dogwelder

犬溶接マン

Dogwelder is one member of the DC Comics super hero team, “Section 8”[1], who made their first appearance in the “Hitman” comics[2] by Garth Ennis[3] and John McCrea[4].

He dons a welding mask with his spot welder(*1), and carries around stray dog corpses and vanquishes evildoers by welding the dead dogs to their faces.
Never showing his true face or saying a word, it's hard to believe he's not a villain but one of the active heroes in Gotham City.

In Japan his popularity been on the rise ever since novelist and translator Kaihou Norimitsu[5] showed great admiration for the character through his twitter feed[6], calling Dogwelder "犬溶接マン (Inu Yousetsu Man)” (lit. Dog Welding Man).
At last, Kaihou's Japanese translation of the Hitman comics are set to go on sale in August of 2013[7].

These translations plan to use "Inu Yousetsu Man" as the official Japanese translated name[8] for Dogwelder. The news containing information on the publication of the translation reported with this convoluted expression, “Even the Japanese version will have Inu Yousetsu Man as Inu Yousetsu man!”[9]
(It's hasn't been since 1969, when the Hanna-Barbera cartoon "The Fantastic Four aired in Japan, that a super hero name has been changed in the Japanese version. At that time, the member names were "Goomuz", "Susie", "Fireboy", and "Gan-rock" ~ "gomu" and "gan" each mean rubber and rock in Japanese.)

(*1) Some Japanese believe that he is holding an arc welder (or arc cutter)[10].
“Wait... where is the electrode?!”
“Hmm, maybe he's doing that welding with a kind of psionic power...”

See also

[1] Wikipedia: Section 8
[2] Wikipedia: Hitman
[3] Wikipedia: Garth Ennis
[4] Wikipedia: John McCrea
[5] Wikipedia(JP): 海法紀光
[6] http://togetter.com/li/372079
[7] http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/404728890X/
[8] http://twitter.com/nk12/status/340122232657416192
[9] http://www.kotaku.jp/2013/06/hitman_japanese_translation.html
[10] http://log.shipweb.jp/?mode=datview&board_name=magazin&thread_key=1369654847&thread_id=977291#res80 (Dead link)

Posts