#almiraj

[wasleichtesart]

Happy Halloween from the Husbuns!

Did I make a Monster AU of my Animal AU? Yes. Yes I did.

Aziraphale the bunny is now an Almiraj and Crowley the hare is now a Wolpertinger.

[bedeviled-dotty]

[thedansome]

Bunny monstergirl designs I did for @dm-tuz

If you’re interested: Statblocks, tokens, and HD art version available at the following link: https://ko-fi.com/s/71d6295a26

[reachartwork]

anonymous digimon line commission who requested an "almiraj-themed rookie, and then just general alien goth rabbit moon theming", so,

Feymon, Almiramon, MoonAlmiramon, NebulAlmiramon, and SingulAlmiramon. They're so purple!

[sword0fkas]

new dnd character!!! now on artfight

[monniponi]

Winter fashion for bunnies 🐇❄️

[atelier-slime]

DRAGON QUEST'S LOCALIZATION SUCKS, ACTUALLY. PART 1

There's a thread blowing up on Japanese twitter right now about the poor quality of localization. It's the first time I've ever actually seen a japanese perspective on the topic, and it's been extremely gratifying to see a ton people from over there talk about specific translation issues they've seen or learn for the first time that japanese media is often given the short end of the stick here in the USA.

Most of the time over here in the US, criticism of localization gets shouted down as whiny fans who think they know better than the translators. It's been heartening to see that people from japan are also annoyed by it, and its inspired me to write up a whole long-ass rant I've had simmering in the back of my mind for years, so buckle up, long post(s) incoming:

Let's start at the beginning with the first thing that ever caused me to start thinking about localization. This little guy:

If you've played Dragon Quest in the past 2 decades, you probably know this guy by the name "Spiked Hare." Not me though! I got into DQ on the game boy, in the brief window of time where DQ's localization was handled by Nob Ogasawara, the same guy responsible for translating every pokemon game up until Platinum. In the DQ games Nob worked on, he chose to translate this guy's name as "Almiraj." Why the huge difference in translation? I'll get to that in a minute.

The almiraj is an extremely minor enemy in Dragon Quest 3. It's pretty weak, and it's only real defining feature is that it can occasionally cast sleep spells on your party members. It's just one of hundreds of monsters in that game, and aside from it's cute design, it's pretty forgettable. As a weird kid overly obsessed with linguistics though, its name always seemed odd to me. You don't really see words that end with a "J" in english. It stuck out enough that one night, when I was bored, I decided to google "almiraj" to figure out what the name meant. It sent me down a rabbit hole (almiraj hole?) that taught me all sorts of cool shit, and permanently altered the way I looked at localization. The path I tumbled down that night went something like this:

The Dragon Quest almiraj is named after the almiraj, a "real" mythical creature described as a hare with a large horn on its head.

The original inspiration for accounts of the almiraj (as well as the jackalope, wolpertinger, etc.) is likely the Shope papiloma Virus, which causes rabbits to grow weird, horn-like growths on their face and head.

It was described by Zakariya al-Qazwini, an Iranian lawyer, author, and all around knowledgeable guy who lived in the 13th century.

al-Qazwini described it in the Aja'ib al-Makhluqat, a massive cosmographical treatise that attempted to describe basically everything in the known universe at the time. It was so popular in the Islamic world that it was copied and translated into dozens of languages, which meant plenty of copies have survived intact to modern times.

The almiraj was brought into the limelight in modern fantasy when it was introduced in the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons, as a relatively weak and unassuming monster as part of a campaign to expand the game with monster suggestions from fans of the series.

Dungeons and Dragons-style role playing games were brought into the digital world with the release of the first Wizardry game in 1981.

Yuji Horii was a massive fan of Wizardry, which he first discovered as part of a developer exchange program when he visited America in 1983. Three years later, he decided to try and recreate the things he loved from the series for console gamers in Japan, and the the original Dragon Quest was born.

One little name was all it took to open up this entire through-line of history that I had no idea even existed before that night. It's a tapestry of human experiences over 800 years in the making, spanning continents, cultures, languages, and medium. It's probably because I'm the type of person who sits around thinking about stuff too much, but I honestly get a little emotional wondering what al-Qazwini would think if he could see the mythical creatures he described all those years ago as little dudes hopping around inside a computer.

