#BaddabingBaddaboomshipping | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sazandorable · 7 years ago

Text

A compilation and comparison of Ghetsis’ USUM lines about Giovanni in ENG, JPN, and FR

awright so I was actually started on this over on twitter and actively encouraged, so now you get... this (harharhar). It’s long and rambly, sorry!

For clarity’s sake, let’s start with the official ENG localization. I’m linking random LP videos each time for convenience, but there are lots of others to find.

ENGLISH:

"In order to achieve this beautiful ideal, however, I have need of a useful pawn... And that man, the leader of Team Rocket, is a man of pure evil! If I can make good use of him, and set him up as a king, I shall be able to reign supreme above all existence!"

"I have found that humans, with their predictable ambitions, are easier to use and control than a freak without a human heart."

"It wouldn't do at all to have you get in his way, especially when I must establish him as my king!"

(text c/p’d from bulbapedia (bolding mine). conversely, please have a look — i don’t even mean read, just. look. — at the entirety of ghetsis’s USUM dialogue on bulbapedia:

look at all this bold. i love his freakout trips so much.)

So to recap:

- pawn

- man of pure evil

- useful, make good use

- set up as (my) king

- human

- predictable, easy to use and control

- don’t get in his way (doesn’t comply with my plans!)

Now for the original

JAPANESE:

この野望を叶えるには操り人形が必要です純粋な悪の思想を持つロケット団のボス… あの男…王としてうまく扱えばワタクシはあらゆる存在の頂点に立てるのです！目的がわかりやすい人間は人の心を持たぬ化け物よりはるかに制御しやすいのです！いいですか？ワタクシの王として彼を利用するためじゃまをされてはこまるのですよ！

(partly c/p’d from this blessing of a page which is basically the monolingual equivalent of this post, I’m laughing so much, same, bro, same)

I’m... Ok, I linked a video where the player reads the text aloud, but I’m still also going to transliterate this so you can “hear” it in your heads because. I really need you all to take notice of the sheer amount of “のです” in this extract. 3 out of 4 lines end with “no desu”. This is how Ghetsis speaks all the time. English localization did its best but still mostly lost this IMO: there’s two ways to read the formal, polite way JPN!Ghetsis speaks. One is the calmly threatening, quietly scary way in which the player acts out his lines in the video. The other way, the way I personally cannot stop hearing him, is like an affable, cutesy and harmless grandmother. Like a moe schoolgirl, even. Ghetsis once referred to himself & Team Plasma as being all “nakama” in canon. (EDIT: i actually remembered that bit as being worded “nakama na no desu” but alas, not quite.)

I just really need people to know this, okay.

Now that I’ve made this clear, as-literal-and-close-as-possible-and-thus-very-wonky-sounding translation by yours truly:

kono yabou wo kanaeru ni wa, ayatsuriningyou ga hitsuyou desu

“To fulfill this ambition, I need a puppet.”

Although “pawn” is a perfectly good translation choice (and adds a very appropriate chess theme), I also really want to let it be known that the original was “a puppet” (操り人形 ayatsuri ningyou). The kind with strings. (操る ayatsuru means “to pull strings” or “to manipulate”, in the literal sense.) Such a wonderfully creepy image too <3

junsui na aku no shisou wo motsu ROCKETTO-dan no BOSU... ano otoko... ou toshite umaku atsukaeba, watakushi ha arayuru sonzai no chouten ni tateru no desu!

“The boss of Team Rocket, of purely evil thought/idea/ideology... that man... if I can successfully treat him as a king / if I can make good use of him as a king, I will be able to stand at the summit of all of existence!”

The ENG used two verbs constructions here, but it's a single word. I am not savvy enough in Japanese to be able to tell if one or both nuances is stronger than the other here. But I do know that the verb (扱う atsukau) has the two meanings (“handle/operate” and “treat as”). And the ENG localization did keep “make use of”, too, despite the として structure being generally translated with “treat as”. I'm just saying, interesting double meaning within a single word here. V nice.

mokuteki ga wakariyasui ningen ha, hito no kokoro wo motanu bakemono yori haruka ni seigyoshiyasui no desu!

“A human with easy-to-know/understand objectives/motivations is far easier to control/keep in check than a monster without a person’s heart!”

... Okay usually I would have gone with “without a human heart”, like the localization always does, but the thing is he actually says “人間 ningen” (human) in the part about Giovanni. But not for N. In his usual pet name for N, he just uses “人 hito” (person). So. As evil as Giovanni is, Ghetsis still considers him human, unlike N (and N doesn’t get to be a person either). As lovely a dad as ever, huh. (Not about Giovanni but also noteworthy: the “freak” in the recurrent pet name is originally “monster” (化け物 bakemono). As far as I can tell, it’s always the exact same wording in JPN too.)

