#tales of vesperia kokuu no kamen

[polwigle]

hello and welcome to another episode of Shi Has Strong Opinions on Niche Canon with Citable Sources, this time focusing on something that technically isn't canon one way or the other — my preferred fan-transliterated name for Raven's hometown in Tales of Vesperia, which is never referred to by name in any officially translated material.

anyway it's spelled Pharihyde and in this essay I will die on this hill

Context

In case you clicked the read-more with no stake in this game just because you want to see me being pedantic, let me recap the relevant facts of the argument:

Raven's backstory is never fully explained in the base game, but it was elaborated on in official side materials. The same story, titled 虚空の仮面 (Kokuu no Kamen, commonly translated as Empty Mask), was released in multiple formats: light novel[1], manga[2], and drama CD[3]. None of these have ever been officially translated, but fans have made their own attempts at each over the years.

The town in question here does not appear in the original game, due to having been obliterated during the prequel events. It's also never mentioned by name in the drama CD, leaving only two sources for a name: the light novel and the manga.

Officially, it is named ファリハイド (Farihaido).

The first translation the English-speaking fandom ever saw of any Kokuu no Kamen material was when one fan (whose identity was regrettably lost to time) took a stab at summarizing the light novels, not long after they were first published back in 2010. This fan transliterated the town's name as Pharihyde.

Tumblr user dokidokimaster was commissioned to finally translate the manga in 2015. In this translation, the town was spelled Farryheid.

By the time the manga was being translated, the web page that hosted the light novel summary had tragically gone down. Luckily, I was active enough in the fandom at the time to have had the link to the light novel bookmarked, so I was able to find an archive via the blessed Wayback Machine, but I can't fault dokidokimaster for the inconsistencies.

tl;dr of section: OG town name is ファリハイド; LN calls it Pharihyde; manga calls it Farryheid. Rest of essay is about why me preferring the name that came first isn't just me being a cranky fandom elder I swear

It's About The World It's In

In the world of Terca Lumireis, on the continent of Ilyccia, somewhere far from the capital city, Zaphias, there was once a town called... Farryheid? No, Pharihyde. The latter fits better with the precedents set by the official names around it, and I will literally break it down letter by differing letter to prove it!

'Ph' vs 'F'

Among officially transliterated locations and other "made-up" names in Tales of Vesperia, there are 3 that include 'ph' to represent an 'f' sound (Zaphias, Zopheir, Phaeroh). Only a single name uses an actual 'f' for that sound (Ghasfarost), and it also still has an 'h' as the second letter in the word.

Single vs. Double 'R'

After a ctrl+F pass through the entire list of location names in this game[4], not a single one contains the substring 'rr'. Only one R at a time in Terca Lumireis!

Vowel Choice and Lexical Stress

So, English has this neat little feature where some syllables in a word get more emphasis than others! And that plays heavily into this section, because 'i' and 'y' can sound identical when using 'y' as a vowel, but the existing place names stress them differently.

Now, as the Drama CD doesn't give us a spoken example of ファリハイド to work from (and Japanese doesn't do stress the way English does anyway), where the stress goes in either "Pharihyde" or "Farryheid" is technically unconfirmed... But my default reading is with primary stress on the first syllable, and secondary stress on the last (FAR-ee-hide).

In the precedent-setting place names, based on the English dub of the 360 version*, a lone 'i' is seen unstressed in at least 16 distinct names, including the ones I referenced in my intro scene-setting sentence (ZA-phi-as, TER-ca LU-mi-reis). To my knowledge, lone 'i' is never pronounced with stress in dialogue (and potentially appears only once, in the plot-irrelevant Niffel Lake).

In contrast, whenever 'y' is used as any kind of vowel, it always gets at least secondary stress, as in Hypionia (high-pee-O-nee-ah) and Rhybgaro (RIB-ga-ro). Thus, "Pharihyde" using an 'i' for the middle vowel and a 'y' for the last one lines up with established precedent.

