<p>While it's tempting to chalk this up to a mistranslation by Viz, as <a href="https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/21435">Ross Ridge's answer</a> suggests (and that Viz themselves might even admit to), I think if we take the question as seriously as possible, the answer must be that both names are correct, at least in writing.</p>

<p>The relevant background here is that Inuyasha takes place in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period" rel="noreferrer">Sengoku period</a> roughly 500 years ago. So Inuyasha's sword's name should be interpreted in the Japanese of the time, not modern Japanese.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the use of っ in Japanese is a relatively modern invention. The earliest known uses of it in this way occurred in the 19th century, and it wasn't standardized until 1947. Prior to this, double consonants in Japanese existed only as common slurs where only the consonant was pronounced. This form of slurring <em>has</em> existed for a long time, likely since the Sengoku period. I suggest reading <a href="https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/751/how-did-little-tsu-become-a-lengthener">this Japanese SE question</a> for more information.</p>

<p>So, while 鉄砕牙  would have been written out as 「てつさいが」 in the classical Japanese of the time (or possibly in several other ways, as <em>hiragana</em> themselves were not standardized until 1900 with the removal of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentaigana" rel="noreferrer"><em>hentaigana</em></a>), it could plausibly be pronounced as either 「てつさいが」 (<em>tetsusaiga</em>)　or 「てっさいが」 (<em>tessaiga</em>) to the modern Japanese ear. But the classical Japanese speaker would have recognized these as the same word. Even this is something of a simplification, as pronunciation of these syllables has shifted over time, but without having audio records of Japanese from that time it's fairly difficult to know exactly what shifts have occurred.</p>

<p>That is to say, while <em>tessaiga</em> and <em>tetsusaiga</em> sound rather different to us, there isn't any distinction between the two in period Japanese writing, in the same way that "sorta" is just a slurred version of "sort of" in English. They're both valid romanizations of the same word, and so they're both really the same name. In some sense, saying that either <em>tessaiga</em> or <em>tetsusaiga</em> is correct is actually historically inaccurate. In modern Japanese, it's clear that they say <em>tessaiga</em>, but that doesn't really mean that <em>tetsusaiga</em> is an incorrect way of writing the name.</p>

<p>I guess the real reason for this confusion is that the text has gone through so many different linguistic steps that it would necessarily end up being somewhat confused. Of course the text is written in modern Japanese, but it's supposed to be a modern interpretation of historical Japanese. In order to romanize it, since there's no way to romanize classical Japanese, it first needs to be converted back into modern Japanese, and then to roumaji (which approximate Japanese pronunciation using latin alphabet characters). But the conversion back to modern Japanese is ambiguous, and so both <em>tessaiga</em> and <em>tetsusaiga</em> could be simultaneously valid.</p>

<p>With all that said, I don't think Inuyasha tries especially hard to stick to historically accurate Japanese, so to some degree this is a moot point. I just wanted to point out that, strictly speaking, in Sengoku-period Japanese, there is no way to differentiate the two words. On the other hand, for practical purposes, one can hear that the anime uses <em>tessaiga</em> for pronunciation and writes てっさいが as the furigana, so presumably this is the more understandable choice in English.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T02:59:04.387Z
2015-05-10T03:11:57.957Z
2017-04-13T12:54:48.523Z
Logan M
<p>The reason why the subtitles don't match the dialog is apparently because Viz wanted to be consistent with their earlier translation of the Inuyasha manga. In the manga it's not at all clear that the sword should be named tessaiga (てっさいが) instead of tetsusaiga (てつさいが). It's a made up name whose kanji (鉄砕牙) could be pronounced either way. There's furigana in manga to show the author's intent but it doesn't make the tsu character clearly smaller:</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/fZyA8.jpg" alt="Inuyasha manga excerpt with tessaiga/tetsusaiga furigana">
<img src="https://i.sstatic.net/1JvDW.jpg" alt="Dialog bubble with tessaiga/tetsusaiga furigana"></p>

