Right now I'm in the wrong frame of mind!
I know I kind of already made a blog post about this, but I just love translation errors, especially in video games. I find them hilarious and fascinating sometimes. So, I'm gonna list a few more of them here for no one to read.
In the indie game Cave Story, a password given late in the game is rendered in the initial translation by Aeon Genesis as Litagano Motscoud. This was supposed to be the game's name backwards - Ritaganomo Tsukūdo (as it would be written in katakana), when the kana are reversed, spells Dōkutsu Monogatari, the Japanese name for the game (which literally translates as "Cave Story"). When Nicalis translated the game for its WiiWare port, they caught this mistake and translated the password as "Yrots Evac", which is "Cave Story" spelt backwards.
The iconic item "Kuribo's Shoe" in Super Mario Bros. 3 has a name that seems just like a generic item name unless you know that "Kuribo" is the Japanese name for the enemies better known in the West as Goombas - the item was supposed to be "Goomba's Shoe". The game also contained a Jugem's Cloud item - "Jugem" is the Japanese name for "Lakitu". Super Mario RPG's Nok Nok Shell weapon for Mario was another case of this, as "Nokonoko" is the Japanese name for the Koopa Troopa enemies.
In Dark Chronicle (released as Dark Cloud 2 in the US), player character Max can take photos of significant items, which then become "invention ideas" that he can use to invent new things. One of these ideas is named "Stand", but is acquired by taking a photo of a desk lamp. This is because "desk lamp" in Japanese is "denki kigu", which literally means "electric stand".
Pokémon Red and Blue contained an infamous instance where an NPC traded you his Electrode for your Raichu. If you talk to him after the trade, he says "The Raichu you traded me went and evolved!" which of course isn't possible. This spawned a lot of rumours until it was revealed that this was a case of mistranslation - in the original Japanese Blue Version (which was an updated rerelease of the Japanese Red and Green versions with bug fixes and better code, and which provided the code used in the English versions of the game), the NPC trades you his Graveler for a Kadabra, both Pokémon that evolve by trading, and his line afterwards was meant to be a hint on how to obtain their final forms. The English release changed the Pokémon being traded back to what they were in the original Red and Green versions, but forgot to change the rest of the dialogue to match.
Speaking of Pokémon, some of the animations for the moves make more sense when you learn what their original Japanese names were. For example, Swift is called Speed Star in Japan, which explains why the attack animation features stars. The original name for Seismic Toss is Chikyū Nage, which means Earth Throw, explaining the planet involved in the attack's animation. Meteor Mash features a punching animation because its original name was Comet Punch (which had already been used for a different move in English, called Renzoku Punch, meaning Consecutive Punch, in Japanese). Inversely, Sucker Punch doesn't have a punching animation because its original name is Fuiuchi, which just means Surprise Attack. Sky Attack has the user glowing inexplicably in its animation because its original name is God Bird. Rain Dance's original name is Ama-goi, meaning Rain Prayer, which is why it's never shown as an actual dance (in the games or anime). Other move names were just badly translated - the Japanese name for the move Thunder is Kaminari, which can mean either "thunder" or "lightning", and in this case was referring to a lightning strike.
Foreign releases of Pokémon got move names wrong too. The Spanish games consistently translated the move Slam (Tatakitsukeru in Japanese, which roughly means the same thing) as Portazo, which means "door slam", until Generation VI when it was changed to Atizar. The move Pound (Hataku in Japanese, meaning Strike) was translated in German as Pfund, which means "pound" as in the currency or unit of measurement. (There is actually an idiomatic phrase in German - "jemandem ein Pfund geben", literally "to give someone a pound" but more figuratively "to punch somebody", but it's not exactly standard German). The Italian release of the games translated Counter (same name in Japanese) as Contatore, which literally means "counter" as in "someone who counts things". In Generation VI, this was changed to Contrattacco, which does mean "counter attack". The same mistake was made in Spanish (Spain), in which the move was translated as Contador until Generation VI when it was changed to Contraataque. Indonesian also made the same mistake, calling it Serangan Balasan (unlike the others, this has not yet been fixed), which also means "someone who counts things". And also in Polish, where the move was called Liczydło, which means - you guessed it - someone who counts things. The move Return (Ongaeshi in Japanese, literally "Return Favour" or more idiomatically "Payback") was translated in the European Spanish version as Retroceso, which means "return" as in "go back" or "flinch", until Generation VI when it was changed to Retribución (Retribution, which is a lot more accurate).
This is more to do with an animated adaptation of a video game, but in the Mexican Spanish dub of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (Las aventuras de Sonic, as it was called over there), Tails (or Colitas, as he was called) was translated as a FEMALE character. To this day, many people who grew up in Spanish-speaking American countries in the 90s are surprised to learn that Tails is actually male. Not to mention that his original name (which in the cartoon he says he hates, though he has no problem with it in the games) is Miles Prower. In Mexican, it was changed to Bibi Gavilán (Bibi Sparrowhawk). However, I should point out that it was at one point required by law in Mexico and other Latin American countries where Spanish was the first language to have fictional characters' names changed to more Hispanic-sounding equivalents - for instance, Bruce Wayne was changed to Bruno Díaz initially. In Spain, however, Tails is correctly referred to as male and keeps his English name.
