< Gratuitous English

Gratuitous English/Anime and Manga

Alphabetical order by the English name of the work, please.

A

  • Ah! My Goddess: Senbee, Marller's assistant, peppers his speech with plenty of English words, if not full sentences at times. Made all the more awesome by his voice actor, Norio Wakamoto.
  • In the Ai Yori Aoshi episode that introduces Mayu, the scene where Tina runs into her is played differently in the Japanese original and English dubbed version. The latter uses grammatical English, while the former is heavily accented broken English, unlike what you'd expect from someone educated in England:

Mayu (original): Hey! Watch you step! What are you thinking there?! Here is not motor circuit!
Mayu (dub)[1]: Twit! Watch where you step! What on Earth were you thinking?! This is not the Grand Prix!

  • TK of Angel Beats!, in accordance with his funky attitude, almost always communicates in English song lyrics. His English is grammatically correct, but because he communicates in song lyrics, he says stuff that no English speaker would say... Despite having a North American voice actor, even in the Japanese version.
  • Angelic Layer uses phrases like "Entry angel!" in the tournaments, but the real gem is the computer screens, which misspell character names as well as saying things like "the rest time un till end of the game" next to the time clock.
    • Also "anjel educafe condifion" and "MAIN CONTROLL SAVER" (The latter followed by a string of random letters).
  • Studio Deen must really love this trope. In episode 14 of Axis Powers Hetalia, the English voiceovers can be heard under the Japanese narrations and episode 15 features the rare example of a Lithuanian who speaks better English than an American. (Note: This does not mean that the Lithuanian's English was good.)
    • That, or Alfred changed genders when we weren't looking.
    • Thankfully, those were only previews put to English for effect (since the two major characters were America and England) and the real episode averted this trope. America and England do often have outbursts in English (or Engrish as the case may be), such as "Just a momento".
      • "Ha ha! Nice fight!"
      • "Ha ha ha! Nice boy!"
      • "Desees a penn!" Though, to be fair, England's accent is better than America's.
        • Justified in that particular example as he was trying to teach Japan English.

"Suiito baybii!"

    • A recent episode has Japan wanting to learn English after he sees two Japanese men, saying:

"Hi! Hawah yu?"
"Amma fain sankayu! Anchoo?"
"Wai sankyuu."
(both walk away, laughing)

      • This exchange was left unaltered in the English dub, presumably because it was just too appropriate given the context of Japan wanting to learn English.
    • A couple of recent strips featuring Mochimerica have this in spades, as apparently Mochimerica only speaks English. Himaruya even commented (in Japanese) that "There isn't much meaning in the English he says." Many of these lines are fast becoming memes. Highlights include: "It's Okey! I'm American." "I just thought, "It's a lettuce. I was wrong. It's my daddy." "I know! I know! Just ice cream!" "Do it!! I can fly!! It's chocolate!!" Mochitalia also speaks in Gratuitous Italian.
  • Azumanga Daioh features a quite few Gratuitous English jokes, most of which revolve around English teacher Yukari. The difference here is that the writers know they're using improper English and deliberately run with it.
    • There was this one long sketch. Is Bruce Lee actually Blue Three? The joke is, Japanese would pronounce both buruusurii. This joke proved impossible to faithfully translate into any language -- which is too bad because the anime version actually has a blue man with the number 3 on his chest acting like Bruce Lee
    • In one episode, Yukari is supposedly speaking in fluent English with an American tourist, but the only thing we can hear is a long string of "blah blah blah" in the translation. In Japanese, they're saying "perapera", a gitaigo word (like onomatopoeias but for ideas, like the word zig-zag) meaning talking fluently.
    • Kagura has a run-in with a western tourist who she tries to help, but he is unable to understand her. After scaring him by yelling "HELP ME" at the top of her lungs, she carries his bags for him and gives him an exaggerated thumbs-up after receiving his approval. The tourist also adds unintentional hilarity in the subbed version with his not-very-authentic pronunciation: "That herped me arot thanks."
    • Even later still, Chiyo-chichi (the yellow cat...thing) visits Osaka in a vision and spouts off a few sentences worth of English, to which Osaka replies (also in English) "Oh my god!".
      • "Hallo everynyaa! Howah yoou? Fain sankyoo." -- "OH MAI GAAAH!" -- "I weesh I were a buhrd,"
        • His intonation and pronunciation are actually pretty good. He says "bood" instead of "BAH-do", like many Japanese would. And he's saying "Everynyaa" because he's a cat. He's basically saying "Hello, every-meow". He also pronounces the v's and l's correctly. His last sentence in English is actually pretty complex in its syntax, and the fact that he got it right is impressive. Osaka replies "Aim-uh sorry!" because they don't have a phoneme for just "m", so it becomes "Ai-mu sorry!" Anything with a single letter, the Japanese pronounce it by putting a "u" at the end of it. Her phrasing is correct, but her pronunciation just isn't perfect.
    • Then there's that scene near the end of the series where Nyamo freaks out after being unable to solve a problem she's asked to help with and Yukari gives a surprisingly coherent speech in English.
      • Here Yukari herself is invoking the idea. Minamo tries calling her out on it--after all, of course Yukari can fire off a speech in English!
    • Tomo uses Gratuitous English, French and Spanish.
    • In the English dub, of course, they couldn't really use Gratuitous English because the characters are speaking English anyway. So it becomes Gratuitous Spanish, Gratuitous French, and Gratuitous German as needed. Yukari's even specifically referred to as a "language teacher" who implicitly teaches multiple language classes.

B

  • Baccano!: "Thank you! Fuck you!". Not to mention the tons of Engrishy names like Ladd, Luck, Nice, and -- most infamously -- Jacuzzi Splot.
    • At least the first two of those was the result of having some knowledge of The Mafia, but not enough. It is realistic for mobsters to have a nom de guerre (e.g. "Lucky Luciano"), so Lad and Luck make sense. The problem comes in when you spell the first one Ladd and use both as given names.
  • In keeping with her Tsundere Sugar and Ice nature Hitagi Senjougahara of Bakemonogatari admits her feelings, in English.
  • In Bakuman｡, Kaya Miyoshi often wears shirts with English phrases, such as "MINE MAKES YOU HAPPY." Aiko Iwase once greets Eiji Nizuma by saying "nice to meet you" in English.
    • Mashiro also thanks a classmate in English in the first episode.

Mashiro: Oh, saunk you.

    • However, nobody can beat the amount of gratuitous English used by Eiji, which goes hand in hand with his other Bunny Ears Lawyer antics.
  • One episode of Bamboo Blade had Kirino holding up a bottle of skin cream called "Beautyful Life". Not to mention Carrie's introduction in the anime, where she speaks heavily-accented English for the first few minutes -- and continues to do so on occasion throughout the series.
  • Iori from Beauty Pop uses this constantly -- it's retained as-is in the English translation, indicated by using a different font from his usual dialogue. He consistently refers to himself as "me" in English, even when that's not even approaching grammatically correct, and uses "you" for other people similarly, for starters. The author had to point out that he doesn't actually speak English and just uses a few words he thinks sound "cool", after a fan letter suggested he should become an English teacher.
  • Beck, a manga and later an anime about a band, contains a lot of Engrish, since some of the members are American, and their songs also contains a lot of Engrish. Late in the series they go to America, which results in even more Engrish. Given the that the vocalist is a real member of a popular band, and it's a really good manga and anime otherwise, the Engrish really hurts this.
    • Then the dub comes out, and it's really good. It fixes up all the strange discordance in normal conversation, and fixes all the songs to regular English.
  • The theme song for Berserk is entirely in highly-accented English. Some parts actually can't be sung in non-accented English without ruining the rhythm. Still, the lyrics fit the show pretty well...
    • Berserk doesn't use much English, except for places and the villain's names. However, Wyald's motto of "ENJOY EXCITING" kind of jumps you from nowhere.
  • Since her mother is American, Cyndi Manabe in Best Student Council often uses gratuitous English (usually one or two words at a time, since the voice actress isn't fluent). Additionally, she rarely (if ever) uses Japanese. Of course, the differences between American English and British English aren't all that obvious to non-native speakers, leading to Cyndi using expressions such as "cheerio".
    • Incidentally, Cyndi does speak fluent Japanese, but only reveals this in the final episode, believing her Japanese was actually bad because of her mother, who speaks Japanese horribly, criticized it.
  • The Big O's Arc Words, "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty" appear in nearly every episode, and are just far enough from standard English usage to make their intended meaning more or less unintelligible (although variations on the phrase seen late in the series offer some tantalizing hints).
    • This phrase has its origin in similar phrases that would be engraved on the swords of medieval executioners, the meaning being that their wielders were doing God's work and were not personally responsible for what they did with the weapons. By extension, this could be said to apply to what Roger Smith does with Big O.
    • The show's theme song has a few lyrics, sung in English. They completely mangle the Arc Words and the common phrase of "We have come to terms" from the show, notable because the rest of the show uses the phrasing more or less accurately.

"Cast in the name of God
Ye not the guilty
We have came to team"

    • Really, just adding a word like "are" between the "ye" and the "not" would have improved the phrase considerably...
    • "We have came to team" appears to be a mangling of "we have come to terms," one of the series' variations on its Every Episode Ending.
  • Sebastian from Black Butler seems to be contractually obligated to say "Yes my Lord" once per episode.
    • The anime is set in Victorian England, and as such English phrases are scattered amongst the dialogue with little rhyme or reason (like when someone's giving commands to a dog). This anime is notable more for the poor research into what they chose to include as their English. The song being sung by numerous characters over the course of the series (altered lyrics or otherwise) is a heavily accented version of "London Bridge is Falling Down"; despite the fact that the song was roughly 100 years old at the time the story takes place and is therefore hardly as relevant as the series strives to make it seem.
  • The cast of Black Lagoon, solidly international, tends to render their lines in Japanese when all characters would be speaking the same language with only the occasional flavor English, but when a character busts out a language not known to all bystanders, it is rendered as such, leading to hilariously bad English, Spanish, and Russian lines. Worst of all, though, is the opening theme. At times it's outright impossible for even native English speakers to entirely understand just what the person is saying when they switch to English.
    • "Fakking Airishu!" (Fucking Irish!)
      • Apparently most of the series is supposed to be "spoken" in English, which becomes especially jarring when the series goes back to Japan with Rock having to serve as a translator into Japanese for characters that have been "speaking" it for the entire series. Especially funny with Revy, who spouts occasional comments about how she has no idea what's going on.
      • Even stranger when the Thai inscription on Revy's gun is actually quite good.
    • The theme song is also heavy with gratuitous English, with such lyrical highlights as "You make me violate you, No matter who you are" and "Do what you think, give it with dedication"
      • It also contains gems like "For Christ's sake; this rotten world" followed by "Shit out of luck", "I have big gun/I took it from my lord/sick with justice I just want to feel you", "Right on the power/weapon/I have it all".
        • No matter what the lyric translation sites say, she's clearly singing "sick with justice, I'm just gonna BLAME you"
      • People, the theme song is entirely gratuitous English. Granted, it doesn't make much grammatical sense, but there's not a single word of Japanese in there.
  • A hunk of background music in the anime Bleach, used in particularly menacing situations, features whispering voices chanting 'deeeemon' and 'eeeeevillll'. It's actually a bit goofy and off-putting to English speakers; if they were speaking in Latin, German, or some other language one didn't speak, it would probably sound cool.
    • More recently, the songs "Invasion" and "Treachery", borrowed from the second movie, were played during two of the more memorable fights, Mayuri vs. Syazelaporro, and Zaraki vs. Nnoitora, respectively, contained Ominous English Chanting.
    • Don Kanonji shows a fondness for Gratuitous English, spouting catch phrases like "Spirits are always with you!" and "Smells like bad spirit!"
      • The latter of which is a reference to the Nirvana song, Smells like Teen Spirit. Kubo was fond of hiding musical references in Bleach early on in the lifetime of the series.
    • Then of course there's Ichigo's jivey powerup theme song, "Number One" sung by Hazel Fernandes, that plays just about whenever he does something cool or makes an entrance. Though catchy, it can be very out of place in certain situations.
    • And then there's the manga chapter titles, all in English after a certain point. One notable chapter is titled "Four Arms to Killing You."
    • The fourth opening in its entirety. You have to look at the lyrics to know it, although a few words stand out like "Tonight."
      • It takes a special kind of mangling to make "rationed" rhyme with "nation".
      • Ending 20, Mad Surfer, is roughly half to two thirds English, and often alternates between it and Japanese.
      • The 19th opening often repeats "LOVE YOU" at the beginning of many phrases, even when it makes no sense.
    • "Soul Society" is ALWAYS said in English, regardless of context.
    • Charlotte Cuulhorne's ludicrously long attack names are said in English.
    • Toshiro Hitsugaya's "This Light I See," sometimes features his seiyu using "I believe in this light I see!" at several points in this song.
      • Actually, the official lyrics have it down as "I'm believing, this light I see!", which makes this example even more Egregious.
      • Similarly, Ulquiorra uses the phrase "Crush the world down" several times in his image song of the same name.
    • The writing on the later English (!) DVDs (the ones that are white with black type on them).
    • The first ending "Life Is Like A Boat" features entire lines in perfect English. Understandable in that the singer grew up in the United States.
    • "Stay Beautiful", the 23rd ending, is rife with this, and ends up sounding like neither Japanese or English, but rather like speaking in toungues.
    • Rock Musical Bleach has this at times, most notably Aizen, Ichimaru and Tosen's Villain Song number Catharsis of Eternity.
      • Or just all the characters dancing on stage occasionally singing BLEACH at the audience.
    • One of the Bleach radio programs had an English version. "Hey! My name's Ichigo! Who are you?" It's actually pretty grammatically correct but some words sound funny like "merchant," which sounds like he's saying "my cunt."
  • Blue Seed not only has some memorable gratuitious Engrish "swearing" from one raised-in-America character, it also has the appropriately named opening song "Carnival Babel" which begins with the delightful lyrics, "Mysterious Tokyo, take it easy dangerous night! Mysterious Tokyo, pick me up foxy night game!"
  • Various signs in Bubblegum Crisis, but this stood out. It had nothing to do with the scene--it was just cool foreign stuff.