<p>I found the above pictures in a <a href="http://inu-fanon.tumblr.com/post/64738304205/tetsusaiga-vs-tessaiga" rel="noreferrer">Tumbler post</a> that goes into more details about the mix up.</p>

<p>It seems it wasn't until the release of the anime that Viz had any reason to believe they were wrong, and I guess they decided it would be better to be consistent with their manga translation than the Japanese audio.</p>

<p>(I have to say though that all this makes me wonder if the producers of the anime version were just guessing as well.)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T05:43:20.543Z
The つ in the left-picture is ambiguous, but the one on the right is clearly not a small つ.  Maybe the subtitles have it correct, and it's whoever wrote the script for the anime audio who got it wrong.
BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T07:30:24.343Z
Note that in the traditional typographical convention in Japan they do not use small kana in hurigana.  Consequently if the publisher sticked to this convention you can't tell the author's intention from the hurigana.
Pteromys
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-04T18:09:57.717Z
The tumbler post argues that the right-hand image says てつさいが because the manga doesn't use small kana in furigana. This is partially true. Small furigana are used, but not always. Smaller writing, especially, never uses them. Larger writing often does, but not consistently. Also, small furigana can be hard to tell from large ones... and sometimes a large kana will be smaller than it should... It does make things confusing. Still, small っs seem to be the easiest of the small kana to distinguish in Inuyasha, and 鉄砕牙 is always written てつさいが, not てっさいが.
pyrocrasty
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T00:19:29.087Z
2015-05-10T00:19:29.087Z
Ross Ridge
<p>I've been watching Inuyasha with subtitles and in episode 6 and 7, Inuyasha fights with his brother Sesshomaru about a sword. The English subtitle says "Tetsusaiga" but they're clearly saying "てっさいが". Why are they subtitling it in this way?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T12:46:19.973Z
This is a mistranslation: there's a small "tsu", which means there should be a double consonant there (て**っ**さいがい - te-**s**-sa-i-ga). So instead of Te**s**saiga, they mistranslated to Te**tsu**saiga, as if the "tsu" (っ) were not a small one.
JNat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T13:20:03.403Z
So they made their translation by reading the script and never bothered watching the show?
virmaior
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T13:58:20.227Z
They probably mistook the small "tsu" for a big one. Read the first two paragraphs [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsu_%28kana%29) for a general overview of what I meant. But basically, the big "tsu" is read as "tsu", and the small one is used to denote [consonant gemination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokuon). So... yeah, they probably didn't hear the word being said, and only went from the transcript.
JNat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T14:17:05.850Z
I don't misunderstand what they did ... I am asking how in their process they completely missed the pronunciation.
virmaior
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T15:48:02.327Z
What is the source of the sub you watch? I mean the company which translate and distribute the anime.
nhahtdh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T17:59:47.423Z
@nhahtdh I don't know about the OP, but this mistake was in the official US translation by Viz when I watched the show back in 2001, so it's not just something that some scuzzy bootlegging group does.
Torisuda
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T18:01:07.447Z
In fact, the dub actors even pronounced the word with a 't' in it as "Tetsaiga".
Torisuda
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T22:51:15.880Z
@virmaior I don't know what the deal is specifically with Inuyasha, but anime simulcasters in recent times indeed often have to translate off of a script without access to the audio/video until the last minute. Granted, I would _think_ that this is just because of the exigencies of simulcasting, which shouldn't have had any relevance back in the early 2000s...
senshin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T02:00:54.007Z
@Torisuda In that case I'd change my above statment from "this is a mistranslation" to "this _may be_ a mistranslation". I've never watched/read Inuyasha, so I was just going from my (very) basic knowledge of Japanese and the kana posted on the question by the OP.
