FCCT-0071: Poison Pink Complete Soundtrack

[BlazingAbyss]

Lately I've been racking my brain trying to figure out a correct translation for a particular track, that being...

Kouk the Fire!! 邦題:「胸いっぱいのククを」

To start, does anyone have any idea what "Kouk" is supposed to be? Is it simply just a bad romanization of "Cook" or something?

From what I could gather "邦題:" just means that the fallowing text is the Japanese title being used in place of a foreign title or something along those lines. Granted I don't really get why only this song features such a note seeing how there are other songs with translated titles on the CDs as well. Regardless I suppose that means this particular part isn't important in the translation.

Lasty we have 胸いっぱいのククを
From what google translate gives me it comes out as "A chest full of Kuku" the reviewer on the CD's RPGFan page however translated it as "A Heart Full of Cuckoo." I noticed that クク on it's own translates to "Kuku" and on the Japanese wikipedia page for Poison Pink クク族 translated to "KuKu Tribe" which let's me know that the song is likely referring to the Koona (the little backwards talking bear creatures) which got me thinking that perhaps it meant "A Chest Full of Koona"

As far as I can tell it doesn't seem to feature the right kanji for 'heart' so I don't think it would translate to "A Heart Full of Koona" despite that sounding better as the 'chest' being referred to here is the body part, not the type you put things into. Then again I'm not very good at this sort of stuff so maybe I'm on the wrong track.

---

The official soundtrack has a handful of odd romanticized titles, however at the very least most of the other ones were easy enough to decipher like Thazi and Harshu were obviously referring to Thage and Ashley. There even seems to have been a few tracks they just spelled wrong, as far as I can tell "Encount" is not an actual word so I can only assume that they meant to say "Encounter." Another one that's kind of oddly titled is "Corna." From what I could find corna is the formal name for the 'devil horns' symbol you can make with your hands. Not really sure how that relates to the stone puzzle mini-game of which it is the theme of, but at least that title gave me some results unlike a few other ones.

The worst examples being "Regeena", "Phosa", and "Gergus." I've simply no idea what in the world they were even trying to say here as I can't find any results of what these were meant to be. I ended up just re-naming my tracks after the respective areas in which they played, "Forest" "Aether" and "Desert." It's rather strange since the last two area themes are called "Lumen" and "Tenebrae" which are actually spelt properly and fit with their respective settings.

Anyway sorry that I digressed a bit there and for all that text. I've been trying to figure out that first one I mentioned for a while now, so if anyone could offer any assistance regarding it I'd be very thankful.

[RFGalaxy]

I love this soundtrack, and this game. I am also pretty decent with Japanese and own Eternal Poison as well as Poison Pink so I'll try to help.

胸いっぱい means to be overwhelmed with emotion and is associated with the feeling of a lump in your throat. To sort of explain that, 胸, mune, is the chest, heart, etc and can also refer to feelings since many times that area of the body is related to where feelings come from. いっぱい, ippai, means full (or even "a lot of"). So mune ippai is a phrase meaning "your heart is full" or "full of emotion". As for クク族, it is indeed what the Koona tribe is called in the Japanese version of the game. Now, if you can put the two of those together to come up with a translation you like, then good on ya.

The difference between Kouk the Fire and 胸いっぱいのククを is pretty vast. I'm not seeing how one is a translation of the other. The liner notes for the track don't really say anything of too much of interest either. It looks like it says the song is the Koona tribe's theme and it was an unused song. The Koona tribe wanted a personal hidden scenario where they defeat the majin. Their feelings are on fire!!! It's mostly humorous. Here's the text in case someone wants to do better.

クク族のテーマ、未使用曲です。個人的には隠しシナリオとしてクク族トリオが魔神を倒しに行くお話が見たか った（笑）。その想いを込めてファイヤー！！！

That's really all I can do to help



Oh, actually, I forgot to mention something: クク could possibly be transliterated as Kouk due to the 'u' sound often being unvoiced or silent in Japanese. So while ク is "ku" and クク is technically "kuku", maybe only the first 'u' sound was intended to be pronounced. This is putting a lot of faith into the word being transliterated correctly at all, but I think that at any rate, Kouk at least refers to クク, properly transliterated or not.

[BlazingAbyss]

Thanks you so much for your swift reply, it was rather helpful. I really like this game and its soundtrack as well, very underrated in my opinion. Taking all you've said into account, I think that "A Heart Full of Koona" might actually be the most appropriate translation.

Originally Posted by RFGalaxy

Oh, actually, I forgot to mention something: クク could possibly be transliterated as Kouk due to the 'u' sound often being unvoiced or silent in Japanese. So while ク is "ku" and クク is technically "kuku", maybe only the first 'u' sound was intended to be pronounced. This is putting a lot of faith into the word being transliterated correctly at all, but I think that at any rate, Kouk at least refers to クク, properly transliterated or not.

