Author: Anne

Nutty for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Localization Notes

First, I have a confession to make: I bought Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. On launch day. The eShop version. If you’ve listened to latest episode of The Nichiest Podcast Ever, you’re probably wondering why the sudden change regarding digital 3DS game purchases – to make a long story short, it really does end up a lot cheaper for me, considering I need to import North American games, and I honestly can’t think of a better game to have on you at all times than Monster Hunter. Needless to say, so far I’m loving it!

(source)

While my new-found obsession with Monster Hunter might be a good discussion for a future post, that’s not what I’ve decided to focus on today. Instead, I’d like to talk about a series of blog posts by the localization director of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, appropriately titled “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate – Localization Notes.”

As someone who’s been involved in translation work and harbors a deep interest in game localization, it’s always a treat to gain some insight into how different companies go about localizing my favorite games. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is particularly intriguing because of all the various monster names –– though not quite as colorful as some of the stranger Pokémon nomenclature out there, localizers like Andrew Alfonso at Capcom have to consider both the Japanese name and the characters of the monster in order to come up with the perfect fit for the English version.

Take this fellow who was featured in the rather obtuse demo Capcom released for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate earlier in the month (seriously, if you’ve never played Monster Hunter before, I really wouldn’t advise trying the demo, as it paints a very poor picture of the game). Its Japanese name is Urukususu, but for the localized versions, the team settled on Lagombi. Their logic was to base the name off the Greek word for hare, “lagos,” and add the “-mbi” at the end to evoke a Bambi-like cuteness. I wouldn’t say Lagombi is particularly cute, but I actually like how the cute name is juxtaposed with its tubby, ferocious, albiet rabbit-inspired exterior.

Andrew discusses this fearsome-looking fellow in the second localization note post for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. The Japanese name, Doboruberuku, is apparently based off words from a number of different languages, so the team decided to follow that theme for the localized name, Duramboros. Andrew explains that the name is based off of three different words from three different languages: Duro (“hard” in Italian), Ambulat (“walk” in Latin), and Oros (“mountain” in Greek). He adds that they were also able to incorporate “ram” to emphasize its massive horns, which I think is a really great touch.

Finally, naming this creepy purple guy took some debating before the Monster Hunter developers agreed. In the final post of the series, Andrew discusses how this Gigginox subspecies was originally going to be the “Copper Gigginox” due to its normal color, but the dev team wanted a name that highlighted how this monster can paralyze hunters with its lightning attack. After some back-and-forth, they finally settled on “baleful,” as the word not only conjures up the color yellow and paralysis, but also has a unique sound to it. Given that their other choices were “Volten” and “Dread,” I think Baleful Gigginox was a great choice!

There are plenty more examples of different names the team had to localize at the blog links I provided, so if you found these descriptions interesting, I highly recommend checking them out! And Monster Hunter fans: what are your favorite monster names? I’m new to the series, but I’d love to hear the names that people find particularly interesting or evocative of the monster they describe.

Memos from Mamemura: Week 16 – “Rocky comes out of the closet”

Welcome back to another installment in my never-ending Animal Crossing: New Leaf adventures! This week started with an unexpected surprise…

An Animal Crossing: New Leaf StreetPass, in the wilds of Brisbane?! I couldn’t believe my eyes! To be more exact, I brought my 3DS in to the University of Queensland with me one day and I picked this up somewhere along the way. Who could it be?

It’s Tirana of Elf Village! Considering I don’t live in Japan, I think it’s pretty amazing to have even gotten an Animal Crossing: New Leaf StreetPass in the first place. Given her name, I assume she’s a westerner who imported the game, rather than a Japanese resident visiting/studying in Australia. The above player card tells me she just started playing on February 25th and… has the same birthday as me?! That’s one uncanny coincidence!

Let’s take a look at her house:

Since she just started playing a couple weeks prior, it makes sense that she’s only done one house renovation and is pretty sparse with her furniture. I’ll admit, I’m a little embarrassed at the state my own abode is currently in… (I pretty much use it as a dump – one day I’ll decorate with a cohesive theme in mind!)

  

Just like last week, I had another entirely new interaction with one of my villagers. This week, Layla asked me to to sell her one of my shirts, but I actually had the option to give it to her for free! And give it to her for free I did. She was quite happy, even going so far as to call me a “saint”!