C

  • Cardcaptor Sakura calls upon the cards using their English names.
  • The ED of Cat's Eye has a background consisting of some English text about a religious sect whose most famous belief makes for a strange contrast with the fanservicey Dancing Theme ED animation.
    • Also, some lyrics from the OP song: "We get you, mysterious girl!"
      • "Okay, girls, let's exercise time!" "YES!"
  • This shows up quite frequently in Cherry Juice, as often a character's clothing will have what looks like random sections of news articles written on them.
  • Chrome Shelled Regios has a bit of rather well done English dialogue covering the last few minutes of episode three. And a segment in Engish halfway through most episodes.
    • There's also a scene toward the end of the first episode where Mifi is shown typing her Weekly Lookon article. It's in rather... broken English ("It came to attend the entrance ceremony in the expression that the new student of about 10,000 whole numbers was filled with hope."), yet it's actually about what it's supposed to be rather than some chunk of unrelated text.
      • The English is not horrible (compared to other anime), but is still really obtrusively unnatural. "I'll" sounding like I over and over at the end of episode 3 and "I can see that too" said with the most unnatural pacing of words possible and "ten minutes" said as "ten minute" at the start of episode 4 are easy examples.
  • Clannad's Sunohara does this quite a few times in the Visual Novel. While he tries to use English to impress others or show his knowledge level, (when he is actually the Butt Monkey of the series' game and show) the sentences he spouts out usually don't make any sense of the current situation or in general. Some example's include "Are you pretty dog?" and "Thank you my friend from New York!"
    • From the same series, at the end of Kotomi's arc, the message within the suitcase containing her present from the parents are written in English, and spoken in Gratuitous English... and then it goes to Gratuitous other country's language, from Arabic to even Indonesian.
    • In the Visual Novel version (and in Episode 24 of the anime), we are treated with Tomoyo speaking English, being a top student for a school representative, got awarded as the best one, but still, you can't help but cringe on how it's blatantly a very very Engrish sounding speech. Or maybe it's a Shout-Out to Nadesico since Tomoyo is voiced by Yurika's seiyuu (who at one point, as stated above, attempted an Engrish speech). Sunohara even responds with a (probably unintentional) lampshade: "What language is that?"
    • The plaaaaaaaace changes and gooooooooos
  • Soldiers of Britannia, The Empire of Code Geass, respond to commands with "Yes, My Lord" for regular commanders, "Yes, Your Highness" for royal princes/princesses and "Yes, Your Majesty" for the Emperor. Female commanders won't be called "My Lady".
    • Jeremiah Gottwald uses quite a bit during his Crowning Moment of Awesome, but this is somewhat justifiable because he's got brain damage and cybernetic implants of questionable quality.
    • This was mentioned in Code Geass Proper
    • One non-example is "Lelouch vi Britannia commands you...". Although it sounds like Lelouch is saying it in really mangled English, he's actually saying "Lelouch vi Britannia ga meijiru..." (As a warning, this clip is from near the end of the anime, and thus contains spoilers. Even though it's only 20 sec. long. You have been warned. For a non-spoiler example, view this one)
    • "All Hail Britannia!!"
      • Oddly, the french dub translated that one in French. And in United Federation of Nations Resolution Number One, the rallying motto for both side were the same, just switch Britannia/Japan.
    • The Britannian anthem of the same name certainly counts, too. For the most part, it's in perfectly grammatical English, but it's pronounced so badly that it's nearly incomprehensible to the untrained ear.
    • Hell, the Britannian Anthem reaches the point where an untrained ear can easily mistake it for Ominous Latin Chanting or Gregorian Chanting!
    • Presumably, English is the language of the Britannian Empire, so some of the signs and Shirley's letter are written in English. Also, when a Knightmare unit is destroyed, the screen reads "LOST"
      • If you pause during some scenes (the part early in R2 about suspicious deaths Rolo is believed to have been involved in comes to mind), you can often see that the English is quite good.
    • This tradition passes on to the spinoff manga Nightmare of Nunnally, semi-plot important soldiers and Suzaku actually get theirs written out in English when they say "Yes, your Highness." Not only written in English, but also placed in explosive speech bubbles that will cover a fourth of the page.
      • In the same manga, the Emperor has bad grammar, though this maybe due to the scanlators.
        • In the English version, it's "the dream Marianne and I shared".
    • There is a "Sound Drop" (a little keychain toy that says a phrase, or plays a tune if you press the button) of Suzaku that alternates between saying "Yes, your Majesty" and "Yes, your Highness" when you push the button.
    • "Everything is bright" is easy to understand in the opening credits, but some of the other random English phrases...not so much.
      • There are some people who claim that the lyric says, "Everything has heart..."
      • Flow's booklet for the song WORLD END in with the CD Single has that in some fairly conscise cursive writing, seen here. It's Everything is Bright and Everything is Crying.
  • Cowboy Bebop's cosmopolitan future features a lot of Gratuitous English and Russian signage, but not so much in the dialog. This becomes rather disconcerting when you see the Engrish signs in the background while listening to the excellent, excellent English dub.
    • Except for the episode "Cowboy Funk", in which would-be cowboy Andy randomly spews out phrases like "Dangerous!". This may well be intentional given the character's behaviour throughout the episode.
    • The Gratuitous English in CB could be actual Engrish in the CB universe though, as the Solar System, especially Mars, seems to have a Chinese majority.
    • The "cordname" gaffe noted under Darker than Black is identical to one seen occasionally in Cowboy Bebop (on bounty heads' wanted posters, that is). In the first episode alone, you can pause and discover that Asimov Solensan is wanted for "breack into a bank robber." This doesn't even get into the English used in actual conversation between the characters, which is... ridiculously frequent. Another reason to watch the dub, I guess.

D

  • NOW I'VE LOST IT/I KNOW I CAN KILL/THE TRUTH IS JUST BEYOND THE GATE
    • For what it's worth, those opening lines are pronounced perfectly. "JUST HOWWRING IN THE SHADOWS", on the other hand...
    • There's some in the show itself as well. For example, this lovely shot. "Cordname"? The cords have names? And her hometown is Rondon.
    • This is worst when November 11 does it. Hearing a character who's supposed to be British crack a joke about "Mistah Bii-Kei tuu-zero-wan" is wince-inducing.
  • The title of Death Note deserves special mention because it's supposed to be real English. Ryuk wrote the notebook in English, "the most popular human language," and presumably meant to entitle it "Death Notebook"; however, since the Japanese word for notebook is "nôto" (ノート), which corresponds to the English "note"; the translator screwed up. They did a decent job on the instructions for the notebook itself, although it's a little Narmic when Light writes names in the Death Note in Japanese, then in English below.
    • During the anime, when Raye Penber is riding the train, you can briefly see an English advertisement for a relaxing 'crise'.
    • Also, Ryuuk, at a certain point, bites into an apple and says "Jushi". I assume he is not speaking about a warrior.
      • The Japanese don't have a sound for "see". They pronounce it as "shi". So that's more of an accent rather than Engrish. Thank you, Viz Media for dubbing it and putting on track.
    • Death Note is also infamous for the author's attempts at producing English-sounding names, which gave us "Mail Jeevas", "Quillsh Wammy", and perennial favorite "Backyard Bottomslash". Word of God is that the author used names that he was sure did not exist in real life so as to not offend anyone.
      • On the other hand, "Nate River" is pretty good, and Mihael is apparently a real name. Dunno about Keehl or Lawliet, though.
      • Actually, there is a possible French variant of Mail: Mailhairer, which means 'Ill fated.' It's strangely appropriate, considering that he dies after only a handful of appearances.
    • There's also the second opening theme: What's Up People with the constant saying, "What's Up?"(watsu appu) and the lyrics having "Sucker" and "fucker" said in the lyrics. Adult Swim didn't even bother bleeping it.
      • They didn't bother bleeping it because it's actually Japanese: "san'ka" and "fuan'ka" respectively. It's just slurred enough that it sounds like Engrish. The whole line translates to "Human paean, does love escaping make humans nervous?" according to Anime Lyrics (a paean is a song of praise or triumph).
    • The back of Demegawa's jacket reads 'Dad's Stile', which was likely intended as 'Dad's Style', rather than a type of farmyard gate-thing owned by your father.
    • In one episode, an article about Watari's death is apparently written in English, but apart from the headline, none of it seems remotely related to the subject at hand.
    • L is supposed to be half-British and fluent in English. Which goes a long way to explain why he speaks it so slowly, deliberately but ultimately badly in L: Change the WorLd.
    • In the second live action film, Light's sister Sayu has an inexplicable shirt with cats on it that reads "I am a cat at what?"
  • Detective Conan has its share of Caucasian FBI/CIA agents and American members of The Syndicate, yet when they speak English, they speak Engrish. Also, the famous "Need Not To Know" in the fourth Non-Serial Movie.
    • Characters who are supposed to be American or British frequently speak or think in English (subtitled in Japanese). With few notable exceptions, they sound just like Japanese voice actors reading lines phonetically. (This leads to such absurdities as an American correcting a Japanese's pronunciation of "policeman" but both of them ending up saying it exactly the same way, or Conan recognizing a man is British rather than American from his accent (which is entirely imperceptible to native-English-speakers' ears).)
      • Made even funnier by the fact that James then went on to say that he was born in England, but raised in Chicago, which means he would probably have an American accent anyway.
      • Made even funnier by the fact that Hattori has the best English out of the entire cast.
  • Pretty much every song in the anime Detroit Metal City features gratuitous English, usually either "Rape", "Murder" or "Fucking". Which can get to be somewhat hilarious, considering that in the first episode of the series, a Detroit Metal city Cover band is featured, with the singer simply playing his guitar and going "Rape. Rape. Rape. Rape." somewhat rhythmically -- and one of the lead character's special powers is saying "rape" ten times a second.
    • The CEO of Death Records also uses it a lot.
  • In a chapter of D.Gray-man, a character was writing a report in what, at first, looks like Surprisingly Good English. Until you realize that the text had been copied from a random article that has absolutely nothing to do with the what the report is supposed to be about. They did something similar in the anime with an article from that other wiki, only that time the text matched the subject (a city the exorcists were being dispatched to).
  • For the first few series of Digimon, the titular monsters would almost invariably call their attacks in English (and if it wasn't English, it was German). Spurts of English dot the evolution themes throughout the franchise and would sometimes even be used as the titles of said songs (For instance "Brave Heart" being the name of the Digimon Adventure evolution theme, which ends in "SHOW ME YOUR BRAVE HEART!").
    • Every Digimon song seems to have Gratuitous English somewhere. Tamers' opening had "WANNA BE ZE BIGGEST DREAMAH", while Frontier's had the incredibly weird sounding (but still incredibly enthusiastic) "GET A FIRE POWAAAH!!" and "BURN UP'N GO!!".
    • Topped in Digimon Xros Wars: GET BACK GOOD WORLD XROS HEART! Badass and enthusiastic as hell, but seriously, this takes Engrish to a whole new level.
  • DOGS Bullets and Carnage has English inserted here and there, but the most notable example is undoubtedly "Fuck up, gentlemen!" Context doesn't really help.
    • It's even funnier in the CD drama when it sounds like Cloud Strife saying it because of the voice actor. Later in the same CD drama there's an "OH, JEEE-SUS!" and a "SLENDER BODY" thrown in there.
  • Dominion Tank Police has an Image Song called Tanky Boys, Tanky Girls.

