Macross Translations, and more

[Seto Kaiba]

41 minutes ago, SMS007 said:

Am I to understand that Michael Blanc's legal given name「ミハエル」/ (Mihaeru) is the Hebrew form of the name while his nickname "Michel"「ミシェル」/ (Misheru) is the French form?

His legal name is "Michael", which is the commonly-used Hebrew-derived version of the name... though he's noted as answering to both the French and Russian equivalents of the name as well.

[SMS007]

I thought "Gamlin" was the official romanized spelling of ガムリン. Different departments just not telling each other?

Edited January 16, 2018 by SMS007

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, SMS007 said:

I thought "Gamlin" was the official romanized spelling of ガムリン. Different departments just not telling each other?

Officially, yeah... what they've printed there is pretty much a straight pronunciation of the katakana.

Gamlin's one of those unlucky characters who practically lives the Spell My Name with an "S" trope.  Even the Macross 7 PLUS episode that features him joining the New UN Forces in the 37th Large Scale Long Distance Emigrant Fleet has a different variant spelling (the episode title being "TOP GAMRIN").

[SMS007]

How about Mylene's pet「グババ」?

[Seto Kaiba]

21 hours ago, SMS007 said:

How about Mylene's pet「グババ」?

That's almost always presented exactly as it's read: "Gubaba".

[sketchley]

Alright... just spent the past 45 min to 1 hour debugging my site... just to learn that the host doesn't allow "Sharon Apple Incident" (I think it's more like "Apple Incident").

So, dear readers, please inform me if any translations are still unavailable, and don't mind the "Sharon Apple Insident" misspelling...

[sketchley]

Completed!

Macross Chronicle Glossary 02A: Your Sound - We're Friends Now:  http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRglossary/MCRglossary.php

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics.DX 4:  http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php#GMDX

Finally got around to encoding the revised and mucho extended translation of that article (long story short, motivation petered out... as it stands, the later half is still unpolished.)

What's new: the articles before the VF stats (the 3 pillars of Macross, Macross F Keywords, VF-25 text, Successive Generations Of Macross Productions, and the genealogy of VFs - now in picture form!)

 

Edit:  the Great Mechanics table of contents has also been enhanced: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php

I've added the Macross content (or lack thereof) in Great Mechanics #6, and #9, as well as Great Mechanics G #2017 Winter and #2018 Spring.

It's not much, but it should be a useful guide for fellow fans looking for Macross mecha related content.

Edited May 2, 2018 by sketchley

[Zinjo]

On 12/31/2017 at 12:23 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

His legal name is "Michael", which is the commonly-used Hebrew-derived version of the name... though he's noted as answering to both the French and Russian equivalents of the name as well.

Makes perfect sense, since Blanc is French for "white", implying a French heritage.  So in France, he'd be known as Michel Blanc (Michael White in English)

 

I've argued that his name was Michael all along on these boards and "some" just can't get past the Japanese limited ability to pronunce Western names.

Ererika (or however fans wrote it)  is clearly pronounced Eureka in the Eureka 7 series, but fans and dubbers pathetically tried to emulate how the Japanese actors tried to pronounce it.  Only one Japanese actress ever pronounced it correctly.

Edited August 28, 2018 by Zinjo

[SMS007]

I really should get around to buying the Frontier movies on Blu-Ray so I can see how the official English subtitles in anime render his legal name versus his nickname. 

Edited May 6, 2018 by SMS007

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics.DX 6:  http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php#GMDX

A great tour de force article—with sections on the CG in MF (mostly untranslated), the VF-25 & 27, Destroids, Battle Pods, and an interview with Kazutaka Miyatake!

There are many highlights (my favourite would have to be the opinion of the Zentrādi foot soldiers who have to ride the Rigādo), however the interview with Miyatake-san is the most insightful.  In short, I've long been puzzled why Kawamori-san went to great efforts to include the dancing Valkyries at the beginning of Macross Delta (and emphasized their inclusion in a later Great Mechanics interview).  Miyatake-san's answers in the interview indicate that the motivation behind that has been around since the beginning of Macross—an in the process, indirectly addressing questions like 'why are the Zentrādi only ever portrayed in antagonistic roles?'

If you like mecha, this is highly recommended—both for the in-universe content, as well as the creative side of it.

[TheLoneWolf]

That Miyatake interview was great! Your site is truly the most underrated Macross site out there.

[sketchley]

9 hours ago, TheLoneWolf said:

That Miyatake interview was great! Your site is truly the most underrated Macross site out there.

Thanks!  I'm glad that someone else found it interesting.

As always, I wish I had the time (and energy) to finish off the rest of the article (the section on CG in MF)  Maybe in another 10 years! 

