The Japanese script for The Matrix

One day, being bored out of my skull, I decided to take a page from Khatzumoto over at All Japanese All the Time and rip the audio from the Japanese dub for The Matrix and put it on my iPod, that I might have something to occupy my commute time when I can’t be bothered with whatever trashy Japanese novel I happen to be reading at the moment.

To my surprise, it was a really good dub with some surprisingly adept localizations. It also occurred to me that there might be one or two folk out there who would enjoy using this as a learning resource, so I decided to transcribe the dub and post it online, annotated with my fiendishly clever linguistic notes.

This will not be a 100% complete transcription. The Matrix has a lot of action scenes, and the benefit of transcribing a scene that has “Freeze!” or “No!” as its only dialogue would be negligible. But all the “talky” scenes, the juicy dialogues from Morpheus or Smith, will be here.

The timecodes are direct from the DVD, starting from the second the WB logo appears and the movie begins. Enjoy.

1 – The One ・ 「そう」
Timecode: 0:42 to 1:18

Trinity (トリニティ) places a phone call to Cypher (サイファー), and their conversation is picked up by a detection program.

  サイファー
あぁ？

  トリニティ
全て順調？

  サイファー
あんたの番じゃなかったろう

  トリニティ
そうだけど、働きたい気分だったの

  サイファー
やつが好きなのか。見てたよな

  トリニティ
馬鹿なこと言わないで

  サイファー
やつを殺すことになるぞ

  トリニティ
モーフィアスは彼が「そう」だと信じてる

  サイファー
あんたは？

  トリニティ
あたしの考えは関係ない

  サイファー
信じてないのか

  トリニティ
今の聞いた？

  サイファー
何だ？

  トリニティ
この通信、盗聴されてない？

  サイファー
大丈夫だよ

  トリニティ
もう切るわ

NOTES
And there you have it. There’s nothing too terribly exciting about this scene, other than the fact that it introduces some of the sorts of contractions found in everyday-use Japanese. Cypher’s じゃなかったろう shows how じゃ(itself a contraction of では) leads into a contraction of the phrase なかっただろう. We also see the usage of あんた, a contraction of あなた that can sound either endearing or needlessly gruff depending on context (and dialect). Similarly, we see progressive tenses clipped, with 見ていた becoming 見てた and 信じていない becoming　信じてない.

This scene also introduces us to one of the several ways that will be used to refer to Neo. Throughout the film, he will be called 「そう」 (“it/that”), 「選ばれし者」 (“the chosen one”), 「カレ」 (“him”) and 「救世主」 (“Messiah/savior of the world”).

In the subs, dub and published Japanese-language screenplay (the last of which is an entirely different translation, one that is far too literal and not at all reccomendable), Morpheus’s name is consistently rendered as it sounds, モーフィアス. However, this name already exists in Japanese in a different form: as モルフェウス, the god of sleep and dreams from Greek mythology.

2 – Juris-my-dick-tion ・　管轄外
Timecode: 2:05 to 2:54

Police have just cornered Trinity and pointed guns at her, demanding that she make no sudden moves. Meanwhile, outside, Agent Smith (スミス) and a certain bad lieutenant (警部補) prepare to share a few choice words.

  スミス
警部補

  警部補
まいったな

  スミス
我々が逮捕すると言ったはずだが？

  警部補
こっちは仕事をしてるだけだ。管轄外だか何だか知らないが、私の知ったことじゃないね

  スミス
君たちの安全のためだ

  警部補
へへっ。相手は小娘１人なんだろう？

  警部補
２班も送ったんだ。もうすぐ連行してくる

  スミス
いいえ、君の部下は皆殺しにされている

NOTES
Another short-and-sweet scene, dialogue-wise. Some of the swearing gets a bit played down, with the “juris-my-dick-tion” pun getting lost for lack of a Japanese- language equivalent, and “cram it up your ass” becoming something like “I don’t give two shits.” Personally, I liked the version in the published screenplay a bit more, which went with 「管轄」なんてくだらないものはくそくらえ … though at the same time, the くだらないもの is sort of overkill.

In retrospect, I think I like this version more because it reminds me of the Japanese dub of the South Park episode “Chickenlover,” in which Officer Barbrady exclaims 読書なんてくそくらえ！, which means something like, “Reading can eat shit and die!”

