Category: Starzinger

The Princess Disappears on the Magma Planet!

Angered by his repeated failures, King Gyuma sends a garrison to capture Princess Aurora. Kugo and his friends are met with Operation Spark, which tries to defeat the opponent at the cost of their own lives. Disguised as a meteorite, Bellamis hijacks the Cosmos, and attempts to take Princess Aurora to the planet Lassetz. However, the gravitational pull of a dying planet forces them to make an emergency landing, and both are knocked unconscious. Princess Aurora eventually regains consciousness, takes care of Bellamis, and learns the secret hidden in Bellamis’ body.

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

Translation Thoughts

Finally, the big reveal! The secret is out! Yes, I know everybody knew about it at this point.

The scene in which Bellamis meets Princess Aurora for the first time outside the Cosmos defies all physical laws. Not only can they walk and breathe in space normally, but they can talk to each other when sound doesn’t travel in space. And don’t get me started on the meteorite fire that had to be put out with an extinguisher. This is their worst space scene ever! In previous scenes, at least Aurora had some kind of oxygen helmet.

Bellamis refers to her spaceship as “Cosmo Machine” as you can hear at 13:34:

まもなく私のコズモマシーンの置いてある地点です
Mamonaku watashi no KOZUMO MASHIIN no oite aru chiten desu
I’ll soon get to the spot where my Cosmo Machine is located.

But it’s a horrible name for a spaceship. I know for the Japanese, “Cosmo Machine” sounds cool because it’s English and they love calling things in English, but I don’t think it really works, so I left it as “spaceship”.

The following is one of those lines that is a little hard to translate but works perfectly in Japanese because the verb is at the end. Bellamis say at 15:42:

せっかく手に入れたオーロラ姫 いやギャラクシーエネルギーを守らなければ
Sekkaku te ni ireta OURORA hime, iya, GYARAKUSHII ENERUGII wo mamoranakereba
If I don’t protect Princess Aurora, that was so hard to capture… No, if I don’t protect the Galaxy Energy…

Basically, Bellamis doesn’t really care about Princess Aurora, but about the Galaxy Energy she has instead. The pain here is that I had to repeat the verb “protect” twice in the sentence, and it’s only being said once. That’s less time for the viewer to read it.

What’s the difference between Galaxy Energy and galaxy’s energy?

That’s a good question nobody has asked, ever!

You must have noticed by now in the translations that sometimes “Galaxy Energy” is being said and other times it is “galaxy’s energy”.

The difference is that the Galaxy Energy is the fuel to top up the galaxy’s energy. It’s like the galaxy’s energy is your car, and the Galaxy Energy is gas.

Princess Aurora is a medium for creating Galaxy Energy. By using that headband she wears all the time, she can emit a Galaxy Energy beam to top up devices that use it. When she arrives at the Great Planet, she’s going to emit Galaxy Energy to restore the whole galaxy’s energy, and everything will go back to normal. By the way, she has to do this constantly, so she basically needs to move to the Great Planet and live forever there until the next princess arrives. The galaxy’s energy has been weakened because the current Queen has grown old, and she’s going to be replaced by Aurora, who will become Queen herself. This was actually explained in detail in the first episode of the show.

Beautiful Eternal Snow

Bellamis, now Chief Captain, leads the Lassetz Corps battleship to attack the Cosmos. Kugo lures Bellamis out of the way, and the Cosmos uses the opportunity to escape to an ice planet. Fromeda, the queen of the ice planet, is a living copy of Jogo’s late sister. Jogo, who trusts her completely, summons the Cosmos at her recommendation. Fromeda, a snow spirit who wishes to become a human being, is determined to obtain the Galaxy Energy by any means necessary. Jogo learns of this and tries to persuade her to reconsider her decision.

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

Translation Thoughts

When Bellamis refers to the Princess Aurora, Bellamis always says お姫様 ohime-sama in a really sarcastic way. The expression お姫様 ohime-sama is extremely formal, like saying “Your Royal Highness”. Bellamis is just being sarcastic.