Interesting, if this is indeed the case does that mean that "Kouk the Fire!!" would be localized as "Koona the Fire!!" I admit the grammar there does sound a bit weird though, perhaps they meant "on Fire!!" like how 'Their feelings are on fire!!!' like you said before.

Regardless I think I'll be content to title the track as "A Heart Full of Koona", I enjoy having translated tracks names over kanji since it can be hard for me to easily tell which tracks are which when they're all in a language I can't read. I also ended up localizing some of names on the tracks like Thazi/Thage, Harshu/Ashley, Besec/Besek, Liber/Librum Izat/Izel, Baldamian&Balde/Valdia etc. However I usually leave album titles and such alone so the album is still under "Poison Pink Complete Soundtrack" as apposed to saying Eternal Poison, by extension the same applies to the track "Theme of Poison Pink".

Anyway I digress once more, your information was very useful and thus if its not too much trouble would you mind helping me with a few other tracks as well?

Firstly, do you've any idea on what "Regeena", "Phosa", and "Gergus" are supposed to mean? There not in kanji so there's not much to go on, but I thought that they might just be romanized kanji or something, explaining why I couldn't find any results. Are the last two areas 'Sanctuary' and 'Purgatory called 'Lumen' and 'Tenebre' in the Japanese version by any chance? If so then that would only lead one to believe that the other 3 were supposed to be translations of their area names as well, albeit very poorly done.

Secondly is track 5 on disc 3, "幾夜寝覚邸" I've seen quite a few translations for this, this site has "Residence of Ikuyonezametei" RPGFan has "Many Nights' Sleep Sense House" google translate gives me "Ikuyo NeSatoshi House" and a video on youtube had it as "The Residential House." I'm aware this is the theme that plays within Twilight's Rest but I'm under the impression that this isn't what it's called in the Japanese version so I'm a bit uncertain what the best way to translate it as would be.

Also is the Traviata House called "La Traviata"/""椿姫" in the Japanese version, because that's what I found on the JP wikipedia page so I was curious if it was another name change. I also noticed that The Uzaporium is "ウー・ザ・ショップ" which translated to "Wu The shop" which has gotten me thinking that "Uhh The Shop" is actually supposed to be "The Uhh/Wu/Uzakori Shop" aka The Uzaporiaum.

Next is the track Corna, I'm conflicted on whether or not this is poor translation or the actual intended title. On one hand I came across something that said the Corna was a "vulger gesture in Mediterranean countries, often denoting infidelity." While this still doesn't explain why it plays where it does, the track name for this song on the US Promo CD is called "The Libertine" a Libertine apparently being 'a person who behaves without moral principles or a sense of responsibility, especially in sexual matters.' Thus the two would seem to have at least some form of consistency between them, though perhaps that's meanly just due to it being called the "Libertine Pub." However the name of the tavern in the Japanese appears to be called "コルナ亭" which google translated as "Koruna-tei", which seems oddly too similar to Corna to be a simple coincidence, especially when considering how all the other shops appear to have different names in the Japanese version.

Lastly since you own the Japanese version of the game I thought you might have some idea on the differences between the names of the songs you can request the band to preform for you and how well they match up with the various incarnations I've found for them thus far.

-Band requests in the US version-
1 "Know any oldies?"
2 "Make it a sad one!"
3 "Hot and spicy!"
4 "Play your hit song!"
5 "Something different!"

CD Titles
1 「ノリのいい曲!」
2 「泣ける曲頼むわ」
3 「ファンキー!!」
4 「クールにキメてくれ」
5 Little Lisbon

VGMDB Translation
1 "Good Seaweed Song!"
2 "A Tearful Song"
3 "Funky!!"
4 "Decide in a Cool Way"
5 Little Lisbon

RPGFan Translation
1 "I Like Seaweed!"
2 "Requesting the Sad Song"
3 "Funky!!"
4 "Decide Calm and Cool"
5 Little Lisbon

While I'm not sure why it's called Little Lisbon, it's the only one with an actual name and seeing as it isn't referred to as anything other than being 'something different' in the game I can only assume that it is the correct name. "Funky!!" seems pretty constant all around, 'Tearful/Sad' song are similar and don't really conflict with "Make it a sad one!"

The only two that seem a little iffy here are the 'Play your hit song!' and 'Know any oldies? Is there something about Seaweed in the Japanese version of the game, because I just find it strange that a request for something regarding seaweed got translated in the US version as asking if they knew any old songs. Also is the 'play your hit song!' one written differently in the Japanese version? 'Decide in a Cool Way' sounds somewhat closer to it then 'Decide Calm and Cool', but it still seems quite a bit different than asking for someone's hit song.

