Day 4, the penultimate day, was spent doing absolutely nothing. I beat the Elite Four three times that day. Three whole times. That is how little we did. On top of that was dinner at Victoria, a mostly-steak-serving family restaurant with an infinite salad bar, and a snowball fight. There really isn't anything more to say.
Day 5 was the last day, and we were all up early to see Steph off as she left for Tokyo to see her family. With a lot of time to kill before the ferry at 10.30, we split up to go and find something to do again. Mark and I had tempura, then did a trawl of the bookshops of Otaru in search of postcards. I'm sure the others did interesting stuff too. We met up again at 3 for karaoke at the quirky-looking Thriller Karaoke, which was notable for its funny decorations and incredibly cheap 50-yen-per-half-hour price. A lot of fun was had, followed by dinner, again, at Victoria, and then it was off to the terminal. I can report that, due to fairer weather, the boat trip back was incomparably better than the trip there, and it was even quite fun. The maids even managed to rip the mansion into Hell to save it from the explosion caused by a 200 foot tall alien. I also watched the first Pokemon movie in Japanese for the first time ever, which was quite an experience*.
We arrived back in Kansai at 9pm, where we walked to the JR station nearby and caught the last train bound in the rough direction of Kyoto. Unfortunately, the subways having finished about half an hour before we arrived, I was forced to walk the I-don't-know-how-many kilometers back from Nijo Station in the west of Kyoto city center, to the Shugakukan in the north east. It certainly did NOT help that I took a wrong turn right at the start and ended up going south for a good distance. This is what I get for picking the closer but unfamiliar station over Kyoto's distant familiarity. Anyway, it took 3 hours and 2 Big Thunders to get home, by which time it was practically morning and my feet hurt.
The next day I awoke at 3pm with a text, then must have fallen asleep again, and woke up for real at 4.45, 15 minutes before the vital ATMs shut for the day (ridiculous, right?). Waking up to see the sun set is a very scary thing, let me tell you. I also watched the second Pokemon movie* and played Elona for a fair while. Then I went back to bed at about midnight.
So yesterday was an actually eventful day, with coffee at Starbuck's with Mai (where I learnt she was getting a part-time job as a cospla- I mean, as a shrine maiden), followed by farewell karaoke for Angela. Seriously fun stuff. Then we had dinner at Mumokuteki, the vegan restaurant in Teramachi, which was just superb. Thusly we saw the end of a long era.
And now it's today. Plans for today are limited, being pretty sleepy, but crucial. I need to find a job, for example. It seems to me that all of the part-time English teaching positions around here require full degrees before you can even apply, which I guess is what Dina was talking about at the CELTA interview, but if a whole bunch of other Edinburghers have found such jobs without needing a degree then so can I. I need to save money for the sorry-I-was-ill-and-couldn't-visit trips to Kobe and Tokyo. Other plans include research for the linguistics essay, which I now finally have time to start properly. Not feeling good about it, though, as collecting the data is going to be one nasty job. I mean, how do I go about getting recordings of people spontaneously using keigo in some kind of religious discussion? The Christian angle is going to be a piece of cake, as I already know what the result is going to be, but finding practicing Shintoists and Buddhists in a country where the two religions have become cultural icons to the point where even non-believers worship is going to be tricky. Current plan is to buy myself a dictophone (a cheap one) and ask random temple-goers a couple of questions. What those questions are, though, I don't really know, as it's going to be hard to get questions which don't frighten them off, but still get them to use their language naturally. Ever tried asking a Christian to explain their faith? Explaining something like that is not easy, so I can't expect it to be different here. With the data in hand, though, actually writing the essay shouldn't be too hard, so long as I have lots of sources to back up my wild claims. And that's today's job.
But first, lunch.
Thanks for reading.
*Okay, now this is what I really want to talk about today: the differences between the English and Japanese versions of Pokemon movies. I've seen two now, and they've been impressive, but the one thing that has really struck me is that there is not some massive leap in quality between the 'clearly inferior' English and 'astronomically superior' Japanese. What I really found surprising is that I actually prefer the English versions.
I know! Weird, right?
That's not to say I was disappointed with the Japanese films. Let's start with the first film and go from there. Oh yeah, there will obviously be spoilers here.
Pokemon: The Movie (劇場版ポケットモンスター)
The most notable difference here is the introduction. In the original film there is a fifteen minute introduction in which a biological sample of Mew is found, and some scientists work on cloning it. What we don't see in English is that the project is headed up by a scientist who is hoping to clone his own daughter, who died not long before, using the same technology. So we get this lovely scene where Mewtwo, still an infant, talks with 'AiTwo', the scientist's cloned daughter, and the three starter Pokemon in a telepathic, dream-like conversation. However, one by one the clone system fails and each of Mewtwo's new friends fade away, leaving him alone and confused.
The rest of the film is identical plot-wise, and this raises a number of questions. What point did that introduction have if Mewtwo never once mentions it, and though it may have been the driving force behind his change of heart that link is never clearly seen. It makes what was a very touching scene into something unnecessary. Of course, I may just be saying that because I hadn't seen it before, so know that it makes sense without it. Perhaps if I'd seen AiTwo in the beginning I'd feel differently.
There are a number of other little differences between versions that have an impact on the feel of the film. A lot of the jokes that are in the English version are changed or removed completely in Japanese, and there are a few that I just didn't get in the original. It makes it a little more serious, which isn't always what is needed. When it turns out that the vikings that were rowing you to a mysterious island were in fact Team Rocket, you wouldn't be that scared. I mean, it's Team Rocket. They dressed up as vikings, for crying out loud. Oh, and speaking of Team Rocket's blunders, you may be interested to know that they do NOT mistake Scyther for Alakazam in the original, that was the translator's error. I do like, however, their 'Who's that Pokemon?' lines, which are spoken a lot closer to the series' lines, and this makes it a lot funnier.
Music changes a great deal between the two films as well, even in really small ways. Mew's theme in English is a lot different to Mew's theme in Japanese (can't find an example), and I much prefer the English version. It really gives Mew this sense of being something ethereal, whereas the Japanese song (you'll have to take my word for it) is a lot more about Mew being mischievous and less about him being a rare Pokemon. If that makes sense... Another big difference in terms of music is when the Pokemon are all fighting their clones, and it's all very sad. In Japanese you get a song that you'd expect for a normal battle, rather than the slushy song you get in English. Not sure which works better here, but I can tell you that Ash getting turned to stone is FAR sadder in English than in Japanese, and I think the music plays a big part in that.
I do like both versions of this film, but I prefer the English because it seems to have more spirit. As Louise said, it's like the translators have takes risks and tried to put their own slant on the events, and in this case it is a slant I appreciate more.
Pokemon: The Movie 2000 (劇場版ポケットモンスター 幻のポケモン ルギア爆誕)
This will be a lot shorter, as there are far fewer differences in this film. The most important point I can think of is the quality of the voice acting. Lugia, Slowking and the Collector all have much better voices in Japanese than in English. I seriously could not take Lugia seriously in English, and it was good to see him with something of a darker, more monstrous voice in Japanese. Thinking about it, that's kinda the only major difference between them, without me going into overall differences between the two series as a whole.
Okay, now I'm really hungry.
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幻のポケモン、ミュウ。不思議で、伝説のポケモン。レッドの時を覚えると、ミュウの不思議さがかっこかったと思った。でも今、ミュウがいて、もうすぐポケモンマスターレッドを勝負つもりだ。
それも不思議だね。
それも不思議だね。
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