So I’ve only noticed this so far by watching Detective Conan episodes. The characters would say, “I’ll send him a mail later.” The subtitle would show “email.” And another episode where they’re talking about the phone number of the boss of the Black Organisation. Conan is saying numbers, not an email address, however, he’s still using “mail address.”
So what’s the idea? Because if someone tells me mail or e-mail, the first thing I would thought of is, “Oh, I need an email address for that, not a phone number.” Or perhaps they can send email to someone’s phone number? Or perhaps he meant mail as in messenging apps like kakao talk or messenger which you will need internet to send mail?
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メールずる (“mail”) is kind of a catch-all term for messaging. I think it dates back to the pre/early smartphone days when people started having internet on their cell phones. At the time, you’d have a cell phone email address, like [whatever]@docomo.ne.jp or whatever your cell provider’s domain was.
Line. It’s all about Line.
メール means email, so the subtitles were accurate.
I remember seeing detective conan around growing up in the late 90s / early 2000s, so i think its also a very outdated anime, I haven’t actually seen it, so i can’t say for sure, but even generally, I probably wouldn’t trust anime with a manga or other origin older than 2015 with learning technology culture.
Ik for fact LINE is huge in Japan for messaging culture, which is basically the exact same as aim was in its hay-day, but with stickers.
It’s a word left over from before when you’d get an email with your phone plan and it was used in the phone messaging. You’ll stil get those emails but nobody really uses them. Instead now everyone uses the mobile app “Line.” However, the phrasing “メール” stuck. Now when people are talking about messaging someone using Line they will often use the word メール.