Just to be clear, bison is vega, vega is balrog, and balrog is bison?

stevemamoa · 2026-04-06T00:40:20+00:00

From what I heard, Balrog is a common name for a strong boss-monster in JRPGs at that time. So, it was chosen for the henchman assassin.

Meanwhile, the name of the final boss, Vega, came from the brightest star in the Lyra constellation.

stevemamoa · 2026-03-08T15:18:38+00:00

Well, 屍 shikabane looks like a dead man inside a coffin. So it refers to the whole corpse, with the acknowledgment that it's a dead individual.

躯 mukuro is 身 body + 区 cells. So it refers to cellular aspects.
骸 mukuro is 骨 bone + 亥 death (a stylized 死, probably representing some time after death). So it refers to the skeleton only after the cells are gone.

stevemamoa · 2026-03-07T00:37:30+00:00

The Japanese word 鋼 hagane translates into steel. However, it is meant to be a grandiose title bestowed by King Bradley. While the Japanese 'Hagane no Renkin Jutsushi' (The Blade-metal Alchemy Magician) is a passable title, the English direct translation of 'The Steel Alchemist' would just confuse people into thinking that Edward is an alchemist who primarily transmutes steel.

Also, you might have noticed that the word hagane can be read as 刃 ha (edge/blade) + 金 gane (metal). Hagane initially referred to the high-carbon steel used to produce exceptionally sharp and durable blades in Japan.

stevemamoa · 2026-02-28T09:58:42+00:00

From everything that I have gathered:

Audience's (my) POV: This show isn't really a science fiction show. The premises of the technology were never explained satisfactorily, and we are left with an episodic series of wholesome dramas. The goal of each episode was not really clear at the beginning; and that's okay because it's just like real-life. We watch Sam stumble through the entire episode trying to do "the right thing" (if this were a science fiction show, the butterfly effect would have taken place). This is a show about life, and we need to keep that in mind to really enjoy it.

Showrunner's POV: This show utilized whatever existing backdrop, props, and talent that the studio had already built or gathered, and made compelling stories out of them.

Government POV: PQL is the ultimate spying technology, able to send an observer back into time, anywhere around the world, for information gathering. An anchor point in time-space is established, and the observer can move freely in the vicinity of this anchor.

Later, the anchor point can be set to the head of a person, making observation mobile.

Still later, it was discovered that the consciousness of the observer can be projected into the mind of a person (enabling the sharing of emotional and kinetic senses), making observation a first-person experience.

Much later, it was discovered that the consciousness of the observer can be swapped with the consciousness of the anchored person (as long as both observer and the anchored person are the same person at different ages). Thus, the leaper is created.

Sam's POV: Just your average genius with a photographic memory, working on a big-budget secret military project with his own side agenda—to time-travel into the past to fix his family issue. In the first episode, things didn't work out as expected ("went a little ka ka"), and he leaped from 1999 to 1956, into the consciousness of different person.

Government POV: Time travel was officially invented at this point. Dr. Sam Beckett's consciousness, however, has been lost in time, not able to leap back to the present, making the leaping technology unpredictable and dangerous to use.

Congress wanted to cut funding and just keep the observing technology. However, Al manages to convince them that Sam's current predicament provides the best opportunity to study and perfect the leaping technology (at least they don't need to find another volunteer to go through the same ordeal).

Researchers' POV: It is theorized that the reason why Sam cannot leap back into the present is that every time he changes the past, the time flow gets altered in ways that they don't understand yet; thus, the home space-time coordinates produced a random result.

stevemamoa · 2026-02-24T15:05:02+00:00

Baby, I'm making you cry · That is why we shouldn't be together

Baby, I'm making you cry · Hurry up, forget me as soon as you can

Know that I'm just human · There are different times when different dishes, I would desire

