#goroawase

Ok so I said a bit ago I wanted to do a goroawase analysis in TWEWY Series yeah?

Well I have a page on my neocities site that's like pretty much done! It has both TWEWY and NTWEWY goroawase and there are spoilers for both games!

I don't have the time right now to turn it into a Tumblr post or split them into the two games because life got busier than expected. Despite that, I wanted to share basically some version of it because I don't know when I'll get around to splitting it by game and adding some pictures to help break it up. But the core information is there. Most of the references I used to understand goroawase are there too if you want to dive into it yourself.

You can think of it as a preview! But if someone feels a strong urge to convert it into a Tumblr post or two just lemme know! Otherwise I will try and get around to it one day.

Each individual art asset uses its own cipher key, but the letters of the Galarian alphabet remain the same all throughout, AND they developed a number of different wonderfully clever typefaces and fonts and even handwriting styles that give flexibility and personal flaws to the script in way that's shockingly authentic for what is basically just a a more complicated gibberish language. It's not a real system but it's also not random either; ultimately most character choices boil down to the actual visual/geometric similarity, which is actually brilliantly well utilized, not as as cipher but as graphic design, because it keeps many words just barely recognizable through their Galarian cipher.

The only thing people might not catch is that a lot of the words are based on the transliteration of Japanese to Romaji, and so the English localizations have no bearing on the cipher at all. So, let's start from the top...

The Japanese name for Grass Type is Kusa TAIPU[くさタイプ], from kusa[草] meaning "Grass/Weed/Herb." So the Grass type logo reads, K U S A.

The gym leader's name is Milo in English, but his Japanese name is YARO~[ヤロー]: which is just the English name of the plant Yarrow(Achillea millefolium), following the franchise-wide trend of gym leaders being named after plants/flowers. His Jersey reads Y A R R O W.

His jersey number 831, like all the jersey numbers is a goroawase (a specific system of number puns in Japanese) and by that system it reads YA SA I, and Yasai[野菜] is the Japanese word for "Vegetable."

The sponsor company is a little tricky. The logo either reads, T U R F N O E N or alternatively T U R F F A R M. The sponsor's name in Japanese is TA~FU noen[ターフ農園]: "TURF* Farm/Plantation." Whether the Japanese "noen" or the English translation "Farm" is used, the number of characters match, although it doesn't seem to account for the repetition of either N or F and R in either case... (Also, the Japanese name for the town itself was TA~FU TAUN'[ターフタウン]: TURF TOWN, which got turned into "Turffield" in English.) Funny enough, although I said the ciphers change in each newly designed asset, the exception to that seems to be the names of towns and Galar itself appear consistently across different signage.

The Japanese name for Water type is Mizu TAIPU[みずタイプ]: "Water TYPE" which is just straight forward mizu[ 水] for "Water." The Logo reads M I Z U.

An interesting shortening; her name is RURINA[ルリナ]: Rurina* in Japanese, but the jersey uses the shortened R U R I. (*The name references Ruri-nigana[瑠璃苦菜]: "Lapis lazuli Ixeris dentata," the Japanese name of the Cupid's Dart(Catananche caerulea). This effectively makes her jersey name, Ruri[瑠璃]: "Lapis lazuli.")

Her jersey number is 049 and reads, O YO KU, as in Oyogu[泳ぐ]: "to swim." (keep in mind several sets of sounds in Japanese are basically just hard or soft variations on others and written as related kana distinguished by a diacritic. So ku[く] and gu[ぐ] are often interchangeable in wordplay like this.)

The я looking character appears to have been picked for the shape fitting the Wailord design; but could maybe be the Ho[ホ] in Hoeruo~[ホエルオー] (the Japanese name of Wailord) as well, as it shares the left facing "arm" and center stroke combination. But since it's only the one character, there's no way to tell. (The name of the company is Hueruo~Suisan[ホエルオー水産]: "Hueruo~ Fisheries/Aquaproducts" in Japanese, and in English it's "Wailord Aquaculture")

Fire type in Japanese is Honoo TAIPU[ほのおタイプ], from Honoo[炎] meaning Flame or Blaze. The logo reads, H O N O, or perhaps very specifically H O N Ō, as that's how the English often romanizes the double O.

Kabu's name is actually KABU[カブ], so the jersey reads K A B U. I like that because he's "Japanese" even in the world of Pokemon, they kept his Japanese name. It's also a multi level pun here... Kabu[蕪]: "Turnip(Brassica rapa)" sticking with the plant theme. But also Kabuto[兜]: the iconic samurai helmet, which the Fire logo on the jersey is based off of. And ka[火]: "Fire" is the kanji in the Fire logo, and the "Ka-" in his name.

