ENG-server vs JPN-server, is Trey’s “Paint the Roses” a Mistake? and more
This post includes screenshots from Books 1 to 4.
In addition to being in charge of all the storylines, the character design, the background illustrations and events for Twisted Wonderland, Toboso Yana also writes the dialogue (in collaboration with a writer from her own studio, D-6th).
The English-language translation of this dialogue sometimes seems to suffer from what might be the occasional discrepancy, or perhaps the translation team going rogue, and/or just plain mistakes. But a good part of what seems like a mistranslation is, actually, an accurate translation of the meaning behind the characters’ dialogue; they’re just not saying what they mean.
(I have actually discussed this briefly in an earlier post but I got many questions and wanted to go into more detail)
In order to understand the language rules that Yana is breaking, let’s have a quick rundown of what the rules actually are.
The Japanese language involves four different alphabets:
・Romaji: the roman alphabet
・Kanji: Adapted from Chinese kanji, Japanese kanji have largely evolved over generations, though there is still a lot of overlap between the different writing systems
・Katakana: phonetic symbols for words adopted from other languages
・Hiragana: originally based on kanji, hiragana are also phonetic symbols
Here is a screenshot of Ruggie using all four alphabets in a line of dialogue: Green for the romaji, red for the kanji, purple for the katakana and blue for the hiragana.
In video games, novels, manga, subtitles and any place where there is kanji, there will often also be smaller hiragana or katakana written alongside it to tell the reader how it is pronounced. This is called “furigana”.
For example, the kanji 猫 would have “ねこ” written over it. The kanji means “cat” in English, and the hiragana ね is read as “ne”, while こ is read as “ko”. So 猫 = ねこ = neko = cat.
Furigana’s one, basic purpose is to tell the reader how to pronounce a kanji.
Here are some examples of furigana in everyday life:
From left to right: In Toboso Yana’s manga “Black Butler”, furigana are listed alongside every single kanji, no matter how simple the word may be. - In the Twisted Wonderland novelization, furigana are only listed alongside more complex kanji, as the publisher is assuming that the reader is old enough to be able to read most kanji without assistance. - In Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, even simple kanji are given furigana, to make it more accessible for all ages. - This sign in a park in Miyagi Prefecture also includes furigana over all kanji used.
Now that we know what furigana is and how it’s used, here is how Yana is using it for wordplay:
The most obvious examples in the game are the characters’ unique magics.
When Trey uses his unique magic on JPN-server, for example, this is what we see:
The command itself is inside the 『quotation marks』, where we see a combination of kanji (in red) and hiragana (in blue). Above it are a small line of furigana that are, in this instance, written in katakana.
The kanji/hiragana phrase is read as “bara wo nurou”, which should be what the furigana above it is saying, and would be what it would be saying in a normal situation, but it isn’t.
If you have your audio on you know that Trey is saying, aloud: “Doodle Suit”, with “suit” referring to a “suit of cards” and “doodle” being just that, as his magic is overwriting (or “doodling” over) other people’s magic.
And if you’re on the ENG-server, you know that Trey’s unique magic has been translated as “paint the roses”, which doesn’t match his audio clip at all.
And that is because “Doodle Suit” is the katakana, while “bara wo nurou”-- translating to “let’s paint the roses”–is the hiragana/kanji beneath it.
Yana is basically telling us that “Paint the Roses” is what Trey is actually saying, but he is pronouncing it as “Doodle Suit”. This is no different from writing your name as “Alice” but telling people it is pronounced “Bob” (and that is actually a thing that happens with names in Japan–we call them kira-kira-names, which means “shiny names”--but that would be enough content for an entirely different post).
English doesn’t have four different alphabets for authors to play with and say “this is what the character is saying aloud, but it’s not what they actually mean”, so the translation team has had to decide on which set of text to use for each person’s unique magic on a case-to-case basis.
Riddle, for example, has a voice clip that matches the English-language translation of his unique magic, “off with your head”...mostly.