Anyway, I apologize if that was a lot to ask all at once. Thanks again for your help thus far, I hope you'll be able to make some sense of these better than I have like you did with the former.

[CHz]

Originally Posted by BlazingAbyss

From what I could gather "邦題:" just means that the fallowing text is the Japanese title being used in place of a foreign title or something along those lines. Granted I don't really get why only this song features such a note seeing how there are other songs with translated titles on the CDs as well. Regardless I suppose that means this particular part isn't important in the translation.

邦題 means the Japanese title given to a work from another language. It can be a translation of the original title but it's not necessarily, as is apparently the case here since I have no idea what "Kouk the Fire!!" is supposed to mean.

So what it's saying here is "Kouk the Fire!!" is the original, intended title. It's not a bad or weird translation of the Japanese, because the Japanese came after it.

As to why it's the only title on the album clarified like that, your guess is as good as mine!

[RFGalaxy]

I'm glad I was some help to you I enjoy having translated titles as well and typically do my own. I haven't tackled this soundtrack's titles, but that's due to the fact that I regretfully have not gotten around to purchasing this one yet. Priorities, priorities...

Poison Pink gives its area names in kanji. For example, text that would say Strat 2 Aether in Eternal Poison says 第2階層 夢幻の天空 in Poison Pink. 天空, tenkuu, means "sky" in the context of the firmament, which can also be called aether. So, it's pretty direct about the strata names. One comment is that some of the track titles seem to be in Latin. Liber is book, lumen is light, tenebrae is darkness, ignis is fire. It seems maybe you noticed this though, and it doesn't help much with Regeena, Phosa, and Gergus - I can't figure out much about what those titles are supposed to mean.

As for 幾夜寝覚邸, the English title VGMdb has is just transliterating the entire string of kanji and then mystically adding "Residence of" at the beginning. The meaning of 幾夜寝覚 is a pretty good mystery to me. It seems to be the name of a Japanese apricot tree, which isn't very helpful. 幾夜 means many/several nights and 邸 is a residence/estate/mansion etc. I haven't actually found 寝覚 to ever mean being asleep - in fact, quite the opposite, it means to awaken. Right now it looks like it's saying "many nights awake residence", so if you wanted to put that into nicer English it could be "House of Many Sleepless Nights" but I'm sure there's something I'm missing about 幾夜寝覚.

The Traviata House is called 椿姫の邸 in Poison Pink. 椿, tsubaki, is a camelia and 姫, hime, is princess. This says Princess Camelia, which is basically La Dame aux camélias, the title of the Alexandre Dumas play which the Giuseppe Verdi opera is based on. 椿姫 is the Japanese title for the opera La traviata, so it makes sense as the track name for that area's music. You might go with Traviata House.

ウー・ザ・ショップ is indeed the equivalent of the Uzaporium in Poison Pink. ウー really makes the sound "ooh", like ウーロン which is Oolong (tea). "Wu" is one of the few sounds for which there isn't a phonetic character. Rather, you have to create it with ウ and another character. For example, you'd write ウィンド, uindo, to sound out "wind". ザ is the sound "za" and is used to make the word "the". One example: アークザラッド, Arc the Lad. When the localizing team for Eternal Poison saw the ウー・ザ in ウー・ザ・ショップ, they probably found it most sensible to translate it as "uza". Whether or not that's what the Japanese were going for in Poison Pink... who knows. It's hard to guess at a "proper" translation and since it seems you're fine with changing track names entirely to suit the localized version of the game, Uzaporium might be the best name for that track. Forgive me if it's technically "The Uzaporium", I'm actually unable to check the game right now.

As for the band performance songs:
1. ノリのいい曲 has nothing to do with seaweed. ノリのいい曲 is a phrase referring to music with a nice feel, music that's easy to get into.
2. 泣ける曲 is more literally a song that moves you to tears and 頼むわ is to request. Pretty straightforward there.
3. ファンキー is literally the word Funky.
4. クールにキメてくれ is one of those really annoying tracks that's writing out words completely in phonetic characters, which can make it hard to figure out what it's saying. It's mixing hiragana with katakana as well. I'm skeptical that it has anything to do with deciding something, since キメて would be where that comes from as that's kimete, but the problem is that キメ is in katakana and て is in hiragana, so it's pretty much impossible that it's really one word given that I can't remember a time I've seen the Japanese switch between phonetic syllabaries in mid-word. クール is "cool" and the theme has been to request types of songs, so it's probably requesting a cool song, but I can't really figure it out, sorry.
5. Little Lisbon is definitely the real title. I guess the localizing team didn't think it made a whole lot of sense given that the other four had just requested types of music and then suddenly you're requesting to play something called "Little Lisbon" out of nowhere. As for why it's named that, the liner notes mention Portugal and the bossa nova, so I'm sure that's where the track gets its name, as Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and bossa nova is a popular form of music there.

