Slashdot Mirror
Japanese X68000 Game Disc Warnings Amuse
Thanks to NFG.2y.net for its new feature cataloging the amusing-looking floppy disc warnings featured on classic game sleeves from the Sharp X68000 Japanese computer. Highlights include the Capcom sleeve illustrations, where "the Street Fighter 2 characters exhorted you to take good care of your floppies", as well as some strange warnings from Japanese developer Zoom, including the suggestions that users "don't bathe with your floppy", and a cautionary tale about dropping your hardware.
Wait, why is the balrog in SF2? And, does the street fighter two balrog have wings? Oh, wait, now I get it... Balrogs have shiny wings!
t m
Amazingly, this *is* on topic!
http://nfg.2y.net/games/x68k_sleeves/capcom1.sh
Wow, I totally didn't realise how awesome the world was when I was a kid!
It runs under Human 68K, an operating system which looks like CP/M 68 or MSDOS and uses a graphic user interface called VS. Notice that the development is still active on that computer, several OSes have been ported on the X68000, the most famous are Minix and Unix NetBSD and all the GNU tools and there are some projects under development : XNeptune (a Ethernet card) or Ko-Windows (a 'NextStep-like' graphic environment). Sweet design too.
Balrog is the boxer, Vega is the guy with the metal claws.
Anyway, if you'd taken the time to, you know, read the fucking article, you'd notice it's not hasseling the Engrish, but rather, making note that the illustrations are, in fact, quite funny.
Jumping to claims of racism. You must be fatally pollitically correct. Whoops, I mean, pollitically correct in a life-challenged manner.
For future reference, read the article before complaining about it's contents.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
I have got to get into a marketing firm somewhere so I can put those directions on a game box.
Shake til you puke!
I can't speak Japanese. However, if I were trying to sell a product in Japan, I would have a native speaker look over it. I'd expect that Japanese would have the good sense to do likewise when selling products in English-speaking countries (and, usually, they do).
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
I don't get some of the ones from Zoom. Who would want to have sex with a floppy? (The Love is for Grown-Ups one)
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
You might be surprised about how bad some translations can be. Think about how many companies try to cut corners when writing documentation. If they're not willing to spring for decent writers in their primary language, what makes you think that they're going to do so when it comes time to do translations?
In fairness, the Japanese have gotten much better on the translation front than they were in the days of Zero Wing. I've purchased a lot of Japanese equipment, and everything that I've bought recently has come with well written and translated documentation. Not so some of the other international stuff I've seen. We recently got some German-made equipment at my work, and the documentation was poorly translated. It is full of German gramatical constructs that don't belong in English, and the overall effect makes it quite difficult to understand. Even though my German is quite rusty, I almost think that I could understand it better if they hadn't translated it at all.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I sense a patent suit! Who patented "silly disk care warning icons"? .... hmm... no one eh ... be right back ...
Yes, bad translations into English are not a japanese thing, it happens on all fronts. The difference with Japanese is that it's so different from English that translating is a much, much more difficult job than, say, German to English.
:)
Now having lived for half a year in Japan, I can't say that I have seen all that many particularly bad translations around. The few cases that I do notice tend to stick out like sore thumbs though, making for a slightly skewed picture of this Engrish thing.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not an English native speaker, so I'm probably not as sensitive anyway
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Ah oops, this is Slashdot.. sorry. Speaking to a wall here, I guess
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Granted, the grandparent is barking up the wrong tree, but the point is still valid. Why general language mistakes are so funny are beyond my comprehension. Some are funny, but most are just plain, normal bad language.
I think the main reason the Japanese (and many other Asians) get hit with this is because their native language is missing entire concepts required for English, and it leads to particularly odd sentences from time to time. In the end, though, most intelligent people will at least give them credit for trying, and will either mildly correct them (as opposed to ridiculing them) or let it pass. Most of the people from Japan I've met that are learning English are happy to have a little help now and then with a language that makes absolutely no sense to them at times, but no one likes to be treated like an idiot.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Haven't read the article yet myself, but the "safety" warnings on products-- regardless of where you actually get them-- are usually pretty funny to me, particularly because in order to actually become a warning, ostensibly someone must have tried the offending act at least once.
Anyway, I just wanted to chip in that on Sega Saturn and Dreamcast discs, there was usually a CD-audio track that had some warning to the effect of "take me out of the CD player, dumbass, and put me in the game machine". Sega's warnings were pretty standard, but a few third-party warnings were hilarious (Working Designs did a really good one for Magic Knight Rayearth) or downright creepy. Those kinds of warnings deserve mention, too.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
For a second I thought this particular Zoom warning was a moral exhortation to game enthusiasts who are minors, but looking at the fact that it's in silhouette showing off the giant hole in the middle of the floppy, it becomes suddenly, painfully, hilariously clear.
Get off my launchpad!
Did anyone notice the weirdly suggestive diction, "Love is for grownups"? That scares me.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
This is somewhat offtopic, so apologies in advance.
I rented some third party maracas for the Dreamcast's Samba De Amigo a few years ago. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the company that made them, but they were covered with the most ludicrous "Engrish" warnings I'd ever seen. Can anybody point me to box shots of some third party controllers? I'd love to re-read some of them.
If you could be anything you want, I'll bet you'd be disappointed.
SotN gave you a free music track on track 1 if you attempted to listen to the game disc on a CD player.
Most TurboDuo games had a young woman's voice speaking the warning. "This disc contains..."
I have a printout of a web page from scei.co.jp entitled "STORY FROM DR. AT PlayStation CLINIC".
It starts like this:
Story of Liquid
You might play game as you drink pop, right? As you get excited, you might have spilled the pop. It would be sucked if you spill the pop over your PlayStation!.... If the cockroaches get into the console through tiny space, it makes inside dirty and does mischief. So be aware!
I can't find the orignal page anymore, but someone posted some more excerpts here.
Watashi no chinchin wa hoshii desu ka.
(Though I guess I don't count, being Australian rather than American.)
- Chuq
Mazu, dare mo nihonjin no eigo o baka ni shitenai jan. Omae koso zenzen rinkusaki mitenai dake ja nai no? Ttaku, dakara surashudotto wa aori bakkari to iwareteru jan. RTFA, kono ahome!