#also the fact that 零 can also be read as rei too....

[blueesnow]

Rei-channn.... ;;;A;;; Damn... I just heard his preview solo song from the movie and damn did it hurt my heart.... why are the lyrics quite angsty lol the description of that song should've prepared me but it still hurts damn it

i've made a rough quick tl for myself of what was shown in the preview hopefully i didn't get the lyrics wrong www

渇く感情のハート This heart that is dried up of emotions ずるくてごめんね　瞳でまた君を騙してる I'm sorry for being so cunning, I'm deceiving you again with my eyes エゴから砕けてしまった　大事なJewel The precious jewel that shattered because of my ego 時は戻せはしない Time cannot be turned back 愛の音がしんと　鳴らなくなった That sound of love has ceased to ring 絶望の音楽に to the music of despair 零(-Zero-)からまた歌声　添えたくて… I want to add my singing voice in this once again from zero…

[fioras-resolve]

i really pity the localization team behind Bravely Default. i'm not talking about the bravo bikini thing, or the aging up of the characters, those are topics that were broached in 2012. i'm talking about attempting to capture the energy of the many, many move names in a game that was designed for a Japanese audience.

like, the Arcanist moves are all named with a single Kanji. The move that inflicts doom is 屍, Shikabane, and this was translated literally as Corpse. The move that instakills any sleeping unit is 昏, Tasogare, and it is also translated literally as Twilight. the passive that increases magic power if the user's MP stat ends in 0 is 零, Rei, which is translated directly as Zero. while i can't deny that these are, in fact, what the words translate to, i can't help but feel like something was lost in translation, particularly the conciseness of writing everything with a single character.

Swordmaster has the opposite problem. this job's skill names are all Japanese proverbs or other turns of phrase. The first skill you get with it is 海老で鯛を釣る, Ebi de Tai wo Tsuru, which literally translates to "To catch a sea bream with a shrimp." It's a metaphor for making a small investment and getting big returns, which is a decent name for a skill where you wait to get attacked at half damage before countering at double damage. But the problem is twofold. One is that there's not a great English equivalent. Like the Bravely wiki says "Something for Nothing" could also work as a translation, but that leads to the second problem: You can't fit an entire English sentence in the confines of a command menu. English text just takes up more space than Japanese does, as we saw earlier with Arcanist having a four-syllable word written with one character. So how did they localize this command? Well, it's called Nothing Ventured. They tried to find equivalent versions of each. So we get move names like Squeaky Wheel and Before Swine, which to me read awkward as hell and barely feel like they match with what their skills do at all? Like one lowers enemy BP and another is a magical counterattack? Probably the most nightmare thing to translate is the final skill for this job, 薩摩守, Satsuma no Kami, literally The Governor of Satsuma. It removes MP cost for two turns. I'm sure that makes sense if you know Japanese history and about the Satsuma Rebellion, but it's too long for a skills menu and also uncommon knowledge in America. So the command was renamed to Free Lunch.

Another thing lost in translating every skill to English is the fact that, well, some skills were named in English to begin with. Specifically in Katakana, Japanese's transcription system for non-Japanese words. If I were to make a guess as to why Sky Knight's skills like Crescent Moon and Genocide (translated to Crescent Moon and Decimate respectively) were in English to begin with, I'd wager it's because English is a really easy way to sound cool to a Japanese audience. Merchant skills like Acquisition (translated as Payoff), Ripoff (translated as Salesman), and Speculate (kept as is), on the other hand, were probably that way because Merchant is, you know, the capitalist job, and it's hard to get more capitalist than the English-speaking world. But the problem is that the choice to have these skills be English words is lost when, for the localization, every skill has to be written in English.

I can talk about how a lot of these localization choices kind of water down the appeal a lot of these moves had in the original Japanese, but I want to stress here that being the translator on a game that is unapologetically by and for a Japanese audience is an unenviable task. It's something I've been thinking a lot about as I get into my own localization efforts, even though a whole Japanese game is obviously a lot more difficult to localize than a short Toki Pona one-shot fic. But it's really interesting, and I hope I've managed to convince somebody reading this of that too.