Regarding Corna... コルナ亭 is Poison Pink's "Libertine Pub". If we're going with コルナ being corna, it could be the "sign of the horns". It's associated with heavy metal and "Hook 'em Horns" which is some thing done in a university in Texas, but it's also a spiritual sign and possibly an offensive gesture. It could be where the localization team got the word Libertine from? They may have made that same connection. Honestly, it's a little bit mysterious, but to make a small connection, Portugal is a Mediterranean country, and the corna is an offensive gesture in Mediterranean countries... It's hard to figure out and your theory may be the best one.

Hopefully I was of some help with even a few tracks.


And lastly...


CHz, thanks for clarifying that! That makes much more sense. I haven't encount(ered) 邦題 much before.

[BlazingAbyss]

Originally Posted by CHz

邦題 means the Japanese title given to a work from another language. It can be a translation of the original title but it's not necessarily, as is apparently the case here since I have no idea what "Kouk the Fire!!" is supposed to mean.

So what it's saying here is "Kouk the Fire!!" is the original, intended title. It's not a bad or weird translation of the Japanese, because the Japanese came after it.

As to why it's the only title on the album clarified like that, your guess is as good as mine!

I was curious about something, I noticed that sometimes members of the VGMDB staff contact certain composers to learn details regarding soundtracks they've worked on. Would it perhaps be possible to contact Takashi Okamoto and ask what in the world "Regeena" "Phosa" and "Gergus" are meant to be? I'm truly under the impression that these were intended to be something in English but were spelt completely wrong as there's nothing in the game by these names and from what I can find they don't even appear to be real words.

He also composed the "Kouk the Fire!!" track so if it is possible to contact him then figuring out what the heck "Kouk" is supposed to be would be cool as well.

Anyway, just figured I may as well ask, if no one is able or willing though that's completely fine and understandable.

[BlazingAbyss]

It seems you never cease to impress, thanks once more for your diligent assistance.

I'm not surprised that Regeena, Phosa, and Gergus were lost on you as well, the translation for these seem like they were just a total mess. I think I'll just keep them as "Forest", "Aether", and "Desert" as it seems like the most coherent way to go about it.

Seeing as the tracks for the places inside Isapolis are all just directly named after their specific location I think I'll save myself a headache and just do the same albeit with the localized names, thus they'll be "Traviata House," "Twilight's Rest," "The Uzaporium" and "Libertine Pub."

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Speaking of Isapolis, does the town even have a proper name in the Japanese version? from what I can gather I think it might just be called "アジト" or "Hideout" granted this is just what I'm able to gather given the information provided on the Japanese wikipedia page. It is a tad odd that all the areas in Isapolis were named after their respective locations whilst the theme of the town itself is called "Equal-to-Apostles." especially since they're dashed together as if they were meant to be a single word or something, granted simply removing the dashes would technically make it a proper title.

From what I've read "Polis" is Greek for "City" while "Isa" is apparently an Arabic name that would correspond to Jesus in English. Taking this into account I can see where the whole apostles correlation would come into play but I'm uncertain on whether this is meant to be their romanization of whatever Isapolis is called in the Japanese version or simply a title they gave for the track, any idea on which it might be? If it turns out to be the former I suppose I'll be changing the track name to "Isapolis."

Poison Pink gives its area names in kanji. For example, text that would say Strat 2 Aether in Eternal Poison says 第2階層 夢幻の天空 in Poison Pink. 天空, tenkuu, means "sky" in the context of the firmament, which can also be called aether. So, it's pretty direct about the strata names. One comment is that some of the track titles seem to be in Latin. Liber is book, lumen is light, tenebrae is darkness, ignis is fire. It seems maybe you noticed this though, and it doesn't help much with Regeena, Phosa, and Gergus - I can't figure out much about what those titles are supposed to mean.

I did actually notice that there were a handful of tracks named in Latin, though I think that Liber can also be written as Librum depending on how its being used in the sentence. In regards to the area levels having pretty much the same names as the US version, does this also apply to the areas "Sanctuary" and "Purgatory" as well? I was curious to know if those areas were named the same or if they were instead called "Lumen" and "Tenebrae" as they are on the soundtrack. I mostly wish to know since I was uncertain if I should change the track names to be consistent with the other three stratum areas I renamed or not.

the liner notes mention Portugal and the bossa nova, so I'm sure that's where the track gets its name, as Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and bossa nova is a popular form of music there.

That's very interesting, I was aware that Lisbon was the capital of Portugal but I originally thought that it was unlikely that the song could be referring to it specifically, however if the liner notes mention Portugal then it truly must be the intended translation.