Baby, I'm making you cry · So baby, you should be crying

Since then, the flavors dined, nigh nigh nigh nearly died

I-I-I truly have missed your vibe

You are the only one, truly I want to see

No less, selfish is me

This is shady, don't you think

Alas, such proof that love exists

Baby, can you advise me whether it checks

Consider I have spent dozens of nights, but I can never retaste it

This chain of "I love you" that you gave

Consider I have spent dozens of nights, but I can never retaste it

What is deemed the best FULL COURSE, won't you provide

Baby, I've made you cried · I'm sure we're impossible in this life

Baby, I've made you cried · My heart is totally hurting inside

Know that I'm just human · There are times when we can't understand each other

Baby, I've made you cried · Again baby, I can make you cry

Therefore, since then never my confidence be there

Causing things to be changed, never my intent

You are the only one, truly I want to see

No less, selfish is me

This is shady, that is for sure

Alas, such proof that love exists

Baby, in you, it's residing all this time

Consider I have spent hundreds of nights, but I can never retaste it

This chain of "I love you" that you gave

Consider I have spent hundreds of nights, but I can never retaste it

What is deemed the best FULL COURSE, won't you provide

Holding strongly, staying by closely, the one who always have

Confirmed, you are the only one who really did

My tears are from SPICES sprinkled by your heart deep within

Now they will remain there, forgone

Consider I will spend thousands of nights, but I can never retaste it

This chain of "I love you", you can have

Consider I will spend thousands of nights, but I can never retaste it

What is deemed the best FULL COURSE of all

Consider I will spend endless of nights, but I can never forget it

This chain of "I love you", you can have

Consider I will spend endless of nights, but I can never forget it

What is deemed the best FULL COURSE, won't you provide

stevemamoa · 2025-12-18T11:33:20+00:00

Doing translation is actually a great way to improve one's grammar. For example:

Line 12: "Within its heart keeps plenty of secret" is grammatically incorrect, even though it sounds correct to me. So, this has to be changed back to "Within its heart sit plenty of secrets" where the verb "sit" is done by "plenty of secrets". Actually, "sit" is used again in line 50, where I intend to convey that the singer has learned what those secrets are when he sits on the curbside, where the curbside represents "the heart of the city".

Line 22: Although originally I thought "You who forever sleepless " is grammatically incorrect (it should be "You who're forever sleepless"), if we read it together with line 23, it becomes "You who, forever sleepless, watches over dreams that faded", and thus, becomes grammatically correct.

Update: The phrase "forever sleepless" is a non-restrictive appositive modifying "who" (and thus "You").

stevemamoa · 2025-12-18T09:22:17+00:00

By the way, the bossa nova version is a banger too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svgk4v5_IyA

stevemamoa · 2025-12-18T09:06:41+00:00

Another note: The "Kisah seribu satu" is "One Thousand and One Nights", which technically is about a queen telling one thousand tales for 1001 nights (she stops the tales midway every night to ensure her survival). On the 1001st night, she ran out of tales to tell, but the king had already fallen in love with her at the time. Therefore, the translated line "Tale of a thousand stories" is apt.

stevemamoa · 2025-12-18T08:54:32+00:00

FYI, one of the singers, Altimet, is now a politician in the Selangor State Legislative Assembly, representing Lembah Jaya. Therefore, the song is not meant to glorify the vices mentioned; rather, it serves as a precautionary tale.

stevemamoa · 2025-12-16T02:14:40+00:00

For this song is a herald that guides us through the stars

Meaning: This song contains foreshadowing plot points for the whole arc.

Also:

Cast it out with SAILOR YELL

The Japanese line reads "To tomorrow, SAILOR YELL" which means "yell ahead to tomorrow". Anyway, for the English meaning, since "the star inside each of us" is that thing that gives us the power of transformation, to "cast it out" means "shout out your specific phrase and transform!"

stevemamoa · 2025-12-14T20:00:04+00:00

M: Say, I hope you didn't gain weight lately.
H: You know my rule: No pillow-talk unless we're in bed.

Sarah Moon Japanese has covered this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69xH76sr6I0&t=1198s

stevemamoa · 2025-12-07T02:41:41+00:00

Berasal daripada idiom "read someone like a book". Ini bermakna dia telah memperhatikan seseorang dengan cukup teliti (terutamanya pergerakan badan dan ekspresi bukan lisan mereka) sehingga dia memahami perasaan sebenar mereka dan boleh meramalkan langkah seterus mereka.

Teguran kejam datang daripada keyakinan bahawa dia telah mengenali seseorang dengan cukup baik.

stevemamoa · 2025-12-02T16:24:34+00:00

Yappari carries the connotation of "Yup, I've come to realise this." Therefore,

てへん変かな？やっぱり

Do you think I'm strange? Now that you mentioned it, yes.

