Anything for a buck.
Translation is a thankless job in that you’re probably never going to please everybody. Even the work of translating a movie title, which might seem simple at first, is fraught with all kinds of potential pitfalls. The director wants to keep the artistic integrity intact, the studio wants to ensure it’s understandable and attractive enough to get people to watch it, and the audience wants an authentic experience without feeling pandered to.
Money tends to make the world go round, so you’ll often see translations lean towards the studio’s wishes of maximizing profit at the expense of rationality. A famous example of this is Napoleon Dynamite, which was titled Bus Otoko (Bus Man) in Japan, despite a bus only appearing for about five minutes of the film. The reason was that a popular TV show by the name of Densha Otoko (Train Man) was airing at the same time, so they hoped fans of the show would want to see something similar.
Ultimately, it was a disaster and has gone down in history as one of the most horribly retitled movies in Japan. Fox Searchlight Pictures even apologized for it and re-released it on DVD with the original title.
Studios in Japan still haven’t learned their lesson though. In 2022, the Canadian horror film Anything for Jackson was released on video here, but was largely overlooked. It’s a complex business and hard to say definitively why, but the incredibly clunky Japanese title of Akumakan: Shiryo no Sei nara, Yuzai, which would translate to House of Devils: If it’s the Ghost’s Fault, then Guilty, might have had something to do with it.
▼ Trailer for House of Devils: If it’s the Ghost’s Fault, then Guilty
It certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it does at least tie in vaguely with the plot, aside from the courtroom verdict of “Guilty.”
The reason for this is actually very similar to what happened to Napoleon Dynamite. Around the same time, there was another popular horror movie called Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It which was translated into Japanese as Shiryokan: Akuma no Sei nara, Muzai or literally House of Ghosts: If it’s the Devil’s Fault, then Not Guilty.
▼ Trailer for House of Ghosts: If it’s the Devil’s Fault, then Not Guilty, in which you can easily see that not only did the people selling House of Devils: If it’s the Ghost’s Fault, then Guilty not only rip off the title, but they even made a near exact copy of the poster art
The translation for the Conjuring film is understandable since it’s a series of films and there is a legal aspect to it, but when applied to Anything for Jackson, it’s nonsensical, and the similarities to Conjuring are so laughably obvious that you’d have to assume it’s a parody or straight-to-video rip-off, like Alien vs. Avatar.
This was recently brought to light on Japanese social media and went viral after one Twitter user recalled posting about what a shame it was that such a good movie was stuck with such a derivative title. They said that at the time, someone connected to Anything for Jackson in Canada replied in enthusiastic agreement. Others shared their thoughts in comments too, with varying opinions on whether these kinds of titles help or hurt the film.
“That’s sad. I guess there were business reasons for it.”
“I thought I heard somewhere the movie titles in Japan are written by advertising firms.”
“I guess if it catches your eye, it’s successful.”
“I saw that and avoided it because of the rip-off title, but if it’s good, I’ll check it out.”
“Would you have watched it with the original title? No, you wouldn’t have.”
“Titles like that make it sound amateurish, so I avoid them.”
“That title is crap… written by copywriters with no interest in film.”
“The original title wasn’t all that good.”
“Japanese titles used to be good, but now they care more about misleading people than taste.”
Back when the movie first came out on video in Japan, someone reviewed it on the movie website Eiga.com, saying that they originally thought it was a parody of Conjuring, but were pleasantly surprised to find it was much better than that. They also say that they probably never would have watched it if it didn’t have that rip-off title, and point out that in a strange way, it sort of captures the essence of the movie.
Anything for Jackson is about a couple who resort to a satanic ritual to bring their grandson back to life. In the same way, the reviewer argues that the Japanese distributor was willing to do “anything for this movie,” even if it meant resorting to devilish marketing practices. I suppose a case could be made for that, even if it overlooks the basic moral of the story that such practices are bad and will ultimately bring about all kinds of unspeakable horrors to those who attempt them.
Source: Twitter/@yabuinu_dojin, Hachima Kiko, Eiga.com
Featured image: YouTubeプルーク公式チャンネル
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