Naruto and the "Believe it!" Controversy

As a self-styled grammar ninja, I think it's about time I post about both grammar and ninjas. Okay, you caught me—it's only tangentially about ninjas and mostly about grammar. I'm going to use the power of grammar (it's a lot like the heart of the cards) to clear up an age-old controversy among anime fans and, with any luck, illustrate some deficiencies in the state of Japanese language instruction. Anime can be exceptionally educational, even when it's not meant to be.

Background

Naruto has been one of the most popular and successful anime series in America and presumably also in Japan. According to wikipedia, the original show ran for 220 episodes excluding movies and OVAs (original video animations [anime jargon]). After Naruto ended, a sequel series called Naruto: Shippuuden went on the air. To date that show has broadcast 320 episodes (see wikipedia).

It's fairly common in anime for characters to be given idiosyncratic speech (sometimes just an overused word but other times a general pattern or style of speech) to create an impression of uniqueness and to facilitate characterization. Naruto, the protagonist/main character of the Naruto shows, was given a catch phrase of sorts (it's much more in the vane of an overused word/phrase): He would very often end his sentences with or say「だってばよ」(da tteba yo).

The phrase was evidently not well understood among the fansub community (I also did not understand it when I first encountered it) and remains a mystery to most anime fans and fansubbers today, as evidenced by the discussions here, here, and here. Many if not all fansubs avoided the problem by simply tacking「だってばよ」onto the English translation of Naruto's lines whenever it occured, rendering it "dattebayo". Now, that kind of thing is not unusual: Japanese titles and forms of address (chan, san, sama, dono, O-nii-chan etc.) are often left untranslated (Funimation's dub of Ouran High School Host Club went so far as to make them part of the English dialogue). Leaving bits of Japanese in the subtitles/translation is in many ways a lazy translation decision (possibly even a poor or incorrect one), but it has been heartily embraced among many anime fans. I think it's because it gives a sense of connection to and understanding of Japanese culture and because the knowledge can be reincorporated into various geek subcultures. Regardless, "dattebayo" took on cult status among fans, and a fansubbing group even adopted the phrase as its name ([infamous?] Dattebayo Fansubs).

I don't know who to credit for this image, but it isn't me—believe it!

When the dubbed version of Naruto was released in America, all hell broke loose. In the course of its English adaptation, Viz Media chose to translate "dattebayo" as "Believe it!". A nerd rage fest erupted among fans, who complained that Viz was making the show too kiddy and lame, and that "Believe it!" was stupid, annoying, and otherwise lame. Fans also adamantly insisted that "Believe it!" is not what "dattebayo" means (Don't ask me where their confidence came from). You can query the internet to get a taste of the various reactions. "Believe it!" became a became a standard/default criticism of the show. It was kind of a big deal—it eventually became a meme. I bet that even now, years later, it would not be very difficult to start a flame war over it.

Dattebayo Myths

Apparently a mythos has developed among fans about what "dattebayo" means/is. Much of it is incorrect. Here are the main contentions, which I gleaned from the three links above because I found them pretty representative and reminiscent of what I've seen over the years.

• "Dattebayo" is a verbal tic
• "Dattebayo" doesn't mean anything
• "Dattebayo" doesn't have a literal meaning or doesn't have a literal English translation
• "Dattebayo" is one word/unit
• "Dattebayo" is a made up word/unit
• "Dattebayo" is related to the word "datte" meaning "but"
• "Dattebayo" doesn't not mean "Believe it!" because "Believe it!" is used to fill up time and match mouth movements

Unfortunately for those invested in the mythos, that's all wrong.

My problem with the verbal tic explanation is that to me a verbal tic is something that is involuntary or compulsive, not merely something that someone says more than others. However, Tv Tropes uses verbal tic as terminology for idiosyncratic speech phenomena and lists dattebayo" as an example. Since you can't argue with a tautological definition and in order to avoid sophistry, I'll just say that "dattebayo" is just as voluntary as the rest of Naruto's speech and leave it at that. The grammar discussion will dispel the other myths.

Grammar Time

It's no wonder fansubbers did not understand "dattebayo"—it's full of wacky grammar stuff that isn't explained well in classes or books. This analysis is based on my observations from watching a LOT of shows. None of the books I have right now support it (or refute it), so if you find any sources let me know. Interestingly, the current entry 8 for "dattebayo" in Urban Dictionary breaks "dattebayo" up into all the right parts, but many of the details beyond that are wrong.

