Otimusya

Game Impressions

What's this Otimusya all about?

My first experience with the work of Otimusya was through his Final Fight page. I don't know what led me there - all I know is that, even without knowledge of the language, the bizarre formatting and amusing edited images still made me laugh.

Otimusya (落武者; one possible and likely-incorrect translation being "Punchline Warrior") had been producing video game humour pieces since 2003 (or earlier - his earliest update had the caption "an unexpected comeback") and also dabbled in pixel animations based off games; mostly inspired by the art style of Karateka and applying it to other themes, such as Street Fighter or recreating fight scenes from Bruce Lee films.
As far as I am aware, his last update was on November 23 2008. Sometime between 2010 and 2011, his site went down, and I can find no news on whether this was voluntary or the action of his host.

During April 2009 I made a start on translating his works into English. I shot him an email (in both simple English and Google-translated Japanese) asking for permission to upload my translations to Random Hoo Haas, but I never received a response. I'd finished the first draft of at least five translations, but I didn't want to do anything without his go-ahead.
Even with big fat disclaimers stating that it was his content with links and everything, I still didn't want to rub him the wrong way. Admittedly there probably wasn't much to be worked up about - after all, how many people had heard of his site? And had how many people had heard of my site? He'd either be oblivious, not care one bit, or have his frustrations lost behind a language barrier.

Then his site died, and I thought, well, not much stopping me now.

I have most, if not all of his site mirrored as it was on April 2009, and hope to get all the best bits translated and accessible to an English audience. Unless he rises from the grave and tells me off. I just hate to have good content lost to the ethers of the internet.

Otimusya lives!

On June 30 2011 I got an email from Kenichirou Nakasama, the man behind Otimusya. He was "very glad" of the translations and gave me the official go-ahead for them. Thank you very much, Mr. Otimusya!

He also pointed me to a new host for his site, though it will no longer be updated (and appears to be offline again).
http://hw001.spaaqs.ne.jp/otimusya/

About the translations

I know nothing about the Japanese language.

You heard me.

I have had no formal education for reading the language, never mind translating it. I just use automatic online translators (usually Google Translate and SYSTRAN), Japanese-to-English dictionaries (mostly Jisho.org) and my initiative (if any) to get results.

As far as my gaijin eyes can tell, the work of Otimusya seems to be written in a very nostalgic manner, presented as if he were talking to a close friend about memories of games from his childhood. This is kind of hard to get across in English without it just coming across as either flat or flat-out weird, especially when the translator is a snarky git who specialises in being an asshole.

I'd struggle to say what kind of tone I have in mind when translating, whether I try to give him a certain style of writing or not. I do my best to keep the sentences fairly natural - I did try and stick close with his wording and structure in my first drafts, but it came across as flat and rather unnaturally written - you could tell from a mile away that the source material wasn't in English.
Due to my remarkably unprofessional method of translating, it's only natural that there are some bits that don't make sense. Although I try my best to eventually wrap some sense out of it, if a joke doesn't work, I'll just replace it with a new one. Likewise, I'll chuck in a remark here or there if I feel something needs spiced up. The original writing frequently has captions that just describe what's already pictured; it works well with the original semi-authoritative tone he takes at times, but not so much in my style where it just looks redundant.

So, no, these are not 100% accurate translations. And let's face it, if you want 100% accuracy, you'd just learn Japanese yourself. My aim is to maintain the same kind of informative and humourous nature of the original work, but to still make it jibe well in the English language. I'd be pleased to hear if you think it's satisfactory!

DISCLAIMER

All content is this directory is the original work of Otimusya.
The original text and all edited images are his work.

This translation is the work of Ragey.

(return to Random Hoo Haas)

「※当サイト内で使用されているゲーム画像の無断転用は一切禁止しています。
Unauthorized use of the images made for this site is strictly prohibited.
また、各ゲームメーカー様から警告メールが来た場合には即刻対処いたします。
Also, if the game developers issue me a warning, I will respond immediately.」
(original Otimusya disclaimer)