Japanese translation of The Wild Things

What is it about?

The paper takes earlier study by Riita Oittinen examining European translations of the Where the Wild Things Are, and applies the same study questions (especially questions of rhythm in the text) to the Japanese translation. We find that the Japanese translation is far more removed from the original than even the most criticised European translations, despite no particular lexical, grammatical or poetic need for the changes. The Japanese translation, however, is still a very popular text.

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Why is it important?

The Wild Things could be translated into Japanese without making major changes in rhythm, sentence structure of content. However, these changes are made, so we need to ask why? Presumably there are perceptions about what kind of writing is good for children, and the text is translated to fit those perceptions. Maybe the perceptions are correct, because this is a very popular text. Though we must not forget that picture books in Japan are normally chosen by adults, not children.