His jersey number is 187 and reads HI HA NA ← Hibana[火花]: "Spark(Lit. "Fire + Flower")" Again note the kana for ha[は] and ba[ば]. (Incidentally, Hanabi[花火] is the word for "Fireworks" and as you can see, is written as "Flower + Fire." That's not relevant to the pun, just a factoid because I always forget which one is which.)

Oh boy, a tricky one! So... the Japanese name of the sponsor is, RESUTORAN' FUOGUO[レストラン フオグオ]: "Restaurant Huoguo," from the Chinese huǒguō[火锅]: "Fire Pot" referring to the Chinese Hotpot style of cooking. (the kana [フ] is pretty commonly freely used for both fu and hu sounds, I just romanized it as fu above because that's what I think people would be more familiar with, so if you're trying to follow along I dont want to make too many leaps without warning) So, the logo is clearly the FUOGUO/Huoguo part, but clearly that's too many characters. What also kinda threw me off was that the hiragana u[う] is a deadringer for that 2nd and 4th character. But a good starting place is that the katakana FU[フ] matches with the first Galar character more than F does, which would make the 2nd character o/ǒ. And then the 3rd one's actually a pretty clean merge of both G and U (but most importantly the G) what with the distinct crossbar stroke and lower curve, so with the precedent set that FU[フ] can be a two letter syllable, the 3rd one seems to be G and U at the same time. And that leaves the 4th as o/ō. Meaning it reads as something like F(u) Ǒ G(u) Ō, or maybe フ う G う?

the japanese language --- owing to its limited sound inventory and innumerable homophones/homographs --- is a tongue particularly given to all kinds of semantic play: goroàwase.

語呂合わせ ごろあわせ goroàwase play on words (or numbers!), pun.

much of 語呂合わせ hangs on alternate character readings or double meanings of words or expressions. some of my favorite examples are made out of words that contain entirely opposite meanings.

here's one such word:

奇特 きとく k'tòku praiseworthy, commendable. colloquially, though? 'weird, off-putting, eccentric'.

奇 き ki strange[ness], curiosity.

特 とく toku special.

so i found a goroawase generator. if this post gets any traction (i doubt it will but hey jic) put in the tags what your uniform number (or hypothetical uniform number if you dont have swsh) could mean (if its 069 or 420 dni /j)

- here is a goroawase converter: [https://seoi.net/goro/] - type a number, hit enter, wait until the page loads completely - you will get Japanese words that represent the number

- if you don’t understand Japanese, copy the words into a translating device - for example try both google translate and linguee.com; for the latter put only one word at a time

- if you’re not fine with the meanings, try another number - remember that adding a zero at the beginning will change the word!

This is useful if you’re looking for a number for your Pokemon OC’s uniform in Galar that will have a gorowase meaning like the Gym Leaders. That is, if you already have found a number you like and want to figure out if the goroawase meaning fits your character.

However, if you start with a specific word and want to find a goroawase number for that, you will need to find another way - try looking at goroawase tables like the one on Wikipedia and remember that you can aso write English words in goroawase!

Went back to playing Sword today after beating Nessa in Shield last night, so I could catch up.

As you may have heard, the gym leaders' uniform numbers in SwSh use a form of Japanese wordplay called goroawase, in which numbers are substituted for syllables. So, wanting to do a different uniform number in Sword than in Shield (in Shield I just did my favorite number, 17), I engaged in a little goroawase of my own.

104 can also be read as "ten-shi," as in tenshi, the Japanese word for "angel." In retrospect, maybe pretentious, but I like it!

So um... I’ve always wondered why the SHIBUYA 109 was changed to SHIBUYA 104 in both TWEWY and KH...

I feel kind of stupid for not seeing this before, but it’s actually goroawase! (Y’know, the thing Pokemon started doing with the Galar region gym leaders.)

Goroawase translates to “wordplay.” It really just uses numbers to convey a message. A really common one is “39”, which translates to “san kyu” which can be pronounced as “thank you.”

SHIBUYA 109 is also a form of gorowase! It takes the “to” meaning “10” and “kyu” meaning “9” to form Tokyo.

When Square Enix remade it into SHIBUYA 104, they also used goroawase. It comes from “i” (one), “rei” (zero), and “shi” (four). Depending on how you write it, it can either mean consolation or reward. (According to Google Translate, I’m not fond of those double meanings in Japanese,, :p)

Reward is straightforward, but here’s a definite meaning of consolation:

...which matches up with the story of TWEWY (I believe it was used as a frequent shopping area for players?)(who lost their lives), and Kingdom Hearts (where we see Sora after KHII and after losing his friends because he misused the Power of Awakening)

Anyone learning Japanese knows that kanji can have several possible readings. Numbers in particular have a lot of readings and are one of the most complicated parts of Japanese. I decided to summarize the readings of Japanese numbers that are often used in wordplay. Note that some people might choose to tweak the readings a bit (such as including the small tsu つ and the long vowel ー, and making abbreviations), and any big number can theoretically be converted into an actual sentence.