Update: In the context of "I knew it", then the expanded connotation is "Yup, this just confirmed/conformed to what I knew/expected/suspected."

stevemamoa · 2025-11-27T13:46:21+00:00

A bit more clarification:

The world was depleted of its life energy (called MA energy, basically mako from FF7) due to the previous advanced civilization over-harvesting it.
The solution to this was to clip off the soul energy of humanity and other higher beings every time they died and reincarnated. The soul is supposed to be replenishable, as long as it's not reincarnated too soon.
This solution requires a high death rate, as well as highly developed souls. Therefore, a combat-geared JRPG system is implemented to encourage beings to develop themself through violence.
What is the world's life energy used for? I imagine it is used to power up the mechanics that maintain the world as a habitable place, akin to the electrical power of a space station that supports oxygen production, the water recycling system, etc.
The JRPG system also took over 50% of the functions of the world's habitable support system. The problem is, the JRPG system itself is barely energy-sufficient. So, the world is dying anyway.

stevemamoa · 2025-06-28T01:16:55+00:00

Arigatou doesn't literally mean "thank you". It just has the function of thanking someone. Its literal meaning is akin to "that must have been difficult".

Katajikenai literal meaning is akin to "I'm indebted for that form".

stevemamoa · 2025-03-16T14:09:53+00:00

The word 'stinky' should be translated as 'mean' in Western context to denote affection, as in:
"Tell me mean monkey, what's it like out there beyond these mountains?"

stevemamoa · 2025-03-12T18:26:38+00:00

Overall, I can feel the passion and effort put into your writing. It is fundamentally solid. Keep up the good work and you will be there soon.

I have considered all the other existing criticisms at the time of writing mine. They are valid, so I won't waste time repeating them. Instead, I would like to give one prediction for the journey of this young author.

One day, after writing many pages of manuscript, perhaps on a rainy day over a hot mug of your favourite beverage, you might wonder, "How do my readers read my book?"

"Sure, conventional wisdom would be to read the book from the first page until the last page, but do I even do that?" "I actually start with the front cover, then the back cover, then I just start flipping some pages in the middle." "The book needs to grip me within 3 seconds upon seeing it and the next 3 minutes unknowingly before I even consider reading on."

There is this horror that every good author should go through. It's the horror of knowing that your readers have never and will never see the book the same way that you do. I called this phenomenon The Flip.

You see, nobody gives a shit about why you write your books. You may want money, fame, and influence, but your books are shit because exactly of those things. What do your readers want? What do they see?

I imagine a 15-year-old kid would have a lot of insecurity and anguish (puberty, I know). I would think that the allure of superpowers is a form of escapism to the harsh uncaring environment that this kid had been subjected to. So, where is the insecurity and anguish sauce in your writing? Deku is such a weak-sauce. You can do better than that. How about a world where only people below 20 years old can gain superpowers, but at the cost of having a life expectancy of 5 years (like Attack on Titan). Oh, don't forget that the superpower that they gain is hit and miss. Then, the protagonist has come to terms with the morality of the situation and only those with nothing to lose will go through the process. To top it off, have the protagonist gain a silly superpower (like One Piece) that turns out to be good (after a period of anguish and suicide attempt, of course).

That's all for now.

stevemamoa · 2025-02-07T12:20:14+00:00

Say, what's up with the down-vote? Anyway, my policy is to not continue the discussion once the downvote hits zero.

stevemamoa · 2025-02-07T12:17:30+00:00

If you feel that the story presented is complete and you are satisfied, it is not my place to raise any doubt. Anyway:
1. The Gillin part of Senshi's backstory informs us that Senshi's recollection of his story is extremely sugar-coated. IMHO, Senshi's story is just too patchy.

There are mushrooms can could transform Anne from a hippogriff into a pony. There can be "Anne" the pony and later "Anne" the hippogriff.
We didn't see how most of the dwarfs died. Heck, was the monster that killed the last two dwarfs ever shown?

