This is going to take FOREVER.
Feb. 8th, 2008 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sara_tanaquilDay 3 was supposed to be Monday...? Uh, yeah. I finished it last night.
Between the samurai jokes and the fanboy jokes, doing this one in Japanese killed me, but I found a lot of interesting stuff (interesting to me, that is. And maybe, like, 1/2 other person in the universe). So, this is long.
Without further ado!
PW 1.3
Turnabout Samurai
Jap: 逆転のトノサマン
Characters
Eng: Will Powers
Jap: 荷星三郎 (Niboshi Saburou)
Penny calls him ニボサブ (Nibo-sabu), WP in English. Phoenix and Maya pick up on it and start calling him Nibo-sabu-san all the time, which is really cute. (My favorite part is when Phoenix calls him "Mr. WP" in English.)
Eng: Jack Hammer
Jap: 衣袋武志 (Ibukuro Takeshi)
Eng: Cody Hackins
Jap: 大滝九太 (Ootaki Kyuuta)
Court Records claims that "the start of the first three kanji of his name make up otaku," but I'm not sure how. 大滝九 = "o(o)-ta(ki)-ku"? It's certainly not the otaku kanji (お宅). Someone might have been over-speculating. But his English name (Hackins) is definitely meant to suggest "hacker," so maybe they did get this information from interviews with the creators.
He speaks really rudely, for a seven year old. (He even calls himself ore!)
Eng: Penny Nichols
Jap: 間宮由美子 (Mamiya Yumiko)
Identified in dialogue boxes as "staff," where the English uses Penny from the start. (Even at the end, Maya is all "We have to trade cards with that staff girl!")
Eng: Wendy Oldbag
Jap: 大場カオル (Ooba Kaoru)
Oldbag consistently refers to herself (in the third person) as obachan, "auntie," obviously a pun on the sound of her last name, Ooba. (And can I just say, what is adorable in little girls and just annoyingly flirty for a woman like April May, is downright CREEPY in a garrulous old woman. "Obachan says..." "Obachan saw...") She calls her favorite Jack Hammer "Ibukuro-chan," but she doesn't like Will Powers, so he's just "Niboshi" (he doesn't even rate a –san). She thoroughly freaks the judge out by calling him オッチャン (occhan... I don't even know how to translate that. "Cutie old man"?) And poor Edgeworth is "Micchan" (short for Mitsurugi – "Edgey-boy" in the English version).
Her favorite food is not donuts, but youkan (bars of sweet red bean paste).
Eng: Sal Manella
Jap: 宇在拓也(Uzai Takuya)
From the sound of the name (though not the kanji), I'd guess "annoying otaku" was the pun they were going for. (uzai = urusai, loud or annoying)
Most of his sentences end with Japanese emoticons, like (笑) (smile/LOL), 泣 (tears) and 汗 (sweatdrop). In fact, it was quite an education, because I've never even seen half of these "emoticons" before: (爆) (exploding?), (怒) (angry), (黙) (silent), (萌) (moe, leer?), (垂) (drool?), (燃) (fiery?), (核) (nuclear?? this one accompanies his Big Idea to create the Pink Princess serial), (苦) (grimace of pain?), (震) (shiver), (拝) (pray, beg, plead), (考) (thinking), (恨) (resentful), (汁) (mouth watering?).
The English translation tried to communicate this with a lot of completely bizarre, frequently off-topic leet-speak ("WTF? Who are j00 d00dz!? LMAO!"). I... guess that got the idea across...? Somehow, I had a clearer impression of him as the quintessential otaku in the Japanese. In English, his speech patterns were just too weird to convey anything to me. Actually, if anything, it gave him the impression of being cooler than he actually was, like he was some sort of cutting-edge hacker, when really he's just lame.
Footnote: best LOL line in the English was when Manella is testifying about having supposedly missed lunch, and he resentfully adds "ROFS!" Phoenix, baffled, thinks "ROFS? Rolling on the Floor... Starving?"
