END ROLL Translation Notes

The end credits won't stop rolling.

(Spoilers for the entire game, including optional content.)

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"End roll" is a wasei-eigo word that means "end credits." (Wasei-eigo being Japanese words using English that don't actually mean what the English means - for example, テンション (tension) actually means "energy.") Changing the title was not really a practical option, so I modified the tagline "the end roll won't stop" to "the end credits won't stop rolling" to try and get this across.

"Deranged maniac" was イカレ野郎様 (ikare-yarou-sama). It's a sort of humorous combination of insulting and polite by using both "yarou" and "sama," and I don't know if I'm entirely satisfied with my translation. It's literally like "crazy bastard, sir"... which I'm also not really satisfied with.

Happy Dream was called exactly that. (Same for "Let's Happy Dream!", but notably, "let's ___" with the English word "let's" is a common thing in Japanese, especially advertisements.) It was shortened to HD in many places, but I expanded it since it seemed unnecessary in English, and was slightly confusing given "HD" also means something totally different. (If the Happy Dream had a TV station, it'd be HDTV.)

"Dreamsend" was 夢先 (Yumesaki). It kind of implies "dream destination," so Dreamsend sounded about right. It's intentionally ambiguous between "dream send" (which could be read like "godsend") and "dream's end." The name may have originated from an old song from the 70s called Yumesaki Annainin (Dreamsend Guide), but who knows.

You may have realized this already, but the conceit behind Kantera's speech makes no sense because this is supposed to be an English setting, But Okay. Literally, given the timeline, Kantera's grandfather never lived outside of Japan. Kantera fled to the western country the game is meant to be set in after killing him, so while he could have imitated his grandfather's Japanese old-man-speak in Japanese (old-man-speak is a well-established thing in the language), it implies something absurd: that Kantera learned English upon coming here but still insisted on talking like an old man in that too, even though his grandfather likely never knew much English. Anyway, guess what, it's hard to make a person sound realistically old in English through text alone especially when he's actually in his twenties.

On the other hand, I'm like 99.9% sure Yumi's speech is exactly what Segawa was going for. So at least the tables were turned there.

Kantera's medicines are specifically kanpo. But it just seemed more appropriate to call them plain old "medicine" or "herbal remedies" or whatever fit the context. It felt like another weird inconsistency with the supposed English setting, though maybe it does make some sense in the Happy Dream - there, he's the town's established doctor, rather than a guy in a back alley shop that hardly anyone visits.

Japan was always referred to as "(that) eastern country." Honestly, Russell seems to know a decent amount about it judging from Dragons' Peak/Funerale/etc. How the frick would he not know its name? That's the real mystery.

Hintman's closing line was about calling him "Hintmansan," which i made into the pun about "Hintmanners."

The main bosses are all three-kanji names ending in 者 (mono), which is what the "One" is. (For example, Burying One was 埋葬者, Burial + One.) If not for this pattern, Witnessing One would literally just be "Eyewitness," but yeah.

I found the presence of the "goddess statue" in the church odd, given it seems to be a Christian church and all, so I asked Segawa about it - whether Cody and Dogma in the dream considered it God, or an angel, or something like that. According to them, the siblings do kind of view it as their god more than anything, but it comes down to Russell really not knowing much about religion. I guess he figured there had to be a pretty lady or something at church, or else why would people go?

"infor!Mashun" was literally infor!めーしょん: "infor!" in English, "meeshon" in hiragana.

The spinning Incarner spoke in all katakana (same as the other all-caps Incarners), but uses kanji and hiragana as normal for certain words in brackets. I'm far too fond of how it looks in English. (YOU CAN HAVE ACCESS TO "Resort Island," INCLUDING "Boat,")

Incarners were グゲンカー (Gugenkaa), just from extending the word 具現化 (gugenka) for incarnation/embodiment.

Most of the species names were something-zoku (-zoku being species/tribe/etc). Catties were ニャン族 (Nyan-zoku), and they went "nya" a lot. (Not all do; I wondered if it was just Catnip users (and dealers?) who went "nya," but I don't think this actually holds.) Draken were リュウ族 (Ryuu-zoku). The Pengi were... well, ペンギ族 (Pengi-zoku). The Kelpies were コンブー (Konbuu), literally just "kelp" but extended. Technically the Snow Spirits are similar (ユキノセー), but they're so minor it wasn't really required to come up with anything special.

"Babes" were ギャル (gyaru). In this case, it definitely seemed to refer to "beach babes" given their location. I wondered about naming the Muscles "Bodybuilders" or something, but found it funnier to just call them Muscles.

The Seaside hotels had very similar names to each other in Japanese as well: はんなり (Hannari) and ほっこり (Hokkori). I literally found someone asking what the difference was because they have very similar meanings. I think Relaxing and Relieving work pretty much perfectly at being similar words, and also matching the meanings of the original words. Although, I wonder if "SSH" was meant to stand for "SeaSide Hannari/Hokkori" rather than "SeaSide Hotel."

Dazzilyn Monjouet was クララン・ホンロー (Kuraran Honro). I asked Segawa about her name since I didn't know what to make of it; they informed me it's meant to play on Marilyn Monroe and imply "I'm giddy for her (kurakura) and being toyed with (honrou)." Thus, Dazzilyn from "dazzling," and Monjouet from "my toy" in French.

Darcover Town was トコヤミタウン (Tokoyami Town). Tokoyami literally means "everlasting darkness," but there was that line about "escaping under the cover of darkness" which uses "tokoyami." And since that's the major reason it's a town of night, I based the English name around that.