[Seto Kaiba]

On 5/29/2018 at 10:47 PM, sketchley said:

Great Mechanics.DX 6:  http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php#GMDX

A great tour de force article—with sections on the CG in MF (mostly untranslated), the VF-25 & 27, Destroids, Battle Pods, and an interview with Kazutaka Miyatake!

"An interesting read" hardly begins to cover it.

Definitely enjoyed the bits with the CG director talking about how certain shots were framed and what they were looking to emphasize.  

No big surprises in the technical information.  I'd have to check publication dates but this might be the first explicit confirmation that the VF-22 didn't include the prototype's inertia vector control system.  There's a little evidence of micro-evolution in the lore there too, WRT the YF-24 Evolution prototype.  It changed from the VF-25 having the same basic performance as the YF-24 to, in the movie resources, the YF-24 being more on par with the YF-29.

As an engineer, I'm definitely happy with the way the bit on Destroids and the Miyatake interview emphasizes the practicality of the common chassis.  That's always been one of my favorite parts of Destroid design.  

[M'Kyuun]

Question to all the various folks graciously doing translations for the kanji impaired: Do you know of any existing translations of the interviews within Shoji Kawamori's Macross Design Works? I've done searches, to no avail, and wondered if any of you have either done translations, or know where they can be found. I've had this book for over a decade, and have long desired to read those interviews, as it's always nice to learn the insights of the folks behind the stuff we love.

Anyway, I appreciate any help you guys can offer.

[SMS007]

Is any real life inspiration known for Macross 5’s planet ラクス / Rakusu? And thus if it should be romanized as “Rax” or “Lux”?

Edited June 6, 2018 by SMS007

[Seto Kaiba]

29 minutes ago, SMS007 said:

Is any real life inspiration known for Macross 5’s planet ラクス / Rakusu? And thus if it should be romanized as “Rax” or “Lux”?

"Lux" would be ルクス.

On a lark, I did a search on the kana and got "Lacus", the Latin word for "lake".

[sketchley]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"Lux" would be ルクス.

On a lark, I did a search on the kana and got "Lacus", the Latin word for "lake".

He's kind of got a good point there: the Lux shampoo brand is written as ラックス: http://www.lux.co.jp/  (don't ask me why the vowels are being changed like that...)

It raises the interesting possibility that it is a reference to the SF TV series "Lexx"*!

 

* But before we go too far into exploring that possibility, the Japanese name for the series appears to be 機甲戦虫紀レックス: http://tsutaya.tsite.jp/item/movie/PTA00007YRZ9  I love how they give it the prefix "Armour Battle Insect Era"!!! LOL

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

52 minutes ago, sketchley said:

He's kind of got a good point there: the Lux shampoo brand is written as ラックス: http://www.lux.co.jp/  (don't ask me why the vowels are being changed like that...)

Hadn't considered that... but then, I was looking at "Lux" in terms of the Latin word for "Light" and the SI unit for measuring illuminance.

I have to admit, "Lacus" would probably make a lot more sense, considering most of what we see of the planet is its bodies of water.

 

52 minutes ago, sketchley said:

It raises the interesting possibility that it is a reference to the SF TV series "Lexx"*!

Can't have done.  Macross 7 first mentions the planet [Lux/Rax/Lacus] in its 23rd episode "Sound Force", which aired 26 March 1995.  The first episode of Lexx didn't air until over 2 years later, on 18 April 1997.

 

[SMS007]

On 6/6/2018 at 12:19 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

"Lux" would be ルクス.

On a lark, I did a search on the kana and got "Lacus", the Latin word for "lake".

Yack Deculture that makes perfect sense!

[sketchley]

Macross Frontier Blu-ray 01 Linear Notes: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTlinernotes.php

Got around to finishing this one off.  While nothing in particular stands out, it does provide a nice overview of the Macross universe leading up to the start of MF.  If anything, the character outlines at the start of the series are of particular interest.

 

 

[SMS007]

Impressive!

One of these days I need to get my own Frontier Blu-Rays.

But, if I may inquire, is there some kind of pattern to the spellings you use? Why is "Ranka Lee" given as such but the page uses "Saotome Aruto" instead of "Saotome Alto", "Lynn Minmei" instead of "Lynn Minmay", and "Buritai" instead of "Vrlitwhai"?

Edited June 22, 2018 by SMS007

[hachi]

On 5/30/2018 at 10:47 AM, sketchley said:

Great Mechanics.DX 6:  http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php#GMDX

A great tour de force article—with sections on the CG in MF (mostly untranslated), the VF-25 & 27, Destroids, Battle Pods, and an interview with Kazutaka Miyatake!