Woah-oh-oh! Tanky boys! Tanky girls!
Woah-oh! Mighty cups! Light your fire!

  • In Dragonball Z, most of Vegeta's attacks have English names. Here, it is allegedly used to portray the character's fighting style as uncouth.
    • Both Mr. Satan and Gotenks have attack repertoires made up almost entirely of Gratuitous English names.
    • Heck, many of characters' names are form of Gratuitous English. Bulma, bloomer; Vegeta, vegetable; Raditz, radish; Freeza, freezer; Broly, broccoli; Bardock, burdock; etc.
      • Goku's Saiyan name is "Kakarotto", or carrot.
      • Broly's pun is actually lampshaded by Master Roshi, where the drunken Turtle Sage threatens to fight him, calling him Broccoli before Oolong corrects him and Krillin immediately takes him elsewhere.
    • While "Super" exists as a Japanese loanword, it is typically used for Supermarkets. The word is still used as a reading for the character of Chou (Japanese for "super") in the term "Super Saiyan". The numbers (for Super Saiyan 2-4) are also pronounced in English rather than Japanese.
    • Besides evidently writing while hungry, Toriyama seems to enjoy the look of English words. "Kill You" on Tao's outfit, Krillin's name (spelled "Kulilin") on his hat, "Kame House" on Kame House (which is just a place of residence), "Turbo" on Turbo's outfit, etc..
    • In the German Dub, Cell yells, "OH SHIT!" in English right before he gets hit with Vegeta's Final Flash.
      • In the Danish translation, "shit" is used here and there, too (including by Cell in the above-mentioned scene). Mr. Satan also says "Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!!" when he thinks he's going to be killed by Boo.
    • One of the memorable ending songs featured "popukon shawa!" And what is "Cha la! Head cha-la?"
      • That's actually Japanese. へっちゃら (roughly pronounced "head cha-la") means "coolness; calmness; composure; unconcern", in this special case more like "no threat, no match (for me)".
    • Speaking of songs, Dragon Ball Kai gives us Ginyu Tokusentai [2], which prominently features the phrase "Yes we are!" at the beginning of each chorus. Given that the Ginyu Force is a parody of the Super Sentai genre (and the quality of the song), it isn't very much out of place.
    • The anime adds a scene telling the legend of the Dragonballs. The song that plays over it (and is reused later) has lyrics such as:

Come out Dragon just for me
Nozomi kanaete hoshii kara
Yume oikakete far away
Dragonball Dragonball
Dragonball I'll get it!

    • The Italian anime OP/ED often do this as well. The OP for the first series, Dragon Ball, starts with cries of "Dragon Ball! Blastin' thru the clouds! Dragon Ball! Fightin' underground!" (or perhaps "on the ground") And who can forget the GT one? Dragon Ball GT/is for you and me/in a world that wants really to be free. Come on...

E

  • The title of Eensy Weensy Monster comes from this. Fortunately it translates well.
  • Ergo Proxy has practically every written word show up in English from computer screens, hand written notes, to the Mind Screw gameshow episode's graphics. This didn't help matters for the subtitling when the gameshow host's lines were translated overtop the exact same English he was reading.
    • The nature of everything being written in English also meant that certain terms had very Engrish spellings like the AutoReivs and Metanhaidorad (Methane Hydrate).
  • All of the episode titles in Eureka 7 are in English, written in Katakana, and are Shout Outs to various songs by both Japanese and non-Japanese artists. The episode "Papermoon Shine" (Pēpāmūn Shain ペーパームーン・シャイン), for example, is reference to "It's Only a Paper Moon" by Harold Arlen.
  • In a scene at the end of episode 3 of Excel Saga, Excel is captured and interrogated by a group of soldiers who are apparently American. One asks Excel her purpose in being in their camp, except his English is so heavily accented that it comes out sounding like "What is a porpoise?" In the ADV dub, the soldier's question is in perfect English -- "What is your purpose?" -- but they slyly acknowledged the original performer's lousy English by changing Excel's answer from "I don't know" to "A really big fish?". Later on in the series, the first Recap Episode featured one of the "Beauty Theater" segments from episode 8 re-dubbed in nonsensical broken English ("You give... chewing gum?"); the ADV dub didn't even bother redubbing it, instead crediting the original voice actors (though they apparently couldn't find the names). And later still, in episode 17, Excel tries to communicate with some American thugs in broken English: "Hello, Merry Christmas! I'm Excel. You are dog!" Replaced in the ADV dub by a mish-mash of ghetto slang and Gratuitous Spanish.

Excel: "Yo yo homies! Feliz Navidad. Me llamo Excel. You're my bitches!" And later "YO MAMA ES UN PIG."

    • The Mexican dub renders Excel's Engrish as normal English spoken with a heavy Hispanic accent.
      • Even Excel's very name is Gratuitous English, as she pronounces it as "Exceru" sometimes.
        • All of ACROSS' members names are Gratuitous something, since they're all named after hotels.
    • Episode 17 has another example; at the beginning, Il Palazzo scatters Gratuitous English into his briefing, to add a little verisimilitude to the announcement that the girls are being sent off on a mission to America. In the dub, to preserve the "you are being sent someplace foreign" theme from the original, Il Palazzo spits out some Gratuitous Italian.
    • Ladies and genlemen Za Butifuru Seatta The Beautiful Theater, the Engrish Version.
  • Since Eyeshield 21 is about American football, the frequency of English words and terms is understandable, but although a lot of the English is passable some of the team names are hilarious: Seibu Wild Gunmans, Hasiratani Deers, Sado Strong Golem, Hori Fantasy Monsters, Yuuhi Guts, Noroi Occult, to name a few. Then again, UC Santa Cruz's athletic teams are the Banana Slugs, but at least they're properly pluralized.
    • Also, there's Hiruma's favorite FAKKIN adjective.
    • Also, several of the "special moves" used by players are named in Gratuitous English, like Shin's "Spear Tackle", and Sena's "Devil Bat Dive" and "Devil Bat Ghost". Furthermore, Natsuhiko Taki is fond of Gratuitous English; to name just one example, he often refers to his sister Suzuna as "My Sister" in thickly-accented English ("Mai sistah!").

F

  • Fist of the North Star has an opening song which contains the Engrish phrase You wa Shock ("You're In Shock"). This becomes so well known that the opening song is sometimes referred to as that, not its original title -- Ai o Torimodose.
    • The second series has the title song Tough Boy, which has even MORE Gratuitous English than Ai wo Torimodose. "KEEP YOU BURNING!" and "WE ARE LIVING! LIVING IN THE NINETIES! WE STILL FIGHT! FIGHTING IN NINETIES!" (EIGHTIES in the full version for seemingly no reason).
      • The 2nd credits theme and Hn K 2's Credits theme "Dry Your Tears" and "Love Song" resptively are examples of this, with Dry Your Tears having lyrics like "Baby, dry your tears", "I will love you, til the day I die", and Love Song having its chorus as "I don't like love cos I love you"
    • "I KILL THE FIGHT!" from a song in the sequel, and "DO SURVIVE!" from the original anime's second opening.
    • The series itself has plenty. Buro-dy Ku-ross, Souzern Ku-ross, the names of the villains...
  • Flag has the scenes where the HAVWCs are being introduced, complete with schematics with annotations on specific parts of the mecha. A close look will quickly revealed that they are copy+pasted from english news articles. A literal case of Ripped from the Headlines.
  • The homunculi in Fullmetal Alchemist are always referred to by the English names for the Seven Deadly Sins, leading to You Are the Translated Foreign Word when these are then explained for the benefit of Japanese audiences. The official English translations all hit the thesaurus to avoid this sounding silly, hence "Lust the lascivious," "Greed the avaricious," and "Sloth the indolent," to name a few. "Greedy Greed" still gets used a couple of times, though, since it sounds cool.
    • The second anime itself is titled Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Fullmetal Alchemist in Japanese.
    • One of the openings of Brotherhood is called "Golden Time Lover," which gives a pretty good preview of the lyrics. Still awesome, though.
  • Full Metal Panic! brings us "Don't Worry, Everything is gonna Happy. ♥"
    • "HI, JAPANESE PRETTY GIRLS!"
    • Spoofed in one of the late novels -- when Kaname creates a character for an MMORPG, she decides that she has to also have a cool-sounding English name. That name? Toilet Paper.
  • The American Jackie Gudelhian from Future GPX Cyber Formula uses this from time to time, sometimes even putting in hybrid terms like "Me-tachi" and "You-tachi".
    • The English version of the original ending song for the TV series is full of these as well.

