5 Ways Japan Makes Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell Even Cooler
I never thought an article would appear about Bruce Campbell on a site about learning Japanese and Japan. But here we are. For those of you not in the know, Bruce Campbell was a cult film actor who starred in many B-movies in the 80s and 90s, and is most remembered for the old Evil Dead series. I’ve always been a big fan, but am aware his connection with Japan is zero. Or is it? Can Japan make Bruce Campbell better? Yes. Yes it can.
5. Army of Darkness was called Captain Supermarket (キャプテンスーパー)
4. “Evil Dead” was translated into 死霊のはらわた or “Dead Ghost Intestines”
3. There are many Japanese fans of the Evil Dead series. Check out these Amazon reviews.
2. There are rumors that Bruce Campbell is actually Japanese comedian 有田哲平 (Arita Teppei)
More here.
1. You can’t help but smile in joy at the Japanese dubbed trailer for Evil Dead, which also happened to be uploaded all the way back in 2006 (only a year after YouTube’s creation)
And all is well in the Bruce Campbell world. Now I just need to get my hands on a Japanese dubbed Army of Darkness…
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Bruce Campell is badass and a legend. The trailer was surprisingly scary I thought with that narration. Now I want to watch the Japanese dub as well!
And I’m extremely interested how they dub the corny 80s dialog. Hopefully into just as corny 80s Japanese dialog.
As an Evil Dead / Army of Darkness fan, I love this article!
Now I have to wonder how they translated some legendary quotes like “Hail to the king, baby!”
I was searching for an answer, and came across this https://github.com/duke2ch/dnf-trans-ja/wiki/%E5%AE%9A%E8%A8%B3
This article covers phrases from the Duke Nukem series, which took phrases from Evil Dead. Though the movies may have done them completely different, and this also may just be this one guy’s interpretation. 2 for reference below.
Groovy
「しびれるぜ」
cool と似た表現だが、より大人の言葉(ガキは使わない)。意味も同じで「しびれるほどすてき」という感じである。
参考:この台詞は、ホラー映画「死霊のはらわた2(EVIL DEAD 2)」がオリジナルである。主人公 Ash(アッシュ)が、死霊に乗っ取られたためにみずから切り落とした右手首にチェーンソーを取り付け、片手でも扱えるように銃身を短く切り落としたライフルを指で回し背中に収めてポーズを決め、恍惚感を浮かべたような表情で言う。日本語字幕では「行くぜ」だった。
Hail to the king, baby
「やったぜ、ベイビー」
hail は「大声で呼ぶ」の意味。「王様、バンザ〜イ!」と叫びたいほどの感激を表わした台詞である。「公爵」の意味の DUKE を名に持つデュークにとっては叫ぶより叫ばれるほうなのだが。
Ah, awesome, thanks for the reply. Yeah, Duke Nukem (3d) stole a lot of phrases from Evil Dead. I used to play Duke 3d a lot back in the days (before I knew what Evil Dead was).
Also, another legendary phrase – “It’s time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I’m all outta gum” – was taken from the cult movie “They Live” (and slightly modified grammatically).
As for, “Hail to the King, Baby”: I’m no more than an intermediate learner in Japanese, but that translation looks pretty… liberal, to say the least?
Very liberal translation. Especially when it really doesn’t even make much sense in English in the context when you think about it.