WAKE WEEK! In search of WAKE GA NAI

Why yes folks! It's day 3 of WAKE WEEK!

And we arrive at WAKE GA NAI, which is very very similar to WAKE DEHA NAI. We're going to have to try and discover how this one is different together, or in a more likely way, I'm going to stumble about for a full five hundred words.

Today, I'm going to go on the fall back of anime, and talk about 俺の妹がこんなに可愛いわけがない, or Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai. It's usually abbreviated at Oreimo, which I always think sounds like "I'm emo"。。。

何で誰でも俺の友達なれん？？

。。。but that is probably just me. The English dub will be named Oreimo as well, and this post seems to be quite fortuitous because it's going to be released in five days! Check out the aniplex website here.

WAKE GA NAI translates as the following:

• There is no reason why~
• It is impossble for ~ to~
• Cannot ~

As you can see, it's not the easiest thing to translate. The way this anime series is usually translated as, then, is:

There is now way my little sister is that cute! 

Really, that is the best way to go about it. It's not like it's fluid English to say "It's impossible that my little sister is cute" "Or there is not reason my little sister is cute", though both of these are a bit more true to the original feeling behind the grammar point. I suspect that no matter how you translate the title though, it will always sound a little silly in English, and that's why the Aniplex chose Oreimo. I'm sure that's what happened with Saikano. My Girlfriend, the Ultimate Weapon really isn't going to get the demographic that anime is actually meant for, which is people who likes stories about love during the destruction of the world. With the actual translation, you just get a lot perverts who like making love to the barrel of a gun.

Anyway, you'd think that with a title like "There is no way my little sister is that cute!", the anime/manga/novels would be about a guy who is uber protective of his sweet sister who attracts all sorts of guys, or about a guy who can't figure out why all his friends fall in love with his sister. These are reasonable guesses. They are, however, wrong.

Let's join me for another episode of Weird things from Japan!

Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai is about a brother and sister who haven't gotten along for years. That is, until the brother discovers that his sister is into hentai games, or eroge, specifically ones about little sisters. Somehow, the brother becomes convinced that he has to help his little sister hide her weird hobby so she can be herself. I'll be honest, I'm not real fond of the series. It really plays on the sister-love theme too much, and the sister's actions (despite her swearing that she doesn't want to have sex with her brother) are just too... erotic and inappropriate. It's also filled with scenes of her in her underwear, or her with her butt in the air... or her with her skirt blowning up... or... you know, I'm just going to stop.

I'm not sure how it is in the books (which the anime and manga are based off of), but I really just don't get it,  nor  do I think it is something that you're even supposed to get. The one redeeming quality of the series is that the little sister is emphatic that 2D and 3D worlds are separate, meaning reality is reality, and fantasy is fantasy. It's stupid to mix them up, she says. I almost wonder if isn't a comment on readers like me, who still think the story is pretty needlessly perverted. I'm just not realizing that none of it is sexual because of the reality of the situation which is... she doesn't like her brother that way. Or something like that.  But you know what? I'd like it to be explained to me why it's necessary to keep placing her in the role that she enjoys watching, but has no desire to play. What I mean is that she plays a little sister sex object though she claims she isn't. For example (and I will not put the image up) she falls down at one point which somehow perfectly pushes her skirt and blouse up to show her bra and panties, and her brother is straddling her because he fell down too. Seriously. Explain that.

It's not that I think the story is horrible (it has interesting point about what are acceptable hobbies and why ordinary seeming people have fetishes) but the scenes are just needlessly perverted beyond all belief. And this is coming from someone who

I feel, though, that I have not successfully described WAKE GA NAI to you, so I'm going to add just a smidge more. In my two year old notebook, I have these two sentences:

•  こんな優しい仕事が君に出来ないわけがない。
• Konna yasashii shigoto ga kimi ni dekinai wake ga nai.
• There's no reason why you can't do such an easy job.

• 日本語がそんなに速くマスター出来るわけがない。
• Nihongo ga sonnani hayaku MASTAA dekiru wake ga nai.
• It's impossible to learn Japanese that fast.

These sentences have an important distinction. Do you see how the first is negative with a negative? Well, Japanese is a lot more carefree about their double negatives, though as a hobby linguist and grammarian, I see very little wrong with double negatives so long as they aren't completely muddled. But the truth is, us English speakers try to avoid them. Japanese people, however, love them. I think it has to do with misdirection in a language that is filled with implication and ambiguity. The second sentence has an affirmative and a negative, making a nicer English sentence. I just want you to know it's possible, and indeed even encouraged, to use a double negative.

So, in the end, I think that the general way to use WAKE GA NAI is to suggest that whatever the sentence is in front of it is, that sentence is impossible, or at the very least, very stupid.

How to make a WAKE GA NAI sentence:

• Plain form form of whatever, unless it's a noun then add DEARU/DATTA + WAKE GA NAI
• what you're talking about + it's impossible to do what you're talking about

I assume to make this more polite, you would probably say WAKE GA ARIMASEN.