Lastly I went on nicovideo to view some of the game in Japanese and I was able to find a part which showed a couple of the band requests. The person playing had the first two available (「ノリのいい曲!」 & 「泣ける曲頼むわ」) seeing as they're spelt exactly as they are on the track list I think it's safe to infer that the others (excluding possibly Little Lisbon which might not be directly refereed to by name) are as well.

Seeing as this is likely the case I think I might just use the localized translations from the US game as they should be at least somewhat accurate translations. However I think I'll be Keeping "Hot and spicy!" as "Funky!!" since as you said ファンキー literally translates to it and it's pretty clear there's not really any room for alternate wording here like the others as it's simply a single word and not a sentence.

Going with this coarse of logic it would go, "Know any oldies?" "Make it a sad one!" "Funky!!" "Play your hit song!" and "Little Lisbon." Typically I'd use proper capitalization on the necessary words in a song's title but seeing as these are meant to be quotes in a spoken sentence I suppose it makes more sense to leave them written as they are.

Though I must say I am curious as to why the first one is proposed as a question, it's pretty clear that it originally featured an explanation mark not a question mark. Granted it might have just been due to the game translators having trouble translating it to something people in the US could understand properly as there may not have been any good equivalents and thus they just called it that due to the sort of old-timey sound it had to it. Though I'm simply just assuming that there's no correlation between asking if they know any 'Oldies' and 'music with a nice feel/music that's easy to get into.'

Well anyway after this last bunch I think that will just about finally do it. As much as I like this soundtrack I've got to say it's the only one thus far to give me such a large amount of trouble with deciding on acceptable translations and such. If you ever end up getting your own copy of the soundtrack and making your own translations I'd certainly be interested in seeing what you come up with, especially since the only two or so available translations around are pretty average at best as this conversation has clearly shown.

Anyhow, I'll be anticipating your response to these last handful of questions so that I might finally be content, thanks again in advance.

[RFGalaxy]

Glad my comments helped some. I'll see if I can sort out a few of the last questions you have.

You seem to be pretty good at doing research on the internet, as you've come up with the names of a lot of the town areas and such, so here's a tip to take you further: you can search the name of a game along with 攻略 to get walkthroughs and databases about games. ポイズンピンク 攻略 would do for Poison Pink. I get this website for the first result on Google. You can put the whole page into Google Translate, or you can take text you might have from other sources, like 第2階層 夢幻の天空 which I gave you earlier for the area name of Aether, and use Ctrl+F to see if you get anything. On that page, you'll be taken right to a list of the area names. 聖皇の祭宮 and 閻帝の万魔殿 seem to be the area names for the 3rd strata, so it's certainly not "Lumen" and "Tenebrae" written out for those two, but something a little closer to "sanctuary" and "purgatory" respectively.
I don't say this to get you off my back, by the way - more about teaching a man how to fish and all that.

Since you seem interested in version differences: during the first battle in Besek on Thage's story in Eternal Poison, Retica asks "Why do they keep talking about your librum?" In Poison Pink, this is
おい、魔神達がリベルって呼んでるその本は一体何なんだ
Thage also says "There's no other librum like this one in the whole world."
そう、コレは私の特別製、世界でたった１つのリベル
リベル, riberu, is in both sentences, so Poison Pink refers to it as liber, not librum. Now, having taken a couple of years of Latin in high school, I know that librum is the accusative case of the word liber, so it would be the direct object of a verb. If you're going on strict Latin grammar it may seem weird that the localizing team chose librum over liber, but maybe they felt it sounded more like a thing, or more Latin... not sure

Regarding the name Isapolis... given that the Wikipedia page lists the proper names for the other areas in Poison Pink's town, it's doubtful the town itself has one. After the first battle in Besek on Thage's story in Eternal Poison, Duphaston explains "Besek appeared in my domain, engulfing my fair town of Isapolis." In Poison Pink, this is
実は、ベセクが現れたこの場所は、私の領地だったのです
この場所 is "this place" and 私の領地 is "my territory". That's all Duphaston really says about the town. Nothing like 街 or 町 is ever mentioned, nor is イサポリス (which would be Isapolis). It's doubtful the town has a proper name, but again, I haven't been through the whole game. At any rate, it's your best guess as to where the localization team came up with Isapolis.

As for ノリのいい曲, I guess the beat of a song is the easiest way to explain the song having a "nice feel" or being "easy to get into". I believe the term comes from Noh theatre, in which ノリ, nori, describes the tempo. Bad nori, ノリがわるい, is difficult to get into, while good nori, ノリのいい, is easy to get into. When you add 曲, it refers to music. So, no, the phrase has no direct correlation to oldies.