I think the translation works pretty well the first time Bellamis say it. At 5:58:

どこまで甘いお姫様だ
Dokomade amai ohime-sama da
How sweet a princess you are!

It’s obvious that for Bellamis, Aurora must be a spoiled little girl. Bellamis has never met her up to this point.

The sarcasm is probably lost in translation the second time:

いかがですかお姫様
Ikaga desu ka, ohime-sama?
How about that, princess?

I thought if I translated that to “How about that, your highness?” that would transmit to the viewer the sarcasm a little better, but then people would hear the word 姫 hime without reading the word “princess” anywhere in the subtitles and would write me that the line was a bad translation 😏.

Jogo says a common Japanese expression at 18:51 that I thought I explained before in Episode 18 (Kugo says it at 16:49 in Episode 18), but it seems I didn’t.

He says:

よし, 一か八かだ
Yoshi, ichikabachika da
Alright, one or eight

This expression 一か八か ichikabachika comes from gambling while playing a Japanese card game called かるた karuta which literally means “carta” in Portuguese (and in Spanish too!), or “card” in English. The expression means something like “do or die”, “sink or swim”, things like that. I typically translate it as “Here goes nothing” or “All or nothing”, depending on the context.

What’s funny for me personally about this expression is that around 20 years ago, a Japanese J-Pop band called Do as Infinity released an album named True Song, and one of the songs from the album is One or Eight. Just like that, in English. I guess these guys thought it would be cool to translate the title to English and probably thought it would mean the same. But “one or eight” in English doesn’t mean a thing!

Every time I hear this expression, I remember that Do as Infinity song and laugh a little bit.

Happy New Year!

Howl at the Stars Back Home!

In order to get revenge on Kugo and his crew, Captain Galia lures the Cosmos into a group of meteorites planted with explosives. Kugo and his crew escape through a small opening, but they are forced to crash-land on an unknown planet by a strong magnetic force. Since the Cosmos cannot launch due to the magnetic force, Kugo and his crew split up to destroy the meteorites. Galia, who was waiting for the Princess to be alone, sends the Hell Dobers and kidnaps Princess Aurora. Hakka rushes after her, but he is caught in the middle of Hell Dobers’ fire!

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

Translation Thoughts

I really struggled to translate this one line in just a few words so you could read it in 6 seconds. It’s uttered by Galia at 16:08:

あのマシンが壊されてはこの星の磁力化が見たれて大変なことになってしまうと
Ano MASHIN ga kowasarete wa kono hoshi no jiryoku-ka ga mitarete taihen na koto ni natte shimauto
If that machine is destroyed, the magnetic force of this planet will be seen, and we’ll be in trouble.

That’s what it literally says. And I think you agree that translation doesn’t really work.

What Galia is trying to say is that both halves of the planet have these powerful machines sending magnetic waves to each other and the balance of both magnetic forces is what keeps both halves stable and in harmony. If one of the machines get destroyed, the magnetic force of the other one will be “out there” without any opposing force to control it. That’s what he means with この星の磁力化が見たれて kono hoshi no jiryuoku-ka ga mitarete (the magnetic force of this planet will be seen; 見たれて is in the potential past progressive form here because of, well, grammar).

Obviously, I can’t put that entire explanation there for you to read in 6 seconds, but I did my best. Anyway, Jogo helped me out a minute later in the episode with his own explanation of the event. Or at least I hope so!

Princess Aurora says a wonderful and inspirational line in this episode at 19:34:

一つの星を救うことのできない者がどうして多くの星を救うことができましょう
Hitotsu no hoshi o sukuu koto no dekinai mono ga doushite ooku no hoshi o sukuu koto ga dekimashou
How can someone save many planets if that someone cannot save one planet?

With no context, the direct translation would use “someone” as the subject of the sentence. But in this case, Princess Aurora is talking about herself. Her point is, how can she pretend to go to the Great Planet and save many planets at once if she can’t even save one? She has a good point.

