done more research, but I also don't think the first book would have been as awesome as it is if they had done so much planning. If they were creating the a series, in the first issue, almost certainly no action would have occurred, just setting up story and characters.

[Wolfie65]

To their credit, Eastman & Laird have admitted that everything they 'knew' about martial arts, Japanese culture/language/mythology, Ninjitsu, etc. came from Kung Fu movies, so why should the 'Japanese' names they came up with be any more authentic?
And yes, verifying how real a made-up foreign name is would have been difficult in the pre-internet 1980's, so they just wrote something that sounded cool to them, the end.
Hollywoodland is chock full to the gills of German, French, Chinese, Scandinavian and other non-Anglo words and names no one in those respective cultures would even recognize.

[Panda_Kahn_fan]

I know this is an old thread, but...

Personally, I'd just make shredder's name actually be Oroku Sawaki, like they did in Japan. The TMNT just call him Saki just to annoy him over the 'delicate flower' bit. As for Tang Shen, I've said in other threads that she could either be in Japan as a migrant worker, or be the daughter of a Chinese merchant (depending on if she's feudal or modern). There are ways to work around this stuff.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Panda_Kahn_fan

I know this is an old thread, but...

Personally, I'd just make shredder's name actually be Oroku Sawaki, like they did in Japan. The TMNT just call him Saki just to annoy him over the 'delicate flower' bit. As for Tang Shen, I've said in other threads that she could either be in Japan as a migrant worker, or be the daughter of a Chinese merchant (depending on if she's feudal or modern). There are ways to work around this stuff.

Good ideas.

[ssjup81]

Originally Posted by Panda_Kahn_fan

I know this is an old thread, but...

Personally, I'd just make shredder's name actually be Oroku Sawaki, like they did in Japan. The TMNT just call him Saki just to annoy him over the 'delicate flower' bit. As for Tang Shen, I've said in other threads that she could either be in Japan as a migrant worker, or be the daughter of a Chinese merchant (depending on if she's feudal or modern). There are ways to work around this stuff.

The recent Nick ep did a decent job regarding Tang Shen. At least they acknowledged that she was part Chinese or whatever.

[Bombshell]

No wonder Shredder has an angry

[Xav]

Originally Posted by Panda_Kahn_fan

Personally, I'd just make shredder's name actually be Oroku Sawaki, like they did in Japan. The TMNT just call him Saki just to annoy him over the 'delicate flower' bit.

What about calling "Hamato Yoshi" "Hamada Yoshi"?