命名秘話 (Behind the Name - Japanese)

This is a translation of the "Behind the Name" blog post for our Japanese readers.

=> http://katawashoujo-ja.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-post_5657.html

Behind the Name

It's always fun to talk about names with Katawa Shoujo. Why, even the name of the game itself is the source of quite a lot of controversy. What about the rest of the names? In accordance with the spirit of chronicling the history of our project, I'll shed some light to the origins of some of the names in KS. Most of these names were given before 4LS existed, when the project was still taking its first steps because character names are one of the most important things in a visual novel, and because people were tired of calling everyone {insert disability}-tan. In fact, the names were one of the first issues that was decided upon.

The character names of the main cast were decided by the best method known to man: a poll. As a result of clueless weeaboos with no fact check throwing in their suggestions, we were stuck with some stuff that has since caused quite a bit of headache. As an aside, crud also fucked up a great amount of the names given afterwards (and nobody else thought of fact checking after him either). Names like Iwanako and Yamaku are from his beautiful imagination. Anyway, names that don't really exist were not a big deal as long as they could be written with kanji, but impossible names or terrible names were a much bigger problem. In some cases, we have retconned stuff, in some we've succumbed to the fact that the characters were known by the names they were originally given.

Hisao Nakai

There was a grand battle over our protagonist's name. Many people wanted to leave him anonymous as a homage to, well, the Anonymous who were the driving force of the project while others wanted to give him a fixed name and personality. The end result is a schizophrenic combination of the two extremes, a fixed character with a fairly substandard personality. We later found out that a famous psychologist has the same name as Hisao.

Rin Tezuka

In the name poll, Rin was contending against suggestions such as Moe and Samori, but prevailed in the end. Her last name is a homage to the grand master Ozamu Tezuka, and it contains the kanji sign for "hand" as well, as a reference to both her disability and artistic ability. Because Rin is such an uncommon person, her name is written in a somewhat uncommon way as well. The sign for her name means "jewel" instead of the usual "cold" and when said aloud, it does sound a little like the tinkle of jewelry.

Lilly Satou

Lilly was given a foreigner background (all blondes are foreigners; black, blue, green and red are the only natural hair colours in Japan) so her first name is foreign. Lily, or yuri is the symbol of lesbian romance in manga/anime subculture and a lot of people wanted to make her nomen an omen. Lilly's last name is very commonplace, much like Smith or something in English.

Shizune Hakamichi

Shizune's first name is written with the symbols for "silent" and "sound". Nuff said. However, she was originally name Rosa, as in the flower rose and a silly pun for the japanese word for deafness, rousha. We decided that one girl with a flower's name and a foreign name is enough, so Shizune became Shizune. Her last name is annoying, because it's not a "real" last name, but it also is naturally written in a somewhat morbid way so we had to come up with an unnatural writing that wouldn't sound as stupid.

Iwanako

This is a very unusual name, it's written with the signs for "char", a fish relative to salmon and "child". Interpret that as you will.

Nurse

The school nurse was originally referred to as Nurse-kun, a reference to a series of threads on 4chan that were about the experiences of a real, nameless nurse who was in charge of a then 7-year old multiamputee car crash victim. The story that those threads wove was considered very human and touching (apart from that special 4chan flavour any thread there has; the initial post starting the story ponders whether he should rape his patient or not). To this day, Nurse's and Emi's relationship still reflects the relationship of the channer nurse and his patient in some ways.

The origin of the name for Yamaku High School is alluded to in this forum thread. Tea house Shanghai (which is actually more like a cafe) almost became another Higurashi reference, but a timely intervention made it a Touhou reference instead. So much better, yes? The city our game is set in will remain nameless, but it's loosely based on a real, existing city in northern Japan. Crud even has taken a photo from the approximate place where the main building would exist.

The rest of the names have mundane and/or uncontroversial origins, or I just couldn't come up with anything funny to say. Ask if something interests you and I might explain it.

-Aura

A Thousand Paper Cranes

The Katawa Shoujo Folding@Home team is now in the top 1000 of all teams. This is quite remarkable, since it only began little over two months ago. It's also comfortably inside the top 200 by daily progress, with a rising tendency. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

Here is a picture for the occasion, drawn by pimmy:


— delta

日本語訳の進捗について

=> http://katawashoujo-ja.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-post_4758.html

Update on Japanese Translation

This is a progress update from KS Japanese translation team.

We have 4 stages in the translation process.

1. Initial translation
2. Translation check (to correct translation errors)
3. Editing (to make the translated text look more natural)
4. Proofreading (to correct spelling and other errors)

The translated scripts will be submitted to the development team after proofreading is done.

We have recently completed the initial translation of entire Act1 script after 4 months of its release. We think this is our first major milestone.

In the meanwhile, we are performing translation checks on already translated scripts. 20% completed, 60% in progress, and the remaining 20% are still to be examined.

We are still not able to give a concrete schedule, but we will keep you posted on this blog.

-hir

A View from the Gallery (Season 5, Episode 4)

Because the whole dev team is currently living the big life in the glamorous OELVN jet set and all the cocaine snorted off the breasts of high-class hookers has severely addled our brains, we find ourselves unable to come up with good blog posts at the moment. This is why I decided to give the word to one of our more persistent IRC lurkers, name redacted:

Oh no you don't, this blog post sucked. Enjoy your Shizune, who does not suck, courtesy of Weee.




