Is it ok to use japanese sound effects even tho i live in america

[otakudre]

Hello i love manga and i am currently working on two different ones i have always loved how japanese sound effects looked on the page and if i didn't know what it meant i could make a guess and it would still be fun to read it before you ask i am currently learning japanese i am not an expert at it yet but i'm having fun learning it. for my manga i want to do a mixture of both English and japanese sfxs i don't see many people do it what would be your opinion on this is it ok for someone in america to do Japanese sfxs

[blinkingkills]

my opinion is always of the don't do something in a language you are not really experienced in, because you might make some embarrassing typos.

[VermillionWorks]

Is it okay? Sure. I've seen a handful of manga-inspired webcomics use Japanese sfx.

Now, do I think it's necessary and adds much? No. XP

[bakasama25]

That sounds like a bad idea, English speakers in general don't know WHAT it means unless you're aiming just for rather narrow demographic, manga readers and not much else.

[hushicho]

I think perhaps the question is misleading; where you live is irrelevant, but your understanding of the sound effects has rather more to do with whether or not you should be using them.

Honestly, if you know what the sound effects mean and you like how they sound, use them. It's just another language. People anywhere can learn it. In fact, the Japanese language has a huge amount of readily available onomatopoeia, so it's actually ideal for that very purpose.

I would suggest, however, that you provide notation translating the sound effects, whether in the blurb you attach to the updates or at the bottom of pages. Not everyone will know what the words mean, and most of them are not directly translatable to a single term in English and must be explained by "the sound of (thing)".

[AnnaLandin]

Nobody's going to stop you, and if you know what you're doing, I'd say it's okay?

Just know that a lot of your readers WON'T know enough Japanese to understand what those sfx mean, and might need some kind of translation-guide added to the comic. IMHO, that might make it a bit... clunky to read? But that might just be my personal opinion.

[GesuGesu]

as long as I/your general audience understand what you used the sound effect for, then sure. If you need to put in a translator's note for every sound effect, the please reconsider.

[monotone_ink]

You can if you want, but please just make sure that you know what you are doing. I understand the temptation, as the Japanese language is just so much easier to manipulate visually, but as long as it doesn't detract from the reading experience, it should be fine.

[genjiOtori]

Well, it's your comic so you can decide what kind of soundwords you want to use. I'd recommend to use one kind of notation and don't mix english and japanese in one story.
I also do japanese soundwords because my story is strongly japanese influenced. Since I know most of my readers can't read japanese I use those soundwords to add information on a visual level. I try to convey the sound by the form and position of those hiragana and katakana and not by the actual meaning. It's also important for me that they aren't so dominant. It would destroy the reading flow imo. You can have a look at this episode to get an impression of what I mean ^^
In the end I chose japanese soundwords because they blend in into my style and topic. If I'd do a western superhero comic I would use english soundwords instead. But try to think of a way to make it understandable for people who can't read japanese (with annotations or with the visuals).

[pleasedonthost]

Even if you use the Japanese onomatopoeia correctly you're going to really limit your audience if your aiming to appeal to English speakers. Even if someone reads manga they aren't guaranteed to understand, and even if they do Japanese might not be their native language so even if they technically understand it won't just automatically click with them like English onomatopoeia.
If you must keep the Japanese versions be sure to include English text so that people are 70% left out instead of 100%. -Vivian

[Devika]

Look, I might come across as a stickler here. Ultimately, do whatever you want. Experiment. Life's short. Japanese is lots of fun. And your comic could look really cool with mixed sfxs! But if you want my opinion: it doesn't matter where you are, but how well you understand the language to avoid making bad mistakes.

How bad is it to make mistakes? That depends on what kind of comic you're making. Is it a just-for-fun or practice comic, who cares. But if you want to print it at some point or distribute it more widely, you might not want to become known as the dude with weird or wrong Japanese words thrown in. (;

So if I were to make a little checklist: 1. can you actually read what you're writing, 2. do you understand the cultural context of what you're writing, and 3. do you understand the grammatical structure?

The first point is self-explanatory. Are you just throwing in the cool-looking ザーザー that you often see in rainy scenes? Or can you read it?

The second point: (Just as an example, this isn't a big deal if you get it wrong, it's just what popped into my head) Did you just do a quick google search and find out that it was an onomatopoeia for rain, or do you know that there are dozens of different ones for different kinds of rain, which could be more appropriate for the scene you're showing? (My personal favorite is potsu-potsu for light dripping rain.) Rain specifically, due to the long rainy seasons, has had quite a strong impact on Japanese culture, which is expressed in both language and arts.
Or are you unintentionally using stereotypes, such as, dunno, everyone saying "waa~" all the time without knowing that most people actually don't use it that much? (Except girls/women wanting to look cute I guess - but I rarely heard it used much.)

The third point: This is also pretty obvious, but Japanese grammar isn't based on the same foundation as English. The sentence structure and use of words is different. This might make you feel compelled to directly translate from your native language to Japanese - and in most cases, that won't work.

