I can now happily announce the book translation I’ve been working on the last few months have finished and is now available in biggerbookstores in Japan and Amazon.jp.
It’s called 小さなチーム、大きな仕事―37シグナルズ成功の法則 in the translated Japanese version. Roughly translates to “Small Team, Big Work: 37signals’ Formula for Success”. According to our contact at the publisher, they figured it best to put a positive spin on the title as Japanese people are wary of things that have even the slightest negative connotations. Oh, and 37signals, although a well-known company in the US and amongst programmers, is not so in Japan… and well, this new title kind of helps to introduce them. (And yes, technically speaking “37signals” should be pronounced “37シグナルス”. I translated them as such but apparently they’re known as “37シグナルズ” amongst the Ruby community in Japan… and so they’ve decided to go with the popular flow as opposed to the ‘right version’.)
Personally speaking, the hardest part of this work was the damned colloquials! I get the authors wanted to come off less stiff upper lip, more casual and friendly. But the sheer amount of it… And as some of you would undoubtedly know, the Japanese language (especially in the written version) has no slang. So translating all that ‘kick-ass’ vocab was stressful.
37signals’ first book Getting Real, was in comparison easier for me to translate, I can say with some conviction! Which by the way, is only available online.
The original English version is due out in the US on 9th March under the title Rework, while the UK release is reportedly 23rd March. No idea when all other translations will be available, as of yet.
Been translating these last few weeks. 37signals’ second book “Rework” due out spring next year. The Japanese version will be published by Hayakawa Shobo. No date is set yet for that one. Because the original is written in American colloquial English, I’m having a bit of a hard time localizing some of the phrases. (I remember “Getting Real” not having nearly as much colloquial as this one does.)
These guys are responsible for this CyberBike. Added ‘controls’ have a way of disappearing into the relative unknown. It’s better that way. Anyone remember the abomination known as Virtual Boy? So can this one actually be the one that’s not going to be scoffed at?
Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker screenshots and 2D artist-demo available here.
And a new Wii control. Actually, it’s a PS3 one. Is it some kind of trend to make things that look like other brand’s equivalent? And did they not think about the confusion they might produce? And yes, compare it to the Wii Black control.
I doubt I’ve ever bought 6 games in 2 weeks before going back to Tokyo this year. Theta (pronounced Sheeta, due to lack of the ‘th’ sound) and Panel de Pon DS are fairly good puzzle games – kind of like Tetris, with enough frustrating moments to keep you going back to it. For the other half, presented him with Game&Watch Collection (seeing it cheap, albeit used), and also got myself 2 language-based DS software and FF Revenant Wings. The latter’s flipping excellent! Enough side-quests should you need levelling, though I’ve managed to so far progress without doing much of that (twice, I think). Fairly straight-forward and easy to play, and no turn-based stuff :) Good enough for me. You do have to have strategy though, once you get past the 45% mark (it’ll tell you how much you’ve done in the save screen) – up until then, brute force will get you through, pretty much. Actually, most of my time since coming back has been spent on that game, and holding a DS for long will give you some aching fingers (try holding down the direction button and using the stylus simultaneously for a couple of hours). At least, there are enough save points unlike some of the FF games in the past.
And no, it wasn’t all game-filled or toy-filled holiday. We actually turned a bit serious and did a lot of walking, partly because the other half had an SLR he wanted to experiment with, but partly because during my time in Japan, I didn’t exactly have time to go wandering around exploring places. So, we ended up going to the Ueno Park Zoo (and ended up looking long and hard at the lazy panda) and went to a lot of shops around Tokyo… oh, and I nearly had it out of my head… Disney Sea. About £25 each to get in, for the whole day, though the food cost was outrageous. Saw some weird people there too – you know, those cosplay types that wear bright pink or full-on frills, acting as if they’re the cutest girls in the world – blech! And really, quite a fair bit of Chinese tourists, who strangely enough were quite old (Disney stuff kind of makes me think it’d only appeal to younger people) and were unable to go on some of those rides.
And yes, for the second time (I think) in my life, I can now proudly say I’ve been to Kyoto and saw some sights like a proper tourist. This time, I can actually remember it, considering the last time was when I was fairly young. It’s a historical city, and also rather religious going by the Japanese ‘norm’, that for a young child, it’s hard to grasp the significance of what you’re seeing. Must say I was so very glad other half had an English map though. As with most old-fashioned things, I was a bit lost with my own Japanese copy as to how to pronounce some of the place names. Kanji isn’t the most helpful of things in that respect. Ponto-cho was probably what perplexed me most. That area’s located down a fairly small alleyway just before the Kamo river (coming from the Shijo Kawara-machi junction) and is full of the most tempting restaurants, that mainly open only after 5pm. I’ve never seen so many eateries crammed onto one street, and it made me wish I had a month to go through it all.
