Well, I didn't think so at all, and neither did any of my Japanese friends and family here in Japan. But you also have to keep in mind that Rodriguez is indeed a typical "foreigner".
Japanese is my mother tongue, and the family name "Inoue" is still common today in Japan. I myself have had a few friends by that name. And I would say that the pronunciation of the "ou" part, in daily conversation, is sort of a mixture of "ou" and "o" and "u". It's not a clear "ou" to begin with.
Also, Rodriguez is Portuguese. His English even has an accent implying that the English dialog is supposed to be Portuguese. He's not used to the local language yet, especially because he doesn't have much chance to practice it, keeping in mind the harsh environment he is given. Besides, even today, most people who come to a foreign country as an adult for the first time, cannot get rid of his/her accent as long as (s)he lives.
Keeping those things unconsciously in mind, his "Inoue" didn't bug me at all. But if I am to say, seeing the movie twice, I can recall that his "Inoue" was kind of like how a Frenchman today would pronounce the name. We have a lot of French celebrities speaking Japanese on Japanese TV (although we don't have many Portuguese celebrities here).
In any case, it's not at all like pronouncing "Yuko" as "Yoko" (which I get all the time from foreign people!). I thought it was a realistic way of pronouncing a Japanese word without making anything confusing. Of course, if Rodriguez was supposed to have grown up in Japan, I would totally agree with you (and we do certainly see that kind of mistake all the time in other movies), but his character is the contrary.
All in all, as far as I know, the Japanese audience in general seems to see this film as an unbelievably well-made one in terms of culture, language and behavior. We probably owe it to the un-credited Japanese crew.
Just my two cents.
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throwaway50000
8 years ago
Maybe I missed something in your original post. I never read the novel so it's possible I misunderstood your reference. I thought you meant to say that all the pronunciations were "spot-on", which is why I brought that up.
I agree with you though. I wouldn't expect him to have native-level pronunciation. I just thought it was funny because it's true. Not laughing *at* him for having the accent so much as laughing at myself in a way because I find these things so noticeable.
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YukoK
8 years ago
throwaway50000,
I think I now have a better understanding of what you meant.
Actually, the novel is written in the form of postal mails written by Rodrigues in supposedly his own language. Of course, all of that is written in Japanese on the pages of the original novel, but the Japanese names such as Kichijiro or Inoue are written in what we call "katakana" instead of "kanji", implying that the writer (Rodrigues) was very foreign to these names. The Japanese subtitles of Scorsese's movie follow suit. Perhaps the foreign accent of the names were even deliberate.
Oh! I just remembered that Rodrigues himself mentions in the novel that he finds "funny" the nouns that the villagers have borrowed from the Portuguese language, such as konhisan meaning confession and haraiso meaning paradise. He also mentions on that paragraph that the Japanese names are "difficult to remember" as well as their faces "which all look the same". Yes, like you said it is indeed funny because it's true and universal :)
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