If you were to ask Google Translate how to say “I love you.” in Japanese, it will give you the word Aishiteru or at least a form of it. However, I think that if you’ve watched and, more importantly, listened to a bunch of Japanese media whether that be anime, tokusatsu, video games etc., you’re far more likely to be familiar with another term, Daisuki. So infrequently have I heard Aishiteru that I thought to look deeper into its use and soon discovered that this word contains a surprising amount of power, so much so that some people will tell you to never use it in any shape or form. This topic proved intriguing enough to me that I thought it might be interesting to discuss the differences and meanings as well as a few examples I’ve found.
Aishiteru, written as 愛してる in Japanese, uses the kanji for love and seems, at first, like the closest translation to the English phrase “I love you.” However, social norms and culture mean that this phrase carries far more weight in Japanese than it would in English. This is a perfect example of where a literal translation loses much of the subtlety and context of the situation someone’s in. Instead, the phrase Daisuki, written as 大好き, uses both the kanji for big, 大, and the kanji for like, 好, which results in being similar to saying “I really like you.” in English. However, I’ve seen many examples of Daisuki being translated as “I love you.” since it’s the closest English phrase for the situation.
So having learnt about how intense the word Aishiteru is, I immediately began to wonder when it might be used. Therefore, I thought it worth looking at some examples in Japanese media where Aishiteru was used. This wasn’t exactly easy to do as it requires knowledge about the original Japanese dialogue and not a translated script which may translate, rightly so in many cases, Daisuki to “I love you”. However, there were a few interesting examples that I came across that I thought I’d take a look at.
The very first thing that I saw when I was looking up Aishiteru in Japanese media was a scene from Naruto Shippuden (spoilers ahead for a scene very late in the series). After Itachi’s resurrection is being undone, he approaches Sasuke and tells him that he will always love him. However, he specifically uses the term Aishiteru which I found immediately intriguing. I’d always only heard of Aishiteru as romantic love but I found a similar scene from another anime, that being Code Geass (spoilers ahead for the end of that series). Upon Lelouch’s death, his sister Nunnally tells him “Aishite imasu”, a variant of Aishiteru. It wasn’t until I began reading an article on Aishiteru that I learned that the phrase can also be used for when someone is on their deathbed, a situation which I had not considered before but would certainly fit with the intense expressions of love that Aishiteru conveys.
Of course, Aishiteru is predominantly used in its romantic context. A notable example is in Record of Grancrest War (spoiler warning) in which Theo Cornaro professes his love to Siluca Meletes by saying “Kimi wo aishiteru” which is a form of “I love you”. It’s quite remarkable due to its intensity and clearly displays his deep love for her.
It’s truly extraordinary how different Aishiteru is from the English version of I love you and how uncommonly it’s used because of that. Let me know your thoughts on the word Aishiteru and the surprising power behind it, whether you were aware of the difference before, any examples you may’ve come across and any additional information you might have on the topic.
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