Anyway, it’s not like she did a lot to save this planet; she just decided to stay there and not in the Queen Cosmos while the cyborgs were saving the day.

Another interesting line is what Kugo says at 21:30:

犬だって命をかけて、自分の星を守ろうとしてるんだ
Inu datte inochi o kakete, jibun no hoshi o mamorou to shiterunda
Even dogs risk their lives to protect their planet.

I guess he’s referring to Galia, who was born and raised on that planet, and he just bailed when things went south.

The Beautiful Wolf of the Universe

As Kugo and his team hurried to the Great Planet, the Lassetz Corps appeared again. Bellamis is also a member of the Lassetz Corps now. He volunteered to become a cyborg to protect his home planet of Garius, but his mother was killed by a monster and his home planet was destroyed in the struggle. Now Bellamis is all alone, having lost even his only friend, Mew. When Bellamis hears about the Galaxy Energy from Lassetz, he vows to use the energy to create an ideal world for those who have lost their home planet!

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

Translation Thoughts

I feel like every time Lassetz has a call with King Gyuma, she breaks a crystal ball in anger. She probably doesn’t care; she’s the Queen of Planet Lassetz, so she must have a lot of money to buy all those crystal balls.

At 19:43 Kugo says:

なるほど… 一人ずつ勝負しろってわけか?
naruhodo… hitori zutsu shoubu shiro tte wake ka?
I see… so do we have to fight them one by one?

I’m not sure if I’m translating the idea properly. What Kugo means is that each one of the cyborgs should fight one of the Hellbirds, making it a fair three vs. three fight. So I used “one on one”, because the literal translation of 一人ずつ hitori zutsu “one by one” might mean something totally different: concentrate on one Hellbird first.

The Guy Who Lost His Planet!

The Cosmos took refuge from the magnetic storm on the planet Lambda, where it rescued a small spacecraft. Bellamis, who emerged from inside that spacecraft, challenged Kugo to a duel. With Bellamis’ feather-like grace and exquisite swordsmanship, they were both evenly matched. Meanwhile, Queen Lassetz sends an order to the Lambda base to capture Princess Aurora. Missiles hit them all. As Kugo escapes from the planet, he accidentally injures Bellamis’ pet, Mew.

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

Translation Thoughts

In this episode, Bellamis is introduced. Bellamis is a cyborg who was a very popular character of this show back in the 1970s when it was aired. Also, Bellamis is as strong as Kugo, and they would be evenly matched in a fight.

But Bellamis has a secret! Some of you might already know it or probably remember it from when you watched the show back then. It’ll be revealed in Episode 40.

I probably said this before, but I usually try to translate as literally as possible from Japanese, but in this episode I had to modify several lines so they could actually mean something in English. There are too many to write about them all here.

I’m going to show you one about the most basic Japanese there is. At 15:38, Bellamis says:

お前が開いてか
omae ga aite ka?
Are you available?

In this context, Bellamis is asking Kugo if he decided to be the opponent. But Bellamis uses お前 omae, which is very offensive between strangers. As I’m sure you know, お前 omae means “you”.

Kugo replies:

お前じゃないよ, ジャンクゴだ
omae ja nai yo, Jan Kugo da
It’s not “omae”, it’s Jan Kugo.

The direct translation would be it’s not “you”, it’s Jan Kugo, which obviously doesn’t work at all in English. What he’s trying to say is I’m not “omae”, I’m Jan Kugo, meaning Bellamis shouldn’t use お前 omae to address Kugo, since they are not friends.

If you watch the episode, you’ll see how I changed the whole interaction to an insult, since Bellamis is using お前 omae on purpose to offend Kugo.

At 23:09 Kugo says:

ぴんぴんしてた
pinpin shiteta

Another onomatopoeia! Don’t you love these? ぴんぴん means “lively”, “energetic”, “vigorous”, things like that.

The Heart of a Ferocious Monster

King Gyuma plotted to use a matter transfer machine to get his hands on Princess Aurora. His subordinate, Captain Galia, sees the offensive power of the monster Prigmer and comes up with the idea of using her child as a hostage. Kugo and Hakka struggle against the powerful attacks of Prigmer, who cares for her kid. Upon learning of the situation, Princess Aurora goes to Galia as a decoy herself to save Prigmer’s child!