When Riddle uses his unique magic on JPN-server, this is what we see:
Just like Trey, a combination of kanji (in red) and hiragana (in blue), with a small line of katakana above it that is supposed to be telling us how it’s pronounced, but is instead introducing entirely new sounds altogether.
The actual command itself is read as “Kubi wo hanero”, but Riddle is pronouncing it as “off with your head” (which is what it says in the katakana), so in his case the words he is saying and the English-translation of his unique magic match, while Trey’s do not.
(Note: I said “mostly” above because “kubi wo hanero” is the literal line said by the Queen of Hearts in the Japanese-language dub of Disney’s original Alice in Wonderland movie. Much like the English “Off with his/her head” said by the Queen in the English version of the movie, it is technically a command to a third, unspecified person, but the ENG-server translation chose to match to Riddle’s voice clip instead of translating literally, though that meant losing the direct homage to the original line in the movie.)
What we end up with is three different things happening every time someone uses their unique magic:
What the character is saying out loud (the katakana)
What they actually mean (the kanji/hiragana)
How the ENG-server translated it (varying by situation)
Another interesting example is Jamil’s Unique Magic, which is actually said as “Snake’s Enticement / Invitation” but pronounced as “Snake Whisper”, which the ENG-server chose to translate as “Snake Charmer” (this is not the English-translation of what “snake charming” is in Japanese, which is 蛇使い, while Jamil’s unique magic command is 蛇のいざない).
But unique magic isn’t the only place where Yana takes advantage of the various possibilities offered by furigana.
I went through Books 1 to 6 on the JPN server and took screenshots of every single instance of furigana, being used either traditionally or in a way unique to the game, and here are the most interesting results (only including books 1 to 4 right now because spoilers are the worst).
In the prologue, one of the very first things Crowley says is “You’re not supposed to go through the door by yourself”, except he is pronouncing “door” as “gate”. While this is the first time he does this, it is not the last, and it might be a hint of some kind about how it is that people show up at NRC?
To illustrate that Leona is speaking in a muffled way as Ruggie forces him to smile, the bottom row of hiragana is gibberish sounds, while the furigana above is what he’s actually trying to say.
Floyd says the word “legs” and “us” aloud, but what he actually means are “fins” and “mer-people”.
Jamil says “Kalim” aloud, but what he actually means is “the heir of the main house”. This is a particularly significant use of furigana, as it illustrates how much weight the word “Kalim” has in Jamil’s opinion, beyond being just Kalim’s name.
This use of furigana increases dramatically in Books 5 and 6 because of characters like Rook (who is notorious for his frequent use of French) and Idia (who avoids saying his actual thoughts just all the time). There are dozens of other examples–at least 197 according to the excel sheet I put together–but a lot are just cute things like Grim pronouncing “other people” as “other monsters” as well as Jack and Epel speaking in slang and requiring clarification as to what they mean (especially since Epel’s accent and slang can be hard to understand at times).
Other times, the traditional type of furigana is also used to explain complex kanji.
In conclusion, I think the ENG-server translation team is doing amazing things with the localization, especially given the depth of the material they have to work with and how inflexible the limitations are when you’re trying to shove all the symbolism and wordplay that is possible with four alphabets into an entirely different language that only has one. All of my respect to the official translation team, they are doing amazing!
(Note: Yana is, of course, not the only mangaka ever to do this. This kind of wordplay can be found in almost every form of Japanese-language media that there is, and is often used to make puns that are wholly undetectable if you don’t know the language. If you’ve ever come across a subtitled or dubbed line in an anime or manga that seems bizarrely awkward or out-of-place, there’s a good chance that it is just the translator doing their very best with what they’ve got as they try to stuff the flexibility of four alphabets into one.)
1000-thank-yous to my amazing anonymous proofreader, whom I paid in cat pictures for this post.
vaporwave
yousharknotpass
prguitarman
romaincrisis
