myriadleaves

japanese

Final Fantasy Royal Titles

Final Fantasy is no stranger to royalty. In fact, in most cases the main playable cast will contain a prince, princess, king and queen either secretly or quite obvious - such as in the cases of the most recent numbered Final Fantasy game. Previous games in the series also featured

robots

AI in Fiction

Computers are machines, governed by calculations, i.e. numbers, the language of “logic”, thus the majority of AIs in fiction are represented as superficially polite, but wholly uncaring and calculating. Humans are, conversely, beings of pure emotion – perceived as floundering and fragile – incapable of rationality in the face of things

politeness

Morbid honorifics

When a person succumbs to the mortal coil and passes away, we have in all cultures words of varying degrees of formality and respect to refer to this posthumous state. Japanese being the focal point of this blog and seeing as Elizabeth II just recently passed away, it may be

english

Carolean or Caroline?

So, with the recent passing of Elizabeth II and the her period of regency dubbed the "second Elizabethan age", it isn't too far for some people in politics to proclaim the new era to be called the "Carolean" derived from Carolus the Latin version

japanese

Tekken - Jin's Pronouns

In the recent animated adaptation of the events of the third Tekken game, taciturn Jin Kazama is featured as the main character. Jin himself is the son of Jun Kazama, a female karate master of composure and benevolent nature, and Kazuya Mishima, a pugnacious and violent karate master whose father

japanese

Shadow the Colossus and Elvis

According to the unofficial net-encyclopaedia of the games ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, the 16th colossus of the latter game, whose role is also that of the final boss, had two prototype names prior to the final design, those being Evis and Buddha. Furthermore it lists the names of

japanese

Japanese - Ways of saying thank you

The various ways of saying "thank you": There are in Japanese various ways of saying thanks, these cannot easily be translated nor equalled to a precise English expression and as such, a bit of explanation is in its place: サンキュー (sankyu, "thank you") Derives from the

english

Poem - Breathe

Breathe Written 2018. Fresh air Fill my lungs Heal me Remove this corrosion within That festers like a black bale Let my being be anew Pure Clear Reborn For a new morn

japanese

DB Addendum - That Insult by Gohan

During Son Gohan's pivotal fight against Boo - essentially an ancient jinn, whilst he has attained a more powerful form and Gohan himself has awoken his latent qi, he spouts an insult: ウスノロ… Usunoro... This has been infamously translated as "retard" by Stephen Simmons as the

english

Update - 14-08-22

Greetings! A long time has passed since the last time I posted anything on this blog, but IRL has been rather difficult as of late. Nevertheless, I have been working on various projects, an e-book version of the translation-comparison articles of the Emperors New Clothes that I covered some time

english

Mimesis and Martians

Quick blog post here, thought it would be worth mentioning No-Sword's excellent post on H. G. Wells' haunting and sonorous opening of War of the Worlds. Mimesis is essentially a case of where words or an expression's pronunciation matches the meaning, i.e. "vast&

japanese

Quick Post - Fell Omen

In Elden Ring, one of the bosses that you can encounter is a ogreish warrior known as Margit the Fell Omen, which in Japanese corresponds to: 忌み鬼マルギット (Imi Oni Marugitto, "Shunned Oni Margit"). Oni here doesn't literally refer to the mythical creature itself, but moreover to

japanese

Third person pronouns in Japanese – 3rd Person Neutral

In Modern Japanese there are two 3rd person pronouns that correspond to the Western mode of masculine and feminine ones, namely: 彼 (kare, “he”) and 彼女 (kanojo, “she”). For “it” there is もの (者・物, mono), using two distinct kanji, the former for persons and the latter for objects or

japanese

Lord of Dragons

SPOILERS ARE APLENTY We shall be looking into perhaps one of the most enigmatic characters of Elden Ring. Before proceeding know that this article delves into possibly one of the most impressive secrets of the game. Popular Youtuber and expert on Elden Ring information as well as data, Zullie the

japanese

The "Idiot Bird"

Whilst preparing for an upcoming article about the Japanese version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of he Ancient Marine, I encountered the Japanese name for the albatross within the text. 信天翁 Literally "believe heaven venerable-oldster", which frankly does sound like a respectable name for the albatross

japanese

Line Individualism - Yura

SPOILERS ARE AHEAD! Yura in Elden Ring takes the role of a wizened veteran hunter of “bloody fingers”, i.e. people having gone deranged with bloodlust, thus he effeche ctively is a bounty-hunter of sorts – he is also along with a few other characters, representing the samurai class arch-type. Voiced

japanese

Line Individualism - Boc

Heed the Spoiler Warning! Boc is the demi-human (read: goblin) seamer and manservant of the player, should they chose to save him during the game. He speaks like the greater half of the game’s cast in a Cornish English accent, and moreover he is the only demi-human that actually

japanese

Japanese RPG words – Ryuujin

HEED THE SPOILER WARNING! In Japanese fantasy oriented games and literature, we encounter from time to time anthropomorphic dragons. These are in part derived from much older Asian mythology, particularly that of the legendary dragon gods and kings of the ancient East, such as those appearing in the fairy tale

japanese

Bernahl's Line

SPOILERS ARE WITHIN THE POST In Elden Ring, during the last stages of Bernahl, a knight clad in ferocious armour and member of a secret order of assassins of the clandestine Volcano Manor, makes a solemn pledge against the omniscient presence known as the Great Will, the English lines are:

japanese

Benefactives

~kudasai is no doubt a word that you have heard before if you have ever partaken of any Japanese media, where it is typically translated in dubs or subtitles as "please (would you this favour for me)", but Japanese has more expressions and words like these and we

japanese

Silvered Ones

SPOILERS MAY OCCUR FOR ELDEN RING. In Elden Ring there is a race of amphibian like humanoids along with slightly more elfin ones much further off, apparently an older variety of them, whose name in the English translation is albanaurics. Later on in the game they are revealed to effectively

japanese

Thyselves

SPOILERS ARE CONTAINED WITHIN REGARDIN ELDEN RING. So a long-lived and stubborn pseudo-archaic typo is thyselves, itself an erroneous plural form of thyself, where the proper would be the yourselves, since it is literally the second person plural that is supposedly being used. Case in point, a quote from Elden

japanese

Usage of Katakana

Knowing the difference between the two phonetic syllabaries of Japanese can be vital, when very much reading any mode or level of Japanese text. On a surface level they are distinct, one is "squiggly" (ひらがな), and the other is more angular (カタカナ), both of which derive from using

english

Update post 30-03-22

Hello! Things have been going rather slowly if surely if terms of the progress of researching for various articles, mainly the ones concerning the speech patterns of various character arch-types in fiction. On the personal side of things that has been quite a few changes, mainly in terms of getting

english

Elden Ring Spoilers - Name Allusions

From Software has a tradition of putting especial significance in their world building when it comes to structuring their role playing games, moreover, the latest instalment, Elden Ring only proves this. SPOILERS ARE BELOW, DO NOT PROCEED WITH READING IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THE GAME, OR CARE FOR STORY