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  #1  
Old Jul 17, 2013, 04:37 PM
Hellacia Hellacia is offline
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Okay, a couple of translations that I don't understand.

201 Praise of Peace
讃歌 is not praise. There are a lot of words that can mean praise: 称賛, 賛美, and 礼賛 to name a few... 讃歌 specifically refers to a song, because its other definitions include hymn, eulogy, etc. It is very much a lyrical description. This should be "A Song in Praise of Peace".

213 Fist of Anger
Actually, this brings up something about the compound 鉄拳 that has bugged me in general for a while now. How is 鉄拳 acceptably "fist"? The character 拳 explicitly means fist by itself. The character 鉄 means iron. It cannot more literally be "iron fist". Yet I see it defined as "fist" every dictionary I look in. It really bugs me to leave out the word iron, especially when the expression iron fist is probably one of the most common expressions in our language. It should be "Iron Fist of Anger". According to the dictionaries, the translation we have right now works, but I just really don't like it >:[

Also, just want to mention that, like a similar case with the Baten Kaitos soundtrack, the #gamemp3s translation uses both of the translations I've suggested. This is one of those times where I kind of favor the #gamemp3s tracklist I guess =/

Also I have to say that I really disagree with the change made to 207, "Cornered" was way less awkward and just better =/

Last edited by Hellacia; Jul 17, 2013 at 04:45 PM.
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  #2  
Old Jul 17, 2013, 05:50 PM
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Mortavia Mortavia is offline
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Actually it's sort of ironic, you mentioned the literal meaning of 213 but didn't do so for 201. But in fact, the same thinking can apply to both: in 讃歌, 讃 is praise and 歌 is song. So, it means essentially means "praise song", and "song of praise" is a listed definition for it in dictionaries. Of course I'm not saying the literal translation is always the best one, just thought I would point that out.

For 213, sometimes 圧政 (or 圧制) is used to essentially mean iron fist. Remember that "iron fist" is an idiomatic expression in our language, so the same idiom won't necessarily be said the same way in another language, because what's really being said is not the words, but the meaning. What I mean by that is, when we say "he ruled with an iron fist", we're not actually saying that while he ruled, he had a fist made of iron; we're saying he ruled with oppressive control. 圧政 or 圧制 are the characters for oppressive control, so I would be more likely to translate that to "iron fist" than I would 鉄拳, if that makes any sense. Here's an extra interesting little tidbit: 怒りの鉄拳 are the exact characters used for the title of a Bruce Lee movie, which translates all over the internet to "Fist of Fury". It becomes translation wars at a certain point.

If I may suggest my own change: for 216, 対決の時, we have "Time of Confrontation", but this is the music for the duel sequences in the game (一騎打ち in the game location description means "one-on-one fight" or "duel" like we've said). 対決 can very appropriately translate to "showdown" as well, and what it's talking about is in fact a showdown between two people. I think "The Time of the Showdown" is the best translation for it. At least, it's what I came up with back when I translated this however long ago.

While I'm here, I'll fix a grammatical error: "Matilda Knight's" is written twice for the soundtrack chapter names in our notes. This doesn't seem to be a direct transcription of badly-written English from any of the liner notes pages, since the chapter names are written in Japanese originally, so I'll remove the apostrophe.
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Old Jul 17, 2013, 09:30 PM
Hellacia Hellacia is offline
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Yeah, I see what you're saying about the whole iron fist idiom thing... this wouldn't be a case where it would be meant as an idiom. But they still could literally be saying "iron fist", couldn't they? The whole basis of the game series Tekken (which is 鉄拳) is a tournament called the Iron Fist Tournament. It wouldn't make much sense for it to be the Fist Tournament, would it? I think it can mean "iron fist" in a number of situations, and for it to just be the "fist of anger" lacks some necessary character, I think. The iron fist of anger is so much more descriptive and appropriate.
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Old Jul 18, 2013, 04:17 AM
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Phonograph Phonograph is online now
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@dag: why had you changed orrizonte into orizzonte? (there is a gs album with orrizonte in the title tho)
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Old Jul 18, 2013, 07:40 AM
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Dag Dag is offline
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Orizzonte is what's written in the booklet :S

201 sure.

213 鉄拳 more or less is a hard, clenched fist. I guess it could be used like English "iron fist" (=oppresion) but is more like a "fist ready to hit, knuckle" which I'm not sure "iron fist" conveys.

216, it used to be showdown, but some time ago I went and synched all Suiko translations (対決の時 is used in various games) and confrontation seemed more popular.
But nothing to stop you from changing it.


Also I think Anneli is Higashino :3
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  #6  
Old Jul 18, 2013, 11:09 PM
Hellacia Hellacia is offline
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So "A Fist Clenched in Anger". Actually I wish we could use that, it sounds really cool, but it's a bullshit translation I don't quite know how to properly translate 鉄拳 based on what you described. But ah well, thanks Dag, and Mortavia. I only want translation bliss for the best soundtracks.

This soundtrack is masterful, and the first game's is somehow even better. Then after this one it kinda just went downhill. But wow, Suikoden 1 & 2 have some terrific music. Seriously, "The Evil One" from this soundtrack is so evil, it borders being scary. Higashino achieved things with this soundtrack that seldom hit me that strong.

And yeah, Higashino could be pulling a Gabriela Robin so to speak...
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Old Jul 19, 2013, 07:04 AM
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Mac_Tear Mac_Tear is offline
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"A Fist Clenched in Anger" sounds like a typical Sakuraba-esque title if you ask me "Iron Fist of Anger" is fine to me though, but "Fist of Fury" or "Furious Fist" also sound cool.

Oh man, I wish Higashino would be back for another Suikoden entry... it would be the highlight of the year for sure!
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  #8  
Old Jul 19, 2013, 12:25 PM
SimonJXZ SimonJXZ is offline
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I read somewhere that Higashino retired in 2002, but I know she composed a number of songs for 10,000 Bullets (Tsukiyo ni Saraba in Japan), so even if she is retired, it's not out of the realm of possibilities for her to come back for another project, right? It would please me to see her come back and do much of anything. Higashino is one of those composers with a lot of vision. She can write game music the way people love to hear it. I would love to hear some new Higashino.
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Old Jul 21, 2013, 01:35 AM
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Mac_Tear Mac_Tear is offline
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Yeah, there were some minor activities in 2011 with Otomedius and Ge-On-Dan, but that's all there was, sadly.
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