Well, Lost has finally ended, and I have to say thanks to the producers and cast for one wild wide. I certainly learned a lot over the past six years, like when you and your Japanese wife set out to watch a TV show that features characters from all corners of the globe speaking wildly different dialects of English, you’re going to be pausing to translate a lot. (Yes, Lost is shown here with Japanese subtitles, but it’s broadcast a year behind the U.S.) Over the years, Lost has provided me with plenty of neta, which is the name for the fish part of a piece of sushi, though in this context it means ideas for J-List posts. Like when I wrote about what it’s like to listen to the Korean dialogue parts of the show and try to catch the few words that are the same in Japanese, such as yakusoku (“promise”) or muron (“of course”). Or the “pop Buddhism” they often employ, from the Dharma Initiative (which sounds like those adorable Daruma dolls, although the two words aren’t directly related) to the concept of a katami or possessions of a person who has died which are given to his friends later, or the ever-present number 108, which is the number of times the bells are rung at Buddhist temples on New Year’s Eve.
So keeping spoilers to the comments, for people who haven’t seen the last episode/season yet, what did you think? Emotionally satisfying but intellectually disappointing? Good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle?
The dialects used in Lost are difficult for Japanese to understand.