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

Translation Thoughts

The real name of the monster and the planet where it lives is ブリグマ BURIGUMA, and it should be translated as Brigmer. But since in Japanese the B sound is very similar to the P sound, I translated it as Prigmer because it sounds better in English, in my opinion. As you might have noticed throughout the series, I always try to give English names to the characters since they all have foreign names. There is not a single Japanese name in this show.

At 3:37, Jogo says an interesting phrase:

いや, 止まったんじゃない. 止めたんだ
iya, tomatta njanai. tometa nda

This is a great example of how rich Japanese can be sometimes. The verbs 止まるtomaru and 止める tomeru both mean “to stop”. But 止まるtomaru is an intransitive verb, while 止める tomeru is a transitive one. This means 止める tomeru needs a direct object, so you can assume that somebody or something is stopping an object. Jogo saying 止めたんだ tometanda implies that the Queen Cosmos didn’t stop by itself; their engines are still running, but the Queen Cosmos is not moving forward. A gravitational force is pulling the ship with the same force that the engine is trying to move it forward, so the Queen Cosmos seems “stopped”. The only way to go is toward Planet Prigmer, where that force that is pulling the Cosmos is coming from. That’s why they decided to go: it’s the only way the Cosmos would move. Does that make sense?

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.

Appearance! The Demon King of the Universe

King Gyuma, ruler of the Gilara star system, plans to use Princess Aurora’s galaxy energy to dominate the galaxy. Gyuma orders Captain Galia to capture the Cosmos and lure Kugo and his crew to the planet Scorpio by raining meteorites down on them. Hakka, who has fond memories of his homeland from the sights of the planet Scorpio, angrily sets out on his own when the Scorpio starts rampaging. Kugo tries to stop him, but he loses his sight due to Scorpio’s poison!

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

Translation Thoughts

This episode was so exhausting! It had so much dialogue! I felt like it had as many words as two episodes joined together. This is the first episode of the King Gyuma – Queen Lassetz arc, which continues until episode 51.

I’m assuming that by now you’re not surprised that the planet where King Gyuma lives is called Planet Gyuma, and the planet where Queen Lassetz lives is Planet Lassetz, and the planet where the Scorpios live is Planet Scorpio. It’s been a trend in the whole series; almost all planets are named by their inhabitants. Funny, isn’t it? Remember, this is a show for kids and you watched it when you were one!

In this episode, Kugo uses one of his favorite slangs: ひで hide. You won’t find that in a Japanese dictionary. It’s his way of saying 酷い hidoi which I know you have heard many times in anime, and it means “cruel” or “terrible”. I always say that Kugo is very hard to translate because he speaks like the most relaxed version of Japanese you could ever imagine. It’s full of slang and words pronounced incorrectly or not necessarily incorrectly but differently. ひどい hidoi vs. ひで hide is a good example of how he pronounces some words.

I remember Stratolily asking me what ひで hide meant once.

An example would be the line he says at 12:33:

泥んこだらけのひで星
doronko darake no hide hoshi
It’s a terrible planet, full of mud.

He’s so rude with Hakka it’s disgusting.

Speaking about being rude, Jogo says at 13:26 an interesting line:

何もお前? ハッカの目の前でそんなに当てつけがましいということはないんだよ
Nani mo omae? HAKKA no me no mae de sonna ni atetsukegamashii to iu koto wa nai nda yo
What’s the matter with you? You don’t have to be so rude to Hakka!

The key word here is 当て付けがましい atetsukegamashii, which means kind of “sounds like you’re insinuating (something)”. The verb, 当て付ける atetsukeru, means “to insinuate”, and the がましい gamashii suffix is kind of “sounds like”. A direct translation would be “There’s no such thing as sounding like you’re insinuating that in front of Hakka’s eyes”, but that makes little to no sense at all in English. So basically, you could translate that to “There’s no such thing as being so impolite in front of Hakka” and eventually I ended up with “You don’t have to be so rude to Hakka”.

