Help finding notes on translation of "Seven Samurai?"

Anyone know where I can get ahold of the original Japanese script for Seven Samurai? Or, more helpfully, a side-by-side comparison of the Japanese transcript and an English translation, or ANY notes on the actual process of translating Seven Samurai?

Bonus question: do we know what honorifics are used to address the samurai in Seven Samurai, if any? Thank you! 🙂

Hi! You can find a scan of the original script at the Akira Kurosawa Digital Archive, section 22.14.01. It’s not the most convenient form to read in, of course.

The script has also been published in Japan. The Japanese Amazon should have some copies. An English translation was published as The Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays, but if I recall correctly it’s more of a transcription and not even based on the full film but its shorter international cut.

I don’t know of any discussion on the translation process. There actually are a few different English subtitle translations.

Thank you so much, this will help a lot! 🙂 Yes, there are a lot of differences between subtitles! I’m currently a paper on what “got lost in translation” for the film, so the resources you gave will really help. 🙂 If you know anything about the use of honorifics in the movie, please let me know! Thanks again!

I am now trying to translate The Seven Samourai from the Japanese text (for me own pleasure, I am not, unfortunately, a professional translater, and not able to do a translation worth to be published). It must be known that the subtitles are very, very far from the Japanese text, more complex, alluding to the Japanese context, totally ignored by the subtitles.

I installed Ruffle flash emulator which lets you use any old flash website or flash game safefly in modern browsers. However, it did not work for this page:

http://www.afc.ryukoku.ac.jp/Komon/kurosawa/index.html

It seems like they disabled the service. They should probably turn it back on so that people can still access the site using Ruffle.

The main link uses this link but it is just dead now, saying Service Unavailable.

http://www.ss.i.ryukoku.ac.jp/pearl/open

Also. I have been looking for the original script of 7 Samurai for a long time but no success. even I contacted the Toho company. I am familiar with the Japanese language and culture since I spent over 5 years in Japan. (I am not at the level of profession) . like many other countries, there are a variety of dialects, in Japan which I realized when I worked with a different group of people from other parts of Japan in our company in CHIBA city. In 7 samurai. the villagers and the bandit converse with their dialect in the film and the group of samurai converses with the official language of the country, you can’t learn about this dialect in books or any Japanese language school. I understand some of it. please anyone who has the 7 samurai scrip in the original language or someday you get it or knows about someone who has it, would you assist me in making my dream come true? this is my email ….tepensar.dm@gmail.com
Onegaishimasu
お願いします

Have you checked the Akira Kurosawa Digital Archive, David? It seems to have returned online, and Kurosawa’s script for the film should be available here. Unfortunately, the available image quality isn’t particularly good.