SF Saiyuki Starzinger – Episode 44

The Red Desert Oath

The Cosmos approaches the center of the Gilara star system. King Gyuma, impatient, gives strict orders to capture Princess Aurora and eliminate Kugo and his friends by any means necessary. Bellamis receives the order and leads both Gyuma Corps and Lassetz Corps in an all-out attack. Kugo and the cyborgs try to get the Princess to safety, and are lured into a red desert planet without knowing it’s a trap. Queen Lassetz has transformed countless desert plants into monsters and is ready to use plasma radiation to kill Kugo and the others!

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

Translation Thoughts

Manga artist Leiji Matsumoto passed away last week, on February 13th. He was 85 years old. Not only was he the creator of SF Saiyuki Starzinger, but he was also the author of several other important anime like Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999, and its spin-offs Queen Emeraldas and Queen Millennia. Matsumoto collaborated as well on Space Battleship Yamato, which was a big hit and helped promote his career. He’s also famous for the creation of several Daft Punk videos. Rest in peace, Matsumoto-san, and thank you for everything! Thanks to Stratolily as well for letting us know.

松本さん、ご冥福をお祈りします。
Matsumoto-san, gomeifuku o oinorishimasu
Rest in peace, Matsumoto-san

Sometimes I like to point out what the lesson or message of an episode is. Since this is a children’s show, every episode usually tries to teach us something. In this episode, the cyborgs work together to overcome the obstacles, saying phrases like:

3人力を合わせればどんな苦しいことだって乗り切れるよ
3-Jin chikara o awasereba donna kurushii koto datte norikireru yo
If the three of us work together, we can get through anything that comes our way!

友情は武器よりも強しだよ
Yuujou wa buki yori mo tsuyoshida yo
Friendship is stronger than weapons!

Let’s take a look at this line Kugo says at 7:42:

お前のことだからいつものようにもたもたもたもたしてると思ったぜ
Omae no koto dakara itsumo no you ni motamota motamota shiteru to omotta ze
I thought you were struggling like you always do

The actual direct translation would be like “I thought you would be very slow as you always are” or something along those lines. The word もたもた motamota is another onomatopoeia that means being slow, inefficient, or behind schedule. I used “struggle” instead of “be very slow” because the actual onomatopoeia means something between slow and inefficient, and “struggle” works better, which might mean a little bit of both.

At 14:08 Hakka says:

何が只のつぶつぶだよ
Nani ga tada no tsubutsubu da yo
What’s with they were just ordinary particles?

The direct translation sounds horrible, so I changed it to “Are these just ordinary particles!?”. Another good line would’ve been “Weren’t these supposed to be ordinary particles!?”, but it was longer, and Hakka speaks fast, so there’s not much time for the viewer to read it. Sometimes you can’t use the best lines you come up with because there’s not enough time to read them!

You can see that Hakka uses the onomatopoeia つぶつぶ tsubutsubu instead of saying 粒子 ryuushi like Jogo said before when they first encounter the nebula. Both words can mean grains, particles, bumps, lumps, and things like that.

4 thoughts to “SF Saiyuki Starzinger – Episode 44”

  1. Hello, thanks again for this new episode which brings us a little closer to the end.
    And a huge thought for Leiji Matsumoto whose work has accompanied me for more than 40 years.
    I have a question about this episode: at 14:42, Lassetz says the name “Zaborg”. In your opinion, is it the name of his computer or the space desert that traps the Queen Cosmos? I’m not sure.

    1. Zaborg is the name of the plants that look like cacti. Even though Queen Lassetz “tells” the cacti to turn into monsters, she’s actually forcing them to turn into monsters with the beam. That’s why later on Professor Kitty explains that it is the beam what is causing the plants to go berserk.

      She just talks like that. At 12:30 she “tells” the zone to turn into hell, while shooting the beam to cause the red particles go berserk as well.

  2. Hola!
    Personalmente recién el año pasado comencé a interiorizarme en el trabajo del Maestro Matsumoto, a leer sobre él e investigar sobre sus obras y ahí fue cuando me di cuenta de que aquí conocimos muy poco de su trabajo cuando éramos niños. Y se siente rarísimo, venir conociendo hace muy poco sobre tamaño autor, siendo que una de sus obras la conozco y la amo prácticamente desde que tengo recuerdos.

    El año pasado empecé a ver Galaxy Express 999, que todavía estoy viendo porque es larguísimo el animé y el Capitán Harlock, del que pude encontrar sólo hasta el capítulo 8 y el último que vi por error, jaja! Para verlo completo la única opción es comprar los dvds en Amazon. Espero hacerlo pronto. Decir que los dos son espectaculares es poco.

    Hace apenas unas semanas leí un par de comentarios diciendo que aquí en Chile transmitieron Yamato y La Princesa de los Mil Años, pero yo no recuerdo ninguno de esos animés, ni siquiera por mis amistades. Al final por estos lados todo se resume a El Galáctico y más encima incompleto.

    En fin, pega muy fuerte su partida. Literalmente el mundo entero ha estado de cabeza con la noticia. Salió en todo tipo de medios, no sólo “otakus”, quiero decir y muchos países, acá también en medios locales.

    El tuit de su cuenta oficial que anunció la triste noticia tiene cientos de miles de interacciones y millones de vistas. Con ese tuit fue que me enteré, porque no hace mucho había empezado a seguir su cuenta. Fue lo primero que vi al conectarme a Internet ese día.

    Definitivamente ahora todo el trabajo que estamos haciendo con Starzinger se siente diferente.

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