A lukewarm reception

I did some freelance translation into Japanese, the exact thing a native English speaker usually shouldn’t do, for a friend of mine’s video game. Following some linkbacks to my blog, I found the one and only piece of feedback I’ve received from that job so far:

硫黄島が舞台ということで、相手になるのは日本軍。もちろん敵は日本語を話す。日本語音声の翻訳は[amake.us]なるプロジェクトが努め、イシカワタクミさんという方が声を担当しているお陰か、話している言葉はまとも。イシカワタクミさんの声に覇気があまり感じられないが、今までの洋ゲーに登場した日本語に比べればマシな方だろう。
「左舷に米軍を発見！」
「やっつけろぉー！」
「助けてくれぇー！」
「やつらぶっ倒した！」

English (my translation):

Since it’s set on Iwojima, you’re pit against the Japanese Army. Of course they speak Japanese. Perhaps since the Japanese voice translation was done by the [amake.us] project and a guy named Takumi Ishikawa provided the voice acting, the vocals are passable. Ishikawa’s voice doesn’t have much impact, but it’s decent Japanese when compared to other Western games up to this point.
“Americans on the port side!”
“Get ‘em!”
“Help!”
“We got ‘em good!”

That’s good, I suppose. Except none of the lines I translated involved “port” or the exact phrasing of “Get ‘em!” that the blogger uses. I’m the only one listed in the credits as a translator, so either the voice actor did some on-the-fly rewriting, or the blogger is misremembering what he heard in the game, or there’s a ghost-translator involved.

Spooky.

Overall the blogger pans the game for being way too short and boring, though the visual effects were nice.

Mii Contest Channel

The Mii Contest Channel arrived today for Japanese Wii owners. I thought it sounded stupid at first, but it’s actually kind of fun.

Mii-making contests are offered, such as the current “make Mario without a hat on” contest. Or, you can also submit your Miis to the channel for general purposes: People tag interesting Miis, and you can view the most popular ones for your region or for the world, in a grid or marching by. There are some really clever ones, like Darth Vader and the Terminator robot; you wouldn’t think such Miis would be possible, but there are some smart people out there who are good at twisting the limited Mii tools into recognizable caricatures.

I will award 80 million awesome points to whoever can guess what these Miis are:

Mystery Miis

(No looking at the filename!)

Some sort of demographic

Owning a Wii and doing the Everybody Votes Channel in Japan is like peering into the lives and brains of Japanese people.

Did you know that only 29.5% of Japanese people wear wristwatches most of the time?

Err, make that 29.5% of Japanese people who own Wiis.

Oops, no, make that 29.5% of Japanese people who have Wiis and hooked them up to the internet.

Hmm, actually that’s 29.5% of Japanese people who have Wiis, hooked them up to the internet, and bothered to vote in the “Do you usually wear a wristwatch?” poll.

Well, I suppose it would be 29.5% of people in Japan who have Wiis, hooked them up to the internet, and bothered to vote in the “Do you usually wear a wristwatch?” poll.

Ok, let’s just say it’s 29.5% of respondents. I’m sure there’s a meaningful statistic in there somewhere.

Other recent poll results:

• 58.0% of respondents didn’t know that the “ABC song” and “Twinkle, twinkle little star” have the same melody.
• 49.% of respondents didn’t ride a bicycle even once during the last week.
• 61.3% of respondents (almost entirely in the Tokyo area) are currently living in the prefecture in which they were born.
• 77.8% of respondents have gone fishing.
• 54.5% of respondents think they had a dream last night.

What a time to be alive.

Color mii impressed

I’ve been making the most of my youth, living in the moment, sipping of the heady dew that is existence… playing video games.

I picked up Zelda: Twilight Princess when I got my Wii in April and promptly logged 45 hours or so, but never bothered finishing it. Until two weeks ago, that is, when I decided to lay down an ultimatum: No more buying video games until I finish the ones I have.

So I returned to Zelda, in a complete daze as to what the hell I was doing. Where is this dungeon? Who am I killing now? I need to find the Legendary Sword of what? How do I attack again? Oh right you shake this… oh wait no, that makes you fall of the edge into a bottomless pit.

In fits and starts I picked up where I left off, only to discover… horror of horrors! Graphical glitches left and right ruining my immersive game experience. There were white flecks appearing randomly all over the screen, technically known as “polygon tearing”. Apparently my Wii was a lemon, as this is apparently indicative of a bad video card.

So off it went for repair, with shipping paid by Nintendo. I sent it on Monday, got a confirmation email on Wednesday, and had a brand-new Wii back on Friday. Excellent customer service, Nintendo Japan! The only annoying part was having to re-download one-by-one (for free, of course) all of the Virtual Console games I had purchased.

Wii remote condom

On top of that, Nintendo recently began offering free Wii remote condoms because apparently some idiots can’t manage to keep their remotes from flying into the TV or their siblings’ brains while playing. I got mine yesterday, and while I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to buy these things, I suppose they’re nice to have. Remember kids: Always use protection.

Edit: Whoa, whoa! Hold the presses! I’ve just discovered that Nintendo is part of the vast, liberal, pro-gay, anti-God, evil pinko tree-hugger conspiracy that is threatening to molest your children and damn your mortal soul to an eternity of torment. No more video games for me, ever.

Here we go again

Sadamisaki Lighthouse

If I was a less cynical man, I might say that this picture symbolizes a new beginning, a fresh start for 2007. In actuality, it doesn’t symbolize anything but my harrowing journey to the edge of the known universe, where this god-forsaken lighthouse stands. M came down from Tokyo to enjoy a little country living; little did she know she’d nearly disappear from the face of the earth into the choppy ocean waves.

I broke down and finally picked up a Nintendo DS Lite along with two games: Tokoton Kanjinō (とことん漢字脳, a Kanji practice game) and Animal Crossing. I’m enjoying it, but the hunger for even newer, more exciting games is already ripping through my insides.

I spent New Year’s Eve at a coworker’s house. He and his family treated me to dinner, and I joined them in the ritual first-temple-visit-of-the-new-year (初詣 hatsumōde). Then I taught his kids the card game Shitboot, which they now know and love by the literal Japanese translation, クソ長靴 (kuso nagagutsu).

While watching episode after downloaded episode of Law & Order: SVU, I’ve been pondering whether 2007 will be a good year, or merely the same as every other year—namely, not horrible but nothing to write home about. Can a jaded man become un-jaded? Do they have that yet? If we can put a man on the moon…

Attack of the native Engrish speaker

I was hanging out last night with a JET friend of mine who lives in the somewhat-nearby town of Ōzu. We were discussing the ins and outs of curtains, and how mine don’t block very much light in the morning. I found heavy black curtains at the nearby Dik (that’s yet another story) that claim to block 99.99% of incident light, to the tune of about $50. My friend weighed in on the subject by dropping this bombshell of profundity:

The sun is a jerk. It destroys me.

This proved to be a source of both inspiration and unending hilarity. I immediately whipped out Super Mario Bros. 3 on the emulator and we played far enough to get some key sprites. Then we whipped together this:

Click for full size

It’s too bad we can’t make shirts and sell this. Damn copyrights.