And the thing is the tapestry doesn't end there! Dragon Quest is still pretty niche in the west, but in Japan it's fucking titanic. There's an urban legend that the Japanese government banned Square Enix from releasing Dragon Quest games on a weekday, because so many people would skip work or school that it would impact the economy. (It's not true by the way, but the fact that the rumor exists at all is a testament to how huge the series' influence is over there.) I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that what Lord of the Rings did to modern western fantasy, Dragon Quest did to modern Japanese fantasy. Almost every JRPG, manga, or anime with a fantasy setting has the fingerprints of Dragon Quest on it. Countless other works have been inspired by DQ, and those works will go on to inspire others. A million different threads weaving tapestries back and forth across time and borders, all over the globe. And the almiraj is a part of that! It might just be a single, tiny, white and purple thread, but it's still in there helping to tie things together.

So back to the question I asked earlier: Why is it "Almiraj" in Mr. Ogasawara's translation but "Spiked hare" in the current one? Simple: Nob actually translated the name.

You can see on the DQ wiki that the original japanese name of the monster is "アルミラージ" which is literally just "almiraj" written in katakana:

The current DQ team has instead decided that all monster names should be puns. I'm not against puns or anything. "Spiked hare" for a rabbit with a horn is great! I might even raise my eyebrows and exhale slightly if I read it for the first time. Dragon Quest in general tends to have a lot of goofiness in it, so it's not like puns are out of place or anything. My problem is that, by deciding to replace monster names arbitrarily like this, all the little threads start to come unraveled. You lose the ability to look back down the line and discover all these different connections to history and nature and art that you might not ever learn otherwise. The almiraj isn't the only monster to get this treatment. A huge portion of the monsters in Dragon Quest are taken from mythologies around the world, and many of their names are literally already in English, just written with katakana.

The almiraj sticks out in my mind as a particularly egregious example because of just how much I learned because of the foreign-sounding name, but there's plenty of other name changes that have resulted in straight up confusing, ambiguous, or otherwise stupid outcomes in the current localization.

CONTINUED IN PART 2

[mystical-beasts]

An unusual specimen of Al-Mi'raj.... 27. Scales + Al-Mi'raj

[cloudbunnycreations]

Faelynn!

and Briar!

Faelyn Sunbeam

24 hours, ibis paint x

and their almiraj friend, Briar! (who i forgot to time lol)

~~~

Faelyn is 3'3" when standing normally, but they're very good at jumping, so it's best to not tease them *too* much about their height.

Though she enjoys listening to music, Faelyn was never interested in learning to play it, much to her dad's chagrin. She was always more interested in learning to fight from her mom; the bow they use was a gift from their mom the first time they left home, which they cherish.

Faelyn doesn't really like being around too many people, and prefers spending most of their time in the forests with their animal friends. They usually only visit towns during winter, both because many animals are sleeping, and because they don't like being cold.

[hsuits]

Creatura Grimoire: Al-mi'raj

While appearing to be a rabbit, these creatures also have a horn protruding from their forehead. They can be aggressive when provoked, but are easily tamed and frequently kept as pets. Al-mi'raj are, otherwise, not much different from their mundane bunny counterparts. They have similar diets, and live in burrows with large families. Since they are closely related, Al-mi'raj can also be interbred with standard rabbits to produce new varieties with different coat colors, lengths, and ear styles. Al-mi'raj take meticulous care of their horns and seek out rough surfaces on which to sharpen them. Their horns have very weak magical properties but the live animals have been known to bring good luck to their owners. Their abundance and popularity as pets has, fortunately, meant it is not worth hunting Al-mi'raj to remove their horns for illegal trade.

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If you are enjoying Creatura Grimoire, Please check out my Patreon to support the project! You can also order a copy of Vol A on Grumroad or Ko-fi

[desertdruidcrafts]

Aaand some more, including an adorable giant almiraj that my party hunted alongside the Wild Hunt

[wormyfool]

horn, blade, vorpal

[roseate-felidae]

my rabbit oc (bunsona), Lauren the black otter mini rex.

Sometimes just a regular (but sentient, like children's books) mini rex,

Others are Beatrix Potter -esque, or using a magic human mask to appear as a human to viewers.

Two different types of horns, from an final fantasy Ixion inspired horn (but backwards) to Megaloceros antlers.

Some versions are made of star dust and colossal in size.

All are female, mini rex, black otter (with exception of stardust) and have some sort of moon based power (inspired by moon rabbit).

Most commonly used is regular (but sentient) black otter mini rex. Second used is stardust and mask one.

Really scruffy drawing but gets the design across.

@lepurcinus

@themarginalthinker

[vevletaire]

Commission for cestcaitlin over at twitter, of their Drow Graviturgist and their Almiraj familiar.

I don't get to do illustrated-ish things often so this was nice to make c:

[windydrawallday]

HOPSCOTCH

At last: my first (original) artwork of the year! Showing my character nighthare Pokash, jumping around the circuits of the "tree of life" Hopscotch.

[magpiesly]