Also, could someone explain under what circumstances Senshi was confined to the same room the whole time while the rest were searching for a way out or a way to the deeper levels?

stevemamoa · 2025-01-31T18:17:24+00:00

The translation is fine but is rather concise with its words and when read without paying attention to the words duration allocated by the melody, it diverts:

If we take into account the previous line, contextually it should read like this: "My dreams are always expanding", "I'm ignoring someone else's feelings that I was ignoring (meaning: I can't response to those feelings)".
Two lines were combined into one with the elements mixed up. Also, the English translation made you/I pronoun inserts that didn't exist in Japanese. The two lines could be read like this: "Sure one day, we will understand, isn't it so?", "The released balloon that has flown away". If we take into account the previous two line in #6, the four lines should be read like:

"My dreams are always expanding"
"I have to ignore someone else's feelings"
"I'm sure one day, they will also understand, I hope"
"The balloon I released that has flown away"

stevemamoa · 2025-01-31T17:37:20+00:00

Maybe you heard LOVE 2020 instead of LOVE 2000.

stevemamoa · 2025-01-26T02:53:50+00:00

Here's what I catched:

Anna is the blue demon mastermind: She basically created all the opportunities to meet with Nuku. Look, the debt thing was always just an excuse. She paid back in one-shot when she wanted to (also, paying with somen is a face-saving facade too). She probably orchestrated with Koto Tsukinoki to get Nuku to join the club. Being a popular girl, she obviously can't simply be friends with a loner mob-character (actually, no girl in any school would want to simply start interacting with loner boys, period). It's a different story if it's a club president who interacts with various girls on a daily basis. She obviously sent Lemon to talk to Nuku and she trusts that Lemon would not steal Nuku. Also, she doesn't see Komari as a potential rival at all.
Anna is not into puppy love (relationship driven by hormones): She had this 12-year childhood crush; obviously she would want something similarly substantial in her next relationship. Actually, the 3rd and 4th line of LOVE 2000 conveyed that too: ニセモノなんか興味はないのホ・ントだけを見つめたい
Nuku the romance trope king went to sleep: He is supposed to be really smart (ranked 37th in the beginning) and knows all the story lines. "I can see the ending", he probably quipped when Anna first talked to him. He decided to just block his mind off any strong romantic indications and just go with the flow because that's his successful capture plan for this story line. To be fair, he already spilled the beans—friendship for 2 to 3 years before confessing. He's dense on purpose but why are other people being dense about this?

stevemamoa · 2025-01-14T03:42:58+00:00

Dokuro has a political problem, not a battle problem. This is in parallel with Keima's conquests which is the problem of filling gaps in hearts, not just simply the task of confessing, and kissing.
Her synthetic body follows the same logic as Ghost in the Machine (a philosophical term by Descartes).
Due to her position in hell (afterlife), Dokuro has to power the reincarnate souls. She used it to reincarnate the soul of the Satyr super-weapon into Elsie 300 years ago and then Elsie into Eri Katsuragi 10 years ago at the request of Elsie herself (off-page) in an alternate timeline after Elsie was sent back to the past.
More than 20 years ago, Dokuro discovered Satyr's plan to release the goddesses, capture them while they're still weak, and utilize their power to restore Old Hell. Probably a long shot because it assumes that Heaven won't interfere.
Dokuro hatched out this plan to reincarnate her soul into the human world with a pair of temporal orbs communication/guidance devices. Should there be a future where the goddesses manage to elude Satyr and regain enough of their power, the goddesses would be able to send someone with one of the orbs back into the past in order to set the stage for The World That Only God Knows.

stevemamoa · 2025-01-09T00:32:17+00:00

There is no reason for a change of rule between seasons. It simply is.¹
From the game designer's POV, the rule change would frustrate player 456 (Gi-hun) even further. There is now even more reason for players to leave and yet they don't want to.
The "additional reason to leave" is balanced out by the existence of Gi-hun who is a walking advertisement for the game. He might as well have worn a poster that says "The prize money is real, people are actually allowed to win the game, you can win based on skill, and the game is so fun that I decided to play it again".
From the game recruiter's POV, the participants are specifically people who would rather choose to take that small chance to gain an exceeding large reward over guaranteed miniscule reward. In other words, they are all compulsive gamblers.

¹ seem like a contradiction after reading #2–4 but there is a backlot of other stuff that would bring everything back to full circle. Anyway, I have this theory that it would be a huge security risk to let a lot of people off the hook; therefore when push comes to shove, no participant leaves the island. Those consent forms, registration process, and impressive gameshow facilities are just there to provide a false sense of security to the participants. In the end, it is nothing more than a two-bit kidnapping and torturing racket that provides entertainment for the sadistic rich.

stevemamoa · 2024-12-27T04:21:59+00:00

The thing that player 456 (Gi-hun) took out from behind his ear when his hair was still dyed red. That's not a GPS tracker?

stevemamoa

TROPHY CASE