Technically this sentence could also be set in plural (no grammar cue at all), but since he’s clearly referring to N in the second half, I went with singular both times. In truth, he could be referring to humans in general (like what the localization went with), or simply to Giovanni specifically.

ii desu ka? watakushi no ou toshite kare wo riyousuru tame jama wo sarete ha komaru no desu yo!

“What about this? In order for me to make use of him as my king, allowing you to interfere would be troublesome!”

I ALSO JUST REALLY NEEDED EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT HE SAYS “II DESU KA?” HERE AND IT’S SO HARD TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO CONVEY THAT ACCURATELY. IT’S NOT QUITE “WHAT ABOUT IT”. IT’S BASICALLY. ASKING FOR YOUR PERMISSION. LIKE “MAY I?”. Except of course he’s not asking for your permission, it’s also like... “So, you see?” But basically. Basically he’s not just threatening you or explaining to you why he’s gonna beat you up, he’s like “See what I’m about? So, can’t you be a good kid and let me do this puh-leaaase? :)”

And the word choice in the rest of the line is also very “Look I’m a nice harmless grandma :) :)” and cutesy.

The verb for “use” is a different one this time, though, more straightforward.

And the last line is slightly ambiguous as to who you’d interfere with — either “I can’t let you interfere with my plan (which is to control Giovanni)”, or “I can’t let you interfere with Giovanni’s actions, since I need him to succeed for my own plans”. Ultimately that doesn’t change a thing, but the latter sounds a little like “heeeey don’t break my stuuuff, I need this”.

And by the way yes it’s literally “my king” in Japanese too, very conspicuously so, sounded super gay to me.

So to recap, this version gives us:

- puppet

- PURE EVIL MIND

- to treat him as my king (huhuh)

- human

- easy to understand, easy to control/keep in check

- puhwease :) don’t get in [his OR my] way

And now for the absolute funniest:

FRENCH:

“Mais pour cela, j'ai besoin d'une créature... Un pion facile à manipuler, un pantin pour distraire les masses...”

“Et soudain, voilà que le ‹‹ boss ›› de la Team Rocket, un homme à l'âme plus noire que son costume, se présente à moi !”

“Je n'ai qu'à faire de cet homme un roi, puis à tirer les ficelles en coulisses... Et je me dresserai au sommet incontesté de toute la création !”

“Il est tellement plus aisé de manipuler un balourd aux désirs primaires qu'une grotesque parodie d'être humain sans âme !”

“Comprenez-vous, belle enfant ? Et vous, Dresseuse ? Je ne peux vous laisser m'empêcher de faire de cet homme un roi.”

So much to unpack here. /rolls back sleeves/

First off, you can probably tell that the French localization loves to make Ghetsis RAMBLE. He’s very dramatic, flair and all, and his choice of words are absurdly purple (and often archaic). Yes, he noticeably has these traits in the ENG localization too, but FR!Ghetsis is that to eleven. I can’t manage to accurately convey this in these translations, but trust me, he’s just. Completely over the top in all ways, all the time.

Mais pour cela, j'ai besoin d'une créature... Un pion facile à manipuler, un pantin pour distraire les masses...

“But for this, I need a creature... A pawn, easy to manipulate, a puppet to distract/entertain the masses...”

Geez, FR!Ghets, how come your localization lets you have all the cool dehumanizing insults and creepy metaphors at once?!

Et soudain, voilà que le ‹‹ boss ›› de la Team Rocket, un homme à l'âme plus noire que son costume, se présente à moi !

“And suddenly, the “boss” of Team Rocket, a man with a soul blacker than his suit, presents himself to me!”

I treasure the shade in those sarcastic quotation marks, okay. These just. Come from absolutely nowhere. Quite possibly to poke fun at the fact that French localizations have used the word “boss” from the start of the franchise, and it would be weird and confusing to use something else to refer to Giovanni here, but it’s not actually a word we’d use naturally and, indeed, FR!Ghetsis would never use it unironically (it’s kind of slang and very much not-originally-a-French-word)...

Also: A SOUL BLACKER/DARKER THAN HIS SUIT

GUYS THIS WAS NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT

Je n'ai qu'à faire de cet homme un roi, puis à tirer les ficelles en coulisses... Et je me dresserai au sommet incontesté de toute la création !

“All I need to do is to make this man king / make a king out of this man, then pull the strings backstage... And I will stand at the unquestioned/unchallenged top of all of creation!”

