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Researching the Four Heavenly Kings

For a big ol’ upcoming article, I’ve been researching which games and anime feature 四天王, the Four Heavenly Kings. The Elite Four in Pokemon count, as do the original four bad guys in Sailor Moon (the English dub called them the Negacommanders). Oddly enough, the Four Kings from Dark Souls are not called 四天王 in Japanese.

The funniest 四天王 I’ve found today are from Cromartie High School. There’s five members and four of them look like KISS:

And the most perplexing one is a group from Dragon Ball Z that’s called the Four Heavenly Kings of the Demon Clan in Japanese. They got their name changed to… the Spice Boys in English.

Wacky Words in Waku Waku Sweets

Waku Waku Sweets: Happy Sweets Making was released in the 3DS e-shop last month. Last week, someone on twitter shared this amazing mistake with us:

I’m supposed to butter the bread, not the pan. But “pan” (パン) is the Japanese word for “bread”, so there was an understandable mixup here. What happened is a lack of context. It makes perfect sense to butter a frying pan in a cooking game. It also makes sense for a cooking game to ask you to butter some bread. So the translators must have been translating from a script and didn’t have access to any other parts of the game. And then the QA team didn’t catch the mistake.

There are so many other mistakes in this game that I don’t think they had a QA team at all. Lots of grammar issues, stilted dialogue, unlocalized jokes, and incorrect pronouns. On the flip side, they use colloquialisms like “wanna”, “gonna”, “my bad”, and “you go girl”, which is pretty impressive. They also don’t try to turn the Japanese sweets into anything weird – they keep them as-is, which I think is great.

Expect to see more examples of translation errors from Waku Waku Sweets in future articles and books!

Big Changes in the Old Sailor Moon Dub

In helping with today’s article on the Zora Queen in A Link Between Worlds, I watched a bit of the old dub of Sailor Moon where she became obsessed with losing weight. I remember the PSA they put at the end where it says how dangerous it is to stop eating, so I wanted to see what the rest of the episode was like. I also checked out some of the original Japanese version with subtitles from Viz, and wow, what a difference! Usagi’s family says she didn’t need to lose weight in the dub, but her family makes fun of her weight in the original. And the chubby girl says her mom told her that dieting is bad for girls their age in the dub, but in the original she talks about fasting and eating pineapples.

I know this is a huge cultural difference between Japan and NA, but it was still a bit shocking. See the differences for yourself if you’re interested:

After-school specials, TV movies, and all sorts of other media aimed at kids and teens about the dangers of anorexia and bulimia were a normal part of my life growing up. Eating disorders are a pretty big problem, so I’m glad they made the changes they did in the dub.

Translation Agencies and Their Crappy Websites

As part of a marketing project, I’ve been researching translation agencies located in the US. I can’t believe how bad their websites are! The majority use buzzwords unrelated to translation and many use stock photos in place of photos of their actual team(s). They also have long lists of clients they’ve worked with, but no examples of any of the work they’ve actually produced. I’ve complied some screenshots of the most amusing examples:


About Us: YEAH TRANSLATION! (but not actually us, it’s a stock photo)

Quality translations by stock photo models!!

About Us: No, it’s really about YOU! We are this intimidating man staring into the distance. And our philosophy is buzzwords.

A whole blurb about ASL (American Sign Language), but they use the logo for the ALS Association (an organization fighting the disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease). This mistake hurts so bad!

I don’t want to do business with any of these companies.

A Cup of Dissidia

Hey, it’s been quiet around here lately! That’s because I was on vacation last week and I completely cut myself off from anything work-related. It was a great experience and I encourage everyone who’s able to take vacations to leave your work at work and enjoy your time off! Also, delete the Slack app on your phone and keep it off your phone forever.

Anyway, while I was away in a completely different state (and a different state of mind), I came across some interesting noodles:

I’d heard about these noodles before, but I never expected to find them at a gas station in the middle of nowhere! Like any good video game fan, instead of eating these noodles, I’m gonna display them on a shelf until the heat death of the universe.