Eng: Dee Vasquez
Jap: 姫神サクラ (Himegami Sakura)
Other
Steel Samurai: トノサマン (Tonosaman)
Tonosama means "feudal lord"; it apparently combines with the last syllable of "man" to make Samurai-Man. His full title is大江戸戦士, "Ooedo Senshi," "The Warrior of Greater Edo". (Just like a sailor-senshi, ha!) Edo is the ancient name for Tokyo. Sometimes he's called the warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo (ネオ・エド・シティ , Neo-Edo City).
The spin-off is called Himesaman, translated into English as "Pink Princess" (himesama, princess, + n: "Princess Man"??). The full title is 小江戸剣士ヒメサマン, koedo kenshi himesaman: "Pink Princess, the Fencer of Little Edo." Maya complains about being downgraded from "Greater Edo" to "Little Edo."
Evil Magistrate: あくだいかーん (akudaikaan, 悪代官? It's never spelled out in kanji. I don't know why they always drag out the last –kaan part.)
Global Studios = 英都撮影所 (Eito (?) Satsueisho)
Satsueisho means Studio(s), but I wasn't able to find anything for 英都. It may just be a name.
Most Gratuitous (but funny) Overtranslations
Phoenix: "Oh yeah, right here! Sherlock Holmes II, baby!"
(In Japanese: やった！)
Edgeworth: "Indeed! Verily, I say... Ergo!"
(In Japanese, he's just stuttering and going その... あの...)
Sal Manella insisting that they only took a 15 minute break: "But it was only 15 minutes! 15! That's only 13 in Base 12!"
Judge (not getting the point, as usual): "What is it? Please explain so that I might be shocked along with the rest of the court."
Random Translation Notes
When asked about the producer, Penny says in English "I don't think we'd still be in business if it weren't for her," but she said in Japanese "She's like a god to this studio." Huh? Was the concept of being "godlike" too weird to translate?
***
"Mr. Monkey," the monkey mascot (the statue whose head fell and blocked the roadway), is called サルマゲどん. This joke took me forever to figure out, but I think it's saru = monkey, mage = a topknot like that worn by a sumo wrestler, and don = dono, an old-fashioned samurai-era honorific – Sir Monkey, Esq.(?) Edgeworth calls it "sarumage-kun" in court, causing Phoenix to make his sweatdrop face and think "It's actually sarumage-don, but OK..." (In English, Edgeworth calls the mascot "Mrs. Monkey.")
Anyway, when the monkey-mascot-clock is working (is everything in this game secretly a clock?), it announces the time: ４時デゴザル (4-ji de gozaru). (de gozaru is a really old-fashioned way to say "desu.") Because it's an honorable monkey, a "go-zaru (=saru)," get it...? *hides head and cries from the bad pun*
On second thought, I think I prefer the bad pun in Japanese to the English. "He announces the time in ooks. One ook per hour. Ook ook ook ook. Always with the ooks." Phoenix thinks "It IS a monkey, after all." In Japanese, he's thinking "Gozaru? Because it's a "saru"...?
***
LOL, as a card collector myself (I even have a Buffy UR or two!), I was pretty amused by the whole card trading bit. The translators had a lot of fun with Phoenix not getting trading card lingo.
In Japanese, Cody recognizes his own とれか, toreka, short for trading card, which Phoenix doesn't understand (so Cody has to explain it). Then he demands a レア (rea, rare), and Phoenix says (to Cody) 焼き加減のことか？ (yakikagen no koto ka? "You want it cooked... how?")
In English, Cody says "Hey, that's my UR!", and Phoenix is confused. "You are... what?" Then Cody demands a premium rare instead (which he claims is better than an ultra rare), and Phoenix says (to himself) "Premium, rare... why do I feel like we're talking about steaks?"
I thought it was funnier in Japanese. (Not to mention making more sense. Premium rare, what? And a seven-year-old kid has duplicate copies of an ultra-rare card? Come on!)
