Interview with Galerians Staff Translated (Galerians Premium Guide: Ash)
So this took some days off and on. I could've done it in one day but I was tired and distracted. I found this book on Ebay I have never seen for sale before. I'm sure someone else might have it, but I wasn't aware there were more than two Galerians: Ash Japanese strategy guides. I was on Ebay looking for a replacement disc for my Ash disc and I saw this book and went "what the fuck, I've never seen this one before".
It was a happy accident, like when I thought I bought a Japanese Galerians poster but it turned out to be a Playstation Magazine dedicated exclusively to Galerians 1 lol.
I originally only bought this book, because I don't think I've seen these renders of Cas, Romero and Pat anywhere else. I think I saw the Pat one in another strategy guide, but I haven't seen the ones of Romero and Cas anywhere else unless I missed them. They're pretty good renders, since their models often aren't visible in anywhere but shadow or dark lighting, Pat mostly. It's not a very long book, I took photos of anything of interest because the rest is just game screenshots with strategy guides I can't read and wouldn't translate properly anyways.
Side note: this strategy guide mislabels Rion's PPEC meter as cylinder meter? lol
Again apologies for the quality: I do not have a scanner and took these photos with my Ipad. Even if I did have a scanner I am not willing to mutilate these books and destroy the spine by flattening them. I know the quality isn't the best but I think this is readable enough. It's hard to get photos because the glare is so bad, but the photos are just screenshots and renders you can find elsewhere online with the exception of the ones of Pat, Romero and Cas I believe.
But the main meat and potatoes of this book: THE INTERVIEW WITH THE GALERIANS ASH STAFF! I have another book for the first game I need to try and retranslate(because I tried it when I didn't know anything about translation and it came out bad) the interview with the staff in that, but it's NOWHERE near as long as this one is! I was surprised how much text was here in the back.
The photo of the page I took is very bad, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it until later, but it's completely misaligned. That's because the page is split in the middle, with both of the men on either side of the page and the center of their image in the center :/ I really wanted the image of them to line up, but I misaligned the page... I think it looks better though, I like the photo of them together at the table.
About translating: I absolutely hate translating interviews. Google translate almost NEVER does it right. Google translate cannot handle real Japanese people's names, and it will read them horribly, sometimes referring to them in third or first person(??) mid sentence so it's incredibly hard and confusing to figure out who's talking without speaking the language.
The men here: Kang Chinfa and Sugiyama Ichiro, google translate did not want to read their names. I didn't know who they were. It's my fault and I can't believe it: their names are in the back of my other Galerians Strategy guides! I should've cross referenced. So when I tried to translate this, it never read their name right, especially Chinfa's. Chinfa's name translated to: Shinshu, Shasushya, Shiro, Yasu, Yashua... it only got it nearly right once and that was "Kang Chinsawa"
So the issue here: I cannot speak Japanese and I was DEEPLY worried I was going to be not translating the right people, or completely getting their names wrong. I wanted to be EXTRA sure I had the right men so I did my research, but Galerians is kinda obscure and information is hard to find.
I googled Kang Chinsawa and nothing showed up, so I added "Galerians" to that and it showed up with Chinfa Kang!
I wanted to make sure it was the same man, I found his photo here-https://vgmdb.net/artist/10395
He is also listed on IMDB.
Sugiyama Ichiro was a bit harder to find despite his name translating unlike Chinfa. I couldn't find a photo of him on google right off, but he has a page here-https://vgmdb.net/artist/46641
and I found this photo of him listed on a wikia for a game he mentions working on in this interview-https://sweet-one.fandom.com/wiki/Ichiro\_Sugiyama
That is indeed the same man!
Also if you care: the music Sugiyama is talking about that inspired him is "Ringo Juice" by Shikao Suga, which I also had issues finding. I typed in his name and "applejuice" in Japanese per the lyrics mentioned above but nothing showed up. I tried it in English and came across a website that translated the lyrics to English. The issue was, the website listed the song as "Applejuice 02 by Suga Shikao". The song is NOT called Applejuice 02?
I finally managed to find it by typing in Suga Shikao's name in Japanese along with "applejuice" in Japanese.
It's here if you wanna listen to it-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMCZxOMuhIk
Also the Famicon game Chinfa Kang mentioned he worked on-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down\_the\_World:\_Mervil%27s\_Ambition
Anyways I think that is all I have to say about my adventures in translating. I really enjoyed translating this! I learned a lot of stuff about their making of Galerians and the things that inspired it, along with finding some new music LOL.
I originally hated the ending of Ash both because it made me sad and because it felt rushed. I still think it feels rushed, but based off this interview it seems like this is how both of them wanted their story to end and I respect that. I still hate the ending of Ash tbh but I've gained respect for the ending and how much heart and soul they poured into it. It was so eye opening reading the thoughts and experiences of people who made one of my favorite games.
It was such a wonderful translating experience!
Sugi and Chinfa are Rita and Nitro fans confirmed LOL. No love for Lilia? :'O