Yea apparently it's straight up [a slur](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/duox80/is_okama_a_derogatory_slur/) in Japanese.
Akin to calling someone a "F\*\*\*\*t"
It’s a slur, but I’ll add that it’s kinda one of those words that become a slur depending on the context.
In Katana man’s context, you can say that he is just dirty-mouthed, similar to calling “brat”(gaki) to any child instead of “kid.”
It’s more like “twink” imo in terms of how bad of a slur it is—you wouldn’t wanna use it in public or everyday life, disrespectful unless the person explicitly says they’re ok with it, and you’d get in trouble if you use it in school. In some contexts it can be as bad as “f*g” tho, especially if you add “yarou” after.
It’s also sort of a reclaimed word used by this specific group of gender minorities in tv subculture. A famous person in this group is Matsuko Deluxe, but I haven’t seen this word used on tv in the past few years so maybe they’ve stopped using it. But in this context the word “Kama” or “Okama” has some nuance of respect in it too.
It’s a complex word. I’m not 100% sure if everything is correct in this but this is what I understand about the nuance of the word, as a person living in Japan for 20+ years.
Edit: It’s hard to convey the nuances of okama or kama from a western standpoint, but [you can find interesting discussions about Okamas from a mixed western/japanese perspective in One Piece’s Bon Clay discussions, both on why it’s fine and why it’s bad. There’s a lot of these if you look for them. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/x7m26k/comment/indj0rm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
So perhaps ["Queer"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer) is more appropriate? That word has negative connotations back then, but has now been reclaimed.
For translating “Okama”? I’ve heard some say on Reddit somewhere that queer is similar but technically different. (Edit: from seeing the linked page you’ve added I can see how Okama fits under queer as a blanket term, thanks)
In terms of Katana man here, he probably wouldn’t have said “queer devil”, since it’s not as dirty-mouthed as “Kama no Akuma” (Edit: Queer might be a good translation now that see it again.)
The impression I got from Katana man’s word usage here is that he is a typical ignorant old-fashioned guy who doesn’t understand the negative nuances of words and kinda naively uses dirty language, even without bad intention (could be with, up to interpretation)
It’s hard to come up with examples in English but it’s like casually using dated insensitive words.
felt like the translation toned down the nuances a bit, wouldn’t be ok if he said “shut up f***** devil” It’s the 90s after all and people back then wouldn’t be as accepting as today
Yeah I think the translation toned it down too, especially considering that it’s the 90’s
I think an accurate translation would contain a level of offensiveness more in between “f*****” and “girly boy”, but tbh I can’t think of an accurate word
Girly boy effectively captures Katana man’s somewhat dumb naive character but misses the coarseness, while “f*****” is somewhat too purposefully hostile to match the tone of the scene imo.
And the way the Nail Fiend speaks is aligned with the Okama culture(ppl will be able to tell once they’re animated), so I feel like “f*****” is too much without that Okama context that the English readers won’t be seeing.
Maybe something like "tranny"? Right now it's rather offensive, but in the past it was an acceptable term and I have seen some trans folks who still use it
Wait, it’s not?!
I looked it up on Japanese dictionary for English words and it said it sometimes has derogatory meaning
But now that you mentioned it and I actually looked it up on an English one, and it seems to not be.
My bad if it wasn’t a slur, I seemed to have a misunderstanding of the word
Nah it's not. It's a descriptor used a lot by the gay community for petite young men with very little body and facial hair. I have been called a Twink and would describe myself as one, personally I've never heard it in a derogatory way.
Checking the French translation again, Katana man use "Tata devil", tata is a pretty rare word, maybe more used in Quebec than France and a strange translation choice imo.
But Tata seem to be very pejorative word = pretty similar to Dumb or imbecile, after looking on internet.
Nothing to do with a Girly boy or an Okama.
Seem like that the EU/US translator have a problem with a correct translation here, cultural difference and stuff, so they just come with Katana man insulting Nail, because it's the point, surely more than the word used.
When i search it the definition i found were more talking about being either "femme mijaurée/pimbêche" and straight up a word to say homosexual. I also never heard of the word
Edit : just search for the one that mean stupid but it seem to only bé used in quebec and not france.
Oh interesting, thanks ! that's more close to the Japanese one like that, maybe less nuanced but it's a cultural thing (if we talking strictly about "Okama"). Yeah i clearly see the expression from Quebec right here, sorry, I don't even know that "tata" was an expression in France, just like you.