But hey, if all you want to do is to make your comic look even cooler in some places, I'm sure it'll suffice for you to look up what's being used in Japanese comics, double- and triple-check translation and context, and put it in. You could ask on this forum too, there are a bunch of people here who know enough Japanese to help if you're unsure. Just... Don't use shonen or moe shows as a point of reference for how people actually speak. xD

Oh! And! Some people have mentioned alienating readers. I'll be perfectly honest with you: I don't read the sfx or onomatopoeia. And I'm sure there are plenty of readers who skip over them too. If I see a sword dramatically slicing the air, my brain adds the sound on its own. . Furthermore, manga has become so wildly popular in so many countries with the original sfxs left in, so I wouldn't worry too much about alienating readers. Chances are that your comic will be the most appealing to that audience anyway.

(So why do I care so much that I wrote a longass post? Because I'm a language nerd. And perhaps because I'm a bit sick of people rushing to conclusions about other languages. Like German is misused and misunderstood a lot... "Jawohl!" is not an everyday "yes". "Führen" or "Lokführer" are not bad Nazi words. Etc etc. Also I'm incapable of writing short posts.)

[ConradComics]

Honestly, some will be put off by it, whether it's used correctly or not. The reasons will vary. Some will think it a nerd infatuation with everything Japanese. Some will think it an assimilation of Japanese culture. Some will simply think that comics have become too 'cool' for sounds effects period.

Personally, I rally against the last reason (though it's not as prevalent as the other two). In fact, I feel larger-than-life, page-spanning sound effects need to make a comeback in comics, no matter the language.

Edit: Full disclosure, I do it in my manga-inspired webcomic.

[Michelle]

Since you're in the US, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say your main audience is largely English-speaking and won't know a ton of Japanese. :u So that said, understand that putting in Japanese SFX will hinder the accessibility of your comic to a large portion of your readership. Ultimately it's up to you if you're willing to sacrifice accessibility in the name of style, but I wouldn't do it.

[blop]

To answer people who says it's a problem if the readers don't understand your sound effects, I'd say in my opinion it's not necessarily true, I used to read a lot of cheaply translated mangas when I was a kid and in many of them the sound effects weren't translated.
It never bothered me since it looked cool and I understood what sound it was by the context of the scenes.
The problem would be if you don't use the right ones and some of your readers actually speaks Japanese.

Anyway I have myself a lot of trouble with English sound effects, and sometimes I got it wrong and some readers make fun of me a little but not in a mean way, and nobody ever told me it was really disturbing, so I guess it's ok :')
(if someone here got a good website with a list of English onomatopoeia it would be awesome by the way)

[bakasama25]

I guess you're looking for some thing like this:

http://thejadednetwork.com/sfx/about/

[Anthea]

Who is going to read your comic? If it's in English and targeted to a western readership then why write the sound effect in Japanese? You need to be clear as possible so your reader knows what's happening, and very few English speakers, who also read webcomics, will speak Japanese.
Keep it safe, write in your native language.

[SpavVy]

I'm also from the US and I make what I guess you can call a manga.
I do it a lot like the mangaka in Japan, I use B4 manuscript and I ink with dip pens, however, I stick to my roots by having it's reading direction left to right and it's SFX in English.

It's best to just stick to your native language because most of your readers are going to be English speakers as well. Most of them are not going to understand Japanese SFX which can hurt the reading experience for many. You want your main audience to understand what they're reading, they will enjoy it more and take your work more seriously.

[NickRowler]

The whole point of Japanese sound effects is so that Japanese speakers understand what is happening in the story.

So if you are writing something for English speakers, it makes more sense to use English sound effects. Japanese effects are left in translated manga because changing them requires redrawing the art. For Shonen Jump of America, they had people on staff who removed the Japanese SFX and replaced them with English ones. Tho most online scanners do not really have the time to do all that so they are left in Japanese. This is a good thing to think about when it comes to manga. It's sort of similar to the whole "right to left" thing, it is done that way because of the language and is not required if you want to make a comic in a manga style.

Also, if you are not familiar with the language, don't use it. It will just ends up looking weird.

[Alli]

I mean... if that's what you want to do there isn't a rule that says you can't. In general, however, sound effects should be in whatever language the comic is originally published in. Even if you're a native Japanese speaker, you should use English sound effects if you are making a comic for an English-speaking audience first. There's nothing wrong with making a manga-style comic, but certain things (and please forgive the brutal honesty) will make you come across as a weeaboo and it will turn off readers. This includes giving Japanese mannerisms to non-Japanese characters or setting the story in Japan for no reason other than to make a generic Japanese high school slice-of-life. These things make it seem as though you are merely copying manga instead of exposing yourself to other kinds of comics and making something truly unique. Instead of being the middle rung in someone else's ladder, it's much better to make your own ladder and be at the top of it.

In publication design the first thing they teach you is that you need to justify every single design choice. Why is it this color, why is that placed there, etc. If it doesn't serve a purpose it only takes away from the whole. Unjustified design choices become distractions, and good design is invisible. Obviously, if you're just doing this for fun then there is no need to follow any such guidelines. But if you want to become serious about comics I heavily suggest evaluating WHY you want the Japanese sound effects and what purpose they serve. "It looks cool" is not a good enough justification. English words can look great as sound effects if you put in the effort.

Tl;dr: Do what you want but understand that it could make it difficult for readers to take you seriously.

[Stickly]

I guess it's fine if you're not taking it seriously. I use Japanese sfx in my comic but that's only because my comic is a anime/manga parody.