That’s one happy penguin!

The White Rabbit outfit I picked up in the Alice in Wonderland-themed village I visited last week was a hit with the townsfolk. According to Doremi, there’re rumors going around that I’m quite the fashionista!

Sometimes I can’t help but laugh at the goofy situations that play out. Here I just dug up a fossil, but Marilyn got her big noggin in the way of me showing it off.

I love this screenshot – Doremi’s got an the audience waiting for her to spill the beans!

This isn’t the first time I’ve walked in on two villagers hanging out, but upon talking to Rocky, I learned something very interesting about his relationship with Bunjirou…

Translation: “Sexy girl! Bunjirou’s visiting… (And just when we were finally alone…)”) 
Why Rocky, I never knew you swung that way! If I did, I certainly wouldn’t have made your catch phrase “sexy girl”! I know this very well could not be an intentional gay innuendo, but with the immense attention to detail spent on every other aspect of the game, I’d find it hard to believe that the developers didn’t think of the implications of this dialogue choice for a male villager referring to another male villager. Well, in Mamemura canon, Bunjirou and Rocky are officially an item! 
Finally, I decided to make a trip to the Pokémon Red/Blue-inspired town that was recently featured on Tiny Cartridge. Here are a few shots I took while there: 


Cute flag! Also, what an odd town hall design… 

I grabbed the pattern for this one on my way out! It’s too cute!
  

This Exeggutor looks right at home in a lemon grove! For some reason I really like how the lemons mirror their big yellow faces.

A sleeping Pokémon blocks your path! What a great touch.

And finally, the iconic bicycle shop! 
That’s it for this week, but stay tuned for future updates! As always, I’m always open to answering any questions you may have about the game, so ask away in the comments. 
 

Crafty Pixel: Jigglypuff Vita Case

The craft bug strikes me often, but it’s not often that I actually finish a crafty endeavor I start. In the case of practical items, however, necessity requires me to complete them so I can actually use them, so when I decided none of the Vita cases available at retail were anywhere near cute enough for my extremely discerning tastes, I had to come up with something on my own and have it ready to go in a flash.

Game case for size comparison/aesthetic purposes only, of course
A “flash” is a very relative term – I’d say I spent about 3 months on and off working on it, but I never really put more than a few minutes to a half hour on it at a time, and often went weeks without doing any work on it at all. The only thing that forced me to sit down and actually get it to a usable state was my US trip back in December, since I wanted to bring my Vita with me! I don’t really consider it finished, as I’d like to add a button hole for the flap someday, but right now I’m just happy that it keeps my Vita out of harm’s way. 
For the craft-curious, I made the pouch out of felt and embroidery thread, and it was entirely hand-sewed. The Jigglypuff is based off the very adorable Jigglypuff design for the Pokémon Time series of goods (you can find the picture I used as reference on this lovely site). 
I wouldn’t call myself an expert by any means, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out! It’s a really great feeling using something you’ve made – hopefully I’ll get off my lazy butt and do more projects like this in the future.

Japan Envy: misdo HELLO KITTY Campaign

I’ll tell you, Japan sure knows how to sell me food. From Rilakkuma Kit Kats to Totoro Cream Puffs, they know exactly how to appeal to my love of cute mascot creatures to ensure I’ll never stop craving their adorable sugary confectionaries. This time, Japan-wide donut chain Mister Donut has teamed up with Hello Kitty to offer the cutest range of donuts in existence:

source

Now, maybe I’m easily amused, but I really do love the simplicity of this campaign – all they’ve done is add a little pink (I assume chocolate) bow to some nicely-colored donuts and it’s instantly recognizable as a tribute to Hello Kitty. According to this article, the cupcake on a stick shown above (more colors can be seen if you follow the link) were designed with the Universal Studios Japan ride Hello Kitty’s Cupcake Dream as inspiration and will be available in green apple, strawberry, and orange flavors. There will also be four regular donut varieties, including “green apple whipped cream,” “green apple fashion,” “orange crème fraîche” and”pon de strawberry.” I think the question on everyone’s minds is: What on earth does “green apple fashion” taste like?

I’m most interested in this pon de strawberry! I bet it’s just as tasty as
it looks. 

