BombermanBoard

Sora G. Silverwind · #21 Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:40 am

Duke Serkol wrote:

I really like that Bomberman song (the regular one, not the rap version), I wonder if it's possible to sing it over the good ol' BMan theme song (or maybe a track from 64?)

On a side note, I see that the rap version is not just in a different style but conveys a different meaning in some cases (in particular the "spoken" part in Sirius' song, in one version it's Sirius talking in the other it's Bomberman).
Should I understand that you yourself made up one of the two, for fun?

Yes. The rap version came about because when I translated the first line of Bomberman's song, it somehow got rendered in my head as "Break it down, break it down now." Which had partly to do with the fact that the original Japanese in that part was "kowase kowase/nandemo kandemo/bukkowasee", which can be sort of roughly translated to "blow it up, blow it up, blow it all up!" and which had an interesting rhythm - in Japanese, obviously, not English - to my ear. In addition, "kowasu" was primarily being defined in my word-processor's dictionary as "to break." The meaning plus the rhythm of the Japanese made me debate whether the original Japanese writer/artist intended it as a rap. And when I was doing the translations for both songs and then ran the comic by my co-translator, both of us agreed that both songs, even in Japanese...weren't really much of songs, and probably did better as a rap considering the wording of some parts. (You shoulda seen the literal translations we came up with before I added the half-hearted rhyme scheme in.

) But, uh, the non-rap version is the "official" scanslation version, with the rap version being a crack thing that I did because I have way too much fun with Bomberman stuff.*

With regards to the part you're talking about, though, I actually consider that one of the more consistent parts of both translations, since all I did was basically change the style of Sirius' dialogue - what I'd intended with the wording of that was that Bomberman said the "What he sez" part, followed by Sirius voicing that part, which was what the quotes were for. Contrast that with the next panel of his, where I had to completely spin out something based on the general gist of the normal translation. I guess the similarities are more striking when you've had the literal translation to work on and you've had to determine what the author is generally trying to convey, though...

*The rap idea also had partly to do with the fact that I'd run across an epic rap in the comments of a TotA fanart written from the POV of the Six God-Generals from Tales of the Abyss earlier that day and was amazed that the artist came up with all of that. I lul'd liekwhoah.