G

  • Galaxy Angel and the Galaxy Angel gameverse both fall very, very guilty. Theme Naming is obscured by cutesy spellings (Ranpha Framboise, Mint Blancmange and Mille-feuille Sakuraba wouldn't have been cute enough) and signs on the ship read things like "EMERGENCY ROCK".
    • I LIKE JERRY BEANS
    • And I demand to know what situation calls for the use of an Emergency Rock.
  • GaoGaiGar's Mic Sounders the Thirteenth. "Yeah! Kamon Rokkenrooru! Disc M -- set-oun! Giragiraan... daburu bui!" The other American characters in GaoGaiGar also routinely blurt out, "OH NO!" or "MY GOD!" every other episode, but Mic is the biggest example, simply because he does it more or less every other sentence, especially when in his goofy Cosmo Robot form.
    • Taken to the extreme in his debut episode, before the opening theme even plays. It has to be seen to be believed.
  • Kuchiki in Genshiken is constantly spouting random English phrases, and can't pronounce a single one of them correctly. The rest of the group are not amused.
    • In the manga, there is a scene in which Ohno and Kasukabe show off their excellent english skills to each other, to the bewilderment of the others present. While this particular scene was not shown in the anime, a couple episodes from the second season involve two Americans in Japan (both with surprisingly Japanese accents) forcing both Ohno and Kasukabe's voice actresses to speak in Engrish for the entirety of the episodes. This will cause your average English-speaking viewer to break down in either tears of laughter or tears of frustration, depending on their take of the show.
  • The anime adaptation of GetBackers has this in spades. Among the most egregious offenses are "Meester Nobrakee" (Mr. No-Brake), "Doctor Jackyl" and "Lady Poison".
  • Texas Mack, the American Super Robot from the Getter Robo series, and its pilots Jack and Mary King. If you know even a bit of Japanese (or English, for that matter), click the link and prepare to cry for ear bleach. Or laugh your ass off.
  • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex has masterfully written English songs in place of Ominous Latin Chanting... retaining an air of mystery for Japanese viewers, and distracting viewers who actually understand what is being said. Granted, what it is being said is generally somewhat metaphorically related to the plot, but it's still distracting...
    • Actually, the first season opening is a blend of English, Japanese, Latin, and Russian.
  • VERY blatantly obvious in the anime Ginban Kaleidoscope. Seriously, the ghost possessing Tazusa is Canadian?? Oh god, even the ones from Russia sound more fluent in Japanese than in their native tongue. Examples: "Owon moar" (One more). "Au yuu reeedy? (Are you ready?). "Graiet" (Great!). Auttaku is the best ofu deefeensa (Attack is the best of defense!)
  • The first of many notable instances of this in Gintama is a scene where Kagura shouts out "Health me," only to be corrected by a "It's 'help me!'" from Gintoki. When Shinpachi sees what the two were making a racket about, he proceeds to shout "Herpes me!".
    • Other amusing examples include:

Kagura (While crashing through a wall with a motorcycle) : "HARLEY DAVIDSON!"
Gintoki (After receiving a fallacious report from a doctor that his balls will explode if he keeps eating sugar): " GO TO HELL!"
Hijikata: "ARE YOU READY GUYS? LET'S PARTY!"

  • The title Gosick can be very confusing, or even misleading. Just remember: the writer intended that to be Gothic, Japanese has no "th" sounds, and there's absolutely no proofreaders working in his publishers.
  • Fei Xin Lu from Choujuujin Gravion Zwei and her infamous dynamic kill catchphrase, said always with a pose and a smile: "Jack Off!" Evidently the writers thought this meant something besides "masturbate", but what is a mystery.
    • Maybe it was supposed to be "Jerkoff!" (the insult, not the action).
    • And let's not forget the very first episode's infamous "Status Clitical" screen. "A citizen decased" is on the same screen, but isn't nearly as funny.
  • Nearly every song from Gravitation (like most J-pop) centers on a mock-English phrase, often slightly misused. The title sounds like gratuitous English, but it's actually from a conversation between Tohma and some American businessmen.
  • In the opening to Great Teacher Onizuka, there are two words that he graffiti'd in English:LOVE and PIECE. You can see it here at 00:37. It might make for a great pun, if they had absolutely any idea what they were saying.
    • CRASH! Into the rolling morning! FLASH! I'm in the coolest driver's high!
      • At least the "driver's high" part is relevant, since Onizuka rides a motorcycle.
    • In the manga, the English teacher Tadashi Sakurai (Sakurada in the anime) peppers his sentences with very skewered English words and phrases, which usually can be translated as similar-sounding but completely-different-meaning words altogether. He does this in his internal monologues, even.
  • Gundam loves this trope, generally in writing. As evidenced here. At least one -- "He is a CHAR!" -- has undergone Memetic Mutation into a meme in its own right.
    • The Memetic Mutation references the fact that a certain person might in fact be a clone of (or in the case above, actually is) Char Aznable, based on their looks or their actions.
    • In Gundam Wing during episode 3 Heero is being scanned by a medical device. Sharp eyes will notice that the text is actually the install instructions for Adobe Photoshop.
    • Notably averted in Gundam 00, where the English text displays are gramatically coherent and properly fit the story.
      • There is still "Yuu habu kontororru desu." Courtesy of the Genki Girl Bridge Bunny.
      • And who can forget the names of the so-called innovators? "Bring Stabity", anyone? "Devine Nova"? Still, can't help but think that they're pastiches of some sort, given the aforementioned accuracy of other examples of English in Gundam 00.
    • G Gundam's first theme song has quite a bit of gratuitous English, notably the repeated yells of "SHINING FINGER!" which, taken out of context, is hilarious.
    • G Gundam's Chibodee Crockett, being comprised mainly of stock American stereotypes, naturally uses this a lot.
    • There's also the scene where someone is using a targeting system and instead of "LOCK ON" it says "ROCK ON".
    • Crockett uses mostly stereotypical English lines but they weren't exactly wrong, in context or grammar. If memory serves, his pronunciation wasn't too bad either.
  • Quite a few characters in Gun X Sword use it. The first episode introduces us to Lucky Roulette, who repeatedly uses "Lucky" (even when he means just "luck") and "Unlucky". The sixth episode has a young couple after Van's armor who use a lot of random English, and the episode "Thank You Ocean" has Keiji, whose dialogue is about 75% English. And then there's Van's Invocation to activate his Humongous Mecha: "Wake up, Dann."

H

  • Hajime no Ippo: "I want to dive lost mind / I want to dive lost mind / I want feeling / I want feeling".
    • The second opening theme Inner Light says "No pain trance continue". The ending theme for the second season of the anime, titled 8am, is in English, but some lyrics don't make sense.
    • Bryan Hawk sometimes speaks bits of English, (such as "My town.." or "GOOO TOOO HEEEELLLL!!"). He is American after all and should actually speak English all the time.
  • Edgar receives a letter in the fifth episode of Hakushaku To Yousei that definitely falls into Gratuitous English. It's supposed to sound sinister but...um..."Your life is plundered with Tacaraken!"
  • Takako in Hanasaku Iroha uses English phrases/sayings when explaining or justifying her ideas on how to improve the inn. It has a somewhat additive effect on her obnoxiousness.
  • Haunted Junction ended every episode with Haruto saying "Oh my God" in English.
  • In the Hellsing Ultimate OVA, Father Anderson manages to quote 1 Corinthians 16:22 in its English entirety. This actually is featured several times in the original material, with elements such as Hellsing's slogan: "We Are On Mission From God", not to mention most of the characters' names, which are not actually English, but just sound like it. Walter's surname (Dorneaz) was probably supposed to be "Donaldson", and Seras' name might even be a stab at Sarah. Funny how they got it right in Shamanic Princess, but not here. Victoria is a very unusual surname, but just about possible. Strangely, Alexander Anderson's name is an unusual stab at an Anglicised Swedish surname (on the other hand, it's spelled "Andersong" in the manga...).
  • Heritage From Father includes a sequence in English, performed by Japanese voice actors "who render the scene unintentionally hysterical." It includes the following memorable death threat: "I have a good idea...now I can kill you, if you want; and then, put you into the garbage can, if you want. But everyone is thinking that a chicken-hearted tiny secretary is being scared, and she runs away. Don't worry about it, fucking baby! Nobody helps you - sorry, sweetie! We don't like stinky trouble! GERROUT OF HERE!"
  • Miyako from Hidamari Sketch trying to spell "Love & Peace" on snow in Hidamari Sketch ends up being "Love & Piece" instead. Yes, this is intentional on the part of the mangaka.
    • She also tends to misspell otherwise correct English, which probably is part of her Ditzy Genius package.
  • In Hikaru no Go many characters wear clothes with gratuitous English, but the strangest example is probably from the arc in which Isumi is studying Go in China; he's often seen wearing a t-shirt reading "Richard Kern" (the name of a rather obscure American photographer).
    • Character also occasionally say "thank you", "your welcome" "sorry", etc.
  • Leiji Matsumoto's erotic comedy Hotaru no Shuku has a sex-scene with an english noble woman and her servant. This scene features the following lines of poetry:

Miss Chatterley, Drink Me!
Once more challenge, double insert all-night plains fuck!!
Me barrel erect again, hard pipe!!
Fuck animals in midnight!!

I

  • Ana tries to speak only English in the second episode of Ichigo Mashimaro, because she's from England and everyone reacts to her as a foreigner, but she's lived in Japan so long that it ends up as a particularly egregious example of this -- even the students notice by the time she says "One, please?" instead of "Glad to make your acquantance," though the teacher tries to cover for her. Miu also tries for this, just because she's a Cloudcuckoolander, and it ends up even worse; she can't even manage to consistently stay in English.
  • Inazuma Eleven": FAIAH... TONEEEEEDDDOOO!!
  • One can't ignore the hilarious moments in Itazura na Kiss where Christine (Chris) and Naoki speak in English, especially since Chris is supposedly a native English girl. "Catupirah!" The lines are all perfectly grammatically correct - it's the stilted pronunciation that makes it sound so odd.
    • Really weird when the one who voice Chris is Yūko Gotō, who also voice Kate.

J

  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
  • Any character voiced by Junichi Kanemaru will have English lines as part of his dialogue.
  • The episode of Junjou Romantica where Shinobu's Australian friend comes to visit have them discussing a funny tv show. ROFL had never seemed so ROFL.
    • It gets even worse when Miyagi joins in.

K

  • In Kaichou wa Maid-sama, episode 4 features a net idol. Her/He site is being browsed through, coming to a page containing "Gallary 1", among other Gallaries.
  • This clip from Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl features a scene entirely in English. The voice actors are obviously native English speakers; however, the writers obviously are not. It makes you feel sorry for the poor voice actors having to say things like "Recheck it! Don't you understand?" and "I'm afraid that that's the fact!"
  • Togame of Katanagatari is fond of using the British term Cheerio, incorrectly, this might not count as gratuitous except for the fact that she uses all the time, even after she knows its wrong...
  • In an episode of Kemeko Deluxe, Ryoko is explaining about women (in general) to Sanpeita while they have coffee. She tells him (in Japanese) "It can't be helped, a woman's secret No.1". He replies "No.1 Ohhhh". She raises her skirt (her back is to the camera (so to speak) and states "KYOU NO PANTSU WA KURO" (Today's panties is black!) getting a "nosebleed from Sanpeita as he says in english" "Fucking great!"
  • Keroro Gunsou features some Gratuitous English from recurring minor character Melody Honey, an actress/model from the United States. "OH! EET'S VIORENCE!" In episode 9, Fuyuki refers to The Men in Black using the phrase "Black Men".
    • And in episode 38, Giroro has to deactivate an experimental combat exoskeleton that's causing Natsumi to go on a rampage by getting close enough to Natsumi to push a button on the suit and shout, in thickly-accented Gratuitous English, the phrase "Natsumi, my love! Kiss me tenderly, and hold me tight forever!"
    • In one episode, there are 2 moments where Giroro yells "Unbelievable!!" in a hilariously-thick accent.
    • This is Sparta!!!
    • Spoofed a number of times in the dub. "NATOSHUMI MAI LUB! KISSU MI TENDARII ANDO HOLD MII TAIT FOREBEL!"
    • In the dub of another episode, the narrator remarks on a banner that reads "Opening... Celemony?"
    • "I know that says 'Warnig', but I'm pretty sure they meant 'Warning'."
  • In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, one episode had a coach from Hell called Macho-san, who got such classic lines as "Okay everybody, let's dancing!" and "GO GO HEAVEN!"
    • Kirby will also sometimes call his attacks in English in the Japanese version, such as "Stone Kirby!", "Wheel Kirby!", "Reflect Guard!" "Giant Swing!", "Iron Ball!", "Jet Cracker!" etc. etc. Sometimes he does it in Japanese too, and sometimes a mix of both (i.e. "Mirror Bunshin!" (Mirror Clone)). There's also the fact that "Warp Star" is said in English, and some of the characters' names (most prominently Sword Knight and Blade Knight) are English too.
  • K.O Beast (AKA KO Century Beast Musketeers)'s Bud Mint often begins his sentences with one or more English words or phrases. He also tends to say "What?" instead of "Nani?" and also frequently cries out "Jesus!" when frightened.
  • Many of the goofy one-shot villains of Konjiki no Gash Bell speak quirky English phrases, from Victoream's "Very melon" (and its counterpart "Very shit") to Belgim E.O.'s "Maximum good".
  • Little-known manga Kyo Kara Ore Wa has the main character, Mitsuhashi meeting a foreigner. He uses every bit of Engrish he can think of, including "kechappu" (ketchup). Finally, he politely states "Goh hoh-m yankii!"