If I one day get a copy of this soundtrack, maybe by then I will have deciphered what 幾夜寝覚 means, if it's not just meant to be a name. It could just be ikuyo nezame, I guess, but I kind of doubt it. Anyway, I hope that stuff helps it's been nice talking with somebody about this game. I haven't played it in a while, I should get back to Eternal Poison and finish it off.

[BlazingAbyss]

here's a tip to take you further: you can search the name of a game along with 攻略 to get walkthroughs and databases about games. ポイズンピンク 攻略 would do for Poison Pink. I get this website for the first result on Google. You can put the whole page into Google Translate, or you can take text you might have from other sources, like 第2階層 夢幻の天空 which I gave you earlier for the area name of Aether, and use Ctrl+F to see if you get anything.

I think I may have actually come across that site during one of my previous delves for information, granted I think that at the time I mistook it for only being lists of things like items, character classes and such.

I don't say this to get you off my back, by the way - more about teaching a man how to fish and all that.

Don't worry, I wasn't under the impression that you were, honestly I'm really grateful that you were willing to help as much as you have. I do apologize if it was a bit time consuming for you I'm aware that I was asking for a lot.

聖皇の祭宮 and 閻帝の万魔殿 seem to be the area names for the 3rd strata, so it's certainly not "Lumen" and "Tenebrae" written out for those two, but something a little closer to "Sanctuary" and "Purgatory" respectively.
I don't say this to get you off my back, by the way - more about teaching a man how to fish and all that.

Ah, I see if that's the case I can conclude that "Lumen" and "Tenebrae" were indeed intended to be the names of the respective themes given to the areas and not the areas themselves. I'm willing to assume that this was the case with the other 3 strata but something must have gone amiss when they tried translating it to Latin or something. Regardless I guess I'll have them remain as their proper track titles whilst the other ones shall be localized as they are a better alternative to the nonsense titles they originally held.

It's doubtful the town has a proper name, but again, I haven't been through the whole game.

I was thinking that was the case, but nonetheless I wanted to be certain. I was being skeptical about it since all the other areas had actual names and were different between versions, though I suppose this means that just like with the previous tracks, "Equal-to-Apostles" is indeed the intended name. Granted I don't really see why they felt the need to add hyphens between each word.

Really makes wonder why it is that they have such diverse naming schemes for all these tracks, some are in kanji, others are translated into latin, others translated into English, and some that are just unintelligible.

As for ノリのいい曲, I guess the beat of a song is the easiest way to explain the song having a "nice feel" or being "easy to get into". I believe the term comes from Noh theatre, in which ノリ, nori, describes the tempo. Bad nori, ノリがわるい, is difficult to get into, while good nori, ノリのいい, is easy to get into. When you add 曲, it refers to music. So, no, the phrase has no direct correlation to oldies.

I'm guessing the localization team probably couldn't think of a way of wording that in a way where it could be limited to a short sentence. I suppose saying something like "Play something that's easy to get into/sounds good." would seem like kind of a vague request to make as such a thing would really be up to the person's personal preference. Either way, I guess I'll just do what I said before and have them be titled as their localized requests barring "Funky!!" and "Little Lisbon."

Anyway, I hope that stuff helps it's been nice talking with somebody about this game. I haven't played it in a while, I should get back to Eternal Poison and finish it off.

It's been a nice experience talking to you about it as well, I had a most enjoyable time. I have to admit all this talk of Eternal Poison has been putting me in the mood to play it again as well.

Anyway thanks to you I've certainly made far more progress with this than I ever would have gotten on my own and for that you have my sincerest gratitude.

[RFGalaxy]

Hey, you gave me something to do. I'm actually unable to do a number of things right now due to a pretty severe left thumb injury. Currently on pain and anti-inflammatory meds, so this has been nice, though honestly I'd have done it even without the injury

If somebody else visits this thread, I've love your input on 幾夜寝覚 and クールにキメてくれ, haha! I've tried all I can and I'm unable to muster up an answer for their meanings.

[Dag]

Note that composers don't always name their own tracks, it could be the producer/director or somebody from the CD staff instead (a few albums even credit the namegivers).


"Encount" is how the japanese write "Encounter".

"Kouk the Fire!!" I think they just meant "Kouk _on_ Fire!" (or maybe it's a weird pun with "Cook the fire"?).

"クールにキメてくれ" means more or less "finish in a cool way" (ie. 'end it', 'bring out your best', more literally 'decide')

"幾夜寝覚邸" is how "Twilight Rest" is called in the JP version.
My interpretation for the name is that it'd be a place where one would want to rest and rise in many nights.
It also seems to refer to a flower.

