Macross Translations, and more

[Bariaburu Faita]

Valkyrie (and Regult) Girls started appearing in doujinshi in 1983. Sorry NSFW cant post pics here.

Macross F 2059: Memories
http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTmiscbooks.php#MF

Went back and re-translated some rather atrocious parts, and then went and did a whole bunch of new parts in the book!

I was really surprised about a couple of things:

The first being that the book questions if the Vajra are individual organisms or what amounts to remotely operated weapons. Interesting.

The second were the 'Link Points' - little vignettes about the connections between Macross F and previous series. Most interesting was the one about Super Pack equipped Kuran. And here I thought that it was merely ridiculously over the top fan service!

[SebastianP]

Hoping this is the right place to ask, but...

What is the origin of the name "Quiltra-Quelamitz" for Medium Scale Gun Destroyer? The Macross Mecha Manual claims the ship has no official name and that fans invented one for it, but it seems to have become so entrenched that his site is one of the few that doesn't use it. And it's not *Western* fan-invention, given that it pops up in Japanese fan works.

[sketchley]

I don't know.

It could be from an obscure model kit released in the 80's. They were the source of many of the so-called 'accurate' romanizations of Zentrādi names.

However, even if such a kit exists and you can find it, there are still the following issues:

- do you take the romanizations at face value, and consider them to be correct? Many English speaking fans do, but some don't, like me. Those terms are not transliterations of Japanese into English, but the Zentrādi language into English.

- did the people who produced those kits get their information from the official setting (= canon)? Or did they just make it up and get 'rubber stamped' by someone higher up (but not necessarily one of the creators)?

If it were a fan-invention, it wouldn't be the first one that is still in wide use. Take the Gnerl fighter. I have never seen that name in print. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but the apparent source of that is dialogue during the SDFM series. That could be the same source of the apparently fan-made name for the Medium Gun Ship - someone (thinks?) they heard something, and then transcribed it in what they think is the Zentrādi language.

That's my 2 cents.

[Seto Kaiba]

Hoping this is the right place to ask, but...

What is the origin of the name "Quiltra-Quelamitz" for Medium Scale Gun Destroyer? The Macross Mecha Manual claims the ship has no official name and that fans invented one for it, but it seems to have become so entrenched that his site is one of the few that doesn't use it. And it's not *Western* fan-invention, given that it pops up in Japanese fan works.

Actually, the Macross Mecha Manual used to use the "Quiltra-Quelamitz class" name too.

We removed the name a few updates back, after I did some digging and was unable to find any official source that referred to that class of vessel by anything other than the type of warship it was... "Medium-sized Gunboat" (中型砲艦), sometimes finessed to "Medium-scale Gun Destroyer" in translation. Some of the Japanese Macross fans I compare notes with on occasion believe it's something that an American licensee came up with, possibly originating from the Palladium Books Robotech role-playing game. That publisher and game had a known habit of trying to come up with Zentradi-sounding names for everything that didn't already have an alien language name in its original source material, some of which sounded fairly plausible and some of which sounded like the result of using text-to-speech with a bad head cold.

If it were a fan-invention, it wouldn't be the first one that is still in wide use. Take the Gnerl fighter. I have never seen that name in print. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but the apparent source of that is dialogue during the SDFM series. That could be the same source of the apparently fan-made name for the Medium Gun Ship - someone (thinks?) they heard something, and then transcribed it in what they think is the Zentrādi language.

That's my 2 cents.

I'm still investigating where it first occurred, but the Zentradi Army air battle pod has been referred to as the "Gnerl" in print a few official works I'm aware of.

The OSD in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy and the supporting publications for same use "Gnerl", in English no less. (I only noticed it because there's a swarm of them that hang out with an equally large swarm of Nousjadeul-Ger battle suits just north of Jurgen City in the Sierra Desert map for much of the game.)

[sketchley]

The OSD in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy and the supporting publications for same (...)