L

  • In Loveless magical battles are fought by each side speaking various English words and phrases to describe what they wish to do. The more complex the word (i.e., the more syllables) the stronger the action, and the stronger the person performing the attack has to be. However, this makes things interesting if you watch an English dub, since it appears things happen by just speaking.
  • The opening song to Lucky Star appears to parody this, as the entire song is composed of gratuitous-English-style gibberish, even the parts that are in Japanese.
    • The opening theme is actually more likely to be referencing the "random events as they happen" nature of the show. The Engrish parts and the Japanese lyrics of that song are all talking about random, mundane things.
    • "Miyuki-san, GOOD JOB!"
    • "STURONGAAA!"
    • In one of the manga strips, Tsukasa wonders how many of the Japanese people who listen to English music actually understand what the lyrics mean.
    • The opening theme for a 70's action show named Monkey, originally in Surprisingly Good English, was turned into this when Konata sang it in one of the 'karaoke' endings.

M

  • Macross is bad with this one. The signs of places are in English but most of them are not even close to how it's spelled in English. My favorite one has to be what is supposed to be called Restaurant is called Rest Rant. Narm at it's best.
    • Although perhaps nothing beats the message received from Mars Base Sera that reads "If mice could swim they would float with the tide and play with the fish down by the seaside. The cats on the shore would quickly agree". The novels try to pawn it off as code.
    • Macross Zero has an odd example of linguistic confusion caused by both Gratuitous English and Gratuitous Russian; the HUD on a Russian character's fighter displays the Cyrillic "локон" which is pronounced roughly like the English phrase "lock-on," but actually means "curl" in Russian.
    • Gorgeous, Delicious, Deculture!
    • At one point in episode 7, a screen had a poem-ish thing: "If mice could swim they would float with the tide and play with the fish down by the seaside. The cats on the shore would quickly agree." Apparently just to have something that looked cool on the screen.
    • This culminates with What 'Bout My Star that has full third of its lyrics in English, with varying degree of incomprehensibility.
      • It is a rather catchy song, though!
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, all humanoids speak Japanese regardless of origin, but Midchildan artificial intelligences speak English, while those of Belkan origin speak German. (This includes the names of the attacks, as well as the devices themselves.) While the pronunciation is fine, due to native English-speakers performing the dialogue, the actual lines sound like they were run through a free Internet translator site -- especially in season 2, when they start speaking full sentences. One wonders how many tries it took for Donna Burke to say "It can be done. As for my master." without cracking up.
    • Let's not forget Bardiche's confirmation phrase, "Yes sir", spoken to a female. Though it might be just that Fate is masculine enough to be called "sir".
    • Not all of them are voiced by native English speakers; S2U (Chrono's weapon in the first season) speaks with a very noticeable Japanese accent, though this is because S2U is a Storage Device, rather than an Intelligent Device (the Intelligent Devices are the ones that speak well-pronounced English).
    • There is also an American human character, Alisa, whose use of English is limited and not as highly amusing as, say, Raising Heart's. Then again, watching her scream "Be quiet!" at a yapping dog does have some giggle value.
    • In one eyecatcher from Episode 6, Arf yells "Oh no!" when a sign falls on her in the bath, and earlier responds to Fate locating a Jewel Seed with "Nice!".
    • The second ending theme features the singer (Nanoha's seiyuu) repeatedly referring to "my love". Whether this refers to Fate, Euno, both or neither is up to the viewer, because Seven Arcs ain't telling.
      • Likewise, the song Pray sung by Nana Mizuki (Fate's voice actress) contains the phrase "holy tears" and several more English words.
    • "Magical girl lyrical Nanoha. She whispers some words mildly in your heart, and makes your gentle days."
    • And, after all, the title: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.
    • The titles for nuns in the Saint Church are typically "Sister" in English, spoken before the given name of the person in question.
  • Magical Pokaan has an entire half episode dedicated to the game "Let's enjoy English." It's... not good.
  • In Mahou Sensei Negima, the title character is supposed to be a 10-year-old Welsh boy teaching English to 14-year-old girls. There are some scenes of an English class, with rather poor English from the young Welshman. (Added note: The textbook that is being read from is modeled after the New Horizons textbook that is actually used in Japanese English classes.)
    • Negi's poor English sticks out even worse because Nodoka actually pronounces it fairly well.
      • The series seems somewhat odd in general with regards to Negi being a native English speaker. It looks like his messages to his cousin are done in Japanese even though she speaks English. Also, he seems to refer to his cousin as being his sister - this makes sense from a Japanese cultural point of view where a child might refer to an older girl he respects as being their big sister. Negi, however, is from Wales and would likely refer to Nekane just by her first name without any honorifics.
      • Note: Bad English in the anime. The manga gets all of its foreign languages (English, Latin, German, and Sanskrit) right.
      • Oddly enough, the manga (which usually avoids this) has a Gratuitous English sound effect for whenever Rakan uses Eternal Negi Fever.
  • The title of the 2005 series My-HiME is another good example. It's assumed that the (Japanese) viewer knows enough English to realize that the title is in fact a five-way pun in two languages, although the opening credits do graphically explain one element of the joke. In short: "Hime" means "princess", but it is also the acronym for a phrase in rather tortured English that describes the Extraordinarily Empowered Girls in the show (hence the odd capitalization). "Mai" is the name of the main character, and is pronouned "my". This gives us a title that means, simultaneously, "My Princess", "Princess Mai", "My 'Supergirl'" and "'Supergirl' Mai". ("Supergirl" isn't really what it means, but it's good enough for a quick explanation.) Finally, "maihime" is a noun referring to a temple dance, and the character Nagi uses a repeated "dancing" metaphor when talking about Mai.
  • In Mai-Otome, virtually all text seen on-screen, printed and hand-written alike, is in English, and it's actually good-quality English most of the time. However, it does occasionally slip into horrendous Engrish, like "Materiarise [dead link] " and "Arinko, Save US!! [dead link] ".
    • One weird Engrish error creeps up in the manga version. When Miyu is confronted by Alyssa's Evil Counterpart, she claimed she had a memory "lock", but the very large label on her internal HUD clearly displays the word "ROCK".
    • Sometimes the word choice is odd too. "Thank you for your precious time", in Mai-Otome Zwei, when the Five Columns have run out of time for the Surrogate System and are forced to de-Materialize.
    • Everyone addresses Maria Graceburt as "Miss Maria", even though her fellow Garderobe teacher Yukariko Sternberg is referred to as "Yukariko-sensei." The drama CD reveals that she was called this when she was a Meister.
    • Gal, one of the Aswad cyborgs, frequently uses Gratuitous English, especially the adjective "good".
    • Lampshaded in one of the early episodes. Arika knitted a handkerchief to give as a gift to her Anonymous Benefactor, and accidentally put "Wit Tanks" on it. She showed it to someone who told her that she misspelled it, prompting Arika to realize that she had terrible English. The handkerchief was later shown with the correct spelling.
  • Martian Successor Nadesico has a Japanese actor deliver some very stilted English to the UN (or their equivalent) in the third episode, playing the part of a black character. He is translated with Japanese subtitles along the side of the screen. When Yurika appears, she too attempts to converse in English (her pronunciation is much better, though she still suffers from a thick accent). This entire scene becomes somewhat confusing in the English dub due to the fact, unless you watch the original Japanese dialogue, you will have no clue as to why there are both Japanese and English subtitles (translating the Japanese subtitles of the English dialogue... got that?) in the scene, not to mention why the translation is much different from what is being said by the dub actors.
    • Heck, it's even a bit confusing subtitled, since the English subtitles are translations of the Japanese subtitles, rather than what's being said on screen (in English), and the two don't match.
    • Not to mention a scene where Akito is painting a giant robot model for his deceased fellow giant-robot-nut Daigouji Gai. The letters he painted on in English? "G A Y".
    • And how can we forget the epicness that is the Theme Tune, "You Get to Burning!" (yes, that's really the title)?
      • Let's turn that into the command "You! Get to burning!". Now does that make more sense?
  • In the Master Mosquiton OVA, featured prominently in episode 3 on a cruise ship, is a man heavily implied to be Edwin Hubble. He speaks in a combination of Japanese and terrifyingly, and hilariously, bad English, throughout the entire episode. Such examples are "oh my pardon me excuse me" (all as one sentence without any pauses) or "My God gasoline!"... once again, no pauses. There's a few nameless characters in this episode who also follow this.
  • Mazinger Z: Kouji Kabuto, pretty much the one who started the Calling Your Attacks for anime, called out almost all his attacks in English. The only one that subverted this was the Photon Beam, spoken in Japanese as "Koushiryoku Beam".
    • The Toei dub has theme songs sung entirely in English by famed anime singer Isao Sasaki. Though it is not nearly as gratuitous as the version Ichiro Mizuki did, which was pretty much nonsensical.

Koji can
swim in the sky
He can fly beneath the sea
In his robot-man
Mazinger Z!

    • Great Mazinger: Being Kouji's replacement, Tetsuya is an even worse offender. All attacks and weapons of Great Mazinger are in English: Great Boomerang, Great Typhoon... The worst offender is Thunder Break.
    • UFO Robo Grendizer: Duke Fleed also called his attacks out in English (Space Thunder) or in a mix of English and Japanese (Double Harken, Hanryuroku Storm...).
  • The ending song from MD Geist contains the lines "It's a only crazy game/It's a only foolish game", and the chorus begins, "Dangerous, most dangerous!"
  • The Japanese version of Mega Man NT Warrior (Rockman.EXE) has Elec-hakushaku (Count Zap in the English version), who throws around a lot of Gratuitous English, such as "Oh yeah!" "Rock and roll!" "Yes!" "No!" etc. A lot of Gratuitous English terms are used as well, such as "delete", "PErsonal Terminal (shortened to PET)", "plug in" and "plug out" (which got turned into "jack in" and "jack out" respectively in the English game), "Battle Chip", "Style Change", "Synchro Chip", "Program Advance", "Soul Unison" (DoubleSoul in the English version), "Cross Fusion", etc. etc. Characters also shout "Slot in!" whenever using a battle chip. Then there's the "World Three" (WWW in the English games), and anyone's cry of "Plug in! <Name>.EXE! Transmission!" when plugging their Navi into a computer. Not to mention "Net Saver" (changed to "Net Saviour" in the English version) and "Net Navi" (apparently short for "Net Navigator"). Most of the battle chips have English names too. Last but not least, there's the characters Netto and Meiru (Lan and Mayl in the English games), whose names are puns on the Japanese pronunciations of "net" and "mail" (as in internet and e-mail). And that's not forgetting the Navi names, most of which (the few exceptions being Roll, Blues and Rush) are an English word + man (RockMan, GutsMan, BurnerMan, AquaMan, MetalMan, and so on and so forth).
  • In The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Kyon is fond with peppering his speech with random English, somewhat lampshaded in the concert for the series. It's worth noting that in the dub his original line of "Why?" in English followed by "Naze?", or 'why' in Japanese, was kept intact, but reversed.
    • And Haruhi, when dragging the SOS Brigade into the baseball game, described it as a "Nice idea, dessho, Mikuru-chan?"
    • AI RAAAABU YUUUU
    • Even Yuki Nagato is not immune. "READY?_"
    • Koizumi also refers to the notorious Endless Eight as an "Endoresu Samā" (endless summer) and Kyon describes the lack of future as "no future". Kyon also exclaims a surprisingly well-pronounced "Excellent!" upon seeing Mikuru in her yukata. Not forgetting his fantastically hilarious exclamation of "THREE DAYS!?" (also surprisingly well-pronounced) in one Endless Eight episode after Haruhi tells him how long it took her to finish her summer homework.
    • There's also the second opening, "Super Driver" by Hirano Aya, which has a lot of Gratuitous English, such as "I say! I say! My heaven!".
    • In one of Haruhi's image songs called "Punkish Regular" Haruhi says "R&B", "S&M", and even "Fuck some life"(which was supposed to be "What is life")
  • Kana from Minami-ke is boss.
    • She could of course, be referring to "boss" as an adjective, which was 80s slang for "awesome". So THEN it would be technically correct.
      • "Boss" still means "awesome" in Scouse.
  • The second opening of Mirai Nikki is practically made of this. The entire lyrics are in English and they make sense, but they're so horribly pronounced that you should read the lyrics along with listening to the song in order to even slightly understand what they're singing...
    • All the participants of the game are referred to by First, Second, Third... up to Twelfth. Needless to say that they're hardly ever (if not never) pronounced right...

