Summon the silence and wear your crown!
More (I think) pointless trivia about Pokémon.
The Pokémon anime has a bizarre running gag of Jessie's Wobbuffet popping up and saying its name randomly. This made more sense in the Japanese version, where Wobbuffet was named Sonans, a reference to a popular Japanese comedian's catchphrase, "Sou nan su!" roughly meaning "That's how it is!" (Sonans is pronounced Sōnansu in Japanese). This is the case for its baby form, Wynaut, as well, whose name is Sohnano in Japanese, which roughly means "Is that so?"
It's mentioned in Wobbuffet's Pokédex entry that it's very protective of its tail. Some fans have theorised this is because the tail is the actual Pokémon, and the body is merely a decoy. The tail does have two white spots on it that look suspiciously like eyes.
In the Japanese games and anime, the leader of the Cerulean City Gym is named Kasumi, which means "mist" in Japanese. The English games and anime call her Misty, a fitting translation. This name also reflects her using Water-type Pokémon, as mist is made up of small water droplets suspended in midair. Many of the Gym leaders in the Gen I English release had names that were puns on what type of Pokemon they used.
Brock - Rock-type (his name contains the word "rock")
Lt. Surge - Electric-type (a surge of electricity)
Erika - Grass-type (from the Erica genus of flowering plants - her name is the same in Japanese as it is in English)
Koga - Poison-type (from Kōga-ryū, a school of ninjutsu of which practitioners are trained in poison, among other things)
Janine - Poison-type (from "ninja" with the syllables reversed - as stated before, ninja were often trained in making and using poisons)
Sabrina - Psychic-type (possibly a pun on "psychic", "Abra" and "brain". Also could be a reference to Sabrina the Teenage Witch.)
Blaine - Fire-type (sounds like "blaze")
Giovanni - Ground-type (from geo, a Greek-derived prefix meaning earth)
Most of the cities in Gen I are named after colours. The exception is Pallet Town, which is named after a colour palette. The cities have different names in Japanese, but still colour-themed (for example, Viridian City is named Tokiwa City in Japanese - tokiwa iro means the shade of green of evergreen trees, and viridian is also a shade of green).
In the Japanese Gen I games, the Badges obtained from the city Gyms are named for their colour in English. These names were made more creative in the English translation, as well as their new names relating more to the corresponding Gym Leader's favourite Pokémon type.
Japanese name - English name
Grey Badge - Boulder Badge
Blue Badge - Cascade Badge
Orange Badge - Thunder Badge
Rainbow Badge - This one kept its original name
Pink Badge - Soul Badge
Gold Badge - Marsh Badge
Crimson Badge - Volcano Badge
Green Badge - Earth Badge
Later Badge names reflected their owners' Types more in Japanese. For example, in Japanese, Zephyr Badge is called Wing Badge and Hive Badge is called Insect Badge.
The Dark type is called Aku type in Japanese, which literally means Evil type. This explains why Dark-type moves have little to do with actual darkness and more to do with just being unfair or mean.
One Dark-type move in particular, Night Slash, has an interesting story behind it. Its Japanese name is Tsujigiri, which literally means "crossroads killing" and refers to a practice in which samurai would test out a new katana (or other weapon/fighting style) by ambushing and killing a random passerby, usually at night.
Gastly and Wooper can both learn Ice Punch, despite the fact neither of them have arms or hands. This isn't even a translation error, as Ice Punch is called Reitō Punch in Japanese, which means Freezing Punch. Similarly, Piplup can learn Metal Claw despite having flippers (the move has the English name Metal Claw in both Japanese and English versions) and Zubat can use Mean Look despite not having eyes (Mean Look is called Kuroi Manazashi in Japanese, meaning Dark Look).
On the other hand, the fact that Manaphy can learn Tail Glow despite lacking a tail makes more sense if you know that the Japanese name of Tail Glow is Hotarubi, which means Firefly Light (hence why the move was initially exclusive to Volbeat, a Bug-type Pokémon that resembles a firefly). Manaphy is based on deep-sea creatures, which often possess a type of bioluminescence similar to that of fireflies. This also explains why Ampharos, despite having a glowing sphere at the end of its tail, can't learn the move (as it's not based off a bioluminescent creature).