In addition to these adorable donuts, the misdo HELLO KITTY campaign (that is the official name, capitalization woes and all) will be offering some limited-edition headphone jack accessories for customers who purchase 600 yen (approximately $6.20USD) or more worth of Hello Kitty donuts:

Also available in black, white, and red! (link)

I’ve always thought headphone jack accessories were a bit silly, but I don’t know if I can resist a polka-dotted Hello Kitty bow dipped in chocolate. If I could, I would buy the five or so donuts required to get said accessory, and I would enjoy every minute of eating all five or so donuts by myself. But alas, the campaign runs from April 1st until the end of May, which means I won’t get a chance to try them myself when I go to Japan in June…

So, what do you think? Is the misdo HELLO KITTY campaign a stroke of genius, or just plain weird?

Discussing the Kyoto Animation “swimming anime” sensation

Animation Do, a subsidiary of Kyoto Animation, released a very interesting 30 second video (hereafter referred to by the Japanese abbreviation for commercial, “CM”) the other day focusing on four young male swimmers that has gained an astounding amount of popularity worldwide. While I wasn’t planning on writing a whole post about it, as I didn’t think there was any discussion to be had, the huge outcry for the CM to be turned into a full-fledged series as well as the backlash by some fans against Kyoto Animation producing animation for a female audience has proven that it’s definitely not “just a CM.” In addition, there’s so much misinformation regarding this “anime” floating around that I thought it would be a good idea to clear up exactly what it is and why it’s got everyone so excited/angry.

In April 2012, Animation Do released two teaser images for a new project, one which included the phrase “Ore to omae no sa o oshiete yaru yo!” or “”I’ll show you what makes us different!” (pictured above). Fans immediately assumed Kyoto Animation was finally doing a series aimed at a female audience, contrary to their massively-popular K-On and Lucky Star, which contain much male-oriented fanservice and moe elements (though they remain relatively popular with female viewers, as well). People on English forums began dubbing the series “the swimming anime,” but there wasn’t a single word on the production until March 6th, 2013, when Animation Do released a 30 second CM featuring the characters from the original teaser.

Kyoto Animation has been known to release CMs with completely original assets, so it’s safe to assume that the project they were teasing was in fact a promotional CM for the company and not actually a new series. Further supporting this is the fact that the CM credits are listed with their other commercials on the company’s website, indicating that it is not a promotional CM for a new series (note: the title of the CM can be translated to “swimming club,” indicating it might be more appropriate to refer to it as that instead of “the swimming anime”). Even so, many fans continue to speculate that a series may arise out of this CM, and there are has been a huge interest in the swimming anime, including both extremely positive and negative reactions, since its release nearly a week ago.

On one hand, there are many (likely female) fans who have fallen head-over-heels for characters they know next to nothing about, fantasizing potential plotlines and pairing them off with one another in homosexual relationships. I’d like to think the vast majority of the reaction to the CM has been positive, as we can see petitions to make the CM into a full series popping up on major websites such as Crunchyroll and fanart from Tumblr to Pixiv. There’s even a cosplay contest!

The character designs as seen in the original 2012 teaser.

On the other hand, it’s recently come to my attention that there are a number of fans of Kyoto Animation that are not at all happy with the company targeting any form of media at a female audience. Actually, I can’t tell if these people are necessarily fans of Kyoto Animation, but there has definitely been a negative backlash from people saying it’s too obviously catering toward women, that it’s likely to be BL and is thus disgusting/should not exist (honestly, I’m surprised how many people have made anti-fujoshi comments…), or that Kyoto Animation is wasting their talent by drawing an all-male cast. They may be a minority, but they’re certainly a vocal one.

Finally, to top all this off, there have been rumblings over the past day or so that Kyoto Animation has seen how popular the video is and is considering making the CM into a full-fledged anime as a result, but I have not been able to find any sources that confirm/deny this.

