Academic Journal of Business & Management, 2026, 8(9); doi: 10.25236/AJBM.2026.080909.
Hongyi Qian, Jun Liu
School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Guangxi University, Nanning, China
The translation of film titles has become a crucial commercial tool in China’s growing imported film market. This study examines 134 Japanese films released in the Chinese mainland between 2015 and 2025, analyzing their Chinese title translations which are categorized as conventional, adaptive, or a combination of both methods. Using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), the study compares the box office performance of these categories and finds significant differences. The combined method yields the highest average box office, followed by the adaptive method, while the conventional method brings in the lowest revenue. The study attributes this gap to three factors: the conciseness of the Chinese titles, the preservation of the original title structure and core film theme, and the impact of intellectual property. To address issues such as information loss in purely phonetic translations and rigid literal translations that obscure the theme, targeted optimization strategies are proposed. These strategies take into account the linguistic and expressive differences between Chinese and Japanese and advocate for a flexible combination of translation methods. The goal of this study is to provide empirical evidence and practical guidance for translating Japanese film titles into Chinese.
Japanese Film Titles, Chinese Translation Method, Commercial Effects, Box Office Revenue, Analysis of Variance
Hongyi Qian, Jun Liu. A Study on Differences in Commercial Effects of Chinese Translation Methods for Japanese Film Titles. Academic Journal of Business & Management (2026), Vol. 8, Issue 9: 74-85. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJBM.2026.080909.
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