Oh, yes. Now we’re learning Japanese.

3 – Go! ・　行け
Timecode: 3:26 to 3:45

True to Agent Smith’s words, Trinity (トリニティ) has just killed all the police sent to apprehend her. She is now on her cell phone talking to Morpheus (モーフィアス).

  トリニティ
モーフィアス、通信は逆探知されたわ

  モーフィアス
知っている。ケーブルも切られた。急いで他の出口に向かうんだ。

  トリニティ
エージェントが来てるの？

  モーフィアス
そうだ

  トリニティ
最悪ね

  モーフィアス
集中しろ、トリニティ。ウェルズ通りの公衆電話だ。君なら行ける

  トリニティ
分かった

  モーフィアス
行け

NOTES
In this scene, we have our first clear example of the dub being truncated for time constraints, with the phone booth at “Wells and Lake” becoming at simply ウェルズ通り, or Wells Street.

Something else we see in this scene is two different examples of the command form in Japanese. One of these is to change the word-final る of the verb form to ろ, as in 集中しろ above, a gruff command for one to concentrate. The second form is to keep the verb as is and simply end it with だ, as in 向かうんだ. The difference between the two, to give an example, is that if 「しろ」 is “Do it!” then 「するんだ」 would be analogous to, “You will do it.”

4 – The name is Neo ・　名前はネオだ
Timecode: 6:12 to 6:30

Trinity has made a run for it, leaping tall buildings to the astonishment of the onlooking officers. (そんな馬鹿な, or “That’s impossible”). She makes it to the phone booth, and manages to escape just before the Agents smash it down. Said Agents are now talking amongst themselves in the vicinity of the wrecked booth.

  ブラウン
逃げられたな

  スミス
気にするな

  ジョーンズ
情報は正しかった

  スミス
そうだ

  ジョーンズ
次のターゲットも分かってる

  ブラウン
名前はネオだ

  スミス
早急に検索してくれ

  ジョーンズ
もう始めてる

NOTES
Not much to say about this scene, other than the lack of foreshadowing being lost with “The informant is real” being rendered as 情報は正しかった, or “The information was accurate.”

5 – Follow the White Rabbit ・ 白いうさぎを追え
Timecode: 7:24 to 9:42

In this installment, we meet our protagonist Thomas A. Anderson, aka Neo. We’re also treated to some rather heavy-handed foreshadowing by one Mr. Choi, whose thick, straight-outta-anime style of speech is by far the most interesting part of this scene. We begin with Neo asleep in front of his computer, waking up to find that it has apparently been haxxored.

  ネオ
何だ？

  ネオ
何なんだ？

  ネオ
「白いウサギを追え」？

  ネオ
誰だ？

  チョイ
チョイだ

  ネオ
あぁ。そうか

  ネオ
２時間も遅れたな

  チョイ
分かってる。こいつのせいだ

  ネオ
金はあるか

  チョイ
２千だ

  ネオ
待ってろ

  チョイ
ハレルヤ! まさに救世主だ。俺にとっちゃクリストだぜ

  ネオ
もしそれで捕まっても・・・

  チョイ
あぁ、おめぇのことは話さねぇ。心配すんな

  ネオ
よし

  チョイ
どうかしたのか。今日はかなり顔色悪いぜ

  ネオ
俺のコンピューターが・・・。自分が起きてるのか夢を見てるのか分からないことってないか

  チョイ
ん~、しょっちゅうさ。メスカリンだ。ぶっ飛ぶには最高さ。おい、たまにゃコンピューターのプラグを引っこ抜いてみな。気晴らしも必要だぜ。どう思う、デュジュール？一緒に連れてこうぜ

  デュジュール
いいんじゃない？

  ネオ
いや、無理だ。明日は仕事だ

  デュジュール
ね、楽しいわよ。保証する

  ネオ
あ。そうだな。行くよ

NOTES
Not much in the way of linguistic notes this time around. Choi’s speech uses lots of contractions; for example とっちゃ instead of とっては and すんな rather than するな.

Also, in case anyone hadn’t clicked on this before, Choi and DuJour together comprise choi dujour, or “choice of the day.”

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