Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Hic to Dragon promo


Hic to Dragon promo
Originally uploaded by tikistitch
This is kind of obscure, and probably no other Lilo & Stitch collector would be obsessive enough to bother! This is a Japanese promo card set for Chris Sanders' new cartoon, "How to Train Your Dragon," which will be known as "Hic to Dragon" in Japan.

The fun thing is, if you look at the Japanese text up at the top, it says "Lilo & Stitch." According to my friend Amy L., the Japanese version of the trailer fairly hits you over the head with the fact that this work is coming from Chris "Stitch" Sanders. Which, must thrill Disney to no end now that Chris has moved to Dreamworks!

I've noticed that the Japanese promotional materials also tend to favor the sweet and sentimental elements of the movie over the high comedy, while the US market trailers I've seen so far tend to favor the latter. Here's the Japanese site, if you wanna poke around.

BTW, from what I've seen of Toothless so far, the little dragon seems very Stitch-y. I suspect I'm going to have to acquire a toy or two for this new film, despite my strict "Stitch Only" policy.

9 comments:

  1. Funny that they've even changed the title so it's like "Lilo & Stitch" ("[Main Character] & [The Lovable Alien Critter]")

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  2. OMG I just went and saw the Japanese trailer. "Hit you over the head" is putting it mildly. "Dragons and man have fought each other forever... (Text on screen: "Produced by the director of Lilo and Stitch")... From the director of Lilo & Stitch, a story about a slightly weak boy, and an injured dragon. ("Summer 2010") A most unexpected friendship will create a miracle... Dreamworks' "Hick and Dragon" ("From being alone to being two")...

    Hi. Can we just replace some of the nouns and the names and just call this "Lilo & Stitch 4"?

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  3. Haha, yes, I hadn't noticed that! When they translate it *back* into English, they tend to call it "Hic's Dragon," which would be something like "Hic no Dragon" I think.

    Did you catch the preview? I think they're calling Toothless something like "Tousu." Maybe "Tooth?" Which would also kind of miss the point.

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  4. Oh, you did watch the trailer! It's very cute, isn't it? Funny that they say it's about an "injured dragon." I'm fairly sure the deal is *Hiccup* injures it by trying to catch it!

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  5. It's interesting that they use "to" here whereas in the original L&S logo (in the L&S trailer) they used "ando" and in general since they have used "&". I guess the thinking is that "Hikku to Duragon" is a Japanese title but "Riro ando Sutitchi" was an English one.

    They are indeed naming him "Tooth". It's romanized as "tuusu" really (the small "u" after a "to" creates a "tu" which otherwise doesn't really exist in Japanese, for usually the T sound in the U column makes what we write as "tsu" -- it's like how a small "i" after a "te" makes "ti" when spelling Stitch's name, since normally T/I makes "chi").

    The trailer does remind me a bit of the L&S trailer, focusing not on the havoc and chaos, but on the bond between unlikely friends. In the L&S trailer, they they explain it as "Hitoribotchi no onna no ko. Hitoribotchi no eirian" ("One lonely girl. One lonely alien").

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  6. OMG I just looked at the text below the logo, and they're even using the "hitoribotchi" word like they did in the L&S trailer!

    "Hitoribotchi kara, futaribotchi e..." While I don't think "futaribotchi" is a word really, it is a logical progression from "hitori" (one person) to "futari" (two people). So it essentially says "From alone as one to alone as two."

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  7. Alone together! That's funny.

    It's especially weird because the American trailers hit you over with "Shrek! Shrek! Shrek!" It's almost like it's two different movies.

    I just saw a bit where Toothless gets into Hiccup's house that looks quite Stitch-y to me.

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  8. While I'm at it, I decided to figure out what's beneath that, in the black text. It's:

    敵同士のはずの少年とドラゴン
     《秘密の出会い》が奇跡をおこす

    Boys and dragons are expected to be mutual enemies.
    A "secret rendezvous" causes a miracle.

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  9. There is definitely more to come! I don't think it comes out in Japan 'til August, so this is pretty preliminary.

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