Also, the double vowel 'ei' is consistently and exclusively used to represent an 'ay' sound, as in "day", not as in "hide"! Deidon Hold, Keiv Moc, and again Zopheir and Terca Lumireis — none of these 'ei's sound the way "Farryheid" wants you to pronounce it!

Silent 'e'

I did say I'd break down every different letter between "Pharihyde" and "Farryheid", but this last one's not for flavour, it's just to get the 'y' to act as the right kind of vowel sound. Just a normal feature of English pronunciation rules here (though not entirely without precedent: Halure, Relewiese, Laulyse). Sorry to go out with a whimper ^^;;

Conclusion

The base content of Tales of Vesperia sets up some implied rules about how its made-up-for-the-game words function. "Farryheid" may be a perfectly reasonable transliteration of ファリハイド in a vacuum, but "Pharihyde" follows the rules of the setting, literally to the letter!

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

*Footnote about the pronunciation thing: the new voice lines added in the Definitive Edition of the game pronounce some place names inconsistently. I can only assume that by the time they recorded the new lines, a decade after the original ones, they forgot how some pronunciations worked and didn't check their old work... :/

References

(bc it's not an essay without citations!)

[1] Light novel summary (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/20110806003312/http://www.fancomic.com:80/vesperia/resources/raven/emptymask.htm [2] Manga translation: https://dokidokimaster.tumblr.com/tagged/kokuu+no+kamen/chrono [3] Drama CD translation, for completion's sake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHEDJ_D4tyI [4] List of in-game place names: https://hyouta.com/vesperia/?version=pc&locale=eng&compare=2&section=locations

[fatheroblivion]

duke pantarei pride icons | credit appreciated, but not required

really love this panel of duke from the raven manga, so here's two more pride icons of him that match the ones I did back in 2021!

you can find the lesbian and gay flag set here. I lost the transparent file I made of his ass in between making and posting these, so while I was initially hoping to slap the remaining floral flags on him, these will probably be the last two I do.

flags are by lgbtea-prideflags!

[tales-of-asteria]

[Collaboration Event] Tales of Vesperia Gaiden: Hollow Mask Duration: 11/25 (Mon) 16:00 ~ 12/16 (Mon) 15:59 Exchange Duration: 11/25 (Mon) 16:00 ~ 12/23 (Mon) 23:59 Missions Duration: 11/25 (Mon) 16:00 ~ 12/16 (Mon) 23:59

Challenge the event scenario quests to get 5☆ Damuron and 5☆ Casey. They can be evolved into 6☆ and their Evolution Crystals are obtained through milestones and event missions.

Collect “Azure Memory”, “Bronze Memory” and “Dark Red Memory” from the respective quests to get 4☆ Leblanc, 3☆ Adecor, 3☆ Boccos and other rewards.

By clearing the event missions is also possible to get two special Bond Souls:

3☆ Damuron Bond Soul (Wind, +750DEF)

3☆ Casey Bond Soul (Light, +650ATK)

[sakuraswordly]

Knowledge 15

Botanical illustration of Crytanthus ventricosus, Paul Little © Board of Trustees RBG Kew. Read more Fire lily at this link

Growing Cyrtanthus (Source: Link)

Cyrtanthus is grown mainly for its striking, sometimes sweetly scented flowers, and certain species have interesting, spirally twisted leaves, or exposed bulbs, covered with papery tunics. The genus comprises two main growth forms, evergreen and deciduous members, and within the latter group there are both summer- and winter-growing species. The evergreen members are usually of easier culture than the deciduous ones, and many of the latter are challenging to grow, and suited only to the specialist grower.

Introduce characters:  

Source: skoegul.tumblr.com

Casey is a supporting character in Tales of Vesperia( the empty mask ) who plays a pivotal role in Raven's backstory.

[dokidokimaster]

THE EMPTY MASK TRANSLATION IS COMPLETE!!

Link to Chapter 20 here!

Thank you everyone for your patience, contributions, and support! It means a lot to me that so many people appreciate my translations! Enjoy!

You may view all the chapters in this tag. The imgur albums appear to be broken now so you can view them on google drive here!