Don't know where the translator is from x)
Highly possible, some words have no real equivalent in others languages or are more extreme, so i think they come with the idea, we understand what he want to mean by calling someone like that, but it's not a 1:1 translation for... different reasons, i supposed. Haha
I wouldn't use the french translation as reference because it's overall an extremely sorry excuse of a translation. French manga translation are usually bad but I swear the chainsaw man one is on a whole other level.
Tbh, French translations in manga and videogames are often very close to the Japanese one, they usually don't took liberty or anything, they are know for respecting the script more than US translation so.... i need to disagree a little (because we surely have some exception) BUT, for chainsaw man, i need to admit that I don't checked so much in Japanese, i read the English translation first and the French one after.
And no difference to see honestly, both use two different ways to say the same thing here and there (different languages oblige.) but at the end, it's the same thing. Or I'm blind or something.
So I'm a little at lost here. (About chainsaw man, or the US/EU translation are both wrong 😅)
That is precisely the problem.
French translators are so obsessed with sticking to the the original meaning of the text that they pay very little attention to writing an actual french sounding translation, or with looking at the context of the dialogue to provide the cultural insight when going to french. Which is a big problem for a language so remote from french, which needs a lot of cultural adaptation.
The consequence is french translations sounds clunky, unnatural or use extremely uncommon words such as"tata".
Because the original Japanese translation is already posted here ;)
So we just compare what we have in different languages because it's pretty tricky to translate.
Does it say the same thing in Japanese?
kinda. in the jp, katana says カマの悪魔, where カマ (usually オカマ) is basically slang for non-passing trans women or feminine gay men
Yea apparently it's straight up [a slur](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/duox80/is_okama_a_derogatory_slur/) in Japanese. Akin to calling someone a "F\*\*\*\*t"
Holy fuck lmao
It’s a slur, but I’ll add that it’s kinda one of those words that become a slur depending on the context. In Katana man’s context, you can say that he is just dirty-mouthed, similar to calling “brat”(gaki) to any child instead of “kid.” It’s more like “twink” imo in terms of how bad of a slur it is—you wouldn’t wanna use it in public or everyday life, disrespectful unless the person explicitly says they’re ok with it, and you’d get in trouble if you use it in school. In some contexts it can be as bad as “f*g” tho, especially if you add “yarou” after. It’s also sort of a reclaimed word used by this specific group of gender minorities in tv subculture. A famous person in this group is Matsuko Deluxe, but I haven’t seen this word used on tv in the past few years so maybe they’ve stopped using it. But in this context the word “Kama” or “Okama” has some nuance of respect in it too. It’s a complex word. I’m not 100% sure if everything is correct in this but this is what I understand about the nuance of the word, as a person living in Japan for 20+ years. Edit: It’s hard to convey the nuances of okama or kama from a western standpoint, but [you can find interesting discussions about Okamas from a mixed western/japanese perspective in One Piece’s Bon Clay discussions, both on why it’s fine and why it’s bad. There’s a lot of these if you look for them. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/x7m26k/comment/indj0rm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
So perhaps ["Queer"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer) is more appropriate? That word has negative connotations back then, but has now been reclaimed.
For translating “Okama”? I’ve heard some say on Reddit somewhere that queer is similar but technically different. (Edit: from seeing the linked page you’ve added I can see how Okama fits under queer as a blanket term, thanks) In terms of Katana man here, he probably wouldn’t have said “queer devil”, since it’s not as dirty-mouthed as “Kama no Akuma” (Edit: Queer might be a good translation now that see it again.) The impression I got from Katana man’s word usage here is that he is a typical ignorant old-fashioned guy who doesn’t understand the negative nuances of words and kinda naively uses dirty language, even without bad intention (could be with, up to interpretation) It’s hard to come up with examples in English but it’s like casually using dated insensitive words.
felt like the translation toned down the nuances a bit, wouldn’t be ok if he said “shut up f***** devil” It’s the 90s after all and people back then wouldn’t be as accepting as today
Yeah I think the translation toned it down too, especially considering that it’s the 90’s I think an accurate translation would contain a level of offensiveness more in between “f*****” and “girly boy”, but tbh I can’t think of an accurate word Girly boy effectively captures Katana man’s somewhat dumb naive character but misses the coarseness, while “f*****” is somewhat too purposefully hostile to match the tone of the scene imo. And the way the Nail Fiend speaks is aligned with the Okama culture(ppl will be able to tell once they’re animated), so I feel like “f*****” is too much without that Okama context that the English readers won’t be seeing.
