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Incomprehension's balloons in manga 2018/8/5 00:31
Hello everyone, I wanted to ask you something that could be beyond your knowledge, and for this I apologize in advance.

I'd like to work on a thesis on how mangas in original language deform balloons to depict cases of lack of understanding. The cases examined are:

- gaijin who doesn't speak a good Japanese
- gaijin who speaks English or mother tongue and the Japanese listener doesn't understand
- Japanese who tries to speak in foreign language and ends up messing with it
Dialectal forms of Japanese are excluded. (eg Osaka dialect used by yakuza)

As an example I was given an extract of "Cooking Papa". (the strange balloon where it says "okkey ha"): https://i.redd.it/d19a01y843e11.jpg

Unfortunately the Japanese Institute of Culture based in my country didn't give me any good help and I would like to know if you can think of some episode taken from manga or some idea on sites and forums in which I could ask for something like that.

Thank you for the availability and I apologize again for asking something a bit particular.
by Godot88  

Re: Incomprehension's balloons in manga 2018/8/6 05:40
In this instance the cartoonist wanted to show that this person spoke a non-Japanese language (the other guy interpreted it into Japanese for the boy). So the cartoonist shaded the balloon and made the words larger so the readers cannot decipher it, just as the boy could not.

To express someone speaking another language, I have seen the balloon filled with non-descript line ( like ~~~~~~~~~~~ ), or with something like ‚؁`‚η‚Ψ‚η‚؁``‚η‚Ψ‚η(elongated version of Japanese onomatopoeia ‚Ψ‚η‚Ψ‚ηfor fluent speech, something like "bla bla bla" without any negative connotation), both in handwriting like the example you have.

So you are looking for other actual examples of manga frames like the one you've got?
by AK rate this post as useful

Re: Incomprehension's balloons in manga 2018/8/6 05:51
Yes, I'm looking for some other examples like the one I have. Thank you.
by Godot88 rate this post as useful

Re: Incomprehension's balloons in manga 2018/8/6 11:11
The manga Isabella Bird in Wonderland / ‚Σ‚΅‚¬‚̍‘‚Μƒo[ƒh has several examples in its first volume.
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