Terms to Know?

You guys could probably save a lot of time (esp. with tsundere explanations) if you just link to entries on TV Tropes

Anime - Literally, Animation

Manga - Literally, Comics

Yeah, just throwin' that out there.

Hell, no. They are not old-school tsunderes, except maybe Taiga.


It's not as fun that way.

The classic tsundere is Akane Tendo from Ranma 1/2.

Though she's usually tsun-tsun towards Ranma than dere-dere. XD

Well, I was going off the Naru example. Plus I enjoy explaining it sometimes too!

What? if Nagi isn't a tsundere then how is Taiga? They are like the exact same person - maybe due in part to the voices...

Key phrase here is "old school". As in "starts tsuntsun then gradually becomes deredere". The others are the more "modern tsundere" where they "start as tsundere, then become tsunderedere". As in the tsun never goes away, but the dere becomes stronger in "modern tsunderes".

That's a pretty good explanation. I guess it depends on the personalities of the characters on whats considered classic or modern tsundere.

You guys should start naming tsunderes like music genres:

Classic Tsundere: character who warms to another, i.e. Taiga from ToraDora

Nu-Tsundere: newer, schizophrenic-type character who torments other character with mixed messages, hated by tsundere purists, i.e. Asuka Langley from NGE

Progressive Tsundere: character which bears only passing resemblance to original tsundere archetype, despised by tsundere purists, who tout P.T. as the end of the world, i.e. Haruhi Suzumiya

Underground Tsundere: less-known character with mostly un-tsundere qualities, vital to earning tsundere indie cred, i.e. deaf-mute class rep from Katawa Shoujo

Jazz-Punk Fusion Tsundere: character which combines unrelated archetypes for some pointless and arbitrary reason, more tsundere indie cred, i.e. ???

Whenever I come across the terms "loli" and "tsundere", spalose and ZeroOBK come to mind respectively. That's as far as I know regarding those two terms, really.

Overused terms in American Fandom

Kawaii: Cute
Often mispronounced as Kowaii

Baka: Idiot, dummy, stupid

Desu: the verb 'IS'

Onii-san: Older brother
Often mispronounced as Onee-san

Onee-san: Older sister
Often mispronounced as Onii-san

Other Terms

Kowaii: Scary

To be fair, a ton of fansubs (and manga scanlations) have some sort of untranslated thing.

In Naruto, ninjutsu (ninja technique) is often untranslated, and in Bleach, shinigami (God of Death). I think just about every shonen series has at least one term that's left in Japanese, sometimes even in the official English translation. Listing them all here would be a huge job, so I'm not even going to bother.

This may be the most relevant one here on Fakku:

Hentai = animated porn (to English-speaking fans). In Japanese, it actually means "pervert," and it is not used by the Japanese to refer to porn (that is "ecchi" or "ero," I think but am not sure). For some reason, some dude started calling animated porn from Japan hentai, and it's stuck. It's been used too long for things to change.

I'm not sure if this one exists, but...

Usodere A girl who constantly lies to get something, like, a guy?

Yangire - Someone who is viewed as cute, and bubbly, but becomes extremely violent and psychotic when irritated or angered. EX: Rena from Higurashi.

Imouto - Younger sister.

Otouto - Younger brother

That made me laugh for obvious reasons due to the resemblance to 怖い/恐い (scary), which is written with just one i by the way.

Leaving things untranslated > trying to translate to much, there's nothing that's as annoying as people who adds a Mr or another title at every honorifics, or flips all the sentences around or writes something completely different that roughly means the same thing just to get perfect English grammar.

ojisan & obasan which means uncle and aunt but can be used to address older people not to be confused with ojiisan and obaasan which would mean grandfather/monther which also can be used to address really old people

The honorific -sama, which is usually used to refer to a master or someone of higher position. It could also be used to adress an older brother or sister in a very respectable stance. Another common one that is seen in VN's, animes, and mangas is when it is used to adress a rich person.

Here are some common examples:

Oujou-sama
Hime-sama
Onee-sama
Onii-sama
Oto-sama
Oka-sama


If I spelled anything wrong feel free to correct me. I'm like kinda out of it lol.

There's the archaic dono honorific. This is used for an individual of a high level of respect, but lesser an sama, but greater than san. An example would be Sia's father, Eustoma from Shuffle! calling Rin as Rin-dono. So in a nutshell:

sama > dono > san

You have to be careful, if you mispronounce kawaii when trying to compliment your coworker's new born baby or his little girl, you can hurt someones feelings.

Senpai - A senior or superior. Basically a person a level above you...