#rackaaam

Episode 1468: Joy Fulfills Its Role

Translation Notes:

“Ravening” is a neat word that the English localizers pulled out for this event, which I had previously never heard of.  It’s something they invented; his Japanese name was just Gouyoku Raizou, or “Greedy Raizo”.

Episode 1300: Commemorating Episode 1300

Translator Notes:

The word that I’ve translated usually as “beauty” is bikei, which can mean beauty as the concept, or can mean a beautiful thing.  Vyrn’s title in the second panel in the Japanese comic was Biikei, a pun on this word and Bii, Vyrn’s Japanese name.  There was really no way I could think of to make an equivalent English pun, unfortunately, so I just transcribed it instead.

“See you next episode!!” is a very rough translation of the Japanese, which was Korekara mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu!! - extremely literally translated, this could be rendered as, “From now on, like before, we sincerely hope that you treat us well!!”, but this would ignore the fact yoroshiku onegai itashimasu (or its less formal, more well-known cousin, yoroshiku onegai shimasu) is a Japanese idiom that doesn’t really have a concrete meaning so much as just being a thing you say to express positive feelings towards someone, especially seen commonly when first meeting someone.

Korekara (”from now on”) and korekara mo (”from now on, also”, or “in the future, as before”) are similarly difficult phrases to translate literally due to the different connotations in English of the literal translation.  In English, “from now on” has a distinct implication that you’re expressing some dramatic departure from how things have been, whereas in Japanese, korekara just expresses that you’re talking about the future, with no implied commentary about the past or your disdain thereto.

Episode 1018: Rebooted Robomi

Translator Notes:

If anyone is curious, “Spinny Stabby Drill” is called “Bore Gore Bit” in Japanese.  Yup - Hallessena gives things silly names there, too!  The English name is actually fairly clever - it’s nicely alliterative, uses more natural-sounding language, and also maintains the same threatening connotations of “it creates holes in both walls and organic things”.

Episode 1011: Anissida and the Cannon

Translator Notes:

There actually are two different words used here to mean “cannon”.  Anissida’s is an 大筒 (oodzutsu), whereas Jessica’s is a 大砲 (taihou).  The characters in the first word mean “big pipe”, whereas the characters in the second word mean “big gun”.  As you might imagine from that fact, an oodzutsu is more of an old-timey style of cannon, whereas a taihou is a more modern model.  You can see this in their different designs - Anissida’s is wider, more primitive, and looks more like just a cylinder with an opening at one end that one might find in use in feudal Japan, whereas Jessica’s looks more like a proper, more modern, finely-engineered cannon.  That’s not relevant to the translation, but it’s an interesting point I thought I’d note.

I translated Anissida’s lines in the last panel quite loosely.  Her initial exclamation that I translated into “What the heck!?” was Bakana!?, which is always a bit difficult to translate into English.  By itself, the term means “idiot” or “stupid”, but it can also be used figuratively to describe the situation at large, as though to say what’s happening is absurd, or ought to be impossible.  It’s a phrase you often hear from cocky villains, and is heard in animes like Fist of the North Star quite regularly.