***
This might just be a Japanese-culture thing rather than a specific reference, but when Cody is talking in Japanese about seeing all of the Steel Samurai's live shows, Phoenix thinks something like Oh, those shows they have on the roofs of department stores and at amusement parks? That caught my attention, because it's exactly what happens in Shinesman. I think they actually have one big battle on the roof of a department store, and another in an amusement park. Anyway, in English Phoenix just thinks something like "Those stupid publicity stunts where they beat up on each other?" So I didn't notice the similarity to Shinesman until I was playing it in Japanese.
***
I might be over-reaching with the Shinesman reference, but I know this one was deliberate. In Japanese, when Mia's trying to convice Cody to talk, she just says that Phoenix is fighting for justice, just like the Steel Samurai. In English, she says "Isn't that the Steel Samurai's motto? 'For great justice'?"
Hee! Someone set us up the bomb!
***
Cody testifies before the court standing on an orange crate, not a donut crate. (Who puts donuts in a crate?)
***
When Cody calls Edgeworth Pops and the judge Gramps, Edgeworth is miffed because Cody called him an ojisan ("uncle," implying that he looks middle-aged). He would prefer to be called oniisan instead.
Between the samurai jokes and the fanboy jokes, doing this one in Japanese killed me, but I found a lot of interesting stuff (interesting to me, that is. And maybe, like, 1/2 other person in the universe). So, this is long.
Without further ado!
PW 1.3
Turnabout Samurai
Jap: 逆転のトノサマン
Characters
Eng: Will Powers
Jap: 荷星三郎 (Niboshi Saburou)
Penny calls him ニボサブ (Nibo-sabu), WP in English. Phoenix and Maya pick up on it and start calling him Nibo-sabu-san all the time, which is really cute. (My favorite part is when Phoenix calls him "Mr. WP" in English.)
Eng: Jack Hammer
Jap: 衣袋武志 (Ibukuro Takeshi)
Eng: Cody Hackins
Jap: 大滝九太 (Ootaki Kyuuta)
Court Records claims that "the start of the first three kanji of his name make up otaku," but I'm not sure how. 大滝九 = "o(o)-ta(ki)-ku"? It's certainly not the otaku kanji (お宅). Someone might have been over-speculating. But his English name (Hackins) is definitely meant to suggest "hacker," so maybe they did get this information from interviews with the creators.
He speaks really rudely, for a seven year old. (He even calls himself ore!)
Eng: Penny Nichols
Jap: 間宮由美子 (Mamiya Yumiko)
Identified in dialogue boxes as "staff," where the English uses Penny from the start. (Even at the end, Maya is all "We have to trade cards with that staff girl!")
Eng: Wendy Oldbag
Jap: 大場カオル (Ooba Kaoru)
Oldbag consistently refers to herself (in the third person) as obachan, "auntie," obviously a pun on the sound of her last name, Ooba. (And can I just say, what is adorable in little girls and just annoyingly flirty for a woman like April May, is downright CREEPY in a garrulous old woman. "Obachan says..." "Obachan saw...") She calls her favorite Jack Hammer "Ibukuro-chan," but she doesn't like Will Powers, so he's just "Niboshi" (he doesn't even rate a –san). She thoroughly freaks the judge out by calling him オッチャン (occhan... I don't even know how to translate that. "Cutie old man"?) And poor Edgeworth is "Micchan" (short for Mitsurugi – "Edgey-boy" in the English version).
Her favorite food is not donuts, but youkan (bars of sweet red bean paste).
Eng: Sal Manella
Jap: 宇在拓也(Uzai Takuya)
From the sound of the name (though not the kanji), I'd guess "annoying otaku" was the pun they were going for. (uzai = urusai, loud or annoying)
Most of his sentences end with Japanese emoticons, like (笑) (smile/LOL), 泣 (tears) and 汗 (sweatdrop). In fact, it was quite an education, because I've never even seen half of these "emoticons" before: (爆) (exploding?), (怒) (angry), (黙) (silent), (萌) (moe, leer?), (垂) (drool?), (燃) (fiery?), (核) (nuclear?? this one accompanies his Big Idea to create the Pink Princess serial), (苦) (grimace of pain?), (震) (shiver), (拝) (pray, beg, plead), (考) (thinking), (恨) (resentful), (汁) (mouth watering?).
