The Japanese for Knowlespole is ノルズポル (noruzuporu). It’s close to north pole, which would normally be spelled ノーズポール (noozupooru) or ノーズポル (noozuporu). It’s unclear if this is wordplay based on the word knolls, an alternate spelling of north, or what.

Redundancy strikes again! The game uses the English word weapon written in katakana for the monsters: ウェポン (uepon). The second word is 兵器 (heiki) which means weapons, arms, etc. To avoid the redundancy, you would have to change one or the other. For example, maybe use the Latin word Arma instead of Weapon. Or use defense mechanism instead of weapon for 兵器.

‘Private time’, especially in scare quotes like this, sounds like a euphemism for sexytimes. I don’t get that impression from the Japanese at all, but that could be my own ignorance.

The English is accurate and this game is ridiculous. That’s now the tagline for this blog series.

Is Tseng’s survival a retcon or not? Many people have claimed that doin’ my boss in is a mistranslation. The PC version changed this to You really got guts messin’ my boss up like that!

Elena says やってくれた (yattekureta). やる (yaru) can mean kill or hurt. When written in kana like this it’s more likely to mean hurt. But the last time you ever see Tseng, he’s been f’ed up by Sephiroth and is dying. He never shows up in the game again. I think the translators made a reasonable call.

But the Tseng retconning isn’t egregious; his fate is technically left open. I suppose it’s better for this sentence to remain ambiguous.

(The Rufus retconning, on the other hand, is ridiculous. Dude’s literally blown up, and the game shows it.)

I saved this screenshot because I was more entertained by the awkward phrasing of You mean Boss…… Tseng? The Japanese says Boss… Tseng’s situation? Specifically, Tseng’s こと (koto), which has a bunch of meanings. When attached to a person it can mean something like X’s whole deal or everything about X. It’s complicated. See here for more.

I never liked the word choice here: To be after something means to try and find it. This revelation—that the Sephiroth they’ve previously interacted with is really Jenova—doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been trying to find Sephiroth. But to chase means to follow rapidly, and the thing they’ve been chasing has indeed not been Sephiroth. Or at least, not his body.

This is nitpicky, I know.

I checked this one a while back. I thought for sure it was a mistranslation, because it doesn’t make any sense. Tifa’s memories are in Tifa, who is notably not a story that Jenova’s cells have read.

Like, is there a memorious aether, a medium through which memories travel, that surrounds everyone? A clump of Jenova cells are at Tifa’s bar, getting a drink, bored out of its mind waiting for the big family Reunion. It notices Tifa’s memories floating through the memorious ether (which it can see because of its enlarged pineal gland). It drunkenly thinks to itself, I know how to pass the time. I’ll prank this bar owner real good. She’ll be so surprised when she falls in love with a bunch of Jenova cells, hahaha.

How is Cloud convinced by any of this? And how, as a kid, did I think this game had a good story?²

Ahem. Anyway, it’s not a mistranslation. The English is accurate and this game is ridiculous.

This is like saying, after making dinner, Bread and Tempeh, with my knowledge and skills, were combined with cooking and nature to bring this sandwich into existence.

My translation still sounds silly, but can be fixed by dropping the word science. Instead the original English added the word nature. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That’s enough for this post. Get out there and create some science, and maybe some mysterious life while you’re at it.