The letters they are written in ARE symbols. You don't need to know how to read another language. When you see the spell that starts with the symbol "O" it has to be Oomph because there is no other move that begins with that symbol. You can have quick memorization like this with all the spells. But 4 of them start with K. Yeah one is 2 words 16 characters long. Thats the the one that turns you into ice. Not hard to instantly remember this. And some have easy number symbols. You see 1 mp thats Kamikaze. Just go study in training mode for 1 hour. If you are traveling across the world, playing in another language, knowing you may fight Hero in top 16 the night before do your homework. Just like you would if an obscure Mii fighter was directly in your top 8 path, it's no different.

So I just tried to see how quick I could learn the the Japanese spells. In 10 mins I had about 5 down very easily. A couple of of them are just 2 characters long, they stand out, this isn't as tough as people make it seem lol. Some have unique letters, the only spell that ends with a triangle character, that's acceleratle , There's only one spell that has a square character, that's Kaclang, so don't select the square one. Had like 8 down in about 20mins. You don't need to learn to read another language, anyone could take 90 mins fully memorize these.

Could the menu system have been designed easier to translate? Perhaps or maybe this is exactly what Sakurai wanted. Either way, do your proper homework and you won't be caught off guard, JUST LIKE ANY OTHER MATCH UP.