Japanese honorifics between the characters

[Lindsay]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics

I've been wondering lately how the various major characters address one another in the original text. In the English dubs, translations and fanslations, we see Sho and his friends address one another as peers, whilst Agito is more of an acquaintance - the high-achieving older student from a wealthy background. Chronos soldiers and officers frequently denigrate Sho because of his age and civilian status, whilst Odagiri's team - especially Hayami - speak to him respectfully, almost in awe. Meanwhile, Agito goes from being the aloof union president to a comrade in arms, and then to a contemptuous bully and even a murderous foe - but then, following a humiliating duel, positively grovels before Sho's mastery of combat tactics and the Guyver unit. Elsewhere, he's the commander of a paramilitary force consisting of foreigners he shows no hesitation in sacrificing, be they mere humans or formidable Zoanoids - except for his priceless Zoalord lieutenant and their pet scientist. Also, we have Tetsuro and Mizuki, now adults who've been in spectacular battles, playing video games with a frail foreign kid they don't realise to be one of the most powerful entities on Earth. Finally, there are times when powerful individuals are known to their enemies and observers (including the news media) only in their battle form, which does not always reveal their gender. 

Without denigrating the sterling work that's been done by those who have interpreted the original text into English, I'm wondering if there's a load of depth in character relations depicted by hierarchical honorifics that have been approximated in tone and turn of phrase. Do we have any bilingual readers who could illuminate us? 

[Tora Tan]

looking through manga volume 1, it seems generally, everyone addresses sho without an honorific. sho seems to always say tetsuro-san, sho and mizuki don't use honorifics for each other. mizuki calls tetsuro 'aniki' and I believe this stays the same throughout. tetsuro calls mizuki by name without honorific. agito uses kun on occasion for mizuki. the only time mizuki addressed agito in my brief look, she called him kaichou, president.

looking at volume 31, aptom uses no honorific for sho. sho uses no honorific for aptom.  seems there is not much in this book. don't really have time to look through all the others right now.

[TricoBren]

Ah yeah, honorifics are the bane of most professional translators. It was a lenghty post but yeah what Tora Tan says, those are the general ones.

They are of little importance of course when localizing the language in English since we don't have honorifics like Japanese does aside from the general ones for rank and marital status. I wouldn't worry too much about it to be honest, the professional translations you've read have accurately conveyed the intentions of the speakers whilst giving a clear idea of who is above who so it's not really a big deal. Just as long as the honorifics don't get shoehorned needlessly into the english translations i'm happy.

[Tora Tan]

Fortuitously, I received volume 32 in the post today!

So I had a look through and it has the parts where Tetsuro and Mizuki are with Al. and they just call him Al with no honorific.

[Lindsay]

@TricoBren - oh, I agree, translators should mainly interpret and honorifics should mainly inform tone of language - like for instance "Konnichiwa, Sho-kun" as "Ayup, mate*" and "Konnichiwa, Barcas-sensei" as "Welcome, venerable one". I personally prefer it when stories specifically set in Japan retain honorifics without making a big deal of them, but I don't especially mind whichever as long as I can understand the story. Here I'm just interested in knowing how it was originally written  

*(I leave it to US English speakers to interpret my rate good norvern dialect, learn to talk proper like what I do yoff)

[TricoBren]

13 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

I personally prefer it when stories specifically set in Japan retain honorifics without making a big deal of them, but I don't especially mind whichever as long as I can understand the story.

Yes I agree with your comment about translating tone appropriately but I have to say that I can't stand seeing Japanese honorifics in english text. Of course it's a matter of preference but a great many of us in the translation industry view their use as laziness and show a lack of skill. It's so much easier to just leave it as kun and sama or whatever but what this does is assume that all readers (or first time readers) of Japanese comics automatically know the differences. It's mainly amateur/fan translators that like to leave in honorifics too which is why it tends to smack of circle jerking among the community. The worst offender of all would have to be "Aniki" and "Oniisan" though. It blows my mind whenever I see those words in English localizations! At that point it's not translation but transcription. ....Oh man I can already feel that I'm standing on my soapbox now.... Hahahaha!

Anyway, different strokes for different folks I guess but it's telling that the majority of professional, official book releases over the years always omit honorifics. It's because we hate them! Ha!