In the indie game Cave Story, a password given late in the game is rendered in the initial translation by Aeon Genesis as Litagano Motscoud. This was supposed to be the game's name backwards - Ritaganomo Tsukūdo (as it would be written in katakana), when the kana are reversed, spells Dōkutsu Monogatari, the Japanese name for the game (which literally translates as "Cave Story"). When Nicalis translated the game for its WiiWare port, they caught this mistake and translated the password as "Yrots Evac", which is "Cave Story" spelt backwards.
The iconic item "Kuribo's Shoe" in Super Mario Bros. 3 has a name that seems just like a generic item name unless you know that "Kuribo" is the Japanese name for the enemies better known in the West as Goombas - the item was supposed to be "Goomba's Shoe". The game also contained a Jugem's Cloud item - "Jugem" is the Japanese name for "Lakitu". Super Mario RPG's Nok Nok Shell weapon for Mario was another case of this, as "Nokonoko" is the Japanese name for the Koopa Troopa enemies.
In Dark Chronicle (released as Dark Cloud 2 in the US), player character Max can take photos of significant items, which then become "invention ideas" that he can use to invent new things. One of these ideas is named "Stand", but is acquired by taking a photo of a desk lamp. This is because "desk lamp" in Japanese is "denki kigu", which literally means "electric stand".
Pokémon Red and Blue contained an infamous instance where an NPC traded you his Electrode for your Raichu. If you talk to him after the trade, he says "The Raichu you traded me went and evolved!" which of course isn't possible. This spawned a lot of rumours until it was revealed that this was a case of mistranslation - in the original Japanese Blue Version (which was an updated rerelease of the Japanese Red and Green versions with bug fixes and better code, and which provided the code used in the English versions of the game), the NPC trades you his Graveler for a Kadabra, both Pokémon that evolve by trading, and his line afterwards was meant to be a hint on how to obtain their final forms. The English release changed the Pokémon being traded back to what they were in the original Red and Green versions, but forgot to change the rest of the dialogue to match.
Speaking of Pokémon, some of the animations for the moves make more sense when you learn what their original Japanese names were. For example, Swift is called Speed Star in Japan, which explains why the attack animation features stars. The original name for Seismic Toss is Chikyū Nage, which means Earth Throw, explaining the planet involved in the attack's animation. Meteor Mash features a punching animation because its original name was Comet Punch (which had already been used for a different move in English, called Renzoku Punch, meaning Consecutive Punch, in Japanese). Inversely, Sucker Punch doesn't have a punching animation because its original name is Fuiuchi, which just means Surprise Attack. Sky Attack has the user glowing inexplicably in its animation because its original name is God Bird. Rain Dance's original name is Ama-goi, meaning Rain Prayer, which is why it's never shown as an actual dance (in the games or anime). Other move names were just badly translated - the Japanese name for the move Thunder is Kaminari, which can mean either "thunder" or "lightning", and in this case was referring to a lightning strike.
Foreign releases of Pokémon got move names wrong too. The Spanish games consistently translated the move Slam (Tatakitsukeru in Japanese, which roughly means the same thing) as Portazo, which means "door slam", until Generation VI when it was changed to Atizar. The move Pound (Hataku in Japanese, meaning Strike) was translated in German as Pfund, which means "pound" as in the currency or unit of measurement. (There is actually an idiomatic phrase in German - "jemandem ein Pfund geben", literally "to give someone a pound" but more figuratively "to punch somebody", but it's not exactly standard German). The Italian release of the games translated Counter (same name in Japanese) as Contatore, which literally means "counter" as in "someone who counts things". In Generation VI, this was changed to Contrattacco, which does mean "counter attack". The same mistake was made in Spanish (Spain), in which the move was translated as Contador until Generation VI when it was changed to Contraataque. Indonesian also made the same mistake, calling it Serangan Balasan (unlike the others, this has not yet been fixed), which also means "someone who counts things". And also in Polish, where the move was called Liczydło, which means - you guessed it - someone who counts things. The move Return (Ongaeshi in Japanese, literally "Return Favour" or more idiomatically "Payback") was translated in the European Spanish version as Retroceso, which means "return" as in "go back" or "flinch", until Generation VI when it was changed to Retribución (Retribution, which is a lot more accurate).
This is more to do with an animated adaptation of a video game, but in the Mexican Spanish dub of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (Las aventuras de Sonic, as it was called over there), Tails (or Colitas, as he was called) was translated as a FEMALE character. To this day, many people who grew up in Spanish-speaking American countries in the 90s are surprised to learn that Tails is actually male. Not to mention that his original name (which in the cartoon he says he hates, though he has no problem with it in the games) is Miles Prower. In Mexican, it was changed to Bibi Gavilán (Bibi Sparrowhawk). However, I should point out that it was at one point required by law in Mexico and other Latin American countries where Spanish was the first language to have fictional characters' names changed to more Hispanic-sounding equivalents - for instance, Bruce Wayne was changed to Bruno Díaz initially. In Spain, however, Tails is correctly referred to as male and keeps his English name.
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