It doesn't show up in "Macross 30 - Voices Across The Galaxy Visual Complete Guide". That's neither the name in English or Japanese, and the vehicle! (Unless if its buried in the text somewhere).

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics G 2016 Spring: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatmechanicsG.php
- lots of goodies. The Kawamori interview is especially insightful.

[Mazinger]

Awesome Sketchley, thanks!

[Mr March]

Hoping this is the right place to ask, but...

What is the origin of the name "Quiltra-Quelamitz" for Medium Scale Gun Destroyer? The Macross Mecha Manual claims the ship has no official name and that fans invented one for it, but it seems to have become so entrenched that his site is one of the few that doesn't use it. And it's not *Western* fan-invention, given that it pops up in Japanese fan works.

The question has mostly been answered, but just to add a bit of context to the change I made in my website regarding the "Medium-Scale Gun Destroyer", the lack of reference for this name was the primary motivator for removing the "Quiltra-Quelamitz" title. When I first built the Macross Mecha Manual (M3) the intent was to ensure as much straight Macross trivia was used as possible. Not only was this done to be accurate, but to also celebrate the Macross Compendium, that was for decades the only reliable source for English translated Macross trivia. It was also important to avoid any Harmony Gold-isms or Robotech-isms, since I wanted the M3 to be a pure Macross fansite. In the beginning, I also lacked a lot of Macross source books. So I was unable to verify the validity even of all the known Macross facts.

IInitially, gaps in the Macross Compendium would be filled using as much Babel-fish or Google Translated material I could obtain on my own. Not speaking Japanese nor able to read, some errors were bound to creep in. I believe the name "Quiltra-Quelamitz" was something I found on an English language site first, but for whatever reason I had convinced myself it was legitimate Japanese-source material. Probably because I saw it on a Japanese site during my many torublesome forays into translation via the internet. While many of these forays did lead to trivia for vehicles like the Gol Gants Charts or the SDP-1 Stampede Valkyrie long before newer translated trivia became available, it appears that "Quiltra-Quelamitz" was wrong all along.

Now, I have a much more extensive book collection and have been able to confirm all kinds of Macross trivia.It appears Egan Loo was VERY thorough when he built the Macross Compendium and I've found sources for much of his fine work. Sadly, the "Quiltra-Quelamitz" can't be found anywhere in any of the hundreds of books, magazines, liner notes, CD sleeves, video game manuals or art materials I've purchased for Macross. It may be out there somewhere, (like where the original source for the Zentradi "Enemy" Battle Suit statistics came from back in 1994) but to the best of my knowledge it's not a real thing. Hence, this "name" has been removed and a special note placed in the Gun Destroyer profile for curious fans.

Hope that helps explain why

[SebastianP]

OK, so I've been sitting here all day hand-transcribing the text of the Battleships of the Galaxy vol 2 book into Google Translate (since trying to OCR it went absolutely nowhere), then trying to interpret what it spits out. I think I've gotten the gist of the first page, and have a readable translation of it, but I could do with a translation check if anyone feels up to the task...

Here's the source text, as transcribed (still in Japanese):

現在(2065年)の主力フリゲート艦。

2029年に1番艦が就役して以後、2045年の時点で各種合計9000隻が造されたベストセラー艦。星間大戦前から整備されていた宇宙駆逐艦の後継艦として設計さね、優れた基礎設計のため現時点でも改める必要性が殆ど無い。

構造の大きな特徴は、「軽い」という事に尽きる。 これは2030年代以後建造された中型艦以下の艦艇全てに共通しているが、主な目的はコストの軽減にあった。最小のコストで最大の効果を上げる設計突き詰めた結果、この形状に行き着いた。

設計のコンセプトは、敵に当てられずに、一方的に攻撃すること。 ゼントラーディ軍、監察軍ともに大規模戦闘を前提としていて、レーダーなど捜索能力が総じて低い。加えて、本級はステルス(レーダー反射)構造を取り入れることで、ゼントラーディ軍のレーダーにはせいぜい中型の機動兵器 (バトルポッド) にしか映らない。その上軽量さがもたらす機動性を活かして常にランダムに機動を行うことで、被弾の険性を極限まで下げている。

