I’ve been watching the [Fullmetal Alchemist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist:_Brotherhood) anime and noticed, that Edward’s arm prosthesis is called オートメイル, whereas in the subtitles it was written as 機械鎧. I couldn’t find this exact word with such reading in the dictionary. As far as I know, there is a [kind of words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateji), that utilize kanji but keep the borrowed reading, but with this word it doesn’t seem like the case, because there is no such word in the dictionary. I think I miss out on something. Did the creator of the story assign such reading? Is it common in Japanese to do such things?
8 comments
IME it is somewhat common in Manga. 機械 with the furigana of マシン, for example.
I think it adds clarity to the made up words in the case you describe to have both for context.
Japanese can be a little flexible sometimes – if you see a word written in kanji with a furigana reading that “doesn’t match”, it’s like, an alternate way to read it. Or it’s a way to introduce an unfamiliar loanword, waseieigo word, or invented sci-fi word.
Like in English if you write auto-mail there’s a couple of things it could mean but you have a fairly good idea because the components are English. In Japanese you might know the components but just in case you don’t, here’s a kanji equivalent.
its not ateji but a literary resource, quite common on fiction.
its easy to see words with english katakana as furigana but with the japanese meaning in kanji, as a way to translate itself without having to remind the reader.
a Japanese reader may not remember what “オートメール” means, its foreign,”automail”, hard to remember or assosiate it with a meaning. but then it sees 機械鎧 (mechanical armor) and then gets the meaning
Yes, this is common, and it’s called 義訓（ぎくん）. [Japanese with Anime has a good writeup on it with plenty of examples](https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/gikun.html).
It’s a common thing in manga to give a name in a foreign-ish language (often English- or German-derived) and assign fiat kanji to it that give the reader a better idea of what it’s supposed to be.
In series like FMA or Gundam, it’s understood that the furigana reading is the actual word, while the kanji are descriptive.
In subculture medium it’s common to “misread” things like this. Sometimes is to make more context, but it can also make for some ironically comedic moments, where the peonounciation and writing means exact opposite things. If we stretch this far enough we can even make up emojis pronunciations eg 🤣しぬほどわらった
It’s like how in the Raildex series they use the furigana レールガン for 超電磁砲 (Railgun). Author’s discretion to decide.
On the flip side, there are Kira-kira names where parents name their children using Kanji for names but with weird pronunciations.
I was wondering whether it has to do something with the way subtitles are made, idk what the process is in anime…
I know that in regular films, for dubbing, the subtitles often get translated first, and then the voice actor has some freedom to change the wording as long as it does not change the meaning, in order to make the sound fit better to mouth movements.
Could that be the case when anime is drawn first and then audio is recorded at a later point?