Extra Translation Notes for 18th Touhou M-1 Grand Prix Watching the full video before reading this is recommended if you'd like to avoid spoilers. SPOILERS BELOW --[Yorigami Sisters]-- Shion: "Ama no Iwato... yeah." In Japanese mythology, Ama no Iwato, a cave, is where the sun goddess Amaterasu stayed hidden until Ame no Uzume no Mikoto made other gods laugh so hard that Amaterasu left the cave to investigate. Shion: "The fifth generation will be known as the Elric Brothers." The original name said is the Ultra Brothers (ultra kyoudai) from Ultraman. --[Alcoholic Junkies]-- Heavy Drinker: "How about a drag queen?" The original script for this manzai references "okama" characters. To make the dialogue work in English without having to change basically everything, this was translated as "drag queen". While often caricatured similarly, okama and drag queens differ in some ways. In Japanese media, "okama" refers to a character archetype involving a feminine and flamboyant gay male character, often depicted with stereotypically feminine appearance and mannerisms. This term can also apply to certain TV personalities who adopt such personas for themselves. Heavy Drinker: "As long as RuPaul!" The original name said is Akihiro Miwa. Mister: "Well, my favorite food is... black licorice!" The original food said here is "hijiki" which is a type of seaweed. Mister: "I was gagged!" The original line here is roughly, "I did an Osugi!" Osugi is a TV personality and film critic. He is a self-proclaimed okama. --[Miko Miko Spark]-- Marisa: "To Reimu, I'll be waiting for you on Xandar at 7:00 tonight. -NOVA" Reimu: "Are you joining the Nova Corps?!" The original content of Marisa's note reads, "To Reimu, I'll be waiting for you in front of the train station at 7:00 tonight. -NOVA" Reimu's response is then "Study abroad in front of the train station?!" NOVA is an English-teaching program with various branch locations throughout Japan. Their slogan is "Study abroad in front of the train station (eki-mae ryuugaku)" with the implication that one can be immersed in an English- speaking environment in front of a train station rather than having to go abroad. --[Star-Sparked Wildfox]-- The entire sumo segment of this manzai relies on the viewer being familiar with sumo. As such, the translations were all written with the assumption that the viewer is familiar with sumo despite the fact that many people probably aren't. Keeping the jokes completely intact and relevant to sumo for the relatively few subtitle users who are familiar with it felt like a better approach than trying to convert every joke into a more recognizable English equivalent. These notes should cover most of the sumo-specific terminology and customs that would likely be confusing to those not very familiar with it. Tsukasa's salt: It's tradition for sumo wrestlers to throw salt as part of a purification ritual. Tsukasa: "Hakkeyoi! Nokotta!" These terms were left untranslated because attempting to translate the terms into one or two word phrases would be awkward. "Hakkeyoi" is shouted by the gyouji (basically a referee) when both sumo wrestlers are at a motionless stand-off, something that often happens when the two are mutually locking each other. It's meant to give a feeling of "You've got this! Put your back into it!" "Nokotta" literally means "remaining" and it is shouted by the gyouji to indicate that a wrestler is "still in it" so to speak. This makes it very clear that the wrestler on the defensive is still in the match. Tsukasa: "Nekodamashi" Nekodamashi is a sumo technique in which, at the very start of a bout, one claps their hands in front of the other's face in hopes of making the opponent blink, giving an advantage. Tsukasa: "Oh! You're Akebono!" Akebono Tarou was one of the tallest and heaviest sumo wrestlers. His size lent him to often win bouts by overpowering the opponent and pushing them out of the ring. Megumu: "We're just pushing, right?" Tsukasa: "We're grabbing belts!" For slight clarification, "oshi-zumou (lit. 'push sumo')" is what Megumu says and refers to a sumo match in which the two wrestlers only push and don't grab each other's belts at all. By contrast, Tsukasa says "gappuri-yotsu (lit. 'four grips')" which refers to when sumo wrestlers are in a grapple lock in which both of them are gripping each other's belts. --[Hifuudou FINALS]-- Kihara and Sorajiro Kihara and Sorajiro are a meteorologist and a forecast mascot character respectively. They often appear together on a weather forecast TV program. --[Ending Ceremony]-- Amatatsu Amatatsu is another meteorologist seen on TV. --------------------------- Disclaimer / Clarification: This document was voluntarily put together by the translator/subtitler. It was written based on my personal understanding and interpretation of the dialogue. It's possible that I've missed some jokes or references. This is not an exhaustive list of every joke--only ones obscured by language or cultural barriers. I have no particular example of a vague reference worth mentioning this time, so instead, here's a potentially interesting tidbit about a behind-the-scenes translation choice that was made: As mentioned in the notes for Star-Sparked Wildfox's manzai, the decision was ultimately made to keep the sumo jokes relevant to sumo, even if it meant people don't get all of the jokes. A notable case of this is the Akebono part which was also noted previously. At first, this was changed to The Undertaker due to him being a wrestler that conveyed a somewhat similar image. Megumu's response to the Akebono comment was then tweaked so that she addresses the fact that he's not a sumo wrestler as part of her retort. However, this was later reverted, as it felt out of place to suddenly have a non-sumo wrestler mentioned in a sketch that is otherwise entirely focused on sumo. Even though the dialogue technically flowed well enough, the train of thought for the manzai didn't. It ended up causing an awkward, throwaway tangent that wasn't worth it and Megumu's response just lampshaded the problem rather than solving it. Not only is it awkward for real people watching, it's also awkward for the in-universe audience and judges who are watching the performance. This is a setting where the characters' performances are scored for a competition and an issue like this may result in the judges deducting points for clumsy execution in a way that wasn't intended with the original dialogue. While at first it can seem like a relatively inconsequential change, it ultimately made their performance seem worse than it was intended to be. So in the end, even though many people may not fully understand the joke, it was left unmodified as Akebono for tonal consistency across both languages.