PEOPLE DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE ON MACROSS 7
This is something that should be pretty obvious to a more perceptive viewer, but as it's apparent from this entire website, I like to talk, and I decided why not talk about all the clues that point at the fact that Japanese is not actually the primary language in the colony.
When you look at City 7 and the other ships, all the signs tend to be written in English, with the roman alphabet. All books, documents or disc titles are also written in English, and characters sign their names using the roman alphabet. This is clearly not due to localisation, as the same English words are present in the raw unsubbed Japanese Blu-ray edition. It's obvious that Macross 7 is not a Japanese vessel as it is, as UN Spacy is not a Japanese faction, it’s United Nations. There's plenty of characters with English names on board, ranging from main (Roy Lovelock, Mylene Jenius) to side characters (Alice Holiday, Sally Saint Ford, Bobby, Honey). This is something that's very clearly present already in the first Macross (Roy Focker, Claudia LaSalle, Bruno J. Global), so it's not an uncommon or new occurrence. Many named objects also have English names (Valkyrie, Battroid, Speaker Pods, Sound Energy...). Aside from that, the way characters in Macross 7 speak could be a clue that they don't actually speak Japanese. Many characters actively use English words in casual conversation, and honorifics are only used in instances where someone speaking in English would also refer to another person as Mr/Miss. Other than in those times, characters tend to refer to each other by first name, which would be extremely uncommon if they were Japanese. Another interesting thing is Basara's language. He always uses 'omae' to refer to others. Omae is one of many forms of 'you', and it's not a very polite one. It's actually somewhat rude and often used for those who are beneath you in status or age. It's also very masculine as women generally don't use it, and the only occasions where it can be seen as even remotely decent, is when joking with friends. And yet, Basara uses only 'omae' exclusively, even in his most tender and loving songs. That's why I think Basara also doesn’t actually speak Japanese. Him using extremely casual Japanese language in the show is more an indication of how casually and carelessly he carries himself, rather than of how rude he is, since no one really gets offended by how he speaks (unless he says something that would also be considered offensive in English; such as calling Mylene a kid, and Milia a grandma). |
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Some additional fun facts:
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