JNat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T03:18:38.627Z
@JNat Granted, I was watching the dub, and it was over ten years ago, but I don't remember anything from the show that would have helped resolve this question. Until Logan posted his answer, I figured you were probably right that it was a mistranslation; it's less likely with an official translation, but official translators make mistakes too.
Torisuda
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-04T17:11:40.403Z
The manga does *not* use a small っ. It may be possible to confuse the character in a horizontal heading (since つ is generally shorter than most kana), but it the vertically-written speech bubbles, it's clear that the furigana read てつさいが.
pyrocrasty
<inuyasha>
Why do the subtitles say "tetsusaiga" for "tessaiga"?
# Why do the subtitles say "tetsusaiga" for "tessaiga"?
Posted by: username_0 on 2015-05-09
I've been watching Inuyasha with subtitles and in episode 6 and 7, Inuyasha fights with his brother Sesshomaru about a sword. The English subtitle says "Tetsusaiga" but they're clearly saying "てっさいが". Why are they subtitling it in this way?
**Tags:** inuyasha
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This is a mistranslation: there's a small "tsu", which means there should be a double consonant there (て**っ**さいがい - te-**s**-sa-i-ga). So instead of Te**s**saiga, they mistranslated to Te**tsu**saiga, as if the "tsu" (っ) were not a small one.  
> **username_0**: So they made their translation by reading the script and never bothered watching the show?  
> **username_1**: They probably mistook the small "tsu" for a big one. Read the first two paragraphs [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsu_%28kana%29) for a general overview of what I meant. But basically, the big "tsu" is read as "tsu", and the small one is used to denote [consonant gemination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokuon). So... yeah, they probably didn't hear the word being said, and only went from the transcript.  
> **username_0**: I don't misunderstand what they did ... I am asking how in their process they completely missed the pronunciation.  
> **username_2**: What is the source of the sub you watch? I mean the company which translate and distribute the anime.  
> **username_3**: @nhahtdh I don't know about the OP, but this mistake was in the official US translation by Viz when I watched the show back in 2001, so it's not just something that some scuzzy bootlegging group does.  
> **username_3**: In fact, the dub actors even pronounced the word with a 't' in it as "Tetsaiga".  
> **username_4**: @virmaior I don't know what the deal is specifically with Inuyasha, but anime simulcasters in recent times indeed often have to translate off of a script without access to the audio/video until the last minute. Granted, I would _think_ that this is just because of the exigencies of simulcasting, which shouldn't have had any relevance back in the early 2000s...  
> **username_1**: @Torisuda In that case I'd change my above statment from "this is a mistranslation" to "this _may be_ a mistranslation". I've never watched/read Inuyasha, so I was just going from my (very) basic knowledge of Japanese and the kana posted on the question by the OP.  
> **username_3**: @JNat Granted, I was watching the dub, and it was over ten years ago, but I don't remember anything from the show that would have helped resolve this question. Until Logan posted his answer, I figured you were probably right that it was a mistranslation; it's less likely with an official translation, but official translators make mistakes too.  
> **username_5**: The manga does *not* use a small っ. It may be possible to confuse the character in a horizontal heading (since つ is generally shorter than most kana), but it the vertically-written speech bubbles, it's clear that the furigana read てつさいが.  
---
## 2 answers
### Answer by username_7 on 2015-05-10. Score: 15 | Accepted answer
The reason why the subtitles don't match the dialog is apparently because Viz wanted to be consistent with their earlier translation of the Inuyasha manga. In the manga it's not at all clear that the sword should be named tessaiga (てっさいが) instead of tetsusaiga (てつさいが). It's a made up name whose kanji (鉄砕牙) could be pronounced either way. There's furigana in manga to show the author's intent but it doesn't make the tsu character clearly smaller:

