Toho Kingdom

I prefer GhiDorUh, no emphasis on any syllable, just let it roll off the tongue.

GeeDoruh or Geedrah does have it charm though

“Ghee-deh-rah” is my preferred pronounciation now but I still catch myself saying “Ghee-door-ah” from time to time.

As for the others, “An-ghee-las” and “See-sar” I say too but I prefer “Kamacuras” to the schlocky “Gimantis” and “Kumonga” to “Spiga”.

I think "Ghi-do-rah" sounds more distinguished but it's a hell of a lot easier to say "Gee-drah" in conversation, I use Ghidorah in writing and the two (three? four?) pronunciations interchangably in speech

I say and write "Anguirus" consistently and refuse to use "Angilas"

"Desghidorah" is what I use because "Death Ghidorah" is pretty laughable

While "King Shisa" would have been far better considering his origins I use "King Ceasar" because it's official and I don't want to come off as pendantic

I use and say "Kamacuras" and "Kumonga" for much the same reason

eabaker wrote:"Spy-ga" just doesn't trip off the tongue naturally at all,

I prefer "Kumonga" but "Spy-ga" is just about the easiest thing to say

I don't think "Gidora" (the Japanese word) really translates well to English speech but I prefer the pronunciation closest to the Japanese; the popular "ghi-DOOR-uh" is not that. With the King title added it sounds like "kinky Dora," which is... unfortunate.

Terasawa wrote:I don't think "Gidora" (the Japanese word) really translates well to English speech but I prefer the pronunciation closest to the Japanese; the popular "ghi-DOOR-uh" is not that. With the King title added it sounds like "kinky Dora," which is... unfortunate.

Have you seen Dora the Explorer lately?

Terasawa wrote:With the King title added it sounds like "kinky Dora," which is... unfortunate.

Well, that had never occurred to me, but now I'll never un-hear it.

What damage have I wrought?

I'll just think of him with the title Monster Zero.

Another “more uncommon than unpopular” opinion: I hate all the official English titles for Godzilla vs the Sea Monster.

Ebirah Horror Of the Deep makes it sound like the movies all about him when he’s not really the focus. Godzilla vs the Sea Monster just sounds fairly generic and, again, the movie barely features Ebirah enough for him to warrant top billing.

Honestly, my preferred title is just Big Duel in the South Seas. I love the bombastic Japanese titles for the Showa films, especially this one.

UltramanGoji wrote:Another “more uncommon than unpopular” opinion: I hate all the official English titles for Godzilla vs the Sea Monster.

Ebirah Horror Of the Deep makes it sound like the movies all about him when he’s not really the focus. Godzilla vs the Sea Monster just sounds fairly generic and, again, the movie barely features Ebirah enough for him to warrant top billing.

Honestly, my preferred title is just Big Duel in the South Seas. I love the bombastic Japanese titles for the Showa films, especially this one.

Big Duel in the South Seas works better not only because its more accurate to the monsters fighting, it also allows the human characters to be part of that duel. It also provides a specific location and is fairly accurate at giving an idea of what the film would be about. You left out the Godzilla, Mothra, Ebirah part, which is important because despite playing an important role in the film Mothra is dropped from the title

I find with names, it just whatever I ended up seeing/hearing first. And since I'm only 20 my first exposure to a lot of monsters came from the internet (TK monster bios was the most frequent) and Toho's official names. So I've always used Anguirus, King Caesar Kumonga, Kamacuras, and "Ghi-door-uh".

I know some of these aren't as accurate or as faithful, but it's just what I'm accustomed to. I think I've used Ghidrah or Angilas before, but I feel like it sometimes depends on who I'm talking to. It's a small thing, but I've found when talking to older fans and they use "Ghidrah", I'll change it up and match what they're saying.

It's weird because for me, Anguirus doesn't really look like an "Angilas" unless we're talking about the 55 version.

King Caesar is just what I've grown up with/grown accustomed to, same with Kumonga, Kamacuras, and of course (Ghi-Door-uh)

However I say Ebirah as (Eh-Bi-rah) as opposed to (Eh-Bee-rah_) i don't know which is right but yeah.

_JNavs_ wrote:However I say Ebirah as (Eh-Bi-rah) as opposed to (Eh-Bee-rah_) i don't know which is right but yeah.

Japanese vowel sounds are pretty consistent, and mostly line up with Spanish.

A = ah as in "august"
E = ay as in "pain"
I = ee as in "podium" (confusing with regards to Gigan, whose name should actually be transliterated as "Gaigan")
O = oh as in "pogo"
U = oo as in "goo" (but this one is often more of an aspiration, present only because other than "n" Japanese consonants cannot exist without an accompanying vowel sound)

So, with Anguiras/Angilas, the katakana an-gi-ra-su would be pronounced something like "Ahn-gee-rah-s," with a roughly equal emphasis across all syllables, and with the R/L basically interchangeable.

Ebirah would be "Ay-bee-rah," again, with the emphasis distributed evenly, and with the R replaceable with an L.

With Ghidorah, the main oddity of modern American pronunciation is the emphasis on the second syllable, when in Japanese the emphasis, again, distributed evenly.

eabaker wrote:

_JNavs_ wrote:However I say Ebirah as (Eh-Bi-rah) as opposed to (Eh-Bee-rah_) i don't know which is right but yeah.