Regeena: refers to the forest boss Dahlia Regina (JP=ダリアレギーナ, US: Dahlia Queen) (regina=queen in Latin)
Phosa: refers to the aether boss Deus Phosa (JP=デウスフォサ, US=Armihage) (maybe they meant fossa=ditch)
Gergus: refers to the desert boss Deus Gurges (JP=デウスグルゲス, US=Gergedeus) (gurges=whirlpool in latin)
Ignis: refers to the desert boss Ignis (JP=イグニス, US: Ignus)
I don't think Lumen and Tenebrae refer to anything in particular.

I think you can pretend they are just general names they gave to those areas.

[BlazingAbyss]

This was actually very helpful, thank you. I see that I was at least correct about those three being incorrect spellings of what they were intended to be. This actually makes a lot of sense since there's a fair amount of Latin words used here, Liber (or Librum as the game calls them,) Lumen, Tenebrae, Vesper etc.

I agree with you that they probably meant "Fossa." Despite this being the Aether's theme music which as the name implies is in the air, the stage boss of that area is some kind of half buried mummy thing so I can certainly see the correlation. Especially since the others seem to mostly have fitting correlations, like how Ignis is a phoenix for example. In addition, although Google Translate is obvious unreliable, when I use it to translate people talking about that boss, it comes out as "Deus Fosa" which seems far too similar to simply be confidence.

As for Lumen and Tenebrae I'm pretty sure they're just referring to how the last two paths you can pick from are Light and Dark themed.

As for "Kouk the Fire" I feel that Kouk may have came from the クク族 in 胸いっぱいのククを which would be Kuku or Koona in the English version.
Going by the liner notes for this song that RPGalaxy translated that mention that "Their feelings are on fire!!!" Maybe the proper translation would be something like "Koona on Fire!!"?

Also, I wasn't aware that the Japanese write "Encounter" as just "Encount." That's interesting, I've never come across an instance like that prior so I wasn't aware.

[RFGalaxy]

Off the top of my head, Tales of Symohonia has a track called Encount with Renegade. I've seen it before, it's probably used in more spots too.

And, wow. I remember this thread, haha. Thanks for the boss info Dag! I never made it that far in the Japanese version, and wasn't diligent enough to find those boss names from a website or something.

You got the same stuff I got from 幾夜寝覚邸, it seems. Still not quite sure how to translate it for the name of a track. And I'm still lost on クールにキメてくれ, which is a complete mess to me. After a year and a half, it seems my Japanese hasn't progressed too much

[BlazingAbyss]

Something Interesting that I learned recently, apparently the Led Zeppelin song "Whole Lotta Love" is titled "胸いっぱいの愛を" in Japan. Additionally, there's a Vocaloid song named "胸いっぱいのダメを" and the official English title for it is "Whole Lotta No’s."
So with that in mind I think the best way to translate "胸いっぱいのククを" would actually be "Whole Lotta Koona" as opposed to "A Heart Full of Koona."

[BlazingAbyss]

Recently I went through the game again and now that I'm a little bit more familiar with translating I had some recommendations for potential translation changes as well as some questions for ones that I was a bit uncertain about.
Let me know what you think, any assistance regarding these readings would be very helpful. Also, since I wanted to provided as much context as possible for these there's going some unmarked spoilers below so just keep that in mind.

1.06: Currently the translation listed for "宣言" is " Declaration," but I believe "Proclamation" would be the best translation for it as that is the specific wording used in the cinematic ("King Valdus stood before his people an issued a proclamation.") where this track plays.

1.07: Currently the translation listed for "交錯" is "Interplay." This is the campaign select theme, I believe two alternative translation choices could be "Intertwined" or "Interwoven," though I feel that one of those translations might be more fitting in this context. The definition of "interplay" is "the effect that two or more things have on each other" while the latter words mean to "connect or link two or more things closely" or to "blend closely." I believe the Japanese title is referring to how the character's tales are all connected despite them conflicting with one another as two character's tales can't occur concurrently without contradicting one another. Despite that however all of these potential story paths do still occur as they all end up converging into a single timeline in the final tale.

1.14: From what I understand "崩壊" can be translated as either "collapse" or "decay," but in context I'm not really sure how either would be applicable. The one scene that I'm aware of where this track plays is briefly in the cutscene before the final boss in Thage's tale. It's possible that it might have played in some of the bad endings as well, but I can't say for certain. Regardless the scene doesn't have anything to do with something decaying, making collapse seem like the more fitting option by default even if nothing is collapsing in that scene either although it could possibly be meant in a metaphorical sense.

1.16 I think "疑いの雨" can also be translated as "Rain of Suspicion," but "Rain of Doubt" still has a better ring to it, imo.

