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By God, I love this picture. 
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Oct 26, 2013 09:11
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Lynx Winters posted:As of last time we discussed it, Happymancer will not be renamed, that poo poo is too good. Amen and hallelujah.
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Oct 27, 2013 08:23
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CommissarMega posted:I've got time to play, if you're running anything in the near future. Hold that thought.
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Oct 27, 2013 18:06
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aldantefax posted:Also if you looked at the Meikyuu Kingdom books (you as a general non-specific you in this case) take a look in the monster section at Lamia, Thumbelina, and Apsara for examples of things that initially made me go "uhhh I dunno maybe we should change this"; there is also a facility (Zenana) which is just like, here's a lady in a negligee! Oh, wait, that negligee has the boobs cut out. Well, that Facility is actually a brothel. Not saying that changing the artwork isn't the way to go, mind, just... sayin'. aldantefax posted:For reference, the Wikipedia entry for Zenana: A euphemism? 
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Oct 30, 2013 16:46
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The past few times I've tried to post this, I've gotten all tangled up in the story and bailed out. If you're reading this, it means I've finally managed to straighten it all out (more or less) and you are about to learn the shocking facts of For starters, yamabuki-iro are an actual product. The box displayed at the upper left of the linked page contains nine cakes, an example of which can be seen on the plate next to it. The crust is flavored with sesame, the filling is sweet red bean paste, and each individual container is made to resemble a stack of gold ryo coins. A single box will run you about $30 USD, plus S&H. Why are they worth so much, I hear myself wondering aloud so as to keep the post going? That's a fine question, and I'm glad I asked. Let's dig a little deeper. On the right side of the page, below a bunch of words and stuff, you can see a small picture in the old sumi-e style. In it, one man is hunched over bowing with a box very much like the one being sold open on the floor next to him, while another man sits up straight, looking vaguely amused. What we're seeing there is a depiction of a stereotypical scene from any one of the thousands of feudal/samurai period pieces that have been the most popular genre of fiction in Japan since at least as far back as they would have been considered contemporary. This particular one is called the "You're-As-Wicked-As-Me Scene", and it goes a little something like this: The man with his back to us in the picture is the Shady Merchant, and the comfortably seated man is the Corrupt Magistrate. Merchant has come to Magistrate's mansion just as night is falling to obliquely request that a blind eye be turned to their shadiness. As a "gift" for the "inconvenient visit", Merchant has brought a fine, black lacquered wood box. Magistrate opens to box to find it filled with stacks of gold coins, at which point he smirks down at Merchant and delivers the line for which the scene is named. It is a venerable old cliche, like the gunfighters facing off in the middle of Main Street while the townsfolk scurry out of sight, or the true love bursting through the chapel doors just as the reverend asks for any objections or forever hold your peace, and here a small gift company has capitalized on the people's desire to recreate it for themselves. And that's where the inspiration for the card came from. Neat, huh? Well, buckle in, the ride's only just crested its peak. Behold the flavor text: the flavor text posted:A legendary confection that most commoners will never even get to see. Extraordinarily expensive, and with a lower drop rate than some Rare Items. Because of its scarcity, it is most often given as a momentous gift, or used as a bribe in the same manner that ancient documents tell us Echigoya expanded into wholesale. Incidentally, the author has never seen one, either. That brings the last of the suspects into the drawing room, so now it's time to run through the motives. What we've already established is that the card is a reference to a particular novelty item, and that that item is in turn a reference to a specific piece of trivia from Japanese popular culture. The flavor text then elaborates the joke by establishing the cakes themselves as having become so valuable that they are being used for the same purpose as the 'gifts' that inspired them. And it STILL isn't over! The "Echigoya" that's mentioned was the default name given to the Shady Merchant character (most likely as a jab at Edo's first omnipresent corporate giant, but I digress) in the kabuki plays from which all aspects of the modern period pieces are drawn... including the "YAWAM Scene". To summarize: this one card is not only a cultural reference to another cultural reference, it also end-runs around that reference to reference the reference that it was referencing, then goes the extra mile to reference the reference that THAT reference was first made in reference to!  tl;dr - "Payday" works, sure.
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Nov 3, 2013 12:17
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Laphroaig posted:"Golden Cakes" Twinkies! Are those known internationally?
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Nov 10, 2013 14:16
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Mystic Mongol posted:At that point you're saying that it's more important for the joke to be food than a bribe. And given that it's a bribe power I think you're putting the cart before the horse here. They look kinda like gold bullion, too, and... uh... well, it made more sense when I posted it a few hours ago. 
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Nov 10, 2013 21:55
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Cyphoderus posted:I think it says a lot about the translators' predicament when this one element of the game prompts so much discussion. Imagine that they have an entire game to translate like that, poor souls. In hindsight, I really should have pointed this out earlier, but this one example is not in any way typical. I've never seen, heard, nor smelled of cultural references being so deliberately nested anywhere before, so if there are two instances as hard to localize just in this one game, I'll be very surprised. Not to say it'll be a cakewalk, exactly, but probably not as Sisyphean a job as it seems to be seeming at the moment.
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Nov 11, 2013 13:34
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Galaga Galaxian posted:I can't decide which is more amusing, the Cook somehow literally transforming items into meat, or that (s)he's just so drat happy and eager to serve up some Charbroiled Charybdis that any other potentially useful materials (claws, hides, bones, etc) are ruined in the processes of preparing it for cooking. Eating regularly is actually rather a Big Deal in Meikyuu. For one thing, food Items are the Court's primary method of restoring HP outside of combat. For the other, the time you spend in the dungeon is measured: every time you stop to rest, you mark off one Quarter, and four Quarters make a Turn (approximately, one day). If it's been more than one Turn since the last time a food Item was used, the whole Court starts draining HP with every passing Quarter due to hunger pains. So, those servings of Charbroiled Charybdis may actually turn out to be of far more immediate value than any talons or whatnot, and having someone along who can whip them up on demand is almost as good as an extra sword arm. 
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Nov 13, 2013 08:45
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Mystic Mongol posted:You say that, but I look at the Drone class, who gets mechanical benefits for skipping combat rounds completely to take naps, and I say---yes, this is what I want my contribution in combat to be. Ha-HA! But Wizard is a Job, same as Drone, so you can't be both at once! Checkmate!  unless you're a Servant Randalor posted:Are all the monsters made out of meat though? Meat...ish, yeah. Let's just say foodies tend not to last too long in the Million Dungeons.
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Nov 13, 2013 20:32
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