I think most game players are familiar with some of the oh-so-funny Japanese to English translation errors. Some of it stems from the lack of difference between 'R' and 'L' sounds in Japanese. They, the Japanese, simply do not differentiate the sounds. Even my 'in-house' translator from time-to-time has an L and R moment. After 13 years of living in the United Kingdom she recently declared that up until that very day, she was unaware of the difference between 'Dairy' and the word 'Daily' - assuming, as she had for 13 years, that Milk, understandably, was not a 'daily' product but a 'dairy' product. Oh! How we laughed.

...but this person had had the benefit of hearing me recount my marriage lines. In Japanese. In a Japanese Shinto temple. In the centre of Tokyo. Oh! How she laughed. In my opinion it wasn't funny.

Other moments of translational confusion are simply mistakes. The quality of English spoken by the Japanese is actually very good. However, very few Japanese speak English and even fewer English speakers speak Japanese.

So whenever I remember Japanese translation errors and think of video games - I think of Contiental Circus - a racing game. Nothing, whatsoever, to do with a circus. The word they were stabbing for was Circuit. Oh! How I laughed.

Theatre Wars is not a translational error. I wished it had been. I was hoping for 'Theatre of War' - as in real-time strategy and tanks and infantry and the like. Sadly no error here. In fact a perfect translation. Theatre Wars is just that. A war of theatres.

Yep - Arts drama house verses arts drama house in this very typical quirky Japanese game. I'm not sure if it is very good or not and my inhouse translator believes I'm wasting my time with this blog anyway - especially since no-one ever posts any comments anymore.

Taking into account that her blog - dedicated to the ancient Japanese art of telling each other about yummy restaurants, updating each other on the most recent repulsive tasting dieting foods and finding pictures of cute animals with oddly mis-matching names, gets about 60 comments per day. (For the record I have about 49 comments ...in 6 months!)

Maybe - just maybe - she may have a point.

That aside - You'll never get a copy of this game without going to Japan and buying it. Rare - in my opinion - as a first time Japanese tourists finding their way to Reicester Square - with or without a map. Or to be fair - a first time English tourist in Tokyo knowing in advance that 1) Not all rice is the same 2) Not all noodles are the same 3) Fatty meat is not bad.

Arigato gozaimashita.

3DO Kid.

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