Japanese vowel sounds are pretty consistent, and mostly line up with Spanish.

A = ah as in "august"
E = ay as in "pain"
I = ee as in "podium" (confusing with regards to Gigan, whose name should actually be transliterated as "Gaigan")
O = oh as in "pogo"
U = oo as in "goo" (but this one is often more of an aspiration, present only because other than "n" Japanese consonants cannot exist without an accompanying vowel sound)

So, with Anguiras/Angilas, the katakana an-gi-ra-su would be pronounced something like "Ahn-gee-rah-s," with a roughly equal emphasis across all syllables, and with the R/L basically interchangeable.

Ebirah would be "Ay-bee-rah," again, with the emphasis distributed evenly, and with the R replaceable with an L.

With Ghidorah, the main oddity of modern American pronunciation is the emphasis on the second syllable, when in Japanese the emphasis, again, distributed evenly.

Thanks!! I actually never knew this so I've genuinely learned something here. "Ahn-Gee-Rah-s" when pronounced with an accent sounds like a perfect combination of both translations, similar to how Serizawa says Gojira in G14.

Would the Ay in Ay-Bee-Rah be "Ah-yeh" or "Aw-ye"?

_JNavs_ wrote:

eabaker wrote:

_JNavs_ wrote:However I say Ebirah as (Eh-Bi-rah) as opposed to (Eh-Bee-rah_) i don't know which is right but yeah.

Japanese vowel sounds are pretty consistent, and mostly line up with Spanish.

A = ah as in "august"
E = ay as in "pain"
I = ee as in "podium" (confusing with regards to Gigan, whose name should actually be transliterated as "Gaigan")
O = oh as in "pogo"
U = oo as in "goo" (but this one is often more of an aspiration, present only because other than "n" Japanese consonants cannot exist without an accompanying vowel sound)

So, with Anguiras/Angilas, the katakana an-gi-ra-su would be pronounced something like "Ahn-gee-rah-s," with a roughly equal emphasis across all syllables, and with the R/L basically interchangeable.

Ebirah would be "Ay-bee-rah," again, with the emphasis distributed evenly, and with the R replaceable with an L.

With Ghidorah, the main oddity of modern American pronunciation is the emphasis on the second syllable, when in Japanese the emphasis, again, distributed evenly.

Thanks!! I actually never knew this so I've genuinely learned something here. "Ahn-Gee-Rah-s" when pronounced with an accent sounds like a perfect combination of both translations, similar to how Serizawa says Gojira in G14.

Would the Ay in Ay-Bee-Rah be "Ah-yeh" or "Aw-ye"?

Yeah, neither Angilas/Anguirus spelling is perfect on its own. Transliteration is always a game of compromises.

Sorry, I may not have made the Ebirah one clear enough. A better choice might have been to describe it as "Eh."

So, "Eh-bee-rah." Almost (but not quite) like just saying the names of the letters A and B out loud.

(It doesn't help matters that English doesn't really have the clearest of most consistent phonics.)

If you drop kaiju names (or any word) into Google Translate and click on the sound icon you can hear how they're pronounced. As eabaker said, Japanese vowel sounds are very consistent, so even "made up" words like these can be easily spoken by anyone who understands Japanese phonetics. It's not like English where "Gigan" could be GIG-ann, GEE-gun, GUY-gahn, etc.

Terasawa wrote:If you drop kaiju names (or any word) into Google Translate and click on the sound icon you can hear how they're pronounced. As eabaker said, Japanese vowel sounds are very consistent, so even "made up" words like these can be easily spoken by anyone who understands Japanese phonetics. It's not like English where "Gigan" could be GIG-ann, GEE-gun, GUY-gahn, etc.

I’ve always said and heard “Guy-gan” but I do know of exactly one guy who said “GEE-ghan”

Yeah, I've always said "GUY-gann" too; that's the pronunciation used in the English version of his debut film (which I grew up with) and it's pretty damn close to the Japanese pronunciation.

I think one of the Trendmasters commercials used "JI-gan" and I know for a fact that Peter Boyle (RIP) used basically the same thing when he hosted a Godzilla marathon on SciFi in 1998.

Only tangentially related to the current conversation but I remember a kid I knew when I was little who couldn’t pronounce “Biollante” so he just said “Blendy” or “Blenty” or something like that (this was actually the first I had ever heard of the film, and thought he was making it up; I guess he had been given the ‘92 VHS at some point)

“Bio-latte” stands out as one of the worst parts of Unleashed to this day, haven’t played in years and I can still remember that line
Or that Captain what’s his face had a completely different voice in the cutscenes than in the actual gameplay

G2000 wrote:Only tangentially related to the current conversation but I remember a kid I knew when I was little who couldn’t pronounce “Biollante” so he just said “Blendy” or “Blenty” or something like that (this was actually the first I had ever heard of the film, and thought he was making it up; I guess he had been given the ‘92 VHS at some point)

“Bio-latte” stands out as one of the worst parts of Unleashed to this day, haven’t played in years and I can still remember that line
Or that Captain what’s his face had a completely different voice in the cutscenes than in the actual gameplay

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