![Inuyasha manga excerpt with tessaiga/tetsusaiga furigana](https://i.sstatic.net/fZyA8.jpg)
![Dialog bubble with tessaiga/tetsusaiga furigana](https://i.sstatic.net/1JvDW.jpg)

I found the above pictures in a [Tumbler post](http://inu-fanon.tumblr.com/post/64738304205/tetsusaiga-vs-tessaiga) that goes into more details about the mix up.

It seems it wasn't until the release of the anime that Viz had any reason to believe they were wrong, and I guess they decided it would be better to be consistent with their manga translation than the Japanese audio.

(I have to say though that all this makes me wonder if the producers of the anime version were just guessing as well.)
> **Comments:**
> **username_8** (2015-05-10): The つ in the left-picture is ambiguous, but the one on the right is clearly not a small つ.  Maybe the subtitles have it correct, and it's whoever wrote the script for the anime audio who got it wrong.  
> **username_9** (2015-05-10): Note that in the traditional typographical convention in Japan they do not use small kana in hurigana.  Consequently if the publisher sticked to this convention you can't tell the author's intention from the hurigana.  
> **username_5** (2017-04-04): The tumbler post argues that the right-hand image says てつさいが because the manga doesn't use small kana in furigana. This is partially true. Small furigana are used, but not always. Smaller writing, especially, never uses them. Larger writing often does, but not consistently. Also, small furigana can be hard to tell from large ones... and sometimes a large kana will be smaller than it should... It does make things confusing. Still, small っs seem to be the easiest of the small kana to distinguish in Inuyasha, and 鉄砕牙 is always written てつさいが, not てっさいが.  
---
### Answer by username_6 on 2015-05-10. Score: 21
While it's tempting to chalk this up to a mistranslation by Viz, as [Ross Ridge's answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/21435) suggests (and that Viz themselves might even admit to), I think if we take the question as seriously as possible, the answer must be that both names are correct, at least in writing.

The relevant background here is that Inuyasha takes place in the [Sengoku period](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period) roughly 500 years ago. So Inuyasha's sword's name should be interpreted in the Japanese of the time, not modern Japanese.

On the other hand, the use of っ in Japanese is a relatively modern invention. The earliest known uses of it in this way occurred in the 19th century, and it wasn't standardized until 1947. Prior to this, double consonants in Japanese existed only as common slurs where only the consonant was pronounced. This form of slurring *has* existed for a long time, likely since the Sengoku period. I suggest reading [this Japanese SE question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/751/how-did-little-tsu-become-a-lengthener) for more information.

So, while 鉄砕牙 would have been written out as 「てつさいが」 in the classical Japanese of the time (or possibly in several other ways, as *hiragana* themselves were not standardized until 1900 with the removal of [*hentaigana*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentaigana)), it could plausibly be pronounced as either 「てつさいが」 (*tetsusaiga*)　or 「てっさいが」 (*tessaiga*) to the modern Japanese ear. But the classical Japanese speaker would have recognized these as the same word. Even this is something of a simplification, as pronunciation of these syllables has shifted over time, but without having audio records of Japanese from that time it's fairly difficult to know exactly what shifts have occurred.

That is to say, while *tessaiga* and *tetsusaiga* sound rather different to us, there isn't any distinction between the two in period Japanese writing, in the same way that "sorta" is just a slurred version of "sort of" in English. They're both valid romanizations of the same word, and so they're both really the same name. In some sense, saying that either *tessaiga* or *tetsusaiga* is correct is actually historically inaccurate. In modern Japanese, it's clear that they say *tessaiga*, but that doesn't really mean that *tetsusaiga* is an incorrect way of writing the name.

I guess the real reason for this confusion is that the text has gone through so many different linguistic steps that it would necessarily end up being somewhat confused. Of course the text is written in modern Japanese, but it's supposed to be a modern interpretation of historical Japanese. In order to romanize it, since there's no way to romanize classical Japanese, it first needs to be converted back into modern Japanese, and then to roumaji (which approximate Japanese pronunciation using latin alphabet characters). But the conversion back to modern Japanese is ambiguous, and so both *tessaiga* and *tetsusaiga* could be simultaneously valid.

With all that said, I don't think Inuyasha tries especially hard to stick to historically accurate Japanese, so to some degree this is a moot point. I just wanted to point out that, strictly speaking, in Sengoku-period Japanese, there is no way to differentiate the two words. On the other hand, for practical purposes, one can hear that the anime uses *tessaiga* for pronunciation and writes てっさいが as the furigana, so presumably this is the more understandable choice in English.
---