"Dattebayo" is not one word but three (da, tteba, and yo), though I'll analyze it by morpheme. The morphemes are da, tte, ba, and yo.

Da:Da is the "informal"/"plain" form of "desu", which means "be" (Japanese has slightly different verb forms for different levels of formality/politeness). Japanese verbs don't exhibit person (1st, 2nd, 3rd person), so they don't change no matter what the subject is. Japanese also generally doesn't mark the future tense, so "present tense" verbs can also be future tense. Thus da can mean is, are, am, and "will be".

Tte:Tte is a contraction that has undergone at least partial grammaticalization. Tte is probably a contraction of to and some form of iu (say/speak/tell/call), though there are some other possibilities. For our purposes, the Japanese word to is translated as "that" or changes the translation of iuu. It's not clear whether tte is a contraction of "to iuu" or "to itte" or "to ie", but it clearly displays special grammatical properties of each of them and of its own: For instance, tte can be used as a replacement for to in many contexts, it can end a sentence, it can be used in front of a noun without no or any verbal connector, it can be used with no as if it were a verb, and it can mark the topic of the sentence. Because of those wacky properties, tte has many correct "literal" translations, but in "dattebayo" it only means say/tell. Here are some example sentences from「どんなときどう使う日本語表現文型辞曲」(When and How to Use It: A Dictionary of Japanese Expressions and Sentence Patterns)to illustrate some of those grammatically special usages of tte. As usual, the English translations are mine.

Sentence with tte	Sentence without tte
後藤さんは明日来られないって。 Gotou-san wa asu korarenai tte. "I hear he can't come tomorrow." "Mr. Gotou said he can't come tomorrow."	後藤さんは明日来られないと聞いた。 (Gotou-san wa asu korarenai to kiita.) "I heard Mr. Gotou can't come tomorrow." 後藤さんは明日来られないと言った。 (Gotou-san wa asu korarenai to itta.) "Mr. Gotou said he can't come tomorrow."
A:PCって何ですか。 A:PC tte nan desu ka. A:"What's a 'PC'?" A:"What do you mean by 'PC'?" B:パソコンのことですよ。 B: pasokon no koto desu. B: "It means personal computer."	A:PCとは何ですか。 PC towa nan desu ka. A:"What's a 'PC'?" A:"What do you mean by 'PC'?"
子どもを持つのって、大変ですか。 kodomo wo motsu no tte, taihen desu ka. "Is having children hard?"	子どもを持つというのは大変ですか。 kodomo wo motsu to iu no wa taihen desu ka. "Is having children hard?"
これは村上春樹って作家が書いた「海辺のカフカ」っていう小説です。 kore wa murakami haruki tte sakka ga kaita "umibe no kafuka" tte iu shousetsu desu. "This is a novel called Kafka on the Shore, which an author called Haruki Murakami wrote."	これは村上春樹という作家が書いた「海辺のカフカ」という小説です。 kore wa murakami haruki to iu sakka ga kaita "umibe no kafuka" to iu shousetsu desu. "This is a novel called Kafka on the Shore, which an author called Haruki Murakami wrote."

This playlist contains several clips with various uses of tte. If you'd like to read the dialogue as well as listen click the Youtube icon in the player. That will take you to the playlist on Youtube, where the dialogue is transcribed in the description.



Ba:Ba is a bound morpheme (i.e. not a word in isolation) that means if and usually only attaches to a certain verb form (referred to as base 4 in some books). It's one of at least four ways to express if. Normally iu in ba form would be "ieba", which is one of the reasons it's possible that tte is a contraction of "to ie". Since tte can be used interchangeably with to, "tteba" it could also be a contraction of "to ieba" (say "to ieba" several times quickly and without articulating the vowels very clearly) or of "tte ieba".

From a non-native speaker's pesrpective, the difference in sound and form between "tteba" and "to ieba" is fairly large and is probably why the fansub community didn't widely recognize it (though of course a deficiency in Japanese instruction played a large part). The fact that tte is not generally classified as a verb further obscures the equivalence.

