Is there a reason why the Japanese dub of Disney movies change the titles to be more descriptive?

7 comments

1. Different markets, different conventions.

   See also: Studio Ghibli movies retitled for Western audiences.

2. This is common with modern movies for kids with — and this is a notable point — single-word titles, two words at most.

   This appears to be most common in films from Pixar and Illumination. Dreamworks films are more likely to keep the title closer to, if not the same as, the English version.

   In all instances I’ve seen (save two), the new title has been the name of the protagonist plus one major element in the story.

   A few you didn’t list:

   * Brave –> メリダとおそろしの森 (Merida and the Forest of Fear)
   * Up –> カールじいさんの空飛ぶ家 (Grampa Carl’s Flying House)
   * The Lorax –> ロラックスおじさんの秘密の種 (Old Man Lorax’s Secret Seed)
   * Despicable Me –> 怪盗グルーの月の泥棒 (Master Thief Gru Who Stole the Moon)
   * Despicable Me 2 –> 怪盗グルーとミニオン危機一発 (Master Thief Gru’s Minions in Danger)
   * Despicable Me 3 –> 怪盗グルーとミニオン大脱走 (Master Thief Grui’s Minions on the Lam)

   And two that don’t follow the trend, but still have major changes:

   * Coco –> リメンバーミー (Remember Me)
   * Inside Out –> インサイドヘッド (Inside Head)

3. The Disney thing of having one word titles started with Tangled. It was in direct response to the failure of The Princess and The Frog. Disney saw the title being a major contributing factor to it’s poor box office performance.

   (Completely ignoring that most audiences dont want to see a fairy tale set in the Louisiana bayou. I say this as a guy who thoroughly enjoyed the film and was ecstatic to see a new 2D animated Disney film. Also it had a dope villain.)

   They decided that having the word “princess” in the title turned away potential audience members (E.g., young boys.)

   So from that point on they began renaming things to avoid having a female name in the title or directly referencing the source material. Hence, Tangled and Frozen. When those became ridiculous smash hits (Especially Frozen) they just continued with the trend rather than chancing it.

4. Foreign movie titles are often changed (not merely translated) in Japan. It actually used to be much worse, and it used to be quite hard to find movies in video stores just based on English titles.
   In general, the Japanese title tends to tell what the movie is about more than the English title does. For example, that movie series about driving cars is “Wild Speed”, and not “Fast and the Furious”.

5. This isn’t exclusive to Japan. A lot of movies get modified or expanded titles when marketed to different countries, even movies for adults. It’s most common with kids’ movies to give some more context of the plot within the title itself. This even happens with foreign movies marketed in English (eg Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain from France becoming just Amelie in English-speaking markets). I grew up in Brazil and they will completely change titles to where it’s hard to even tie the two titles together (eg The Hangover became Se Beber Não Case “If you drink, don’t get married”).

6. Thanks everyone! I know different markets exist, just wanted to know what about long descriptive titles is appealing to the Japanese audience specifically. I guess it’s also a thing with Japanese light novel titles not just Disney movies

7. I’m taking a complete shot in the dark here, but I work in the theme park industry and have a number of friends/colleagues in Walt Disney Animation; and I *think* I may have heard one of them say it’s because the Japanese have a long history of folklore and the titles are meant to sound like folklore titles.

   I could be *completely* misremembering that, but as someone who’s read a lot of Japanese folk lore, that sounds on point.

   Also, FWIW my favorite Japanese Disney translation is レミーのおいしいレストラン (Ratatouille).