SF Saiyuki Starzinger – Episode 34

The Cursed Glass Planet

The Queen Lassetz army lures the Cosmos to the Glass Planet and sends impostors to both Princess Aurora and Kugo and the others to separate them. The Cosmos takes off and heads for the Great Planet, but Jogo is suspicious of Princess Aurora’s unusual attitude. Meanwhile, the real Princess is captured by the fake Kugo and his men, and is about to radiate Galaxy Energy. It was all part of a plan to revive a planet on the verge of extinction!

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

Translation Thoughts

There are some episodes from this show that I remember vividly watching when I was a kid, more than 40 years ago. This is one of them, and one of my favorite episodes. I think the fake Princess Aurora’s behavior was a shock for all of us at the time. I think that’s probably why I remember it so clearly after all this time.

The fake Princess Aurora and Hakka play a game of Rock – Paper – Scissors at 16:45 that I’m pretty sure is known worldwide and needs no further explanation on how it works. In Japanese, it’s called じゃんけんぽん jan ken pon which I think the literal translation would be “Stone Fist! Boom!”, since じゃんけん janken sounds like 石拳 shakken, stone fist, and you start the game making a fist, that represents a rock in the game, and shake it three times.

Now, as you might know, when both players draw the same hand shape, there’s a tie. In Japanese, when a tie happens, you say あいこでしょ aiko deshou? which means “it’s a tie, isn’t it?”. You can hear Princess Aurora and Hakka saying this at 16:47. There are a few variations, like あいこでほい aiko de hoi! which means “it’s a tie, hey!”.

After that, they play a popular extension of Rock – Paper – Scissor called あっち向いてホイ acchi muite hoi!. Immediately after playing Rock – Paper – Scissor, the winner (the attacker) can either say あっち向いてホイacchi muite hoi which means “turn the other way” or こっち向いてホイkocchi muite hoi which means “turn this way”, while pointing the finger to the way you want or don’t want the other player (the defender) to look. If the player did not follow the instructions correctly of the player pointing the finger, the person pointing the finger wins and scores a point. Otherwise if the player followed the instructions correctly, the game starts over from Rock – Paper – Scissors. The player who wins twice (two points) wins the overall game.

Here’s some Sumo rikishi playing the game on YouTube. It’s in Japanese, but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. In this version, which is the most popular version of the game, the attacker can only say あっち向いてホイ acchi muite hoi! and the defender must always look a different way. The version Hakka and Princess play is harder since it has two different instructions instead of only one.

Hakka and Aurora add a とto at the end of each phrase. It’s like saying “there!”. Hakka would say あっち向いてホイと achi muite hoi to!, for example.

I’m speculating here a little bit, but I think the Princess is so good at the game that she’s giving a handicap to Hakka so he can attack three times instead of restarting the game immediately when she follows the instructions correctly. None of this is important to the story, obviously! But I still think it’s funny. This is a kids show, you know.

You have to admit that Kazuko Sugiyama, Princess Aurora’s seiyuu, did an excellent job as the fake Princess Aurora in this episode. Her acting was amazing! You might even think it was a different seiyuu, but it wasn’t. That’s her, confirmed.

Another example of Japanese love for onomatopoeias: At 18:22 Jogo says:

ぐずぐずしちゃいられないぞ
Guzuguzu shichairarenai zo
We can’t linger.

This onomatopoeia ぐずぐず guzuguzu means to linger, or be slow, procrastinating, things like that. Now, why is it an onomatopoeia, you ask? What’s the sound it represents? Well, not all Japanese onomatopoeias are “sound” words. Many of them describe feelings. But they’re still called onomatopoeias.