Don't take the title "hero" at face value. In stories like this it has different meanings.I wonder why they called another world person a hero? Why not a berserker? Or maybe another title. A hero is who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.
"Brave Man" as the translation for "Yuusha" always felt awkward to me for some reason. Is that really the direct translation? I was just thinking "Champion" might also work, if "Brave" wasn't already well-established and rooted.Don't take the title "hero" at face value. In stories like this it has different meanings.
1 - Title given to them by whatever powers at work.
2 - Is actually called "yuusha" which is just someone brave but the term "brave man" doesn't have the same meaning in English so they use the closest equivalent which is "hero".
3 - Tales are usually told in these settings that someone from another world will raise to save their world. So Otherworlder = Hero until proven otherwise.
The "yū" in yuusha (yūsha) literally means courage (also gentleness and a few other words). It's funny that you mentioned champion, that's yūshosha and the actual word for hero in Japanese is eiyū. There's a "yū" in all of them. While "champion" could work in some situations, it would only do so if the person in question actually agrees to take on the task ("champion of the people" in this case). Eiyu only works if they are in fact a hero but yūsha can work whether or not they choose to take on the task."Brave Man" as the translation for "Yuusha" always felt awkward to me for some reason. Is that really the direct translation? I was just thinking "Champion" might also work, if "Brave" wasn't already well-established and rooted.
In addition to what was said above, the simple, plain truth of the matter a lot of folks don't want to admit is that Japanese is, by all rights, a language that cannot and almost should not be directly translatable into English. The grammatical rules are so different to English (and several western languages, honestly) that the common Japanese most westerns know is basically a kitbashed sort of 'pidgin' Japanese that's easier translated TO English developed specifically for that purpose. And it's STILL not really 1-to-1 translatable.I wonder why they called another world person a hero? Why not a berserker? Or maybe another title. A hero is who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.
Getting the context right is enough, you don't need a direct translation.In addition to what was said above, the simple, plain truth of the matter a lot of folks don't want to admit is that Japanese is, by all rights, a language that cannot and almost should not be directly translatable into English. The grammatical rules are so different to English (and several western languages, honestly) that the common Japanese most westerns know is basically a kitbashed sort of 'pidgin' Japanese that's easier translated TO English developed specifically for that purpose. And it's STILL not really 1-to-1 translatable.
To be fair, the term "hero" in western cultures didn't mean a person who saves others until fairly recently, 1700's and before the term hero essentially referred to "those stronger than normal humans, either literally or in skills such as strategy", a example of this would be achilles from greek mythology and goliath from the old testament, both did some rather shady actions but fit the original term of a hero of their people to a T, zhuge liang and sun zu also fit the term hero for what it's worth..Don't take the title "hero" at face value. In stories like this it has different meanings.
1 - Title given to them by whatever powers at work.
2 - Is actually called "yuusha" which is just someone brave but the term "brave man" doesn't have the same meaning in English so they use the closest equivalent which is "hero".
3 - Tales are usually told in these settings that someone from another world will raise to save their world. So Otherworlder = Hero until proven otherwise.
"Hero" is just a job title they got through being summoned. It's not something they were given by the people. It's basically civilians calling a high ranking military official "General"I wonder why they called another world person a hero? Why not a berserker? Or maybe another title. A hero is who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.
One thing you're missing, in isekai (most but not all) they use terms as they would appear in games. A "hero" in 99% of games literally means "the good guy" and the people in those worlds and those sent to those worlds sees it as such.To be fair, the term "hero" in western cultures didn't mean a person who saves others until fairly recently, 1700's and before the term hero essentially referred to "those stronger than normal humans, either literally or in skills such as strategy", a example of this would be achilles from greek mythology and goliath from the old testament, both did some rather shady actions but fit the original term of a hero of their people to a T, zhuge liang and sun zu also fit the term hero for what it's worth..
TL;DR it isn't until recently that hero became synonymous with "good guy", in the past it meant someone a level above a normal man aka someone of great renown for feats of strength or skill, as such the term hero used in manga and eastern media in general makes more sense from that context.
What a beautiful duwangGetting the context right is enough, you don't need a direct translation.
Sadly, official localization teams and literal translation fanatics don't seem to understand this concept.
I don't want to see "onii-chan" turned into "<person's first name>" because you're losing the context and bits of their character in doing so.
But translating the honorific "-san" into " mr./ms./mrs." I don't mind cause it still gets across that the person is being polite and/or respectful.
meme translations should die in a fire though, along with any who seriously like them.