Now, anyone who knows me probably already has a good idea how much I like the CM, but I have to say I’m honestly surprised at how many people are hoping/expecting this theoretical swimming anime to be BL. I will happily admit that I consider myself a fujoshi – not only am I doing a PhD on BL manga, but I love a good homosexual romance and am not beyond “slashing” male characters if the mood strikes. But, that definitely doesn’t mean that all the media I consume must be BL-related in some way. In fact, as I grow older, I’ve found I enjoy stories about ambiguous/queer sexualities more than straightforward BL, and would take a story with complex and interesting characters over a bland, cliché BL romance any day of the week. So, while I’m happy fans are interpreting the swimming anime as they like, I find it a little bizarre that everyone just assumes it will focus on homosexual romance, as if that’s the only way Kyoto Animation could possibly appeal to a female audience.

A fan-created relationship chart (source)

Indeed, many are awestruck by the fact that such a successful, well-known animation studio would dare to make a 30 second CM chock-full of female-oriented fanservice. I think anyone who watches the CM (and if you’re reading this post, I hope you have!) will agree that the animation is lovely, whether or not the content appeals to you personally, and in an industry that largely caters to men, I’m glad to see Kyoto Animation trying new styles and attempting to appeal to new demographics. The fact that the mere idea of a swimming anime full of attractive men is so popular shows that we still have a long way to go until anime aimed at audiences that aren’t stereotypical heterosexual men are on equal footing with the hundreds and thousands of series produced for and consumed by “mainstream” otaku. It would be wonderful if Kyoto Animation decided to make this into a series, but I won’t be getting my hopes up.

Update: The Daily Dot and The Mary Sue have both wrote very informative pieces that cover some things I haven’t, so you may want to check them out if you’d like to learn more. The Daily Dot provides particularly useful background on Kyoto Animation (both, however, put a particular spotlight on the Tumblr fandom). I’ve also changed my translation of “Ore to omae no sa oshiete yaru yo!” from “I’ll show you the difference between you and I!” to “I’ll show you what makes us different!” –– my initial translation was much too cumbersome.

Memos from Mamemura: Weeks 14-15

It’s time for another installment of Memos from Mamemura! These past two weeks have been relatively uneventful, as I’ve been busy trying to spruce up my town to (somewhat) match the high standard of all the lovely villages I’ve seen shared on the internet. Of course, as always, I’ve been continuing to partake in a number of Animal Crossing: New Leaf‘s more leisurely activities… 

Fishing and bug catching remain some of the best ways to make bells!

One of the things that continues to amaze me about Animal Crossing: New Leaf is the sheer amount of content – and not just in the number of ways you can customize your town or number of items you can collect. The villagers have a huge range of conversation topics, and I’m still finding myself surprised by new in-game events. This time, Bunjirou (Lobo) asked me if I’d accompany him to Layla’s house. What could that be about?

Follow the leader!

Apparently Layla invited Bunjirou over but he didn’t want to go by himself! It turns out he left his wallpaper at her place (I imagine that would be a rather difficult thing to do…). I’m not sure if this is a new feature to Animal Crossing: New Leaf or not, but I’ve never had a villager ask me to come with them to another villager’s house for an errand before.

March 3rd was a Japanese holiday known as Hina Matsuri, or “Girls’ Day.” Shizue greeted me decked out in the adorable kimono pictured above in honor of the event.

As with all “minor” holidays, there was a themed board to take photos with, but I couldn’t really get a good shot because a. I didn’t have a partner (preferably male, as it’s traditional to have one man and one woman in these arrangements) and b. I still hadn’t realized that you can press the A button to take a proper photo with these things! I can’t believe I’ve been playing for months but I still hadn’t realized that! Here’s what it looks like when you take a picture after pressing A at one of these signs:

Ah, so much better! I’m pretty embarrassed that I only just figured this out, but I’m happy that I did.

I was surprised to receive a mannequin from Asami (Sable) one day after I stopped by for a chat. I’ll have to set it up in my house one of these days…

But by far the biggest event of the past two weeks was my recent trip to an amazing Alice in Wonderland-themed village! I have a ton of screenshots, so I’ll try to keep the descriptions to a minimum, but be sure to keep an eye out for all the amazing little details the creator put into making it:

Dream Code 3300-0238-8542 for those who have the Japanese game and
want to visit!

All of the items I’m seen wearing in the above screenshot were picked up in the town, but since I went there in a dream I wasn’t able to take any of them back. My Designs can be saved and brought back with you, thought, so I made sure to grab the cute White Rabbit-inspired coat I’m wearing.