Here’s another line that I really don’t know how to translate properly. At 20:14 Jugo says:

早くしろだって誰が巻いた誰だよ全く
Hayakushiro datte dare ga maita dare da yo mattaku

The most direct translation I could think of would be something like “You’re telling me now to hurry, but who the hell rolled this up anyway? Seriously!”.

This is kind of an expression. The point here is that Jogo is out there because Hakka got suddenly mad and wanted to attack the Scorpio, who wasn’t even attacking the Cosmos. Eventually, Kugo asks him to go back to the ship, and Jogo complains that Hakka is the reason they left the Cosmos in the first place. Using an expression that is pretty similar would be “who the hell is sowing these seeds, anyway?” or something like that.

I wanted to be clear about what Jogo was trying to say, so I had to change it almost completely. This is just an example of the compromise we have to make so the translation makes more sense.

Another little compromise that all the translators have made in this series in the past is that the Great Planet is called 大王星 daiou sei, which actually means “Great King Planet”. It’s only 3 characters in Japanese but 17 characters in English, so everybody just abbreviates it to “Great Planet”, even in dubs.

My Children! The Monster’s Love

A giant moth monster, Dokunga, attacked the Cosmos. After laying eggs in the main booster, Dokunga runs out of strength and collapses, but the hatched larvae continue to grow in secret. Dragged by an invisible force, the Cosmos crash-landed on a small planet and was attacked by a male Dokunga. Kugo and his friends are saved by Dodge’s little brother, Hepburn, who had gone missing for ten years while he was on a space expedition. Hepburn, who hates Dokunga, is trying to kill all the larvae by luring them out with ultrasonic waves.

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

Translation Thoughts

You’re all going to cry with this one!

The moth monster in this episode is called ドクンガ Dokunga, which is an interesting name because it sounds like 毒蛾 dokuga which means “poisonous moth”.

I know calling Hepburn ヘボン Hebon a moron was a stretch, but I didn’t want to include notes in the episode and distract the viewers from reading more things than they are supposed to.

The joke here is that Kugo always calls Assistant Professor Dodge ドジ doji, which means “clumsy”. In this episode Kugo meets Dodge’s little brother, Hepburn, who in Japanese sounds like へぼ hebo which is another word for “clumsy” as well. He couldn’t believe the coincidence. It’s very funny.

Hepburn is an entomologist, which is a scientist that focuses on the study of insects. The word for entomologist in Japanese is 昆虫学者 konchu gakusha (literally “insect scholar”). You can tell at 19:17 that Kugo calls Hepburn 昆虫学者の先生 konchu gakusha no sensei, which means “entomologist doctor”.

So since the first time I had to translate the word ドジ doji I’ve been using “dork” since it kind of sounds like “Dodge”, and the joke was sort of kept instead of lost in the translation. But since I watched the whole show way before starting to translate it, I knew that this day was going to come when I had to somehow keep the joke with Hepburn. I’ve spent days thinking of a word that sounded similar to Hepburn in English and meant something like stupid or idiot, and I couldn’t find any that really worked.

Anyway whenever your read “dork” in this episode is when Kugo says ドジ doji , and whenever you read “moron” is when Kugo says へぼ hebo. I’m sure you’ll get all the jokes and intended puns from Kugo with those two names.

Rebellion at the Planet Lenfa Base!

Kugo finally gets to the planet Lenfa, Kinkinman’s home planet, but is intercepted by the Horus Attack Force, which renders all the cyborgs’ energy useless. Kinkinman takes advantage of this opportunity to attack the Cosmos and capture Princess Aurora. Kinkinman forces the princess to swear obedience. The princess adamantly refuses, saying that she must not use her galaxy energy for his own desires. Angered, Kinkinman orders Jogo, who has lost his memories and been enslaved, to hit Princess Aurora with a plasma whip!