Ah… the food! Excuse me… let’s get back to some news, shall we?
There’s a list of songs included in the much-hyped title Guitar Hero IIIhere if you want to take a peek. There’s apparently going to be a Wii version, but when the release date is, or how much it’ll cost is still unconfirmed.
Out 13th Dec. for £30 on Wii. Also coming out on 20th Dec. is another Wii title: Crazy Climber for £26.50, which was originally an arcade game in the ’80s. In this screenshot, the smaller one is you, and the other big one’s King Kong, who aims to keep you from going higher.
I heard that Mario Strikers got several bad reviews. Somehow, after seeing the promo vid for it, I just can’t agree. Same with Mario Party 8, actually. They both looked like fairly decent multi-player games. This unfairness probably resulted from most reviewers having not played these games with others, rather than, I hope, some anti-Mario attitudes that is supposedly vogue. I mean, look at Yoshi’s angry face!
Upcoming release titles from Nintendo, at least is as follows:
3rd Aug. – Starfox Command (DS); 10th Aug. – a variety of software that enables Japanese people to ‘learn’ English vocab; 24th Aug. – FF III; 2nd Sept. – DS Lite Jet Black (the one that’s out over here already), and that infamous Tingle game for the DS (have yet to hear of a title for abroad); 21st Sept. – Yu Yu Hakusho DS; 28th Sept. – Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl.
The guy responsible for the PS logo tune has come up with a weird concoction that’s in the form of a CD. He publishes this CD under the name of 8bit Project, and titled it FAMILIAR COMPUTING WORLD . Basically, it’s a bunch of tunes (including J-pop) dressed up into those almost-nostalgic famicon sounds. In the playlist, there will be tunes from Evangelion and a Studio Ghibli collection (that includes Nausicaa’s Requeim), not just the embarassingly trashy J-pop genre. Sold for 2,000yen (£10), it’s out now. Either this is one more novelty item (one of those wacky paraphernalia one can get from Japan) or you’re one geek who actually appreciates those Lolita-esque ’singers’ outside Japan. You decide.
Not that we heard anything about it beforehand, Mario Basketball 3on3, released on 27th last month, is proving to be very popular (partly because it’s a collaboration between Nintendo and Square Enix). Above link will take you to some screenshots at least – no sorry, I’m not going to translate the whole article. At least this is one game we’ll be sure to make it’s not-so-ponderous way over here.
Just a note to regular readers: I’ll be in Tokyo with severe jet lag for the following ten days, so no form of entry will be made. However, I solemnly promise to write any interesting info I pick up once back. (Obviously bear in mind the flight itself takes approx. 12hours each way, so I will mentally have a ‘fatigue’ bar over my head for a while.)
Just a word of reminder to people who have sent me stuff to apparently translate…
1) Please don’t assume I’ve played the game you want me to ‘translate’ in whole. I simply don’t have the time for that, so please ask your nearest Japanese bilingual mate to do that for you. (Of course, if you send me the game cartridge/disc, wait two weeks, and pay me a bit, I might consider the job.)
2) As I’ve mentioned above, I don’t play every game I write about – I live in the UK so unless I really want the game, I won’t have it shipped over before the UK release date. So, instead of telling me the title of the game you’re interested in, please send me a screenshot (if you post your screenshot here, for example) or script of some kind. I need the actual excerpt for translation.
That’s all for now. Obviously, if you keep sending me titles… or something from hentai games… well, it’s not within my terms, so they’ll be ignored. Cheers.
Okami’s official site has new info (translation of the site in early January) – that the game based on characters and certain storylines from the Japanese folk/fairy tales is due for release on 20th April ‘06 for the PS2. Any updates concerning this will be posted as of when.
Okami is written 大神 in Japanese and literally translated will mean Big God. Whether the pun オオカミ is intentional or not (pronounced exactly the same, but with different intonations), the main character seems to be a big white wolf. I like puns :)
At the moment, I am away from home, so until I do get back in early January, I will not be taking on more translations, unless they’re of the very basic sort. And no, I will never accept hentai translations as some person on digg.com wanted. (Jeez… if you have to have a translator for such simple things, I have to wonder if this person really has brains…).
For those of you who are fans of Japanese games and anime, I thought I’d offer a free service (for now, at least) of translating excerpts that you’d want to know about. Even an interview with your favourite game/anime developer that you’d found that you’d like to understand more about, I’d accept. Bear in mind that I will have to have the exact copy of the excerpts for a full translation. If the content is appropriate for others who read this blog, I will post it here; otherwise, I will email the finished product back to you. For such submissions, feel free to contact me.