The English translation tried to communicate this with a lot of completely bizarre, frequently off-topic leet-speak ("WTF? Who are j00 d00dz!? LMAO!"). I... guess that got the idea across...? Somehow, I had a clearer impression of him as the quintessential otaku in the Japanese. In English, his speech patterns were just too weird to convey anything to me. Actually, if anything, it gave him the impression of being cooler than he actually was, like he was some sort of cutting-edge hacker, when really he's just lame.
Footnote: best LOL line in the English was when Manella is testifying about having supposedly missed lunch, and he resentfully adds "ROFS!" Phoenix, baffled, thinks "ROFS? Rolling on the Floor... Starving?"
Eng: Dee Vasquez
Jap: 姫神サクラ (Himegami Sakura)
Other
Steel Samurai: トノサマン (Tonosaman)
Tonosama means "feudal lord"; it apparently combines with the last syllable of "man" to make Samurai-Man. His full title is大江戸戦士, "Ooedo Senshi," "The Warrior of Greater Edo". (Just like a sailor-senshi, ha!) Edo is the ancient name for Tokyo. Sometimes he's called the warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo (ネオ・エド・シティ , Neo-Edo City).
The spin-off is called Himesaman, translated into English as "Pink Princess" (himesama, princess, + n: "Princess Man"??). The full title is 小江戸剣士ヒメサマン, koedo kenshi himesaman: "Pink Princess, the Fencer of Little Edo." Maya complains about being downgraded from "Greater Edo" to "Little Edo."
Evil Magistrate: あくだいかーん (akudaikaan, 悪代官? It's never spelled out in kanji. I don't know why they always drag out the last –kaan part.)
Global Studios = 英都撮影所 (Eito (?) Satsueisho)
Satsueisho means Studio(s), but I wasn't able to find anything for 英都. It may just be a name.
Most Gratuitous (but funny) Overtranslations
Phoenix: "Oh yeah, right here! Sherlock Holmes II, baby!"
(In Japanese: やった！)
Edgeworth: "Indeed! Verily, I say... Ergo!"
(In Japanese, he's just stuttering and going その... あの...)
Sal Manella insisting that they only took a 15 minute break: "But it was only 15 minutes! 15! That's only 13 in Base 12!"
Judge (not getting the point, as usual): "What is it? Please explain so that I might be shocked along with the rest of the court."
Random Translation Notes
When asked about the producer, Penny says in English "I don't think we'd still be in business if it weren't for her," but she said in Japanese "She's like a god to this studio." Huh? Was the concept of being "godlike" too weird to translate?
***
"Mr. Monkey," the monkey mascot (the statue whose head fell and blocked the roadway), is called サルマゲどん. This joke took me forever to figure out, but I think it's saru = monkey, mage = a topknot like that worn by a sumo wrestler, and don = dono, an old-fashioned samurai-era honorific – Sir Monkey, Esq.(?) Edgeworth calls it "sarumage-kun" in court, causing Phoenix to make his sweatdrop face and think "It's actually sarumage-don, but OK..." (In English, Edgeworth calls the mascot "Mrs. Monkey.")
Anyway, when the monkey-mascot-clock is working (is everything in this game secretly a clock?), it announces the time: ４時デゴザル (4-ji de gozaru). (de gozaru is a really old-fashioned way to say "desu.") Because it's an honorable monkey, a "go-zaru (=saru)," get it...? *hides head and cries from the bad pun*
On second thought, I think I prefer the bad pun in Japanese to the English. "He announces the time in ooks. One ook per hour. Ook ook ook ook. Always with the ooks." Phoenix thinks "It IS a monkey, after all." In Japanese, he's thinking "Gozaru? Because it's a "saru"...?
