SF Saiyuki Starzinger – Episode 48

The Attack of King Gyuma

The Cosmos is pinned down by King Gyuma and warps to escape, but it bounces back against the space wall, and now it’s stuck. When King Gyuma confronts Kugo and the others, he demands that they surrender the Princess. When Kugo and the others refuse, Gyuma’s forces fire a Sonic Blaster at them. Lassetz lets the Cosmo escapes in the nick of time, fearing that King Gyuma will take the Princess away from her. But then Queen Lassetz has an evil plan for the Cosmos, as it tries to flee desperately!

You can download the torrent file from Anidex or Anirena, or get direct links from AnimeTosho.

Translation Thoughts

We’re getting close to the end of the King Gyuma/Queen Lassetz arc.

This episode took me a long time to translate. After each version, I watched it, and I felt that there were still some lines that didn’t really express what the characters were trying to say. So I changed them over and over. I watched this episode so many times during QA that I think I now know the dialogue by heart. But I’m happy with the final product.

Murdoch is not really a lieutenant. King Gyuma calls him 副官 fukkan at 3:55, which is more like an adjutant to some officer. I believe it’s like a “deputy captain” in this context, and would act as captain in the absence of the actual captain. I thought the real rank was kind of boring, so I chose the rank just below captain, which is lieutenant.

Jogo says to King Gyuma at 8:18:

男の価値はその死に様よ
Otoko no kachi wa sono shinizama yo
A man’s worth is in the way he dies

Hakka tells Jogo that was a cool thing to say. Really? It makes no sense to me. At the very least, I do not agree with it. I changed the translation a little bit to try to make it “cooler”, but it’s still weird. But that’s exactly what Jogo says, so I pretty much left that line like that.

Here’s an interesting Japanese expression. Murdoch says at 14:39:

ベラミスめの鼻をあかしてやるんだ
Beramisu-me no hana o akashite yaru nda
I’m going to flatten Bellamis’ nose

Even though that is the literal translation, this is actually an expression that means “I’m going to triumph over that person”. Murdoch doesn’t really mean to punch Bellamis in the nose.

When Murdoch gives the order to fight the laser cannon, he says at 15:54

全開発射
Senkai hassha
Whirling fire

I was between “whirling fire”, “turning fire”, “circling fire”, and “rotation fire”, but I couldn’t come up with a translation that I thought sounded good. Some of you might think those translations are actually better than the one I used (“fire to all directions”). Sometimes I waste so much time on a line like that one, which isn’t really very important. I don’t know why I do it.

At 17:34 Murdoch says:

戦わぬ時は打て
Tatakawanu toki wa ute

Without context, that line can be translated as “When you don’t fight, shoot” which is honestly total nonsense. But he’s actually quoting King Gyuma since he says “These are King Gyuma’s orders” immediately after. Now, with this context, the translation changes to “When she’s not fighting (anymore), shoot her”.

King Gyuma’s intentions are clear: if Bellamis stops obeying, Murdoch has to kill her.

I didn’t translate it as a quote, but as real Murdoch words: “If you won’t fight, I’ll shoot you”. I could’ve used something like “If she disobeys, shoot her” with quotes, since immediately Murdoch says that those were the orders from King Gyuma. That would’ve been fine too.

In true Starzinger style, the mechanical horse that resembles the Trojan Horse that the Greeks used during the Trojan War is called none other than “Trojan”. Who would’ve thought?