English-based Japanese loanwords are a double-edged sword. While on one hand they can give English-speakers a free ticket to understanding words used in Japanese, on the other hand Japanese loanwords can sometimes be different than their original counterparts, whether it is a minor nuance or a huge gap.
In this post I’d like to go over アピール (apiiru), a loanword I came across the other day that was a bit tricky to understand in context.
At first you might think this word is from the English “appear”, but it’s actually based on the English word “appeal”, which has the nuance of either being a strong request or the quality of being attractive or interesting (ex: “the appeal of a foreign culture”). However, I found that being familiar with these definitions still left me a bit confused with how the word was being used in Japanese.
For example, in a recent anime I was watching, when one character did a special ability to try and take down his opponent (and failed), the opponent said:
- それ、何のアピール？ (Sore, nan no apiiru?)
The English translation (I had subtitles on since I was watching it with someone else) didn’t really make sense given the situation, so I don’t think the translator really understood it either.
To understand this usage better, let’s look at the phrase 自己アピール (jiko apiiru), which literally means “self-appeal”. This word is often used in the context of a job interview, where the person being interviewed is trying their best to focus on their strong points. You could say they are trying to appeal to their strengths, in the sense of trying to make themselves attractive by utilizing those strengths.
Interestingly, if you do a Google search for this phrase you’ll find a bunch of people referring to pictures of their animals doing something cute or interesting. (Example)
In light of these examples now we can better interpret the anime line “何のアピール”. While literally this means “What appeal?”, translating this literally doesn’t really convey the proper nuance. If you think about the animal example, you will see that the speaker of this line is actually trying to be sarcastic and/or insult the other person. They are belittling the person by implicating they are trying to appeal to something great about themselves, whereas in reality it’s falling flat and has no effect. It’s sarcasm in a sense because that person is doing a technique not to be “cool” or “attractive”, but to take down an enemy.
It’s a little tricky to capture this nuance in English, but here are some candidate translations:
- What kind of trick is that?
- What are you trying to do?
- I’m not impressed.
- How cute.
- Nice try.
Have you ever come across any lines in anime that didn’t make sense to you? Let me know in the comments.