Japanese Subtitling Class Presents: 'April, Come She Will' on April 24

On Friday, April 24, six students from "Japanese Movie Subtitling" (JAPN 39803 / WLLC 5750V) will present a screening of the Japanese film April, Come She Will (2024), complete with English subtitles, as part of their semester-long subtitling project.

The free, educational screening will be Friday, April 24, from 6:30-9 p.m. at the Arkansas Union Theatre and serves as a presentation for the students' work in the class. A question-and-answer session will follow the screening led by the course instructor, Dr. Tatsuya Fukushima, associate professor of Japanese.

Students of "Japanese Movie Subtitling" work in collaboration to add English subtitles to the contemporary live action Japanese film, per the course's description. April, Come She Will (2024) is a romance-drama film by Japanese director, Tomokazu Yamada, starring Takeru Sato and Masami Nagasawa.  The film depicts a couple engaged to be married when suddenly, the main character, Shun Fujishiro (Sato) finds that his fiancée, Yayoi Sakamoto (Nagasawa) has disappeared.

"April, Come She Will" official movie poster.

Fukushima said that this is a challenging but rewarding course because subtitling involves different processes from translating. "Subtitling constantly involves efficient delivery of meaning because of its time constraints. If the audience wonders for a second what the subtitles would mean, then they are not good subtitles no matter how accurate their translations are. I hope that the students in this course will learn a lot from the perspectives of language, culture, and historical background."

The six students from "Japanese Movie Subtitling" were eligible for the course based on their Japanese proficiency and received the instructor's permission to register. The film screening will showcase their proficiency levels and cultural understanding of Japanese as well as their diligent work in the class over the course of the semester.

Join the students of "Japanese Movie Subtitling" for the free screening of April, Come She Will on Friday, April 24, beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the Arkansas Union Theatre!