After 100 people visit your town, you can upgrade your train station! I don’t know if I’ll ever unlock that feature in my own town, though…

What kind of house is this? Looks a little scary… 

Eek! Creepy stuff! Not sure what this has to do with Alice in Wonderland, but it’s great. The little wolf head in the bottom left corner is actually the resident of the house.

Boil, boil, toil and trouble!
… and a graveyard in the basement, with dog house and all! 

Such meticulous gardening! Anyone’s who’s played an Animal Crossing game knows how time-consuming planting flowers and placing paths can be.
Oh, what’s this? It looks like the high court! 

And a church, complete with gorgeous stained glass! The one on the far right was definitely customized with a user-created design, but I’m not sure about the others. 
Blushing bride!

This mad tea party room was by far my favorite. Everything works so well together! I’m constantly impressed by the creativity exhibited by other Animal Crossing: New Leaf players.

Oh, and last but not least… Guess who I saw?

Mr. Resetti didn’t stop by to yell at me for not saving my game, but to thank me for building him a Reset Center. He certainly wasn’t his normal angry self! (I actually hadn’t had an encounter with Resetti in Animal Crossing: New Leaf prior to this)

Well, that’s all for this installment! As always, feel free to ask any questions about the game in the comments, and look forward for an update within a fortnight!

Beat the Backlog Club March Game Introduction (with bonus “What happened to February?!”)

Well, this Beat the Backlog project is going just swimmingly, wouldn’t you agree? Three months in and I have no completed games to show for it… but the more pressing matter is the fact that I completely jettisoned Harvest Moon: A New Beginning back in February! In the end, I think it was far too similar to Animal Crossing: New Leaf, as I just couldn’t get myself motivated to play it in addition to my daily Animal Crossing duties. How disappointing! That doesn’t mean I won’t come back to it in the future, but I think I’ll have to hold off until my Animal Crossing fever gone down. 
I’m not really sure what to do about February, but I’m going to keep moving forward. I did finally start playing Katawa Shojo, a free English bishojo visual novel (i.e romantic visual novel aimed at primarily a male audience) that was released to much acclaim last year, which I’ve been meaning to get to for some time. As such, that’ll probably replace Harvest Moon: A New Beginning as my February backlog pick, and I’ll endeavor to finish it sooner rather than later. Expect some impressions of it in the near future! 
So, with that out of the way, I’ve decided to move on to… Fishing Resort! I’m not exactly why I’ve felt so compelled to start it now, but since I’ve been so indecisive as to what I want to play recently, I figured it’d be best to go with my gut. So far I’ve put approximately 3 hours into it, and I have to say it’s quite fun and relaxing without being the completely open-ended kind of relaxing that Animal Crossing tends to excel at. Oh, by the way, all images used in this post were taken from my game, and I’ve even made a neat (if I do say so myself) little video that shows what the gameplay’s like!

Here are a few of my first impressions in convient bullet-point fashion:

✄ The game is very open-ended, with a number of quests and goals to complete, but it never feels like it’s forcing you to do anything. Love kayaking out into the open sea to see what you can catch? You can do that to your heart’s content! All fish you catch can be exchanged for points at the end of the day which are then used to purchase items such as new rods and lures, so you’ll never run out of supplies to fish away without a care in the world, if that’s what you so choose.

I may or may not have spent a whole day paddling around in a kayak

✄ Perhaps the most irritating thing about the game, however, is the day/night cycle. Every day, without fail, the game will spirit you back to your hotel promptly at 7 pm. While this isn’t the end of the world, it gets annoying having your marathon fishing sessions interrupted.

✄ There are a number of different areas in the game that you can travel to as you unlock the option to stay at different hotels. The first area is nice, but I’m already looking forward to seeing new locations and catching different kinds of fish! The prospect of new locations is a great way to motivate players to  complete quests and progress in the game.

✄ Of course, all of the best games have customizable clothing options, and Fishing Resort definitely fulfills that line on the checklist. It’s totally superficial, but I love saving up for silly items to clothe my avatar in!

The real question is whether or not I will stick with Fishing Resort longer than I did Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. Right now I’m confident that I will, as it’s proving to be a lot of fun and I’m getting a big kick out of the motion controls. Be sure to check back in about a week’s time to see how I’m faring!