— Name redacted (Mood: quixotic, now playing: Peter Gabriel - Big Time)

I Am Cooler Than Climatic

This blog has been getting too preachy lately, so today, I'm going to talk about how I am cooler than Climatic. We were having a debate about this the other day, when I said that he was not cool. He countered with the claim that I am far less cool than him.

buckingham> I have drawn since then anyway
buckingham> it's not my fault
NicolArmarfi> upload some
buckingham> if you don't remember
buckingham> no
NicolArmarfi> why not?
buckingham> I am too lazy to upload something
buckingham> just to satisfy your weird compulsion
NicolArmarfi> oh i see, so you didn't draw
buckingham> you are free to believe it
NicolArmarfi> what happened to you, man
NicolArmarfi> you used to be cool
buckingham> you are the one
buckingham> who became uncool
NicolArmarfi> explain
buckingham> why don't you ask a psychiatrist
buckingham> why you are uncool
buckingham> the problem is probably in your head
NicolArmarfi> they would just say i am as cool as i believe i am
buckingham> how cool is that
NicolArmarfi> somewhat cool
NicolArmarfi> but not really
NicolArmarfi> cooler than you though
buckingham> terrible
buckingham> what
buckingham> no way
buckingham> you play videogames
NicolArmarfi> yeah i'll ask weee
NicolArmarfi> which one of us is cooler
NicolArmarfi> just admit i am cooler
buckingham> no
buckingham> you are not
buckingham> maybe you should make a poll
NicolArmarfi> g4 video game awards were today
NicolArmarfi> best strategy game = halo wars
buckingham> don't care
buckingham> see
buckingham> this is why you are uncool
buckingham> you care about shit like this
NicolArmarfi> i am not saying i care
NicolArmarfi> it's just weird
buckingham> so did you ask weee
buckingham> who is cooler
buckingham> so did weee tell you who is cooler
buckingham> sup dawg?
NicolArmarfi> i asked her again on MSN
NicolArmarfi> and she dodged the subject and went away
buckingham> [04:03] a22 is cooler
NicolArmarfi> yessssssssssssssssss
NicolArmarfi> how does it feel nigga?
NicolArmarfi> suck it down
buckingham> I don't mind
buckingham> it is cooler not to worry about this stuff
NicolArmarfi> bullshit
NicolArmarfi> you cared

Some might say that this is not conclusive enough to decide who is cooler, so I have taken the liberty of compiling a list of other reasons why I am cooler than Climatic:

1) He eats quiche. Not even just Lorraine quiche either, but artisan quiche with goat cheese and fruit marmalades. wtf?

2) He wears a brown sweater. Seriously, a brown sweater? It's unacceptable to wear a brown sweater unless you're in elementary school.

3) Climatic does not know where da hood is at.

4) I am a baseball fan, and there is nothing cooler or more American than a game where 18 men run in a diamond on artificial grass. All Climatic has is the lowly cricket, a game that was only cool in the smash Bollywood hit "Lagaan: Once Upon A Time In India." In contrast there are many more great baseball films... like Major League.

5) He does not like hypotheticals. Hypothetical questions are the high point of human cultural advancement. This shows that he is a plebe.


- A22

Concerning Self Satisfaction

Having ventured through various depths of the sick, depraved amateur video game making crowd on the internet, I've come to realize something. Now, one might assume that it is a good event when he puts out the final product of a days or weeks, or months labor. This is total bullshit.

Having written soundtracks for several visual novels (very, very few of which I enjoyed), it astonishes me that I ever allowed myself to release those tunes which have been haunting me for months, and even years. Only on looking back to I realize the great flaws of my work; the cause of this is spending an amount of time writing something out from start to finish, believing that the end was the end, when in reality it was just the beginning of a long phase of kicking myself in the ass.

When writing any sort of story, music or drawing any picture, it is important to realize that it is not only your initial perception of your art that matters, but the opinions of others, as well. Before releasing anything, one must pass it off to several others and edit it according to their respective opinions, combining them with your own outlook on it. After that is put together, you must edit it even more, tempering it into the most solid, unbreakable alloy within your abilities.

This process can take a while. Depending on the volume of work your putting out, it could take months, years, or so long that you no longer give a shit and pass it off to someone else. But in the end, it must be done, and this is where I, and many of my contemporaries, failed.

This is not the case with Katawa Shoujo. This game appears to be taking an incredibly long time, putting out very little active content and etc., but in reality it is being taken at that careful, calculated pace that few others have the balls to work at. I left the project in the beginning of this year, and things that appeared to have been done then are still, months later, being fervently edited and discussed. Not to mention, the testing stage for the demo alone: the first act itself was subject to several edits, and entire rewrites, before going through another few months of extensive editing, by a team specifically assigned to this task. I find this quite admirable; it gives me the utmost confidence that KS will be a universally enjoyable game of the ballinest degree, and it should for you, too.

Unless you're a dick. Now, I'm going to go finish watching The Debt Collector.

-Nicol Armarfi