In this version he just says he’s literally going to make Giovanni a king. No detail as to how, but there’s no nuance that it’s just pretending or tricking him or anything. The words he uses also mean literally “pull strings” and “backstage”, exact same nuances as in English, so still totally reveling in the show metaphors.

Il est tellement plus aisé de manipuler un balourd aux désirs primaires qu'une grotesque parodie d'être humain sans âme !

“It is so much easier to manipulate a boorish oaf with primal/basic desires than a grotesque parody/repulsive joke of a soulless human being!”

... Again. Bonus extra shade. The original wasn’t complimentary by any measure, but this is so gratuitously extra mean. Amusingly, even though we have the word “ambitions” too, the FR localization opted to turn the JPN “objectives” into “desires”. Yes, same nuance as in English here too. “Désirs primaires” sounds insulting but also... kind of raunchy.

Also, “balourd” is a really funny word choice, intrinsically and also especially when contrasting with Ghetsis’ usual speech, it suddenly drops a few levels in formality to go almost colloquial. A “balourd” is like... think The Jungle Book’s Baloo, actually.

"Grotesque parodie d’être humain” was one of the (... many) things he yelled to N at the very end of B2W2, however it was translated a bit differently in BW, so this is the first reoccurrence French localizations get!

(... Because until then he had... quite a varied arsenal of these. “Marionnette” (puppet) and “aberration de la nature” (aberration/freak of nature) in B2W2, “MA CREATURE” (my creature/creation — Giovanni got this one too here!), “Il ne possède pas de coeur!” (He doesn’t possess a heart!) and “triste abomination” (sad/grotesque abomination) in BW.)

Comprenez-vous, belle enfant ? Et vous, Dresseur/Dresseuse ? Je ne peux vous laisser m'empêcher de faire de cet homme un roi.

“Do you understand, beautiful/lovely child? And you, Trainer? I cannot (afford to) let you stop me from making this man king / making a king out of this man.

This has nothing to do with Giovanni anymore but it’s some more extra creepy :) (HAHAHA YOU HAVE FALLEN FOR MY CUNNING TRICK i just wanted to ramble about Ghetsis’ awesome lines and speech patterns in general ok... don’t shame me...)

“Do you understand?” appears to be how the FR localization chose to deal with the “Ii desu ka?”, which isn’t a wrong decision, but they randomly decided to apply it to Lillie too.

“Belle enfant” is referring to Lillie, he calls her this through the entire scene. It sounds very archaic (calling to mind the Middle-Ages and fairy tales — it’s what someone would call a teenage Sleeping Beauty for instance) and also, you know, SUPER CREEPY. Also, despite this infantilization, he uses vous (= formal you) for both Lillie and the PC, which is very very odd for an adult speaking to a child. Like I said: extremely polite, overly so, unnaturally so.

... Until you beat him and he snaps, anyway, because then he switches to tu (= thee, informal/familiar you) and informal insults. <3

Anyway, in this version he says you’re in his way, not Giovanni’s.

So to recap:

- creature, puppet, pawn

- manipulate, pull strings, creation

=> overall, all the chess AND (puppet) show AND creator-god metaphors (later on instead of “ruler of this world” FR!Ghets literally calls himself “the demiurge”, I’m not making this up)

- “““boss””” of Team Rocket

- his soul is blacker than his suit

- simplistic, boorish oaf

- ... does not directly call him a human (just at-least-not-a-grotesque-parody-of-a-human-being)

- primal desires ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

- don’t stop ME from MAKING HIM KING

- (no “my king” :()

I wasn’t setting out to make a point but oh hey guess there is one: the level of ‘respect’ and amusement Ghetsis has for Giovanni’s abilities and evilness, as well as exactly how serious Ghetsis is about the whole king thing, vary from one version to another, and some things can also be interpreted in various ways! The reason why he attacks you also differs from “Uhhmm, I can’t let you get to Giovanni and ruin his thing, because I need him functional for my thing later, so I’ll have to stop you here” to “Don’t ruin my thing. Lol just try and stop me”. ... And I thought he called Giovanni something along the lines of “black-hearted” in all versions, but this post taught me that he doesn’t, just “evil”, so hey now you know that in French he does, isn’t it neat!

Also, Giovanni may be evil and basic, but at least he doesn’t speak to Pokémon.

Ghetsis, your standards.

#pokemon ultra sun & moon #team rainbow rocket #ghetsis #giovanni #baddabingbaddaboomshipping #remember this amazing ship name?#pokemon #pokemon usum #aza tries to translate japanese #la team française oh mon dieu #long post (under readmore)#jp en fr

161 notes · View notes