1.19/1.25/1.33: Pathetic is one way to translate "悲愴," but other alternatives include "Sadness" or "Sorrow," I've even seen it translated as "Pathétique" on a few occasions. It's hard to say what the intended meaning is, though all versions of the track do sound rather mournful. I'm a bit partial towards Pathetique/Pathétique myself since "pathetic" sounds far too plain to me, but I think "Sorrow" would still sound fine as well. From what I can recall this track plays in every character's good ending except Duphaston's, after the true final boss and during Leto's death. It's worth mentioning that Leto states "I know it sounds pathetic, but... I'm done for." and that Thage states "King Valdus, a pitiful man, consumed by his own madness." during moments where this track plays. Additionally, Rondemion states during the final battle of his campaign "Pathetic. You're not even a man anymore." However, this track is not featured here like the others as it is during the battle as opposed to a cutscene. In Thage's ending "憐れ" is translated as "pitiful" as shown in this text comparison. However, the original text for Leto's scene uses "情けない" instead as shown here. The Japanese text for Rondemion's comment uses "惨めな" which when translated literally would more akin to "miserable" rather than "pathetic." Thus only the example from Thage's route features any sort of direct correlation.

1.27: I think "嘆きの雪" could also be translated as "Snow of Grief," though I'm not sure if "嘆き" is more commonly translated as one or the other although I feel like "grief" might sound a little more natural in English.

1.29: This is the one that's giving me the most trouble, currently the translation listed for "騎士団長の証" is "Squad Leader's Evidence," but it seems like that translation is omitting the "騎士" part and now I'm trying to deduce whether or not it should actually be something like "Commander of the Knights' Proof/Evidence" or "Proof of the Commander of the Knights." The "Commander of the Knights" is an important role in the context of the story, but I'm not sure if this title is specifically referring to that or not. On the game's Japanese wikipedia entry Olifen's description does feature "騎士団長." However, it doesn't seem to be spelt that way, during the one time they say "Commander of the Knights" specifically (as shown here) as all other times they specify "Valdian Knights," at least in the English script, I'm not sure if this was also the case in the original Japanese script or not though. His character bio from the old Japanese website, and the guide book seem to use similar, but not quite the same spellings, I'm assuming they say something akin to "Valdian Commander" or "Commander of the Valdian Knights." I'm also not sure if this title is trying to convey that the commander has some sort of proof/evidence regarding something or if something is proof that they are indeed the commander like if you said something like "proof of a hero." This interpretation could make sense since some characters including Olifen himself don't believe he has yet earned the title of commander until late into his campaign. What makes it more confusing is there are some instances where this track is used where it does not involve the commander of the knights nor the former commander, Rondemion. Though this is true for "Theme of Thage/Ashley/Rondemion" as well they are sometimes used during other character's campaigns where they themselves are not featured. Perhaps the linear notes may give some hint as to what the intended meaning is meant to be?

2.05: Currently the translation listed for "対峙する記憶" is "Recalling the Confrontation." However, in this context I think this one should actually be "Confront the Memories." Like the similarly named "Confront the hesitation" this is also a stage theme, however this one specifically plays during the first stratum stages for all characters (barring Duphaston who begins on the lowest stratum paths) and I believe the title is referring to how the upper stratum feed off the memories of those who enter it and recreates the area based on said memories, hence why all the first areas are unique for each campaign.

2.18: Currently the translation listed for "扉から現れる試練" is "The Trial Past the Door," but I think this one should actually be something along the lines of "The Trial Emerging from the Door." For context, this track plays when a boss comes through the door at the end of a stratum to face you as shown here. Saying "past the door" makes it sound like your going through the door to face the boss beyond it as opposed to the boss coming through the door to face you. Perhaps it could be read as "The Trial Beyond the Door" or "The Trial from Beyond the Door?"

---

1.05: Unlike the others this is one that I'm just personally curious to know to something about. This one is already written in English as "Besek the Hell Prison," but in the Japanese version of the game "Besek" is referred to as "獄界ベセク." However, to my knowledge "獄界" is typically translated as either "prison" or "hell" instead of some combination of both. In the English version it is stated that Besek is seen as "a sort of hell," but I don't believe it's ever referred to as a prison and I don't think "Hell Prison" would be proper English anyway. Thus, I was curious if anyone could tell me if Thage was saying "獄界ベセク" in this cutscene? It sounds like she is, I was wondering about this because in the English version she instead says "Besek, the unholy realm." I was curious to figure out if they localized "hell prison" to "unholy realm" in this instance or not.

Additionally, I recently discovered that there is a reason for the dashes in track 3.02's title. Apparently, "Equal-to-apostles" is a title bestowed to those whom have done an especially good job of spreading Christianity making them comparable to that of the original apostles. However, most examples I've seen online are instead written as "Equal-to-the-Apostles" or "Equal to the Apostles." Also I noticed that in the English release of the game as well as the English release of the art book, the name of the cauldron used to grind Majin was titled "Camellia" instead of "Camelia."