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

Translation Thoughts

This is the final episode of the Kinkinman – Ginginman arc. It consisted of a total of 7 episodes, from Episode 25 to this one.

Jokes are always very hard to translate between different languages, and even between different cultures using the same language. Translating jokes is always very hard for everybody. I’ve noticed by watching the Spanish dub of this show that when things get tough to translate, they just remove the whole scene! There are a lot of scenes missing in the Spanish dub! Don’t worry, I won’t do that.

What follows is an example from this episode. Hakka saves Kugo by digging under the ground to escape the attack from Horus. Starting from 12:30, this is what I believe they’re saying:

Hakka:
クゴたん,もう俺のこと泥なんとかなんて言えねぇな
Kugo-tan, mou ore no koto doro nantoka nante ie nee na
Kugo-tan, you can’t call me a mud-something anymore.

Kugo:
えなんて言えないって
e.. nante ienai tte?
Huh? What is it I can’t say?

Kugo always calls Hakka a mud pig (泥豚 dorobuta) and Hakka doesn’t want to say “pig” at first. Kugo is playing the fool here, obviously. That’s why in the next line, Hakka calls him “slow”:

Hakka:
鈍いんだよ全く.俺のこともう泥豚なんて言えないって言ったんだよ
Nibuinda yo mattaku. Ore no koto mou doro buta nante ienai tte itta nda yo
You’re so slow! I said you can’t call me a mud pig anymore.

Kugo:
あーそうかそうかおまえのこと泥豚って
泥豚って言っちゃそりゃ行けないんだよな.
泥豚なんてとんでもないやこりゃ
Aa sou ka sou ka omae no koto doro buta tte
doro buta tte itcha sorya ikenai nda yo na
Doro buta nante tondemonaiya korya
Ah I see, I see. I’ve called you mud pig (before) [Direct translation: oh I see, you’re a mud pig].
I can’t really say it was even mud pig (what I’ve said to you before).
Mud pigs are terrible things.

That’s not really a direct translation because direct translation doesn’t work even remotely here. The joke is that he calls Hakka “mud pig” three times in the same sentence, but in English you would just say he’s talking about mud pigs and not actually calling Hakka one. So I changed it up a little bit to try to make it funnier than the direct translation would’ve been. I probably failed at it. What can you do? I always struggle to translate Kugo and Hakka when they are like this.

Dodge Jokes

I feel like I need a whole section to explain all the kinds of jokes that happen with Assistant Professor Dodge. You might already know that ドッジ Docchi (Dodge) sounds similar to どじ doji (clumsy), and it’s a recurrent joke throughout the whole series. Even Professor Kitty called himどじ doji in this episode.

But ドッジ Dojji (Dodge) also sounds almost identically to どっち docchi (which one). So when Assistant Professor Dodge gets confused about his own name he says, at 15:24:

どっちがどっちかな
docchi ga docchi ka na
I wonder which is which.

It can also mean “I wonder if it’s Dodge”, or “I wonder which one is Dodge”, or things like that depending if you replace the first どっち docchi, or the second one, or both. In Japanese, it is very funny, but unfortunately it is untranslatable to English.

And this is going to get worse in the next episode, where we will meet Dodge’s brother: ヘボン Hebon, that obviously sounds like へぼ hebo that also means clumsy! I don’t even know how I am going to translate all the jokes that those two names cause in Episode 32.

Is it Professor Kitty or Doctor Kitty?

I guess I also need to explain this. Kitty is a 博士 hakase, which is a word in Japanese that can only be used to address people with a Ph.D. For a Doctor of Medicine there’s a different word: 医者 isha.

The decision to use Professor Kitty instead of Doctor Kitty was made by the original ILA translator, gxseries. I would assume he made the distinction so people wouldn’t think that Kitty is a medical doctor. Since TSHS also used Professor Kitty, I used the same translation as well. Dodge is a 助教授 Jokyouju, an Assistant or Associate Professor. I have to admit that when I first watched this show as a kid I actually thought Kitty was a physician, and Dodge was the actual scientist.