"gozaru" ? ("Rurouni Kenshin" Question)
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Sun_Wukong
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"gozaru" ? ("Rurouni Kenshin" Question)
Julian may be able to answer this one. Anyone who's seen RK at all knows Kenshin ends each sentence with "gozaru". Media Blasters translates it into "that i am" or something to that extent. I've heard it cant even be translated into English because it doesnt mean anything, its just a way of talking. If this is true, why did Media Blasters bother to add anything in?
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VegettoEX
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I believe there's actually a decent description in the liner notes of the first DVD volume. I don't have that in front of me, but anyway...
I believe it's just a really, really, archaic way of ending sentences in an extremely polite way. Kenshin's character has taken such an extreme change of personality since his Hitokiri days before the Meiji Restoration / Revolution (hah, I wrote a paper four years ago on whether or not it was a Revolution vs. Restoration...), that his actual way of speaking has changed, as well.
I believe it's just a really, really, archaic way of ending sentences in an extremely polite way. Kenshin's character has taken such an extreme change of personality since his Hitokiri days before the Meiji Restoration / Revolution (hah, I wrote a paper four years ago on whether or not it was a Revolution vs. Restoration...), that his actual way of speaking has changed, as well.
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TripleRach
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Actually, he ends his sentences with "de gozaru". Gozaru is one of the old archaic Group-IV verbs that are only used today in their polite forms (which, in the case of gozaru, is gozaimasu). Gozaru is an honorific existential verb, which means "de gozaru" is an honorific version of "de aru", which is a longer version of the copula "da".
Err, anyway, to use "de gozaru" is to basically humble yourself and talk up to everyone else. It's the way all samurai spoke. Cyan spoke like that in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VI, though it was translated into Old English in the US version (IE "thou") rather than "that I am" and whatnot.
It's noteworthy that when Kenshin gets all mean and serious (I don't know what people call that), he stops saying "de gozaru" and uses standard mean, tough guy language, and calls himself "ore" instead of "sessha".
Err, anyway, to use "de gozaru" is to basically humble yourself and talk up to everyone else. It's the way all samurai spoke. Cyan spoke like that in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VI, though it was translated into Old English in the US version (IE "thou") rather than "that I am" and whatnot.
It's noteworthy that when Kenshin gets all mean and serious (I don't know what people call that), he stops saying "de gozaru" and uses standard mean, tough guy language, and calls himself "ore" instead of "sessha".