***
LOL, as a card collector myself (I even have a Buffy UR or two!), I was pretty amused by the whole card trading bit. The translators had a lot of fun with Phoenix not getting trading card lingo.
In Japanese, Cody recognizes his own とれか, toreka, short for trading card, which Phoenix doesn't understand (so Cody has to explain it). Then he demands a レア (rea, rare), and Phoenix says (to Cody) 焼き加減のことか？ (yakikagen no koto ka? "You want it cooked... how?")
In English, Cody says "Hey, that's my UR!", and Phoenix is confused. "You are... what?" Then Cody demands a premium rare instead (which he claims is better than an ultra rare), and Phoenix says (to himself) "Premium, rare... why do I feel like we're talking about steaks?"
I thought it was funnier in Japanese. (Not to mention making more sense. Premium rare, what? And a seven-year-old kid has duplicate copies of an ultra-rare card? Come on!)
***
This might just be a Japanese-culture thing rather than a specific reference, but when Cody is talking in Japanese about seeing all of the Steel Samurai's live shows, Phoenix thinks something like Oh, those shows they have on the roofs of department stores and at amusement parks? That caught my attention, because it's exactly what happens in Shinesman. I think they actually have one big battle on the roof of a department store, and another in an amusement park. Anyway, in English Phoenix just thinks something like "Those stupid publicity stunts where they beat up on each other?" So I didn't notice the similarity to Shinesman until I was playing it in Japanese.
***
I might be over-reaching with the Shinesman reference, but I know this one was deliberate. In Japanese, when Mia's trying to convice Cody to talk, she just says that Phoenix is fighting for justice, just like the Steel Samurai. In English, she says "Isn't that the Steel Samurai's motto? 'For great justice'?"
Hee! Someone set us up the bomb!
***
Cody testifies before the court standing on an orange crate, not a donut crate. (Who puts donuts in a crate?)
***
When Cody calls Edgeworth Pops and the judge Gramps, Edgeworth is miffed because Cody called him an ojisan ("uncle," implying that he looks middle-aged). He would prefer to be called oniisan instead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 12:06 pm (UTC)Actually, I would believe that. I see that kind of thing all the time.
That caught my attention, because it's exactly what happens in Shinesman.
No doubt it's in Shinesman precisely because it's so typical to have such performances there.
(Who puts donuts in a crate?)
<snicker>
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:32 am (UTC)Oh, god, I'd forgotten all about that. I laughed SO hard.
Wow, Himesaman is way funnier to me than Pink Princess. (Couldn't they have called her Steel Princess or someting, at least?) I totally wish they'd gone with Samurai Man and Princess Man instead. :/
Overall, I love the English translation and think they did a great job with it, but there are definitely some things I think they could have handled better. (For instance, the ridiculous "Mystic" title and Pearl's nicknames.)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 03:32 pm (UTC)Oh, yeah, the Mystic thing is weird, though for what it's worth I guess it conveys somewhat the right impression. In Japanese, they all insist on calling her Mayoi-sama (even her own aunt, who's twice her age), and they get mad at Phoenix if he doesn't remember to do the same. Of course he has a really hard time remembering to call his teenaged office assistant -sama. (I love how they all assume he works for her, too!)
The more I play in both languages, the more respect I have for the English translation, even when I see a mistake or disagree with one of their choices. They just do such an amazing job overall of conveying what's funny about the original and making it even funnier. To manage to do that even 85% of the time is really cool.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 09:41 pm (UTC)There's something in the third game that I think makes the "Mystic" thing even dumber...but oh well. I'm not sure what would've worked better. ("Mistress Maya"? "Lady Maya"?)
But yeah, I totally agree with you that the adaptation is great. I'm not the type to prefer the Enlish version of ANYHING over the Japanese version, so I think for them to make me love this so much is really impressive.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 06:32 pm (UTC)Just dropping in a comment or two to say... good job. XD
no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 03:10 pm (UTC)