The Japanese names of Ash and Gary are Satoshi and Shigeru respectively, named after Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokémon franchise, and Shigeru Miyamoto, a famous game developer at Nintendo. Shigeru took interest in Satoshi's idea after Nintendo rejected his initial pitch, and made significant contributions towards bringing it to life, so Satoshi made "Shigeru" one of the possible default names for the rival in the first generation games as a way of thanking him (note, however, that the main character and rival's official names are Red and Green in Japanese and Red and Blue in English).
Satoshi was an avid bug collector, which inspired the "gotta catch 'em all" nature of the games. The Pokémon evolution mechanic came from him catching caterpillars and watching them turn into butterflies (this is directly referenced with the Pokémon Caterpie, a caterpillar Pokémon, which evolves into the cocoon Pokémon Metapod and then into the butterfly Pokémon Butterfree).
The word "evolution" as used in the games is a bit of a misnomer - in reality, evolution is a slow process of change that occurs over millions of years and takes several generations before any noticeable change is seen in a species. What Pokémon actually go through in the games when they level up enough is more akin to metamorphosis, which is a process in nature whereby one creature transforms into another, such as a tadpole turning into a frog or an insect larva turning into an insect. The Japanese word used is "shinka", which can be translated as "evolution", and is often used in Japanese media such as anime to describe something or someone changing into a more powerful form.
Empoleon's name comes from a combination of emperor penguin and Napoleon Bonaparte - both Empoleon and Napoleon have the same height. Its Japanese name, Emperte, also follows this pattern, from emperor and Bonaparte.
On the earlier subject of characters' names having lucky translations, Dawn's original Japanese name is Hikari, which means light.
Bianca and Cheren's names derive from foreign words for "white" and "black" respectively (bianca is the feminine form of "white" in Italian, and Cheren comes from черен, which means "black" in Bulgarian). In Japanese, Bianca is named Bel, which comes from the Slavic prefix bel- meaning white (cf. Belarus, literally "White Russia"). Cheren is called Cheren in both versions.
The Pokémon anime has a bizarre running gag of Jessie's Wobbuffet popping up and saying its name randomly. This made more sense in the Japanese version, where Wobbuffet was named Sonans, a reference to a popular Japanese comedian's catchphrase, "Sou nan su!" roughly meaning "That's how it is!" (Sonans is pronounced Sōnansu in Japanese). This is the case for its baby form, Wynaut, as well, whose name is Sohnano in Japanese, which roughly means "Is that so?"
It's mentioned in Wobbuffet's Pokédex entry that it's very protective of its tail. Some fans have theorised this is because the tail is the actual Pokémon, and the body is merely a decoy. The tail does have two white spots on it that look suspiciously like eyes.
In the Japanese games and anime, the leader of the Cerulean City Gym is named Kasumi, which means "mist" in Japanese. The English games and anime call her Misty, a fitting translation. This name also reflects her using Water-type Pokémon, as mist is made up of small water droplets suspended in midair. Many of the Gym leaders in the Gen I English release had names that were puns on what type of Pokemon they used.
Brock - Rock-type (his name contains the word "rock")
Lt. Surge - Electric-type (a surge of electricity)
Erika - Grass-type (from the Erica genus of flowering plants - her name is the same in Japanese as it is in English)
Koga - Poison-type (from Kōga-ryū, a school of ninjutsu of which practitioners are trained in poison, among other things)
Janine - Poison-type (from "ninja" with the syllables reversed - as stated before, ninja were often trained in making and using poisons)
Sabrina - Psychic-type (possibly a pun on "psychic", "Abra" and "brain". Also could be a reference to Sabrina the Teenage Witch.)
Blaine - Fire-type (sounds like "blaze")
Giovanni - Ground-type (from geo, a Greek-derived prefix meaning earth)
Most of the cities in Gen I are named after colours. The exception is Pallet Town, which is named after a colour palette. The cities have different names in Japanese, but still colour-themed (for example, Viridian City is named Tokiwa City in Japanese - tokiwa iro means the shade of green of evergreen trees, and viridian is also a shade of green).
