#007 The Demon Of Elru

Big milestone reached with this update. We're a little over 100 pages into the main story script of the Xenogears: Thousand Daggers Memorial Album copy of the Japanese script, which means we're now over a quarter of the way through! Check out the new script update from the menu up top and let's keep the progress going.

This update isn't too substantial with major exposition so there's not too much to talk about with the exception of a few interesting tidbits.

We left off with Elly and her unit ready to depart from the hangar of Ramsus' ship. There's not too much of note here except for one line of mistranslated pronouns. After revealing Elly's gear to the unit, they express their surprise at her possession of such a high powered gear. The line from Rank reads "...Anyways, let's make her work. We can't judge her on appearance alone." The original English translation has Rank referring to the gear with the line "Anyways, let's just get this thing moving. Can't tell what it can do just by looking at her." Given the camera focus on the gear, I can understand why this was translated this way, but based on the previous discussion and the following line stating that it's for officers, he must be talking about Elly rather than the gear. Japanese is very contextual and the subject is not always indicated by speech or word if it's clear based on the context.

During Elly's flashback a few moments later, there's (albeit) a trivial translation choice that I've fixed as well. The scientists are discussing her potential amongst themselves, comparing her to the Elements according to their data. One remarks her potential is greater than theirs, to which another responds "According to the data from the moment, yes." referring to her psychic outburst. This line in Japanese reads 瞬間の数値上でな。 The original English translates this as "Then it's an instantaneous jump in numerical value." This is actually a mistranslation, even if a trivial one. The kanji 上 can mean an "increase" which the original English uses under the assumption that the kanji is used this way, but there's another meaning that's more like "in accordance with/regarding." For example, to say 法律上に行う means "to do something according to law" or 歴史上 would be "most___in (relative to) history." That said, in this usage, 数値上 would mean "relating to the numbers" or as I translated "according to the numbers."

Shortly following this scene, the Gevurah troops encounter Fei's unit on the mountain top and a battle ensues. Elly uses Drive and starts shit with Fei and they get into it, with here using her special attack Aerods during the fight. The original translation makes "aerod" an acronym for "animum ether response offensive drone" but then makes the mistake of never formatting its usage as such (i.e. capitalizing all letters, etc.). The Japanese describes it as 精神波＜エーテル＞感応誘導式攻撃モジュール which is not an acroynm but closer to what I've translated here as "psychic ether response induction attack modules...codenamed aerods."

Skipping ahead a bit to Bart's attempt at capturing the capital, I've made a potentially controversial change during his dialogue with Shakhan. The infiltration of the castle goes awry and they're ambushed by Shakhan. Maison comes to the rescue in the landcrab and as they're leaving, I've translated Bart's exit to "Later asshole! We'll settle this next time." The obvious change here is the use of the expletive. The original English reads "bald geezer" for ハゲジジ but I've changed it to "asshole." It's more adult and you could make the argument it's inappropriate and never would have been acceptable to keep that way, sure, but I think given the context, adult orientation of the story, and the current age of the fan base of this game, it would be totally natural for Bart to use it here. In Japanese, vulgar language is often less about the actual words you use and more the emotion you put in the delivery that makes it vulgar. There's very few really vulgar words that are on the same level as English expletives like, for example, "motherfucker." That said, ハゲジジ is a fairly harmless insult to mean a "bald, old man" which, in English, sounds toothless (and well it should be given that this was marketed to young teens). But thinking about Bart's character, he's a rebellious teenager, he's just been ambushed by his nemesis, and barely made it out with his life. He'd definitely call him an asshole. Fight me about it.

There's an interesting translation choice that occurs as Fei is assaulting the Kefeinzel. Vanderkam is as incompetent as ever and ordering his crew to use the main cannon, but is frustrated that they can't hit him. I've translated the line as "Fire control! Gunnery chief! You haven't even fired a round of the main cannon! Capable range of the type 3 shells should be within 500! You can even eyeball it! Just blow them away already!" The original English reads for the last two sentences here reads "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." for some reason. The Japanese reads 目見当でいいからぶっ飛ばせ！ The 目見当 here refers to judging something by sight. I have no idea why this was changed to the famous Revolutionary War quote said at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Given that they're all inside gears, this would never make any sense. Vanderkam is supposed to be frustrated that they haven't used the cannon yet even though it's too slow and they're out of range. In the Japanese, he's telling them essentially to just fire without worrying about if it will hit.

Skipping ahead a bit more, the gang's unlucky streak continues out in the desert when they get surrounded by Ramsus' fleet while in the Yggdrasil. Ramsus makes an announcement for them to surrender, the ship takes damage, and Bart is moved to action. Just prior to this, Bart asks Sig what I've translated as "Sig! What's Gevurah's Prince Charming got to say?" talking about Ramsus and his demand for surrender. I have no idea why, but the original English here translates 優男, or yasaotoko, as 'Mr. Puniverse.' No idea what the logic behind this was since in context this doesn't make any sense. I gather it's a combination of 'puny' and 'Mr. Universe' of the body building competition fame. This seems so out of place in this universe though so I've changed it to Prince Charming to closer reflect the original Japanese meaning a man of delicate or effeminate features. I'm aware the phrase Prince Charming can also be used as a compliment to mean an ideal man, but given the context of Bart's relationship with him, he would obviously be sarcastically implying the former.

A few lines later after Bart decides to head out in his gear and do something reckless, he responds to Sigurd's hesitance with "Moreover, the Yggdrasil, the core of our strength that helped us rescue Aveh, Margie and the others, will be lost…But if that's the case, then even if it's reckless, a sand pirate's still got to place his bet on hope!" The end of this line in the original English translation reads "I know it looks bad but you can still count on us." which is quite different from the Japanese 「無茶でも希望のある方に賭けるのが、砂の海の男って揉んだ！」

Shortly into this next sequence, when Id makes his appearance, Ramsus shits himself and exclaims "It's him...The demon of Elru!" before heading out in his gear to confront him. I've kept this line and the translation of エルル identical to the original Honeywood translation. I know Elru is a mistranslation of エルル which is meant to be Elul, the Hebrew month coinciding with August/September, but for the same reason that I'm not changing other place names that use this convention, I'll keep this as the same as the original English as well. As with the other place names, the allusion to the Hebrew calendar doesn't seem to have any bearing or relevance to the place in question, and as such seems more like a hollow reference than a meaningful symbol.

There's not too much else to talk about in this update. Id gives everyone a whooping, Citan evacuates the Yggdrasil, Fei and Weltall are captured by Kislev and moved to D-Block at the Executioner (Miang's) request, and now we're officially in Kislev! Still a shitload more of the story to go, and we're only going further down the rabbit hole from here as the story gets wilder, but we're making awesome progress and it's been a blast so far. Only another 280 pages of script left to go!

-Nino