Reminder on Japanese vowel pronunciation: ‘a’ like in ‘ah’ and ‘ha’ ‘i’ like in ‘Wii’ and ‘be’ ‘u’ like in ‘June’ and ‘food’ ‘e’ like in ‘hey’ and ‘neigh’ ‘o’ like in ‘row’ and ‘doe’ Some vowels become silent in normal or quick speech

Zero [0] Common Form: 〇 Formal Kanji: 零 Hiragana: れい、れ、まる、ま、わ、ない、なし、ぜろ、お、おう、ぜ Katakana: レイ、レ、マル、マ、ワ、ナイ、ナシ、ゼロ、オ、オー、ゼ Romaji: rei, re, maru, ma, wa, nai, nashi, zero, o, ou, ze

One [1] Common Kanji: 一 Formal Kanji: 壱壹 Hiragana: いち、い、いつ、ひとつ、ひと、ひ、わん Katakana: イチ、イ、イツ、ヒトツ、ヒト、ヒ、ワン Romaji: ichi, i, itsu, hitotsu, hito, hi, wan

Two [2] Common Kanji: 二 Formal Kanji: 弐貳 Hiragana: に、じ、ふたつ、ふた、ふ、は、ふつ、つー、つ Katakana: ニ、ジ、フタツ、フタ、フ、ハ、フツ、ツー、ツ Romaji: ni, ji, futatsu, futa, fu, ha, futsu, tsuu, tsu

Three [3] Common Kanji: 三 Formal Kanji: 参參 Hiragana: さん、さ、ざ、みつ、みっつ、み、すりー、す Katakana: サン、サ、ザ、ミツ、ミッツ、ミ、スリー、ス Romaji: san, sa, za, mitsu, mittsu, mi, surii, su

Four [4] Common Kanji: 四 Formal Kanji: 肆 Hiragana: し、よん、よつ、よっつ、よ、ふぉあ Katakana: シ、ヨン、ヨツ、ヨッツ、ヨ、フォー Romaji: shi, yon, yotsu, yottsu, yo, foa

Five [5] Common Kanji: 五 Formal Kanji: 伍 Hiragana: ご、こ、こう、いつつ、いつ、い、ふぁいぶ Katakana: ゴ、コ、コウ、イツツ、イツ、イ、ファイブ Romaji: go, ko, kou, itsutsu, itsu, i, faibu

Six [6] Common Kanji: 六 Formal Kanji: 陸 Hiragana: ろく、ろ、る、むつ、むっつ、む、しっくす Katakana: ロク、ロ、ル、ムツ、ムッツ、ム、シックス Romaji: roku, ro, ru, mutsu, muttsu, mu, shikkusu

Seven [7] Common Kanji: 七 Formal Kanji: 柒 Hiragana: しち、なな、ななつ、な、なの、せぶん Katakana: シチ、ナナ、ナナツ、ナ、ナノ、セブン Romaji: shichi, nana, nanatsu, na, nano, sebun

Eight [8] Common Kanji: 八 Formal Kanji: 捌 Hiragana: はち、は、ば、やつ、やっつ、や、よう、えいと Katakana: ハチ、ハ、バ、ヤツ、ヤッツ、ヤ、ヨウ、エイト Romaji: hachi, ha, ba, yatsu, yattsu, ya, you, eito

Nine [9] Common Kanji: 九 Formal Kanji: 玖 Hiragana: きゅう、きゅ、く、ここのつ、ここの、こ、ないん Katakana: キュウ、キュ、ク、ココノツ、ココノ、コ、ナイン Romaji: kyuu, kyu, ku, kokonotsu, kokono, ko, nain

Ten [10] Common Kanji: 十 Formal Kanji: 拾 Hiragana: じゅう、じゅ、じ、とお、と、そ、た、てん、て Katakana: ジュウ、ジュ、ジ、トオ、ト、ソ、タ、テン、テ Romaji: juu, ju, ji, too, to, so, ta, ten, te

Decimal [.] Kanji: 点 Hiragana: てん Katakana: テン Romaji: ten

Examples:

39 = Thank you, or Miku 4649 = Yoroshiku 084 = おはよ (ohayo) = good morning 724106 = 何してる (nani shiteru) = what are you doing? 758 = Nagoya 88888888... = パチパチパチパチパチパチパチパチ.... (pachipachipachi...) = applause

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197 (pi to 39 decimal places) 産医師異国に向こう産後厄無く産婦御社に虫散々闇に鳴くご礼には早よ行くな さんいしいこくにむこうさんごやくなくさんぷみやしろにむしさんざんやみになくごれいにははよいくな An obstetrician went to a foreign country. After a safe delivery, the woman's shrine had bugs shrieking terribly loudly in the dark. It's too early for gratitude.