PokeSpe Chapter 4 translation notes and download link

Pokemon Special chapter 4 download link

Another chapter is here! This was a "fun" one to work on, what with that Zukan entry AND the gym flier. I like when my job is easy and I just have to arrange the same size of text everywhere XD

I'm very happy I got to throw in the term "rat bastard" in there. It fits because not only is "rat bastard" a thing, but Pikachu is a rat. And the term is kind of an in-joke with my friend. So it's a very fun panel.

On page 52, Red tosses a Monster Ball and says はい which is kinda like "here," but he says it in a cute way. So I thought saying "boop" to show that he was being silly and showing how easy it was was a good idea. I wonder what kind of reaction this will get...

Pikachu's moves are based on electricity, not "thunder" like their English localization counterparts, but this makes them hard to fit in these little boxes. We have Electric Shock and Electromagnetic Wave, both which I just shortened to "elec." for the zukan entry. でんこうせっか literally means lightning-speed, but I changed it to "Lightspeed" to save space, and I just think it sounds better. But I don't look forward to Pikachu using "Electromagnetic Wave" in the future. Especially when the Japanese is so small, the speech bubble for it will be tiny.

Elec-
tro-
mag-
ne-
tic
wave!

lol...

I'm starting to take more liberties when the Japanese script translates into something that no one would ever say in English. So for example, Red says "What's going on back there?" when Pikachu is rustling about in his Monster Ball on his back, which sounds way more natural than anything even close to a literal translation, even if the meaning is different, and still conveys the same types of feelings from the original script IMO.

On page 56, I really was thinking about having Green say "slowly" instead of "slow," as that's grammatically correct, but I just can't imagine a kid colloquially saying "slowly" in that type of sentence.

On page 59, I was really close to having Red call Green a 'douche' instead of a 'jerk,' but I don't know if 10-year-olds say 'douche' like we did in high school. It's probably not a word that younger kids throw around because they probably don't even know what it means. I wanted something a little more slang-y than "jerk," but I couldn't come up with anything, so "jerk" it is...

PokeSpe Chapter 5 translation notes and download link

Pokemon Special chapter 5 download link

Not too much to comment on here, it was pretty simple stuff.

Red calls Nyoro and Fushi 大切な仲間 which is basically like "important partners/friends" but I went with just "partners," and then he uses 友情 in the next part to refer to friendship with Pikachu, so I didn't want to use "friend" words both times.

That's literally all for my comments this time XD Next time we get to meet Kasumi!

PokeSpe Chapter 6 translation notes and download link

Pokemon Special chapter 6 download link

A fun chapter, we finally get to meet Kasumi! Soooo much talking in this one, though XD

Red refers to Kasumi as おねえちゃん (Onee-chan) before learning her name. This literally means "big sister" as Japanese people use familiar terms like that to address people they don't know. I decided not to include this, nor to try to add words like "miss" or whatever, as it just doesn't flow in English. I'm trying to make the script sound like things people would actually say in English, and no one would say "oneechan," and no one would say "miss" or "young lady" or something like that, either. He would simply say "you" in English. In Japanese it's a bit rude to say the word "you" directly to someone you don't know, as illustrated by Red's response to Kasumi calling him "you." So they use those family terms, but it's really just a substitute for "you," so "you" works in English.

That was way too much explanation for that, but I know the "I-kinda-know-Japanese" weebs out there insist that this stuff get left in, when it makes the script flow poorly and sound horrible.

I decided to leave in the -chan for Hito-chan because it's a nickname. When I used to actively speak both Japanese and English, we'd use honorifics like that when speaking English if it was the "name" of someone we regularly spoke about in Japanese. But if it was someone we didn't speak about much or spoke about more in English, we'd use no honorifics or English ones like Doctor or Mister. So it's going to be tough deciding how to go about these in the future.

In one case, something gets lost in translation when you don't keep the honorifics in, as a lot of times there's no real substitute in English. But at the same time, it doesn't mean anything to someone unfamiliar with them and creates poor flow and an unnatural sounding script in English. I think the best middle ground is probably the way Atlus does it in the Persona series, keeping them in when they're commonly-used names for the characters, but using English honorifics when the honorific is more important than it being used as a basically "full name" for the character.

I haven't addressed this before, but in the Japanese script they use quotation marks around the names of techniques. I decided not to do this, as quotation marks have different connotations in English and Japanese, and it just makes more sense without them.

The word 草 (kusa) means "grass" most literally, but also can refer to foliage in general, so "plant" is an acceptable translation for the Pokemon type. "Plant" is probably more accurate, but I'm so used to "grass" that I've already used it without even thinking, and will probably continue to use it, so to preserve consistency I should probably just stick with "grass." Maybe someday if I do a revision (like if I get access to higher-quality scans or something?) I'll replace all the "grasses" with "plants."

Since the technique makes literal haustoria, I felt like "haustoria seed" was a more fitting name than "parasitic plant seed," and makes a bit more sense than "leech seed."

Gyarados's species is listed as 凶悪 (kyouaku) which can mean a whole lot of things, particularly very evil things. I went with "Atrocious" because it's the same as the English localization in the games.

The time finally came where I had to refer to what we know as "Team Rocket" in English. "Team" isn't very accurate, though I guess it could work. "Gang" was an option I considered, but that's about as accurate as "team," to be honest, and in the end I decided it sounded too childish. I settled on "Rocket Group" because it sounds quite professional, and the Rockets like to portray themselves as a legitimate professional organization, at least in the games. Hope no one is mad at me for this one!

Not really a translation note but a beef with the original writing -- IDK why Red is so shocked when Kasumi says she wants to come along and asks if she's going to be OK on "her own" (which I didn't put in my script because it makes no sense that she's going to be "on her own" if she's with Red anyway) when she already clearly showed her prowess against Gyarados, and it's already known that she's a Pokemon trainer.