Long Titles: More is Less

Warning: This contains some spoilers of One Piece episodes, albeit over a decade old.

Previously, I did a blog entry on how short title can be more effective and memorable. This time, I'll look at long titles, and some of their shortcomings.

For starters, works with long titles are almost never referred to by their full name. For example, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom is commonly called Hamefura(an abbreviated version of the title in Japanese), or Bakarina(a nickname for the kind but dimwitted heroine).

While there are various types of short titles with various meanings, long titles are almost invariably a summary of the work itself. Take, for example, the story of Moll Flanders, the full title of which is, "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums." Calling it "Moll Flanders" would provide a simple and succinct description of who the story is about.

Long titles also generally lack the meaning associated with their shorter counterparts. For example, Chapter 429 of One Piece is titled, "Utter Defeat," which would imply that the Straw Hat Pirates, who are in a desperate situation, are defeated, but in reality, Marine Admiral Aokiji utters the phrase to remark that this is a defeat for the Marines. The equivalent anime episode, Episode 330, has the entirely unambiguous, "Everyone Makes A Great Escape! The Road To Victory Is For The Pirates!"

Like the above examples, long titles often tend to spoil the work in question. Moll Flanders' title describes the course her life takes; in fact, the Book A Minute abridged summary of the book basically uses the title, rephrased in plain English, as the summary. The One Piece episode title also spoils the ending in the episode (although to be fair, there are similar examples with manga titles, like "The Death of [Character]" in the Marineford arc).

Perhaps Mark Twain's remark that he wrote a long letter because he didn't have time to write a short one applies here, since it's easy to make a long title that summarizes the work and difficult to make a short but meaningful title.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Hero Academia: Why Aizawa's Quirk Test Makes Little Sense

 In My Hero Academia, Shota "Eraser Head" Aizawa is best known for two things- putting rationality before all else and believing that only those who have what it takes to be heroes belong at the exclusive hero course of U.A. High School, where Aizawa teaches. As such, it may come as a surprise that Aizawa's personal Quirk Test is rather poorly designed and a subpar judge of a hero's potential. I will look at the test and where the problems come up, and will primarily base it off of the manga. The Test First, let's provide an overview of the test itself. Aizawa's Quirk Test is held on the first day of class, at a time when students otherwise would be attending the entrance ceremony or having guidance meetings with the faculty, both of which Aizawa derides as wastes of time. Instead, he tests all 20 of his students' Quirks in a multiple-event test of physical fitness, and says that the lowest-ranking student will be expelled. He silences protests by mentioni...
Read more

Octopath Traveler: Fixing The Gate Of Finis

Spoilers for Octopath Traveler follow  Octopath Traveler is mostly an enjoyable throwback to classic RPGs, but not without its share of flaws. Its greatest flaw, apart from the lackluster overarching story and few interactions between the travelers, is the final dungeon, the Gate of Finis, which is accessed by completing each traveler's story and a few side quests. The dungeon has only two large rooms and features eight rematches with bosses- the Chapter 4 bosses for Ophilia, Therion, Olberic and Primrose, as well as the Chapter 3 bosses for Cyrus, Alfyn, Therion and H'aanit- before the two-phase final battle. It's impossible to save or leave once you enter, and if you are defeated, you must start the dungeon over again. This, combined with the underwhelming conclusion to the main storyline, makes it the weakest part of the game, and I will look at how it can be improved. As you can see, this blog entry involves Octopath Traveler's endgame, and will naturally involve sp...
Read more

Lost in Translation: Kaguya-Sama's English Manga Localization

This blog entry contains Kaguya-Sama spoilers. Japanese honorifics can say a lot about social interactions, which is why it can be helpful for manga translators to leave them in, or at least have a good equivalent way of conveying the nuances of social interaction. Unfortunately, the localizers of Kaguya-Sama not only did not include honorifics, but changed the way characters addressed each other without realizing what significance their changes had on the story. Here are some examples involving the title character Kaguya Shinomiya, how her ways of addressing others sets the terms for her interpersonal relations and how the localizers fail to convey nuances. First is Kaguya's friend Chika Fujiwara. In the original Japanese, Fujiwara calls Kaguya "Kaguya-san," while Kaguya calls Fujiwara "Fujiwara-san." The fact that Kaguya uses Fujiwara's surname when Fujiwara uses her first name implies that perhaps Kaguya is less invested in their friendship than Fujiwara ...
Read more