一方武装は、敵が超大型艦が基本のため、大きな火力発揮できる火砲を搭載できるだけ搭載している。固定砲が多いのも、火を追い求めた結果だった。これに対して敵バトルポッド対策は、全自動の近接防空ミサイルのみとされているが、艦隊行動をしながらだと十分な防御力があると、設計当初は考えられていた。

なお、小型艦のため大尉が艦長になるが、数の増えた現在では中尉の艦長まで存するが、艦の自動化が押し進められているので問題はない。

And here's my take at translating it:

Current (2065) mainstay of the frigate fleet.

Since the first ship was commissioned in 2029, the ship has become a best-seller and by 2045, a total of 9,000 hulls including variants had been built. It was designed as a successor to the Space Destroyer (t/n: Oberth-class) of the previous interstellar war. Due to its excellent basic design, the ship still doesn't need much in the way of upgrades.

The major feature of its structure is its lightness - this is common to all vessels below medium-size built after 2030, the main goal being to reduce the cost. Thorough investigation determined that this shape would yield the maximum effectiveness at the lowest cost.

The concept of the design is to not get hit by the enemy, but always be the one attacking. The Zentraedi Army, and presumably the larger part of the Supervision Army, has poor sensor capabilities, such as radar. In addition, this ship incorporates stealth (radar signature reduction) in its design, and in a Zentraedi radar scope the ship will generate at most the signature of a Battle Pod. By taking advantage of the mobility offered by its low mass and maneuvering randomly, the chance of being hit is lowered to a minimum.

On the other hand, even the basic enemy ships are very large, and as such the ship needs substantial firepower. As a result, most of the armament is fixed to allow the guns to be as large as possible. The ship has close air defense missiles to combat the threat of enemy battle pods, which are fully automated. This was originally considered sufficient defense during fleet actions where ships can support each other.

It should be noted that, although the commanding officer for these ships was originally a captain (t/n: O-3, equivalent to naval Lieutenant), the increased number of ships in the fleet has meant that currently the commanding officer is usually a lieutenant (t/n: O-2, equivalent to naval Lieutenant Junior Grade). Due to the increased automation of these ships this does not pose problem.

Does this look about right?

[Seto Kaiba]

OK, so I've been sitting here all day hand-transcribing the text of the Battleships of the Galaxy vol 2 book into Google Translate (since trying to OCR it went absolutely nowhere), then trying to interpret what it spits out. I think I've gotten the gist of the first page, and have a readable translation of it, but I could do with a translation check if anyone feels up to the task...

Does this look about right?

You've got the spirit of it, at least. There's some deviations from the letter of the thing.

Yeah, optical character recognition doesn't work particularly well on kanji most of the time. Katakana and hiragana scan just fine, but something about kanji has foxed even my own efforts at designing an OCR transcriber. Back in graduate school I tried to adapt some OCR software I'd written for an intelligent systems class from facial recognition to transcribing Japanese text but it would absolutely choke on any kanji with more than about six radicals.

As far as the accuracy of the text you're translating, only that first paragraph is based on official material. The rest is fan-invented, but surprisingly plausible-sounding.

[Graham]

Great Mechanics G 2016 Spring: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatmechanicsG.php

- lots of goodies. The Kawamori interview is especially insightful.

Just curious, why are you writing "Val" rather than the generally accepted "Var" or official BD/DVD translation "Vär"?

[sketchley]

Just curious, why are you writing "Val" rather than the generally accepted "Var" or official BD/DVD translation "Vär"?

No particular reason other than that was what came up the most in a Google search when I started it. The spoken dialogue also sounds like the softer /l/ than the harder /r/ to my ears...

I can't argue with the official BD/DVD translation (though I doubt I'm going to adopt it - accents are a really pain to get right in HTML), but I humbly recommend that when it comes to Macross, to generally take the generally accepted terms with a grain of salt.