N

Jean: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. [Juru Berunu]
Nadia: Jingle Bells? [Jinguru Berusu]
Jean: No! Jules Verne!

    • And of course, there's "Don't forget to try in mind!" (which apparently means something like "Don't give up on your dreams") from the opening theme.
  • Naoko no Tropic Angel (as if the title didn't already count) has the Engrish-speaking Jenny, who spouts such gems as "Thanks a lot for help me!" and a fairly garbled sentence apparently containing "mouth" and "please."
  • The opening of the German dub of Naruto is in English. The German dub of a Japanese series, and the opener is in English.
    • Oddly enough, it also includes the Third Hokage's English VA saying "Twelve years ago, a nine-tailed fox suddenly appeared..." at the very beginning, and references to Naruto's dub catchphrase, "Believe It!" in the lyrics. Also worth noting is that in the German dub this is the only reference to the nine-tailed fox.
    • Then there's the most recent ending theme, sprinkled with English here and there, when it's not yelling "BACCHICKOI!!"
    • Nearly all of Naruto's opening and ending themes feature at least a few (accented) English words.
    • Strangely enough, in Japan, the opening sequence usually features Naruto's name in Roman letters, despite the fact that it's Japanese.
    • One filler episode featured a character who used gratuitous English in order to seem cool, and had his attendants do the same. If I recall, though, his usage wasn't actually that bad, although he seemed to be putting a lot of effort into getting the words out.
    • The second Shippuden opening had quite a bit of Gratuitous English, and often switched back and forth between English and Japanese several times; in one verse, for example, "EVERYDAY kono saki mo SHINING DAY".
    • Some recently introduced characters from the Cloud Village seem to have Theme Naming off of English letters: Jei (J), Shi (C), and most importantly "Killer Bee". Humorously, some fans seem to have not only insist on referring to Killer Bee by a direct romanization (thus, "Kirabi"), but back-translated it into the Gratuitous Japanese "Killer Hachi". This also applies to some bilingual puns with attacks names: "Rariatto, Erubo, and Raiga Bombu" all have Japanese meanings, but are also the Japanese pronunciations of "Lariat, Elbow, and Liger Bomb", which are pretty accurate descriptions of what the attacks are.
      • In the anime, Killer Bee also uses some Gratuitous English, like "thank you", "baby", and "brother".
    • Every time the phrase "nice catch" is used in Naruto, it is spoken in English. It's more than a little mind-blowing when Temari did this for the first time.
  • Strangely, the Dutch translation of Hayao Miyazaki's manga Nausicaä is filled with gratuitous English, even though it's translated directly from Japanese and most English terms have a direct Dutch translation.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion has Misato's never-repeated "You ah numbah one!" to Shinji. This particular phrase was a standard "Asians mangling English" joke at least as far back as the Vietnam war.
    • Of course he's Number One. It's printed in big block numerals on his plugsuit.
    • Shinji later repeats this back to Misato. Also, Asuka often spouts random English like "chance!", "lucky!", "back roll entry!", and "giant stroke entry!", plus some Gratuitous German ("guten morgen!"). Maya says her share of English, including "bodahline cleah" and counting down from ten. Of course, this is not counting the enormous amounts of English writing that appear everywhere.
      • To Asuka's credit, "chance" and "lucky" are less Gratuitous English and more loanwords that are generally accepted in Japanese culture with their own meanings (shouting "chance" would be translated as "Now's my chance" whereas "lucky" would be "I'm lucky", or more accurately, "Looks like I got lucky").
      • Asuka is not supposed to be "Japanese": she's half-German, was born in Germany, and lived there most of her life. So her speaking German is hardly "gratuitous," though she does generally seem to be showing off when she does it.
    • FRY ME TSU ZA MOON, ANDO RETTO ME PRAY AMAN ZA SUTAAZ...
    • The Rebuild of Evangelion soundtracks have a number of (pretty awesome) choral pieces in English, where the grammar ranges from serviceable to laughable.
      • Don't forget the opening of Rebuild 2.0, where Kaji speaks in English. Dear god, it was much easier reading the Japanese subtitles and translating them than trying to figure out just what the hell he was saying.
        • But that wouldn't be an example, nor would Mari or a few unnamed characters' use of English -- they aren't inserting English into Japanese vocabulary, they have plot-justified reasons for communicating in English.
    • Mari does have one moment of Gratuitous English: "ZA BEASTO!" Strange, considering she's shown to be able to pronounce English very well in another scene.
  • In Ninin ga Shinobuden, Onsokumaru says something in English from time to time. It usually makes sense in context, too.

O

  • One Piece loves this; Most of Luffy's attacks are English words for different weapons, like "Pistoru", "Rocketo" and "Bazooka". Nami does it too, woth attacks like "Sanda bolt Tempo!" Sanji actually uses gratuitous French because he is a master chef. Most (if not all) major villains in the series have English attack names, and some characters have gratuitous foreign language names like Captain Smoker (Su-moka taicho) God Enel, Rob Lucci, Garp, etc...
    • This may well be a Justified Trope, since Word of God says that the language used in the One Piece world is English.
    • It's obvious from the start that they're going to do this. In Episode 3, when Luffy and Zoro fight together against Captain Morgan and Helmeppo, Luffy says "Nice" after punching Helmeppo, and later Zoro calls Luffy "Captain".
    • Then there's Robin, whose attack names are a combination of Gratuitous Spanish, Gratuitous French, and Gratuitous English; in that order. (Example: "Tres Fleur, Clutch")
    • Baroque Works titles are rendered in English, as are many names of places (for example, "Grand Line"). Bepo (the bear pirate in the Heart Pirates) calls Trafalgar Law "Captain" in English instead of "Sencho".
    • There's quite a bit of Gratuitous English in the auction house on Sabaody Archipelago.
    • There's a bit of controversy among fansubbers and official translators on whether the primary villains of the series are called the Marines or the Navy. Whenever the name is written, such as on uniform hats or on ship signs, it's written as "MARINE". But when characters speak the name in Japanese, it's "Kaigun" (the Japanese word for "Navy"). This lead 4kids to digitally edit all "Marines" signs to instead say "Navy".
      • It's called the Navy in the Viz translation of the manga.
      • In any case, "marines" ("kaihei" in the original Japanese; translated as such by Funimation) are individual members of "Kaigun"/the "Navy". Funimation treats it as such, but does not edit any written instance of the word "Marine".
    • Franky is famous for this. All of his attack names are in full English (Strong Right, Weapons Left, Fresh Fire, etc.), and even a bit of french (Coup de Vent and Coup de Boo exclusively). He also commonly spouts off English words, most commonly "SUPA!!!" (super"), but sometimes "FUUURESH" (Fresh). Franky will often describe himself and things related to him as "SUPA!!!".
      • RIGHT! REFT! RIGHT! REFT! WA! TWO! WA! TWO!
      • In the English version of the game "One Piece: Unlimited Adventure", dubbed by Funimation, Franky says his catchphrase quite often, even though it could easily have been lost in translation. But instead of saying it alone like he does in the Japanese version, he often uses it while attached to other words. "I'm SUPER strong", for example.
      • That doesn't mean Franky won't implement Japanese language jokes into his dialogue, either. When he transforms into his Franky Centaur form, Franky shouts "HENTAI!!!". "Hentai" means "transform", but famously means "pervert". The fact that franky uses "hentai" for "transform" instead of the more common Japanese word for "transform" leads many characters to believe he is instead calling out "pervert".
    • The openings seem to use more and more of this as new ones are made. The tenth one ("Share the World") has pretty much the entire chorus in English, and at the start, as it freeze-frames on each of the Straw Hats in turn, there's a short description of each... entirely in English. Broken English, but still English.
    • In the anime Sanji yells "I NEED LADY" every time he sees a woman after the timeskip (he spent a whole two years on an island full of Okamas). And he was pretty into women before all this.

P

  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt positively revels in this trope, mostly to get away with copious amounts of swearing. Most of the music is written in English as well, which inexplicably uses better grammar and pronounciation than the English dialogue (most notable being "We are Angels"). Scanty and Kneesocks seem to be the biggest Gratuitous English users, and their pronounciation isn't always perfect (see below; She's actually attempting to say "Rules").
    • RRRRRRUURRRRUUUU!
  • The opening scene of Paprika is set in a circus. In English, you'd expect it to be described as "The Greatest Show on Earth", but the title character delivers the movie's first line as "It's-a the greatest showtime!"
  • One episode of Patlabor introduced the character officer Clancy, a Japanese police officer who had been living in America for several years, now back in Japan. She introduces herself by snapping a salute and saying 'Harro, I em offisser Crancy' to her team mates who only speak Japanese. So this character has an irish surname, but she never learned to pronounce it?
  • Persona 4: The Animation has quite a bit. The opening and ending songs are made of Gratuitous English. Not to mention "Bonds of people is the true power."
  • The theme song to Pita-Ten is pretty funny: I wiiiiish hello wake up angel, I wish "Hello, I say I love you" Some other languages are thrown in as well, I wish Hello! Bonjour niihau I miss you! and Merci chao I love you! What it means is anyone's guess.
  • Many names and half the attacks in Pokémon.
    • Satoshi (Ash) sometimes uses Engrish, such as "Thank You".
      • High Touch! (which should be High Five, obviously.) [3]
      • "HERACROSSU! MEGA HORNY!"
    • Ash's travelling partner Dento appeared in a trailer, screaming "IT'S TASTING TIME!"
    • In the Japanese version, Matis (Lt. Surge), being American, uses a lot of random English.
      • He speaks with Gratuitous English in all his manga appearances too, and often says stuff like "DAMMIT!" and "GOD DAMMIT!".
    • The first movie in Japanese after Ash takes down pirate trainer exclaims "Oh my God!". What's interesting is said trainer is voiced by a native English speaker (who the character is named after in-fact).
    • Quite a few song released in the first year or so of the anime featured a group called "Suzukisan", consisting of Imakuni, Sachiko Kobayashi, and Raymond. Raymond is American and pretty much is the only one that speaks English. And likes to mix Japanese with English.
    • From one of the manga, Pokémon Golden Boys Gold and Chris both says English words occasionally, just because they can.
  • Powerpuff Girls Z has some mostly due to being a Magical Girl version of an originally English show. The Powerpuff's battle cry is "Lovely Fighting Science Legend! Powerpuff Girls Z(eta)! Their attack names are also often either in English or a mix of English and japanese. "Bubble Popper! Ballon Catcher! Hurracane Lutz! Swing Sonic! <Food name in either language> Shot!"
  • Pixy Misa in the Pretty Sammy series takes this to an art form. Every other sentence is badly mangled English.
  • The Prince of Tennis: "You still have lots more to work on", "Nobody beats me in Tennis."(7:05 and 9:15 seconds in, respectively)
    • Kawamura, with racket in hand; "BURNING!" "OH YEA!" "COME ON!" "BABY!" and in one filler episode, "OH MY GOD!"
    • The names of almost everyone's 'special move' is in English, with the glaring exception of Fuji. Partially explainable in tennis being more of an English sport than a Japanese one (Name the last Japanese to have won the Wimbledon).
  • This is sometimes used in Pumpkin Scissors besides their Gratuitous German. They use it when they say "Invisible Nine (Inveeseeble noine)", "Doorknocker (dowaknocke)", and "Anti-Tank Trooper (Antah Tonk Trooper)".