[tales-of-sweets]

I just finished reading Kokuu no Kamen and OH BOY!!!! I was out here thinking "Oh, a manga about my fave! Maybe it will be like The First Strike with some cool fights and a bit of angst here and there."

NOPE!

This manga ripped my heart out and stomped on it repeatedly (maybe a bad figure of speech given the subject matter but... ya know...).

No man should be allowed to have this much trauma. He definitely surpassed the legal limit a long time ago.

This scene in particular kinda just ruined me 🥲

Pain and suffering...

[eldrxtch]

Transparent Color+Edit of raven from Chapter 16 of Empty Mask!

[desfraisespartout]

Tales of Vesperia: Kokku no Kamen

The books have arrived! So happy! Plus they look brand new! Took me a while to find them online.

[sparklysharkly]

you're dead in the water

[thestarsintheknight]

Idk if anyone’s ever mentioned this before but I’ve always found it interesting that Schwann uses his left hand with his sword (and I want to say Damuron as well when he used the switch blade but I’ll have to check the manga again) and then Raven shoots his bow and arrow right-handedly.

Meaning is Raven ambidextrous?

Alternatively, maybe since it is a switchblade where he’d use the blade form in his left, once it switched into a bow it was easier to just shoot with his right rather than switch arms.

[piyo-bird]

This spring has been very busy for me, but chapter 12 is finally here! Enjoy~

Read here

Scanlation: blasteriidx Cleaning, translation, typeset: me

If there is a problem with the link or the images, don’t hesitate to message me~

[zer0stormz]

Fav games I played in 2022 #8 - Tales of Vesperia

Tales of Vesperia was a really fun journey. I really enjoyed Yuri as a protagonist, it's nice to have a protagonist who is already fully developed and steadfast on their ideals, having them instead push the other characters forward to develop. I also really liked Rita a lot, and it took me a while but I warmed up to the other characters too over time, especially Karol and Raven who I didn't care much for at the start. The game did a solid job of giving them all time to shine I think, and there were plenty of great skits as well (one of my fav parts about Tales games).

Combat was a struggle for me in this game. I was really frustrated with it for a good while and I don't feel like I really got any good at it by the end. Flying enemies were a nightmare for me, I really did not appreciate there being multiple flying bosses in the later half of the game 😠 Also wasn't fond of having to get equipment to learn skills, my eyes would glaze over as I try to figure out which ones I wanted for what skills, and the later ones took forever to master.

I feel like the story could have also used some trimming on certain things so it could flesh out the main parts more. It was still enjoyable over all though. I will say my biggest disappointment though was not enough Flynn. Seriously, his dynamic with Yuri is the freaking best!!! Every encounter between the 2 of them is one of the best moments in the game, I just love these two besties who frustrate one another to no end but always got each other's backs and believe in one another 100% Now I kinda want a prequel game focused on the two of them in their earlier days.. omg I need that now. I think there was a manga about the two of them but I couldn't find it.

Speaking of manga, I read Raven's manga, Kokuu no Kamen/The Empty Mask, and it's amazing!!!!! Seriously, If you enjoy Tales of Vesperia you HAVE to read it!!!!!!! It made me appreciate Raven's character a lot more, to the point that I think he is now my favorite ToV character!! Also it gave some good insight to parts of the story that weren't elaborated on in the game and more insight into Alexei's character.

In the end, while there were things that frustrated me, I really did enjoy Vesperia quite a bit. It was a fun journey with lots of laughs to be had. The party was great and had a lot of good character development, and Yuri is just such a fantastic protagonist.

[fatheroblivion]

duke pantarei pride icons | credit appreciated, but not required

made these for myself for pride month last year and forgot to post them, so I thought I’d share them this year!

I also made a bi and trans icon set of this same duke! you can find them here.

flags are by lgbtea-prideflags!

[sakuraswordly]

Source: Pixiv

“I had always been living my own life. Always. Up to now....and from now on”

[dokidokimaster]

CHAPTER 19 IS UP

only one chapter left! Here is the kickstarter spreadsheet for those who want to contribute towards it! Your support and patience is greatly appreciated!! <3