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Pure curiosity.

Why do some series carry a dot [.] at the end of their titles? Is there a meaning to it or is it convention?

Ex: Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu., Kobato.

avluis
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    Pretty sure it's just a period / full-stop. "Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu" is a full sentence in Japanese, so hey, why not toss a period on the end of that. – senshin Feb 02 '15 at 23:23
  • So its more like making sense of the title than just a simple styling or convention? – avluis Feb 02 '15 at 23:29
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    The second season of Oreimo ([Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai.](http://myanimelist.net/anime/13659/Ore_no_Imouto_ga_Konnani_Kawaii_Wake_ga_Nai.)) has it, and the first one doesn't. It's actually how they are differentiated in the title. There's no 2 or Season 2 or anything of the sort. – JNat Feb 02 '15 at 23:49
  • Correct, I remember that about the series. There never was a season season of the novel (no need for that, just make another volume) - but when it came to the anime something was needed to tell them apart. Any idea why studios are choosing to go this route instead of just adding a '2' like series before. It could simply be a newer thing though, I have noticed this practice more with novels, but it looks like it is spreading. Sort of like the really long title syndrome. (LOL) – avluis Feb 03 '15 at 00:18
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    I think it's likely a combination of both senshin and JNat's answers - given how many light novel titles are now full sentences, it makes a certain perverse sense to make them grammatically correct by putting a period at the end; at the same time, there's also a trend to identify sequels with punctuation marks (e.g. Working'!!) which is in itself an extension of the naming convention of adding a short word rather than numbering seasons (going back to, at the very least, Slayers Next and Try). – ConMan Feb 03 '15 at 23:50
  • I think it's because the title is a sentence. – AllyOfCats Jun 13 '15 at 19:55

1 Answers1

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The punctuation symbol 。 is called a 句点 (kuten). Although it often functions like the English period (a.k.a. full stop), it is not identical, and is used as the punctuation mark for a question sentence far more often than the ? symbol is (the question mark is called 疑問符 [gimonfu] or はてな [hatena]. Historically, Japanese did not have the question mark, so although it exists in Japan now, it is not used in Japanese academic writing). In horizontal writing, the kuten is placed in the same position as a period would be in English: at the bottom right of the preceding character. In vertical writing, it is placed immediately below and to the right of the preceding character.

Wikipedia explains that

Starting in the 1980s, advertising copy writers began incorporating full stops in titles and other advertising. In the 1990s, the group Morning Musume (モーニング娘。) began using a full stop in its name, starting a fad for this usage.

Other cases include

  • バクマン。 (Bakuman) manga by Ooba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi
  • いいひと。 (Ii Hito) manga by Takahashi Shin
  • 野ブタ。をプロデュース (Nobuta wo Produce) live-action TV drama

As you can see, "Bakuman" is not a full sentence by itself, and "Nobuta. Wo Produce" intentionally slices a single phrase into two fragments by the placement of the kuten (Nobuta is the nickname of a main character that the protagonist decides to "produce," meaning to make-over Pygmalion-style. Grammatically, you cannot make "Wo Produce" into its own sentence), so these are both examples of a kuten that should not be interpreted as a period for ending a sentence. The kuten can be utilized as a sentence ender, but it is often used for style without any grammatical meaning. Similarly, some series titles make use of other Japanese typographic symbols for style such as　enter image description here, ＊, ☆, ♪, and ♯ (for example, うたの☆プリンスさまっ♪ [Uta no Prince-sama] and おジャ魔女どれみ♯ [Oja Majo DoReMi Sharp] and the choice of a star to be read as the letter A in ST☆RISH, an idol group in the former).

seijitsu
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