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>Dinictus: *To DD* "That reminds me, how much of a say did you ever have in naming any of the Pokémon as one, if not the lead translators on the first games, anyway? Always been curious about that kind of creative input."
>DD: "Didn't get to do the all caps stuff (meaning move names, poke names, places, NPCs, etc. etc.) until around Gen 3 because my NOA handler was convinced he had a better handle on things. Which is why there were howlers like Slowbro being a "Hermit Crab Pokemon" and Marill becoming a "Polkadot Pokemon." Oh, and fucking RAGECANDYBAR.
>It used to drive me bananas that they'd pay me to translate, and then refuse to reason with me over issues like that.
>By around Gen 3, I think my old handler was replaced, and I got a lot more input into the all caps stuff. That's why I was able to preserve the pun pair "Old Chateau" and "Old Gateau" in DPPT when people were saying stupid shit like calling the "Gateau" "Bean Paste Cake," which would've been the correct translation, but would've killed the original joke dead."
>"It was originally Ikari Manju, so "Rage Dumpling" would be the correct translation, but that's too long, so Rage Bun.
>Just nothing so grammatically ugly as what they'd called it in the end."
>"Slowbro was a "yadokari" Pokemon.
Yadokari does directly translate to "hermit crab", but broken down into its kanji characters, one gets, "inn renter". Basically, he's "borrowing" a home.
>I would've pushed for "squatter" (which also is a pun for "otter", which I assumed it to be, sort of).
>Marill was a "mizutama" Pokemon.
>If the Japanese word for "pattern" was added after it, then, yes, it would have had to been "polkadot". But I again broke it down to the kanji words "water" and "ball". I figured that "ball" would be the correct interpretation because of its rotund figure, so I would've gone with "aqua-ball" or "aqua-orb" pokemon. Yeah, no great shakes, but truer to the original spirit of the JP name."
>DD: "Didn't get to do the all caps stuff (meaning move names, poke names, places, NPCs, etc. etc.) until around Gen 3 because my NOA handler was convinced he had a better handle on things. Which is why there were howlers like Slowbro being a "Hermit Crab Pokemon" and Marill becoming a "Polkadot Pokemon." Oh, and fucking RAGECANDYBAR.
>It used to drive me bananas that they'd pay me to translate, and then refuse to reason with me over issues like that.
>By around Gen 3, I think my old handler was replaced, and I got a lot more input into the all caps stuff. That's why I was able to preserve the pun pair "Old Chateau" and "Old Gateau" in DPPT when people were saying stupid shit like calling the "Gateau" "Bean Paste Cake," which would've been the correct translation, but would've killed the original joke dead."
>"It was originally Ikari Manju, so "Rage Dumpling" would be the correct translation, but that's too long, so Rage Bun.
>Just nothing so grammatically ugly as what they'd called it in the end."
>"Slowbro was a "yadokari" Pokemon.
Yadokari does directly translate to "hermit crab", but broken down into its kanji characters, one gets, "inn renter". Basically, he's "borrowing" a home.
>I would've pushed for "squatter" (which also is a pun for "otter", which I assumed it to be, sort of).
>Marill was a "mizutama" Pokemon.
>If the Japanese word for "pattern" was added after it, then, yes, it would have had to been "polkadot". But I again broke it down to the kanji words "water" and "ball". I figured that "ball" would be the correct interpretation because of its rotund figure, so I would've gone with "aqua-ball" or "aqua-orb" pokemon. Yeah, no great shakes, but truer to the original spirit of the JP name."