Feynin was ミテミヌ (Miteminu, short for "miteminufuri," seeing but pretending not to AKA feigning ignorance). Watchin was ミテイル (Miteiru, watching).

Cloakpoint was カクレミノ (Kakuremino, "invisibility cloak"). Cloakpoint sounds fancier.

Ice Screamer is basically just the original name, but had an added pun in Japanese: 愛・スクリーマー (Ai Screamer) includes "love" in there as well.

The floating words (DARK, DARKNESS, NIGHT, DREAM) were originally single kanji, and thus worked better, I feel. Especially since DARK (adjective) was there, so I had to make the other one DARKNESS (noun), and that didn't fit on one line.

Funerale and its inhabitants are literally just named "Souretsu," funeral procession. I opted to leave the map graphics there untranslated since it's decidedly Japanese, but the background of the crematorium is filled with the word "fire" and crackling onomatopoeia, and the cinerarium is filled with the word "bone" and rattling onomatopoeia.

Cacten was おサボ (Osabo), based on "saboten." I went with Cacten as sort of a play on cactus + saboten. I'm not good at identifying specific accents, but I think they had an Osaka accent or something like that, and I imagine their translated versions sounding kind of like cab drivers.

I wondered about maybe keeping "ryuu" instead of "dragon," but ultimately did translate it (and had to get specific when the party talks about western vs. eastern dragons). But Deliveryuu were always named that (でりばりゅー) and I couldn't possibly think of anything better.

The "(House of) Draken Manjuu" was 竜屋まんじゅう (Ryuuya Manjuu), so technically "dragon" instead of "Draken." Since I felt like the name of this manjuu was probably important to the entire formation of Dragons' Peak and the Draken, it seemed sensible to go with Draken to match the name of the species.

Plant pun names (at least the ones that are of any interest in Japanese):
- Edamameye: メダマメ (Medamame). Very similar, but using "medama" for eyeball (and just "me" for eye).
- Turnimp: 子鬼カブ (Ko-oni Kabu), literally just "little oni (AKA imp) turnip."
- Lafflower: わらわら草 (Warawarakusa). Almost certainly a joke on how "wwwww" (w being short for "wara(u)," laugh, and used like "lol") is referred to as "grass" due to how strings of w's look.
- Flimseed: ヒンソウ (Hinsou), which literally means weak and seedy-looking (ha ha), but "sou" can also be read as grass/etc.
- Trumpetal: ラッパ草 (Rappakusa), trumpet grass. I briefly had it as Bugleaf (from bugle), but that just didn't read right.
- Chrysanthemunch: Just キクモドキ (Kiku-modoki), "pseudo-crysanthemum," but the description mentions it eats things, so.
- Candlebranch: ロウソク木 (Rousoku-ki), literally just candle tree.
- Palm: オテテバナ (Otetebana), literally "hands flower," but the joke was too easy. (Wow, just like my favorite Vocaloid song, Fear Garden)
- Rosedud: バラもどき (Bara-modoki), again just "pseudo-rose." C'mon.
- Shiitalky Mushrooms: ペラペラタケ (Peraperatake), "fluent mushrooms." Boring.

Fish pun names (of interest):
- Stellafish: ホシウオ (Hoshiuo), "starfish." But not that kind.
- Dreamfish: ゲンギョ (Gengyo), "illusion fish."
- Enigmafish: ナゾウオ (Nazouo), "mystery fish."
- Bufferpish: プグ (Pugu), based on "fugu" (pufferfish).
- Squiddly Daut: マァイイカ (Maai Ika), a play on "maa, ii ka" ("well, whatever"). The Pokemon Inkay has a very similar pun. The original description says it's "a squid that chirps "maai."" I would have replaced this with a joke about its worth, but a) the text limit on descriptions is rather tight, and b) its price is actually decidedly average.
- Shell Beokay: ダイジョウブカイ (Daijoubukai), a play on "are you okay?" and "kai" for shellfish.
- Crockopuss: オイコノタコ (Oikonotako). "Tako" is "octopus," but also an insult, so it can be read like a sentence as "hey, you moron!"

The sign above the hospital reception desk says "Reception" upside down. This may be obvious, but I somehow thought it was just like "dream writing" and left it untranslated for a while. Whoops.

The "Strangers" were "ojisan," middle-aged guys. It definitely made more sense to call them "strangers" in context.

The Whalottery was クジラクジ (Kujirakuji). The Pigula Doll is a reference to the protagonist of Segawa's first game, Farethere City.

The ice cream stand's "vanilla" flavor was actually "Calpis (AKA Calpico) flavor." SEGAWA YOUR NON-JAPANESE SETTING. (Please ignore how the umbrellas have "festival" kanji on them.)

The hospitable Draken couple are very weird about how they refer to each other. The wife almost always calls her husband この人 (kono hito, this person), and the one time the husband refers to his wife, he says おまえ (omae, impolite version of "you"). "Anata," a more polite "you," can be used by married couples much like "honey" in English, so I decided to play on that and make it "vinegar dearest." They're weird, but adorable.

The Informant and the Strategy Guides very intentionally have the same やぁ ("yaa") greeting. I could've gone back and changed it to "heya" or something to be more distinct, but eh.

The Storybooks talk in all kana, for obvious reasons (children learn it before they start learning kanji, which are more complex and also there are thousands). And the original reason for them liking Dictionaries was "Dictionaries know the importance of kana better than anyone," because dictionaries always include the kana reading of words. Again, a weird instance of ignoring the apparent language/setting.

In the bonus room, character switching was done with Hana Ichimonme, a game which is fundamentally pretty similar to Red Rover, so again it seemed more appropriate to change.

Posted September 16th, 2016

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