[juzzou]

JUUZOU & TAROT

for those unfamiliar with tarot, here's some quick points to help better understand the following thread.

the standard tarot deck is comprised of 78 cards that can be split into the major arcana (22 cards, focuses on growth) and minor arcana (56 cards, focuses on numerology). the major is really all that ishida focuses on within tokyo ghoul, so that's all i'm focusing on for juuzou. the major arcana can be read as a story that follows the fool (card 0) and his journey through enlightenment.

numerology does play a big part in each card even within the major arcana, so a brief summary:

card 0 — the fool & protagonist of the major arcana

cards 1-7 — focus on the beginning of the fool's journey

cards 8-17 — focus on archetypes the fool encounters and his own inner demons

cards 18-21 — focus on self reflection of the fool's journey.

in a way, the entirety of tokyo ghoul can be summarized through the major arcana with kaneki being the fool, but that's another topic completely. however, i'd like to argue that juuzou's own story can be read as a fool's journey as well.

0 THE FOOL ; beginnings, risk, naivete, impulse

"the fool views the world with a sense of childlike wonder. infinite possibilities exist. [...] the fool heeds no warning! like a child, they can only view the world through the prism of themselves" — true heart intuitive tarot, rachel true.

juuzou's journey as the fool all begins with his birth name (up for debate whether it's his actual birth name or not, but this is all we're given of his previous life before being kidnapped by big madam). juuzou was previously known as rei. while the kanji for his name is written as 玲 ("exquisite, clever"), it can also be written as 零 ("zero, null"). as rei, he is doted on by his mama and treated like a doll, but when he doesn't score high enough "good boy points" is when juuzou gets abused by mama.

XIII DEATH ; rebirth, second chances, transformation

"death claws away at its own decay, revealing new life underneath" — true heart intuitive tarot, rachel true.

contrary to popular belief, death is not a negative card and does not literally mean death. it's my personal favorite card of the whole deck and 13 is my lucky number, so any time i pull it, i view it as a positive sign. it's a symbol for change and the death of things that no longer serve a purpose in your life.

juuzou's entire design is a reference to death. his hairclips, his quinque being in the shape of a scythe, the roman numerals XIII etched into the quinque, him working in the 13th ward in the joker bonus chapter, and even his own name which can be written with the kanji 十三 (thirteen). not to mention the references to friday the 13th's jason voorhees.

i feel like ishida purposely feeding into the misconception that the death card is a negative card is kind of genius. it hides the intention he had for juuzou's future growth as a character and misleads readers who aren't familiar with tarot beyond how it's portrayed in popular media.

XII THE HANGED MAN ; surrender, acceptance, sacrifice, change

"sometimes you have to put yourself in uncomfortable positions to learn and grow. surrender to the now, understanding the you do not know everything" — true heart intuitive tarot, rachel true.

over the course of part one of tokyo ghoul, we see how he changes from someone who doesn't fear death to ultimately facing the possibility of the person who has come into his life as a father figure potentially dying right in front of him.

this major change for him comes during the owl suppression mission. as juuzou's leg is severed and he is knocked back, one of his hair clips flies off leaving them in the numerals XII for the hanged man. it's at this moment too when shinohara sacrifices himself to save juuzou. i'd also argue that his leg being severed is a visual reference to the fact that the hanged man is typically portrayed by hanging from one leg.

XX JUDGEMENT ; healing, clarity, transformation

"under the watchful eye of angel gabriel, figures stand with arms outstretched, signifying release from old burdens, self-judgement, and secrets from the past." — true heart intuitive tarot, rachel true.

even before tokyo ghoul:re, juuzou is seen with the stitches near his right eye and the corner of his mouth in the shape of the roman numerals XX. it's been hinted since the very beginning that he would have a major transformation. when this symbolism become more obvious is during chapter 32 of tg:re when he gets promoted to special class (the same rank shinohara was) and we finally see him with his hair clips now in the XX numerals. he has now become the mentor.

XXI THE WORLD ; completion, happiness, closure

"the world signifies the completion of the fool's journey, and the turning of the wheel of fortune" — true heart intuitive tarot, rachel true.

shinohara waking up after being comatose for several years marks the completion in juuzou's story and is reflected in his hair clips and stitches showing the numerals XXI. even in kaneki's own story, juuzou was never a villain and never a morally grey character. his morals were formed by trauma and challenged constantly to the point of them changing over time. he has gone from an abused child with no remorse for killing to a well-respected peacekeeper that now has the emotional intelligence to cherish those around him.

"if an angelic being fell from the sky and tried to live in this world of ours, i think even they would commit many wrongs" — juuzou suzuya