Dialogue Click for Romaji Click for Kanji/Kana Palm:最近気付くと包丁（を）持って、それをじっと見詰めて落ち着く自分がいるなって思ってて。これ、ほぼ限界に近いってことだから、手遅れになる前の今なら逃げても追っかけてまで殺そうと思わないと思うの。 Killua:これさえなけりゃ。 Bisky:本当に美味しい御飯なんだけどねえ。 Gon:逃げないってば。何度も言ってるでしょう Palm: Saikin kidzuku to houchou (wo) motte, sore wo jitto mitsumete ochitsuku jibun ga iruna tte omottete. kore, hobo genkai ni chikai tte koto dakara, teokure ni naru mae no ima nara nigete mo okkakete made korosou to omowanai to omou no. Killu: kore sae nakerya. Bisky: hontou ni oishii gohan na n da kedo nee. Gon: nigenai tteba. nandomo itteru deshou.

Dialogue Click for Romaji Click for Kanji/Kana Earth: なんだ、あれは。 Elle:一体なんですの。 Sunbeam:馬鹿か。 Umagon:メロメ。 Kyanchome:やっぱり。 Folgore:あ、あいつだ。 Kyanchome and Folgore:キース！ Ellie:なに？あの方と知り合いなのか。 Sauza:来寄るな。 Sunbeam:短い付き合いだった。 Kyanchome:敵だよ。 Folgore: 滅茶苦茶強いんだってば。 Ellie:入るぞ。 Earth:よい。 Kyanchome:無視しないでよ。 Earth: na n da are wa. Elle: ittai na n desu no Sunbeam: baka ka Umagon: me ro me Kyanchome: yappari Folgore: a aitsu da Kyanchome and Folgore: kiisu Ellie: nani? ano kata to shiriai na no ka Sauza: kiyoru na Sunbeam: mijikai tsukiai datta Kyanchome: teki da yo Folgore: mechakucha tsuyoi n da tteba Ellie: hairuzo Earth: yoi Kyanchome: mushi shinaide yo

Yo: When used at the end of a sentence yo conveys emphasis and/or strong emotion. Although it is often explained as being equivalent to an exclamation point, that is not the full story. In spoken English, the emphasis yo conveys can be reflected in tone of voice and/or in word emphasis patterns. In written English it can be translated with any device that conveys stronger tone or different word emphasis (an exclamation point, italics, bold, capital letters, or nothing). Sometimes yo is only about emphasis and does not involve particularly strong emotion.

In the first episode of 絶縁のテンペスト (Zetsuen no Tempesuto) (English title: Blast of Tempest), Yoshino, one of the protagonists, is reading or translating into English out loud as part of class. While he does a gaggle of girls gossips in hushed voices about him. As he reaches the end of a section they wonder whether he has a girlfriend. Finishing the section he coolly replies out loud, as if he were still reading for class, "iru yo." (I do.).

Dialogue Click for Romaji Click for Kanji/Kana Girl Gaggle: 吉野って割りとよくねえ？ まあね。真広いなけりゃただの人だし。 可愛いんだし。とりあえず言っとけば？ でも、さ、彼女いるって噂、聞いたんだけど。 Yoshino: いるよ。 Girl Gaggle: Yoshino tte wari to yokunee? maa ne. Mahiro inakerya tada no hito da shi. kawaii n da shi. toriaezu ittokeba? demo, sa, kanojo iru tte uwasa, kiitandakedo. Yoshino: iru yo.

When Naruto says "dattebayo", however, yo conveys strong emotion and basically means exclamation point.

"Dattebayo"

Putting all that together we can see that "dattebayo" does have a meaning and a literal translation: "If I say it is!". Because Japanese operates according to different rules for what constitutes a fragment and when the rest of the idea is implied, and because tense works differently, we can modify that meaning to "If I say/tell you it is/will be, [then it is/will be]". Now, since English doesn't follow the same fragment/implication rules as Japanese, Viz could not have used the literal translation to make a quality dub, so it had to come up with a more idiomatic English equivalent. The less-literal, more-idiomatic translation options include "Count on it!", "Bet on it!", "I'm telling you ([x])", "I said so, didn't I?", and "Because I said so."—depending on context. Turns out "Believe it!" was a brilliant translation, not only because it could be used to cover extra lip movements but also because it matches the Japanese meaning naturally in a large number of contexts. だってばよ！

Update

When I first wrote this I mentioned that there were other options besides the possible contractions of to and iu. Since then I have thought of some major possibilities that deserve mention. One is a contraction of to and te (The same て in the て form). Another would be that tte is a phonetic change of a probably different te (the type that appears in "te na wake de" which has the same meaning as "to iu wake de"). It's clear from older Japanese forms and from words and expressions that survived into modern Japanese (though they might be considered archaic) that ba can attach to adverbs/adverbial phrases. That makes these other possibilities reasonable in the absence of more information.