R

  • In the Anime of the Game of Ragnarok Online, the opening theme song is entitled We Are The Stars. Aside from the obvious Title Drop in the lyrics, the song ends with the eye-twitching line, "We are journey through the stars."
  • Principal Kuno from Ranma ½ uses a lot of Gratuitous English as part of his whole fake Hawaiian schtick. Unusual in that it's intended to sound gratuitous and the other characters all know he's a fraud. (A late episode even reveals that the Principal failed English in High School.) The English translation uses gratuitous Hawaiian (both actual Hawaiian and island slang) to achieve the same effect.

S

  • In Sailor Moon, each Senshi's name is in English, and their Transformation Sequence and special attacks are invoked using phrases in English, mostly in very strange grammar constructions. (You would think they'd be in the language of the lost Moon Kingdom, but apparently not.) One famous example is "Star Gentle Uterus", which, despite making some symbolic sense, is noticeably censored in the one English adaptation that featured it. Occasionally, the attack names combine Gratuitous English with words from other languages, making them even messier. "Sabao" vs. "Shabon", for one of the more prominent examples. Some plot element-type-things in the show are referred to in English as well (Moon Stick, Princess Serenity, all the villains' mineral names).
    • Its live action counterpart, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, naturally includes the same examples, but it also frequently shows its girls wearing T-shirts and hats liberally splattered with English.
    • The anime has one very memorable Monster of the Week called Boxy, a priest turned into boxing-vulture-thingie. As he's a foreigner (the guidebooks identify him as such) and a parody of Japanese wrestlers he yells random Engrish like "I AM THE CHAMPION, LOVELY PUNCH!" and also says "I am the King of Kings" at one point.
      • To make it worse, his name is also an Engrishy Incredibly Lame Pun; he is not only a boxer but a bokushi, Japanese for priest. Truly one of the most cringe-inducing monsters of the week. (Or the most awesome.)
    • Also lampshaded slightly in the episode in which Sailor Jupiter first appears: Jupiter launches her "Supreme Thunder" attack, and Sailor Moon, apparently confused about the attack's name, asks "Chou Creme Sundae?"
      • The Lampshadeing goes further then that. The Mangaka did a 4 4-panel strips before forgetting about them and one of them was of Jupiter produceing ice-cream instead of lighting for her attack.
    • Sailor Mercury's visor has random English all over it, most notably "Prime directives: 1. Serve the public trust, 2. Protect the innocent, 3. Uphold the law.".
      • It says "protect the innolent". According to the Sailor Moon Wiki, this was a deliberate misspelling.
      • It gets worse. At one of the early episodes of Sailor Stars, Ami prints out a report from NASA's website for a student, and then offers to translate it since the original document is in English. And what is said document, you say? The lyrics to Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone".
    • One of Sailor Mars' image songs has an opening dialogue between Mars and a random bystander, whose Engrish stands out way more than Mars'; however, her "They all caw me Frame Snipah" rather painfully stands out.
    • LET'S DANCING!
    • One episode had a friend of Mamoru's from England come over to visit. While the Senshi spoke (fairly) good English, Usagi... um... didn't. "I am... eigo... no no, can't, ne?" Later on she got drunk and started saying things in English, then rhyming them with Japanese (e.g. "Nice to meet you, cream shichu!"). Also Played for Laughs when the Inner Senshi greet the English guy.

Minako: Nice to meet you!
Rei: H-Hello!
Ami: I'm glad to see you!
Makoto: THANK YOU!

  • Saint Seiya: Nearly all characters call at least one of their attacks out in English, not matter what their country of origin is. Seiya ("PEGASUS RYUSEI KEN!" "PEGASUS ROLLING CRASH!") or Shun ("Nebula Chain!" "Nebula Storm!") are good examples. One of them (Hyoga) is half Russian, so he also uses Gratuitous Russian in at least two attacks. Also, the main characters are named "Bronze Saints" and their armors' names usually to be on English (Pegasus, Dragon, Swan, Andromeda, Phoenix, Eagle...).
  • Parodied on Sakigake Otokojuku when the team is fighting an American Boxer -- they try to insult him with random English phrases like "I am a boy" and "Sorry. I got sweat. In my hand.", as these are all they can remember of high school English. And then there's the finishing move... "Quiche!".
  • Sakura Taisen features a flashback scene in which Ayame Fujieda (the well-traveled Japanese vice-commander) is recruiting Maria Tachibana (Russian-Japanese) for the team in New York. The two attempt to converse in incredibly slow English, to the point where a viewer with only minimal knowledge of Japanese can understand them better by reading the Japanese subtitling of the conversation than by attempting to make out Ayame's heavily accented English.
  • School Days: "In the school, the three guys met. Their relation had been changed in the season, and turned into three love stories." There is so very much wrong with that description. (If you don't remember seeing it, it's underneath the logo -- even in the original visual novel.)
  • S-Cry-ed had "I believe in Drastic my soul!"
  • Seto no Hanayome uses this, but Lunar's dad in particular does it almost constantly (being a Terminator expy).
  • Shakugan no Shana: "That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet." At least they got the quote right.
  • Shamanic Princess's Japanese voices say "Gaadiaan Warudo (Guardian World)" instead of "Kōken'nin no sekai"
  • Flesh in Shikabane Hime for some reason uses English Honorifics in place of Japanese ones.
  • El in Shugo Chara did this a few times ("UEITO!" [meaning "wait"] "SHATAPPU!" [as in "shut up"])
    • Oh, it goes FAR more than that. Almost every episode has at least one case of it, and often quite an amount more. Although every Character (Pun most definitely intended.) uses it at some point, among them would be El, who shows us, as well as what has already been mentioned, her constant shouts of "LOOOOOOOOVVVVVUUUUUU!", and her fellow Chara - of - Utau Il has her one use of "LESSONS!" within the second season's fourth episode. But the crowning acheivement has to go towards Rhythm,, and, via extension, Nagahiko Chara - Changed with Rhythm, who uses more gratuitiousness within the fifteen episodes he appears within than the entirety of the rest of the cast through - out BOTH seasons. Notable pieces include "HEY GUUYYYYSSSSS!", and his constant use of "YAY!" and "KUURU!". ESPECIALLY the "HEY GUUUYYYSSSSS!". It appears within almost every sentence he speaks. Still doesn't stop him (And the show within it - self, within fact.) from being awesome.
  • Asa from SHUFFLE! uses an English "Hello!" as her trademark greeting (accompanied more often than not by a painful slap on the back)
  • Yotsuba from Sister Princess is apparently half-English (she frequently wears Union Jack- and Sherlock Holmes-themed clothing), and her Catch Phrase ("Checky-checky!") is in English. Sort of.
  • The opening song to Sky Girls, "Virgin's High!" by MELL (the title itself even being a case of Gratuitous English) contains these as the first four lines, which do not make any semblance of sense whatsoever:

Please call me maiden Sky Girls.
Rising crazy?
Don't worry we are the Sky Girls.
...do want to do?

  • The Japanese version of Sonic CD's ending song are a weird example: the male vocals are pretty solid English, but the female vocals are... well, not. The opening song is more predominantly just bad English.
    • Interestingly, the lyrics for both songs were written by the same native English speaker.
  • Speaking of everyone's favorite hedgehog, in Sonic X, the title character, Soniku (Sonic) says about half his lines in engrish. He even curses in engrish in the first few episodes Shitto(Shit).
    • In episode 5 in the original Japanese, Sonic is chased by Knuckles up a cliff all the way to the top tip of a tree, strikes a pose and shouts, "OH, WHAT A GREAT VIEW!"
  • Leopard's overenthusiastic "I can FLY!" in Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo's first episode as he saves himself from crashing into the Earth.
  • Excalibuuuuuur, Excalibuuuuuur~
    • Several songs on the Soul Eater OSTs are entirely in English. Some are decent, and then there "Butterfly in the Still," a song that's practically impossible to decipher.
      • And even then it's still lovely.
    • Seeing as it's set in a school in America, there are other bits of English. Written words seem to alter between Japanese (the signs for the assignments) and English (the sign on the class door, I.D cards), but things like 'Death Scythe' turn up quite a bit. And then there's Shinigami's 'Repeat after me' when getting Spirit to relay his orders to Justin.
    • And then we have Free breaking out.
    • Soul Eater's own ice-wielding Werewolf Free's famous GODDAMMIT SHIT!?
    • Also, the second opening, Paper Moon, takes it to the extreme, with english thrown in in almost every three lines. However, if you listen to the english, it doesn't sound as bad as some of the other examples above (the pronunciation is fine, but the phrases don't always make sense). See for yourself.
    • Death the Kid is also guilty: in one episode he is begging Liz to let him groom her eyebrows (don't ask) and starts whimpering "Please... PLEASE!" in English. And later in the episode he starts blubbering "Dammit" in English too.
    • In one episode, Shinigami-Sama wants Spirit to repeat something so Justin Law can read his lips, so Justin doesn't have to take out his earbuds and Shinigami-Sama doesn't need to remove his mask. "REPEETO AFTAH ME!"
    • Soul Eater is a slightly unusual case in that it's actually set in Nevada... so if it's set in the US, does that mean it uses gratuitous Japanese in most of the dialogue?
  • Space Adventure Cobra: Cobra's Arm Cannon is referred to as a "Psychogun" in the original, and the setting's currency is the kuredito (credit).
    • Amu's dad, a monster of the week, character transformations, attack names: Shugo Chara is a river of this trope.
    • Nagihiko does this when he Chara Changes with Rhythm: "HEI GAIZ!"
  • Spice and Wolf's ending theme ("The Wolf Whistling Song") is in complete Engrish, rendering the already peculiar lyrics even more bizarre. "I danced with the peanuts for the fly"? (peanut butterflies) "I'm a little oof inside a car"? (wolf inside a girl) Few lines turn out to be what you would have expected.
  • Squid Girl: The characters primarily responsible are Americans, so it's technically not gratuitous. Until the episode where the other characters decide they want to learn English. Cue seven straight minutes of hilarity.
  • Star Driver's Takuto has a Catch Phrase, "It's a pinch!", for when he gets into a dangerous situation. There are a couple equally-Engrish variations as well, such as "It's a chance!"
  • In Strawberry Panic!, Amane's rival/EvilCounterpart Kaname challenges Amane to a "duel" to convince her to accept the challenge of running in the Etoile electionso she can properly beat her, and blurts out, in English: "You are the chuuzen one!" It's unintentionally hilarious. (The show is also full of Le French.)
  • In Super GALS!! Kotobuki Ran, showboy character Kuroi Tatsuki has adopted plenty of gratuitous English (and some French) into his vocabulary.