There are many highlights (my favourite would have to be the opinion of the Zentrādi foot soldiers who have to ride the Rigādo), however the interview with Miyatake-san is the most insightful.  In short, I've long been puzzled why Kawamori-san went to great efforts to include the dancing Valkyries at the beginning of Macross Delta (and emphasized their inclusion in a later Great Mechanics interview).  Miyatake-san's answers in the interview indicate that the motivation behind that has been around since the beginning of Macross—an in the process, indirectly addressing questions like 'why are the Zentrādi only ever portrayed in antagonistic roles?'

If you like mecha, this is highly recommended—both for the in-universe content, as well as the creative side of it.

Only read this today--thanks for that Miyatake interview! I'm really envious of all those info that Japanese readers get from their mecha designers based on interviews like this.

[SMS007]

What do the Frontier movie Blu-Rays give as the official romanization of クラン・クラン?

[sketchley]

Goods 06: Macross Related Games 2: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRgoods/MCRgoods.php#06G

Newly translated.  While there's nothing on in-universe stats or setting, the stuff on the "Axe Frontier" series is interesting.  At the very least, this sheet gives us a good indication of what all future Macross games will be like.

[sketchley]

Macross Chronicle (original): Goods 07: Macross Ace Frontier: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/MCRgoods/MCgoods.php#07G

Newly translated.  Despite being written only a couple of years before the Revised Ed.'s Macross Related Games 2 sheet (also about Macross Ace Frontier), it offers an interesting before/after snapshot for this game (or series of games).

 

Also... ever wonder what's up with the Japanese punctuation that sometimes works its ways into (my) translations?:

Komejirushi (※) - the oh-so-close to an asterisk, but not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_mark  .

[ScrambledValkyrie]

On 6/20/2018 at 11:15 PM, sketchley said:

Macross Frontier Blu-ray 01 Linear Notes: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/OTlinernotes.php

Got around to finishing this one off.  While nothing in particular stands out, it does provide a nice overview of the Macross universe leading up to the start of MF.  If anything, the character outlines at the start of the series are of particular interest.

 

 

I am really enjoying reading your translation of the Frontier notes. Thank you for the efforts.

[Zinjo]

On 5/31/2018 at 8:30 AM, sketchley said:

Thanks!  I'm glad that someone else found it interesting.

As always, I wish I had the time (and energy) to finish off the rest of the article (the section on CG in MF)  Maybe in another 10 years! 

Sketchley we all find it interesting.  We are just too busy reading it to express our appreciation for it.  Trust me, we'd all lament if it suddenly disappeared.

[sketchley]

Well... it looks like my sites' previous host has gone belly up.

I've acquired a new host and moved my sites over to it:  http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/

(or use the link under my avatar to the left )

[Bolt]

I'm not sure if this has been covered before.. 

Any more info on the Variable Fighter  Master File VF-19 Excalibur Operation "Phantom Sword"?

 

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics 06: Macross Zero Feature: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/OTgreatMechanics/OTgreatmechanics.php

100% newly translated - I just wish I had more energy/time/etc to finish this (what you see is what was completed before Christmas preparations started in earnest last year.  4 months on the motivation to polish off the Kawamori interview has evaporated).  (^_^;)

That said, the article provides a neat snapshot of things on the eve of Macross Zero's publication.  How they handle  the "preview" in the pre-Youtube era is also... amusing.   Nevertheless, I hope you, dear readers, also find the production and technical sides (shot composition, detailed analysis of shots, etc.) as interesting as I did.

 

Note: also updated the summaries of the Great Mechanics G section with the most recent issues (for those fellow Macross book collectors out there).

[sketchley]

On 9/21/2018 at 9:51 AM, Bolt said:

I'm not sure if this has been covered before.. 

Any more info on the Variable Fighter  Master File VF-19 Excalibur Operation "Phantom Sword"?

 

All my translations on the VFMF series can be found here: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/OTvfmf/OTvfmf.php

Alas, I've done nothing on Operation "Phantom Sword" (currently hard at work on getting an expanded, and much improved translation of VFMF VF-1: Wings of Space in php format, and am looking to tackle the stuff on the VF-1EX after that.  )

[Bolt]

Thanks Aaron. I have checked that out before. I know there’s a ton of stuff to translate and into the most ideal format.  What a labor of love!

It’s much appreciated!

Ya, I’m super curious about operation Phantom Sword and the SVF-440 Duel-Hounds! I understand it’s not at the top of the list. Looking forward to more of your work.

Edited February 26, 2019 by Bolt

[sketchley]

Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Wings of Space: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/OTvfmf/OTvfmf.php

*new and improved translation*

*now in colour*

Releasing a bit early, as it's coming up in discussion a lot recently.  I'm still working on additional parts, currently the Twin Beam Cannon Pack (not to mention cleaning up after I had to reset my Word Processor and it annoyingly activated "dynamic quotes"—something distinctly incompatible with plopping into HTML/PHP  ).

[Bolt]

Fast packs will forever be “Booby Duck” from now on!