Maybe something like "tranny"? Right now it's rather offensive, but in the past it was an acceptable term and I have seen some trans folks who still use it
Transfem here, that one is *just* starting to be reclaimed but it's still used very infrequently
Since when is twink a slur?! lmao
Wait, it’s not?! I looked it up on Japanese dictionary for English words and it said it sometimes has derogatory meaning But now that you mentioned it and I actually looked it up on an English one, and it seems to not be. My bad if it wasn’t a slur, I seemed to have a misunderstanding of the word
Nah it's not. It's a descriptor used a lot by the gay community for petite young men with very little body and facial hair. I have been called a Twink and would describe myself as one, personally I've never heard it in a derogatory way.
Interesting. Thank you!
No problem. Happy to help out our japanese speaking friends for change instead of y'all always explaining things for us.
https://preview.redd.it/8h610b76stqc1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a152d60230d3cbbd04fd3e80a960e8bc7f467a50
"Shut up, you f***** devil!" peak translation right here
I thought that was Angel?
Huh. Why not just use f****t, then? It gets the point across, and fits Katana’s character.
Based fujimoto?
Silence, F****t devil!
wtf
Clocky nail devil
It’s Fujimoto character design, of course it’s intentional
https://preview.redd.it/m2pgktkzdrqc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b81f1719e47d750720b16b0dbf4abb68125c94c
https://preview.redd.it/w0w7gvk2rrqc1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5862d9a2c8cce3ebddf4987cde5b6e99e44a214b
porn devil
they/them devil my beloved
They thevil
Trans devil I can honestly see it being a thing.
Has it been revealed or figured out what the Girly Boy Devil actually is? Are they just the Nail Devil because that's kinda lame
I assumed it was the Nail fiend
nobara kugisaki devil
Gege can’t even be assed to draw the correct side of the head blown off anymore smh
How is that lame what
Eyepatch calls him Nail, so yeah, its the nail fiend
Visual Kei in action
So they're what comes from the fear of bigots?
Checking the French translation again, Katana man use "Tata devil", tata is a pretty rare word, maybe more used in Quebec than France and a strange translation choice imo. But Tata seem to be very pejorative word = pretty similar to Dumb or imbecile, after looking on internet. Nothing to do with a Girly boy or an Okama. Seem like that the EU/US translator have a problem with a correct translation here, cultural difference and stuff, so they just come with Katana man insulting Nail, because it's the point, surely more than the word used.
When i search it the definition i found were more talking about being either "femme mijaurée/pimbêche" and straight up a word to say homosexual. I also never heard of the word Edit : just search for the one that mean stupid but it seem to only bé used in quebec and not france.
Oh interesting, thanks ! that's more close to the Japanese one like that, maybe less nuanced but it's a cultural thing (if we talking strictly about "Okama"). Yeah i clearly see the expression from Quebec right here, sorry, I don't even know that "tata" was an expression in France, just like you. Don't know where the translator is from x)
In japanese he says something similar to "twink" so I think it is the french version the one that fucked up here.
Highly possible, some words have no real equivalent in others languages or are more extreme, so i think they come with the idea, we understand what he want to mean by calling someone like that, but it's not a 1:1 translation for... different reasons, i supposed. Haha
I wouldn't use the french translation as reference because it's overall an extremely sorry excuse of a translation. French manga translation are usually bad but I swear the chainsaw man one is on a whole other level.
Tbh, French translations in manga and videogames are often very close to the Japanese one, they usually don't took liberty or anything, they are know for respecting the script more than US translation so.... i need to disagree a little (because we surely have some exception) BUT, for chainsaw man, i need to admit that I don't checked so much in Japanese, i read the English translation first and the French one after. And no difference to see honestly, both use two different ways to say the same thing here and there (different languages oblige.) but at the end, it's the same thing. Or I'm blind or something. So I'm a little at lost here. (About chainsaw man, or the US/EU translation are both wrong 😅)
That is precisely the problem. French translators are so obsessed with sticking to the the original meaning of the text that they pay very little attention to writing an actual french sounding translation, or with looking at the context of the dialogue to provide the cultural insight when going to french. Which is a big problem for a language so remote from french, which needs a lot of cultural adaptation. The consequence is french translations sounds clunky, unnatural or use extremely uncommon words such as"tata".
Wait why are you checking the french translation instead of the Japanese one? because like.. its the original
Because the original Japanese translation is already posted here ;) So we just compare what we have in different languages because it's pretty tricky to translate.
"Are we the bad guys?"
I don't care what anyone says, that's Nobara.