Edited August 3, 2016 by sketchley

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics G 2016 Summer: http://monkeybacon.m...tmechanicsG.php
- lots of insight into the Sv-262 Draken III, especially its transformation and creation.

- interestingly, in some parts the magazine has switched from writing in-universe 'factual' text to Kawamori-san's answers to questions about in-universe things. From a creative perspective, its fascinating stuff. For those of us looking for specifics, it comes up a bit wanting.

PS: ... and yes, getting all those accents right was a real chore. >.<;;;

Edited August 15, 2016 by sketchley

[Lorindor]

Just curious, why are you writing "Val" rather than the generally accepted "Var" or official BD/DVD translation "Vär"?

Someone told me it was spelled Vár in the official subs. Or could it be Vår? Both are names of a Norse goddess and would fit the theme. The only meaning of Vär I could find is that it's a word for weather in some parts of Sweden.

Any screenshots of the subs that could settle this?

Edited August 15, 2016 by Lorindor

[This Confuses Gamlin]

It's Vár in the official subs.

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics 11: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php
My initial translation was sorely in need of a cleanup. On top of that, I opted to do the magazine's synopsis of the anime. I'm glad I did, as there are a few things mentioned in it that I haven't come across before.
Of course, the magazine's misidentifying the Octos as two separate Destroids is amusing, but on the other hand its analysis of the moves used by the Valkyries is insightful. I think I just may go back and polish off the similar sections in GM 10 because of those kinds of things.

PS: Yay! Almost no pesky accents to deal with!

Edited September 2, 2016 by sketchley

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics 10: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php#GM
(Pgs 98-99 in particular)

Finished. A few parts add a bit more insight into the tactical situation of M0 Ch.3, but, overall, it doesn't really add very much to our body of knowledge (in English). T.T;;;

[spanner]

that's excellent work sketchley! have something to read when I get bored here at work!

[Lorindor]

So I'm just wondering if the spelling "Lil'Draken" has ever been used in an official Macross Delta work, making it canon? Otherwise, I'm sure it should be transliterated as Lilldraken instead, which was the inofficial name of the Saab testbed aircraft that would be developed into Draken. "Lil'Draken" seems to be an ugly Americanization to me.

[sketchley]

Lilldraken is the name I went with in my translations. Mainly because of sites like Wikipedia* that write it that way and the Japanese version** of the pages that use the same.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_210

** https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B5%E3%83%BC%E3%83%96_210

[Lorindor]

Great, Sketchley. It wasn't aimed at your translations in particular. But in general, the fanbase seems to have adopted the americanized spelling. I just wanted to make sure that wasn't the canon spelling, like the horrendous "Xaos" instead of Chaos.

[sketchley]

To be honest, despite it being official, I'm not using Xaos either. I'm translating Japanese to English, not to Greek! And before anyone says something... just remember that in Japanese it's spelt Kaosu. Why should us English speakers have a more difficult time enjoying Macross than the Japanese fans do in their language?

[sketchley]

Long time, no update, eh?

Well, I dusted off the translation tools for another stab at Macross Chronicle - DYRL Zentradi 02B: Zentradi Military Vessels: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRmechanic/MCRmechanic.php

As usual, it's light on specifics.  But on the other hand, I'm happy for the few specifics that it does give!  LOL

[sketchley]

Did this one to complete the pair, and 'cuz it looked easy (LOL... are they ever 'easy'?).

Macross Chronicle - DYRL Zentradi 02A: Zentradi Military Vessels: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRmechanic/MCRmechanic.php#DYRL

 

Surprisingly... something interesting did pop up: Gorugu Gantsu (or Golg Gantz) is the name of the Mobile Fortress's big gun!

Looks like the RPGers and other stats resources will have to amend their write-ups for the wrongly named "Golg Gants Charts" Heavy Attacker!  LOL

Edited April 16, 2017 by sketchley

[sketchley]

I seem to be on a roll (LOL)

Macross Chronicle DYRL Meltrandi 03B: Meltrandi Warships: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRmechanic/MCRmechanic.php#DYRL

As usual, not much in the way of hard and fast details.  But there are some nuggets and hints here and there.