T

  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has its attack names in Engrish, in some cases, e.g. "GIGAHHH... DORIRUUU... BUREAAAKAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" This doesn't stop the move from being made of win, even if it does lead to confusion if it's suppose to be "Break" or "Breaker".
    • Ore wo dare da to omotte yagaru KICK!!!!!
    • Double Boomerang! Final!
    • Arc Gurren-Lagann, Full Power!
    • Not to mention the use of Spiral and Anti-Spiral. They even give the Japanese translation when introducing the concept.
  • The weapon names in Tokyo Mew Mew are supposed to be English puns, but they make no sense with English syllables, causing much confusion. Take Mew Ichigo's Strawbellbell (strawberry + bell = sutoroberuberu). The Tokyo Pop manga misinterpreted it as Sutoro Beruberu, Strawberry Bell and Strawberry Bell Bell, sometimes within the same volume. Anime fansubs mostly didn't bother with the puns, only leaving one of the two "fused" words.
    • Tokyo Pop's translation also made the series sound even more Engrishy than it was in the Japanese by directly translating the Theme Naming. The readers were left wondering "what parent in their right mind calls their kid Lettuce Midorikawa?" Sure, no one would name their kid Retasu either, but the random English just made it worse.
      • What parent in their right mind would name their kid "Apple"?
    • One of the anime filler episodes had a woman speaking English (which didn't sound perfect either, since she was apparently voiced by a Japanese voice actress), with Ichigo and company attempting to communicate with her. "I am a Ichigo!" Rather amusing is when Aoyama starts talking to her in what the characters claim is "flawless" English. As his actress is Ogata Megumi, who has a reputation for having poor English, you can guess how it actually sounds.
    • Zakuro's first episode also shows her speaking English to an American director. As they are both being voiced by Japanese actors, much Engrish ensues.
  • In A Certain Scientific Railgun‍'‍s theme, "only my railgun", we've got heavily accented Engrish: Looking!/ The blitz loop this planet to search way/ Only my railgun can shoot it. The full version also features: Sparkling!/ The shiny lights awake true desire/ Only my railgun can shoot it. The second one is better and would be perfect if "awake" was in the right tense...
  • Top (Garden) Ground Gear Force. What do you mean it's neither Japanesse nor anime?!
  • In the Transformers series made originally in Japan, the names of the Transformers and their attacks are often in English--although not the same names as in English. For example, Optimus Prime is named Convoy. Also, not all the same Japanese names link up to same English names from one series to the next. For example, Animated Bulkhead is called Ironhide, while the Animated Ironhide is called Armorhide. The other US Ironhides stayed Ironhide. However, the character we know as Transformers Armada Demolishor is called Ironhide in Japan. Also, two Japan-original characters known as Ironhide in the US weren't so named originally (namely Car Robots' Ox and Super Link's Roadbuster.) And that's just the Ironhides. It Gets Worse.
    • What makes this ironic is that "Optimus Prime" is actually latin. It means "great leader", or something to that effect.
    • There was also a bit of it in Super Link where Optimus Prime is promised a "big present" by Kicker's dad. Said "big present" turns out to be an entire city, so while it's random and gratuitious it's not technically wrong.
    • The Japanese opening of Transformers Generation 1 ends with the phrase "We hope the only world!"
    • Autobots in Transformers Headmasters and Masterforce frequently use English phrases when transforming. This is particularly jarring in Headmasters, where the Japanese dialogue is supposed to be due to the Translation Convention.
      • "MASTA FORSU! GODUU ON!"
    • Any Transformers series, really. The characters are named with English words most of the time, and shouts of 'TURANSUFORRRRM' aren't uncommon, either, since they accompany transformation sequences. Beast Wars gives its "Transform" calls in Japanese, though (Henshin!)
    • A variation occurs in Beast Wars II, where the Maximals/Cybertrons shout 'Henshin' and the (vehicle-based despite the use of Predacon symbols) Predacons/Destrons shout 'TURANSOFORM'. Car Robots (aka Robots in Disguise) has the vehicular Autobots (still Cybertrons) say Transform and the animal Predacons (Destrongers, which is pretty Engrishy itself) say Henshin. [4]
    • The Transformers Animated dub adds English shouts of "Transform" to a series that didn't have them originally, as well as Calling Your Attacks (in English too).
    • Some toy packaging renders the famed More Than Meets the Eye tagline as "The truth who the eyes met before!"
  • In Triangle Heart 3 ～sweet songs forever～ 3's OVA, there's quite a bit of Gratuitous English at the end of Episode 1, to the point where the Triad fansubbers had to correct the grammar; "My demands are just two -- to get enough cost and get the baby after everything is work out" is subtitled as "I have only two demands -- that you spare no expense and you give (Fiasse) to me after you are done with her".
  • Trigun does it rather a lot when characters introduce each other, but also at other times. Notable example include everyone calling Vash "Vashe de Stampedo", the Gung-Ho Guns introducing themselves as "Gung-Ho Gunsu no" and pronouncing the number in English rather than Japanese, as well as pronouncing their names in English -- eg., "Gung-Ho Guns no four, Zazsie za Beast" (sic).
    • LOOOVE ANDU PEAAAAACE!!
  • The Trinity Blood anime has all its episode titles in Gratuitous English. Pronounced just as horribly as one would expect.
  • The TYPE-MOON staff make absolutely brilliant works, such as Tsukihime, Fate Stay Night, and Kara no Kyoukai. The Nasuverse in general, really. That said, there should be a legally enforced ban on them using English unmonitored.

(Misspelled) Words in an official Kara no Kyoukai trailer: Comming Near Future...

The actual title of one of their Melty Blood games: Actress Again

Another Nasu novel's title: DDD, short for Decoration Disorder Disconnection.

    • Fate/stay night includes both gratuitous Gelman (all of Rin Tohsaka's spells) and gratuitous Engrish (Archer's famous "I am the bone of my sword" speech -- as well as the title of the anime itself, which apparently doesn't mean anything). It's made even more bizarre by the fact that the actors pronounced the English reasonably well.
    • The Melty Blood series of Fighting Games, based on the Tsukihime story, is likewise filled with hilarious Engrish, including the title, which is the Arc Drive of one of the main characters. Oh, and 'Arc Drives'. And the fan favourite, "Severe! Break! SLIDER!!!"
      • The flavour text that appears on the loading screen for Actress Again reads "Hologram Summer Again".
    • Most of the original chapter sub-titles for each Kara no Kyoukai chapter are the same: "is nothing id, nothing cosmos".
    • Tsukihime also has the subtitle "Blue Blue Glass Moon, Under the Crimson Air"
    • Fate Hollow Ataraxia. What is "resumption mimicry"?

"08/October THE 1ST DAY of 'Heaven's Feel': Resumption Mimicry"

    • This is followed by the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th days of "Heaven's Feel," each with their own Gratuitous English subtitle.

U

  • Umineko no Naku Koro ni managed in the process of theming its titles to fail in spelling the term, "weak square" (It became "week square" instead).
    • HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA
    • It's PAAFEKUTO!!
    • BRAVO!
    • CONGRATULATIONS! I AM BEATORIICHE!
    • YAMI WO KIRISAKU OH DESIRE
      • SACRIFICE SHEEP TO GAWD
    • Who can forget the Gratuitous English gem Happy Maria "YOU MUST A CRAZY, THE EVERY EVERY THING"
      • "My witch is golden dreamer, it's magical Gohda chef! I'm gonna piss in fire for magical breeding power."
    • In Episode 4, Ange coolly delivers this line just before shooting EVA:

"Have a nice dream. See you in hell."

    • In Episode 5, we have Furudo Erika's <Good.>
      • Also Dlanor's <Die The Death!><Sentence to Death!><Great equalizer is The Death!>
    • Battler has a few lines of this. Apparently, he used to speak like this all the time in the past, and everyone makes fun of him for it when Shannon remembers it. "See you again". Also a big hint as to who Ange is when she says the same thing.
  • Lum's Catch Phrase in Urusei Yatsura is her name for Ataru: "Darling", which in the is pronounced something like "Dahleen" in the Japanese dialogue. Also from that show is a hilariously bad conversation between Ataru and some Hawaiian girls with Engrish on both sides.

V

  • Voices of a Distant Star has the commander of the Lysithea (also voiced by Donna Burke) who also speaks like this: "Tarsians are existing everywhere on Agharta. Their block exists in orbit and are approaching us."

W

X

  • Captain Matthews from Xenosaga wears a cap with the wonderful slogan "CAUTION -- I AM A BOOZER -- BANZAI! BANZAI!".

Y

  • In Yami no Matsuei ("Descendants of Darkness"), in the arc set on a cruise ship, Tsuzuki is accosted by security guards who speak very good English, unlike himself. ("This area is for VIP's only." "AH HAVA NOO MAHNEE!") Muraki manages a decent effort when he joins in.
  • Yawara a Fashionable Judo Girl does this heavily, especially in the manga, where many word-bubbles spoken in English are literally filled with random English text apparently clipped from newspapers.
  • In both Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX the main characters generally have cards that are named in English (Judai's Elemental Hero monsters, Yugi's Black Magician and Black Magician Girl, Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon).
    • And of course, who could forget the infamous "Doro... MONSTA KAADO!"?
    • There are more examples. American characters, most notably Pegasus, use the English words "me" and "you" as first person and second person pronouns. Pegasus himself spouts English words as interjections quite often, such as his famous "UNBELIEVABLE!". Edo Phoenix uses the English word "cemetery" instead of the Japanese equivalent "bocchi", since I guess he's supposed to be British (although he speaks Japanese quite fluently). Then there's Jim Crocodile Cook, an Engrish machine who comes up with lines like "That's a wonder monster!"
    • Plus in the Abridged Series, there is a character who is gratuitously American... in America.
    • 5D's doesn't have too much Engrish, with the notable exception of Crow's frantic "OH MY GOD!".
    • Even more notable... "BEREEEEEEEVE IN NEEEEEEXAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHS!!!!!"
      • Everybody Listen! This is great match!
      • Jack's robot counterpart uses words like "Kuraimakkusu!" and "Eintateinmeinto!"
      • Written words like "Daice" and "Plaer"
      • The vague Deus Ex Machina powers of "Clear Mind" and "Burning Soul", thought at least they make sense. Sort of.
    • In the manga and possibly the anime, Anzu/Tea wears a shirt that says "SPIRIT" on it.
  • Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh! anime theme song "Kawaita Sakebi" has a nice bit of Engrish: the phrase "Fly at higher game." I'm sorry... what? And it's in the refrain! At the high point of the music!
    • Actually, it's not as Engrish as it first appears; Austrian rock band Edenbridge, whose English is generally pretty good, have a song called "Fly at Higher Game". Whether this makes the phrase make sense or not, however, is up to you.
  • Kurama's Rose Whip technique in Yu Yu Hakusho, which he says in English. Kuwabara even lampshades this, saying "What an ostentatious bastard! He said it in English!"

Z

  • Rather oddly considering they're supposed to be French-speaking, Queen Henrietta at least once clearly addresses Colbert as "Mister Colbert" in Zero no Tsukaima. Sheffield also uses the term "Miss" at one point to address Louise, although Sheffield is an English name, so she's got an excuse.
  • Zettai Karen Children has some terrible English, mostly shown on computer monitors or in other background situations. 'Is The Children an angel or a Satan' is shown in a few episodes.
Back to Gratuitous English
  1. ↑ This version gives Mayu a British accent, to indicate to the viewer that she is speaking English, rather than dubbed Japanese
  2. ↑ special squad
  3. ↑ "high touch" is actually high five in Japanese to begin with.
  4. ↑ Basically, in Japanese Transformers, "Transform" stays "Transform" in English, but "Maximize" and "Terrorize" become "Henshin."
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