User blog:Mahajustice/Hakumen and 押して参る

Hakumen's brief character-defining monologue is of much importance and interest among BlazBlue fans. In full it reads

我は空、我は鋼、我は刃 我は一振りの剣にて全ての　「罪」　を刈り取り　「悪」　を滅する！！ 我が名は　「ハクメン」、押して参る！

As it appears in the official English localization of the game, it reads

I am the white void. I am the cold steel. I am the just sword.

With blade in hand shall I reap the sins of this world, and cleanse it in the fires of destruction.

I am Hakumen. The end has come!

My sole goal here is to clarify the final phrase, oshite mairu, because discussion I have read about it around the internet indicates it is ill understood. Oshite Mairu is a fairly common Japanese phrase in media. You may hear it in Japanese cartoons or video games. It is a very archaic phrase, and like language in general it was evolved over time.

Oshite Mairu literally means 'Impertinently advancing (on you)'. It is/was technically 謙譲語 (kenjougo, humble language) which you would only use when speaking to someone of higher social status than you. However, as Japanese society has, ostensibly, become less stratified over time, things which were commonly humble language have shifted in usage and meaning. For instance, お前 (omae, a form of 2nd person pronoun) used to be used for humbling situations, and now it has become the exact opposite: someone using omae would only be seen as being sarcastic, hostile, and anything but humble.

The same thing goes for Oshite mairu. It was once a very humble phrase, and now its usage is only ironically malicious. The only cases in media where you may see it being used at face value (i.e. humble intentions) would be in 'period' pieces, stories set in pre-industrialized Japan (Bakumatsu or earlier). That Hakumen is 1) essentially designed as a futuristic samurai (an archaic class from times since past), and 2) speaking to a sworn enemy, should reinforce to you that his usage is only superficially humble.

As for a more faithful translation, I try to understand why localizers do what they do. Kenjougo is absolutely painful to describe, much less teach, to people who were born and raised outside of a culture and language where such things do not exist. Old-fashioned English phrases such as "Have at you!" and "Say your prayers!" nearly get the idea across: a sort of threat that no one in modern life would ever say in complete seriousness. However, they fail to convey the ironically humble roots of Oshite mairu.

I hope this has been illuminating.