[M'Kyuun]

Sketchley, do you know if there is an English translation of the interviews in Shoji Kawamori's Macross Design Works? I've looked for one for years and have come up empty. Figured I'd ask, as you seem to be the guy who'd know. Thanks. -M'Kyuun

[sketchley]

10 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Sketchley, do you know if there is an English translation of the interviews in Shoji Kawamori's Macross Design Works? I've looked for one for years and have come up empty. Figured I'd ask, as you seem to be the guy who'd know. Thanks. -M'Kyuun

Not that I know of.

Renato was the only other MW member I was aware of that was occasionally translating interviews, and I don't believe that he ever did it (if memory serves, his focus was more on the production staff behind SDFM, not the mechanical designs (me) or characters (Gubaba)).

[M'Kyuun]

Too bad- it's a bit of a glaring omission, IMHO. Thanks, Sketchley.

[sketchley]

You're always welcome to make an attempt at it yourself. 

 

More rolling along... Macross Chronicle DYRL Meltrandi 03A: Meltrandi Warships: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRmechanic/MCRmechanic.php#DYRL

This one is a bit more informative than the other Zentradi ship related ones - simply because the Meltrandi are depicted so differently in DYRL!   Alas, it's still not very much at all...

[sketchley]

Meltrandi 02A Miria Ship: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRmechanic/MCRmechanic.php#DYRL

I found this one... a bit more of a chore to do than the other (recent) ones.  Perhaps it's the recounting of the obvious or the lack of new detail...?  At least it reinforces one thing: those big Macross ship guns are literally the entire front third of the ships they are built into!

[Xigfrid]

Sketchley, I have to thank you a thousand times for your translation, I have been struggling to find Octo / Oktosu / Octss info and your work just save a lot of my time!

Since I am at it, do you eventually have readen the Macross the Ride novel books ?

[sketchley]

7 hours ago, Xigfrid said:

Sketchley, I have to thank you a thousand times for your translation, I have been struggling to find Octo / Oktosu / Octss info and your work just save a lot of my time!

Since I am at it, do you eventually have readen the Macross the Ride novel books ?

Thank you!  Thankfulness for the effort is gratifying.

No, I never picked up the Macross the Ride (MtR) novels... I'm still meaning to finish off the MtR articles that appeared in Dengeki Hobby Magazine at some point...

Frankly, there's too much Macross in print! 

[Xigfrid]

Yeah that's pretty amazing how much the Japanese people can read. It's like if they read as much as we watch TV.

[Seto Kaiba]

22 hours ago, Xigfrid said:

Since I am at it, do you eventually have readen the Macross the Ride novel books ?

Was there something in particular you wanted to know from those?  I've read them, though I haven't published a translation of same because they're in print still.

 

15 hours ago, sketchley said:

No, I never picked up the Macross the Ride (MtR) novels... I'm still meaning to finish off the MtR articles that appeared in Dengeki Hobby Magazine at some point...

Frankly, there's too much Macross in print! 

No kidding.  Have you ever looked into doing the old Sky Angels book?  I'm taking a whack at it now that my day job workload has slackened, and was wondering if you've done anything with it (or would be interested in proofreading).

[Xigfrid]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Was there something in particular you wanted to know from those?  I've read them, though I haven't published a translation of same because they're in print still

 Do you mean there is a translated version in print somewhere?

 "the Ride" had cougth my attention in the late and when I tried to catch on the story, I couldn't find anything. I know there is a triangle love story and that at some point there is an attack but that's pretty much what I know. I have bought the 2 books but unfortunately there isn't that many illustrations and I cannot decode it from Japanese 

So basically if you can give me a summery, with as much details as possible I would be really happy, just to know how much the ride can influence on Frontier story line and with the next Macross. 

Edited May 11, 2017 by Xigfrid