In the Japanese Gen I games, the Badges obtained from the city Gyms are named for their colour in English. These names were made more creative in the English translation, as well as their new names relating more to the corresponding Gym Leader's favourite Pokémon type.
Japanese name - English name
Grey Badge - Boulder Badge
Blue Badge - Cascade Badge
Orange Badge - Thunder Badge
Rainbow Badge - This one kept its original name
Pink Badge - Soul Badge
Gold Badge - Marsh Badge
Crimson Badge - Volcano Badge
Green Badge - Earth Badge
Later Badge names reflected their owners' Types more in Japanese. For example, in Japanese, Zephyr Badge is called Wing Badge and Hive Badge is called Insect Badge.
The Dark type is called Aku type in Japanese, which literally means Evil type. This explains why Dark-type moves have little to do with actual darkness and more to do with just being unfair or mean.
One Dark-type move in particular, Night Slash, has an interesting story behind it. Its Japanese name is Tsujigiri, which literally means "crossroads killing" and refers to a practice in which samurai would test out a new katana (or other weapon/fighting style) by ambushing and killing a random passerby, usually at night.
Gastly and Wooper can both learn Ice Punch, despite the fact neither of them have arms or hands. This isn't even a translation error, as Ice Punch is called Reitō Punch in Japanese, which means Freezing Punch. Similarly, Piplup can learn Metal Claw despite having flippers (the move has the English name Metal Claw in both Japanese and English versions) and Zubat can use Mean Look despite not having eyes (Mean Look is called Kuroi Manazashi in Japanese, meaning Dark Look).
On the other hand, the fact that Manaphy can learn Tail Glow despite lacking a tail makes more sense if you know that the Japanese name of Tail Glow is Hotarubi, which means Firefly Light (hence why the move was initially exclusive to Volbeat, a Bug-type Pokémon that resembles a firefly). Manaphy is based on deep-sea creatures, which often possess a type of bioluminescence similar to that of fireflies. This also explains why Ampharos, despite having a glowing sphere at the end of its tail, can't learn the move (as it's not based off a bioluminescent creature).
The Japanese names of Ash and Gary are Satoshi and Shigeru respectively, named after Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokémon franchise, and Shigeru Miyamoto, a famous game developer at Nintendo. Shigeru took interest in Satoshi's idea after Nintendo rejected his initial pitch, and made significant contributions towards bringing it to life, so Satoshi made "Shigeru" one of the possible default names for the rival in the first generation games as a way of thanking him (note, however, that the main character and rival's official names are Red and Green in Japanese and Red and Blue in English).
Satoshi was an avid bug collector, which inspired the "gotta catch 'em all" nature of the games. The Pokémon evolution mechanic came from him catching caterpillars and watching them turn into butterflies (this is directly referenced with the Pokémon Caterpie, a caterpillar Pokémon, which evolves into the cocoon Pokémon Metapod and then into the butterfly Pokémon Butterfree).
The word "evolution" as used in the games is a bit of a misnomer - in reality, evolution is a slow process of change that occurs over millions of years and takes several generations before any noticeable change is seen in a species. What Pokémon actually go through in the games when they level up enough is more akin to metamorphosis, which is a process in nature whereby one creature transforms into another, such as a tadpole turning into a frog or an insect larva turning into an insect. The Japanese word used is "shinka", which can be translated as "evolution", and is often used in Japanese media such as anime to describe something or someone changing into a more powerful form.
Empoleon's name comes from a combination of emperor penguin and Napoleon Bonaparte - both Empoleon and Napoleon have the same height. Its Japanese name, Emperte, also follows this pattern, from emperor and Bonaparte.
On the earlier subject of characters' names having lucky translations, Dawn's original Japanese name is Hikari, which means light.
Bianca and Cheren's names derive from foreign words for "white" and "black" respectively (bianca is the feminine form of "white" in Italian, and Cheren comes from черен, which means "black" in Bulgarian). In Japanese, Bianca is named Bel, which comes from the Slavic prefix bel- meaning white (cf. Belarus, literally "White Russia"). Cheren is called Cheren in both versions.
Comments
Post a Comment