In an effort to further my understanding of the folks who create some of my favorite anime, I thought I’d attempt the Google Translate assignment on the Studio Gainax website.

… it went about as well as I’d expected.

Not sure if this is a stable link, but you can see the entire page I translated here. I decided to go with an info page for one of the staff members because the info pages for the animes themselves were, surprisingly enough, translated pretty well. The staff pages had more colloquialisms, presumably, and less carefully edited copy, so they proved a bit more humorous when poorly translated.

Finding a page in another language that had enough text (versus images with text as part of the image) was, interestingly, the hardest part of this assignment. It’s difficult to find a page in another language unless you know the exact page you’re looking for. That’s what eventually led me to Studio Gainax’s Japanese homepage—I know the domain for Japanese websites is .jp, so I figured the URL of a major animation studio would likely be the studio’s name followed by .jp, and fortunately I was correct.

This assignment brings to mind two things. First, a topic I’ve discussed in several of Prof. Zach Whalen’s classes: the way that glitches in games change the game’s narrative as a whole. A crappy translation strikes me as quite similar, in the sense that it’s altering the meaning of a given text and essentially creating an entirely new text for the reader to interpret. Ergo, in reading the altered, translated text from the Gainax staff member’s page, I’m accessing a completely different character than the individual he wrote into existence when he filled out this survey, as created by the crappy translation. It’s a fascinating concept, and pulls in the idea of reality, textuality, online identity, interpretation and the subjectivity of storytelling and information transfer.

It also brought to mind this classic translation fail, which will never, ever get old.

The majority of the translated text is below, just in case the link above decides to die (my favorite sections are in bold):

Ryouta Kiyohara Ryota Kiyohara
(Update History: 2010) [ Type B ] [ Employee GAINAX ] [ Hanamaru Kindergarten ] [ Gurren Lagann ] [ Shikabane Hime]

Production Affiliation: Born September 24 Birthday: Type B: blood type
? ? Internal work career
Production progress “Gen-Shikabane Hime Aka” progress “Production Gurren Lagann” “The Hanamaru Kindergarten” making progress

20 ? ? Questions

What Is Fetish: Q01?
> I can not say here.

Q02: When do you feel happy?
> When it is busy.

What is the history of the industry: Q03?
> About 4 years.

Q04: I wanted an opportunity to enter the animation industry?
> I know that the job of making progress.

Why you came to Gainax does (I chose): Q05?
> Other companies did not know much.

Q06: The first impression when I came to Gainax is it?
> I thought I’m free I wonder.

Q07: Gainax work do you like? The reason?
> Work involved is all I like. Memories of struggled because there is.

Since the beginning of the industry up to now, most work was fun: Q08? It was the situation like?
> Is any fun, when it is most busy.

Q09: things that you can not be the work and do not have it?
> Vegetable juice.

The thing on the desk of the company, I have it on the most important: Q10? Why is that?
> Vegetable juice. In order to keep the body like a teenager.

Q11: anime for the first time you saw it? When there?
> It is from the time we arrived remember. “It Dorimogu Da!”

Q12: (I want to draw) situations favorite anime?
> LOL You’re such a scene.

I (OK even before birth) because now say, I wanted to participate in anime: Q13
> Great, assembled insert, Super Milk Chan, Li Azumanga dream Dream Hunter

Q14: I was afraid of the most happening until now?
> Neighbor’s fire.

Q15: In the event was the happiest ever?
> I can put to work right now.

What do you do to the earth explode tomorrow: Q16?
> As usual.

What is the flow of his own maxim: Q17?
> And serious sex appeal is issued Choi.

Word to me years ago 10: Q18!
> This is the cheers for good work.

Word to me years later 10: Q19!
> This is the cheers for good work.

What last word: Q20! !
> Thank you Gainax future.

For this Web Assignment we were asked to take any web page of our choice and alter the content of that web page (content, images) to make it tell a new story. Here is the screen shot of the page web page I chose to alter. (Just click on the image to see the details)

Bianca's Secret

Do you ever wish that your eye color was different? Hate having to spend money every year on color contacts? Wish that you could change your eye color anytime you wanted to??? Well here is your perfect solution! There is now a new product being sold on Amazon known as Bianca’s Secret/Inoxxa Eye Color Changing Droplets. These magic droplets will change your eye color to any of our selections (brown, blue, hazel, green, or grey) in 24 hours after being applied! Just use 2-3 drops within 24 hours of opening (refrigerate the bottle afterwards to use multiple times) and your on your way to the eye color you have always wanted! No hassle! No limits! And you can change your eye color anytime you want!

I got the inspiration for this story basically from myself. I sometimes wear colored contacts and I am constantly changing up the colors I buy every year. It would be so convenient if there was a easier way to go about changing my eye color. Viola! The inspiration for my magic eye droplets!

For this assignment I used the X-ray Goggles Tool. I added the tool to my bookmarks tab and once I activated it everything after was a go! I originally thought this assignment was going to be super hard. But after doing the tutorial on the website making changes to the web page was a breeze! The only sad thing about this is that I wish my product was actually real! = (

In this assignment we were asked to make a fakebook and twist of a historical figure. I chose John F. Kennedy. He was the 35th president of the USA and he is my favorite president. He was a good president and very smart. He was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas Texas. Kennedy was famous for his quotes and I think he would have used Facebook and Twitter to post his quotes or anything interesting going on during his presidency. Here is his Fakebook and Twister.

This 3 star assignment was to create a fake Facebook and Tweet for a historical person. I chose to make a profile for Sigmund Freud. He had so many achievements and accomplishments that Facebook and Twitter would have been a great way to socialize and gets his ideas across. Now a days people use these networks to boast about their lives, well Sigmund Freud would have had many posts on his accomplishments and  awards, as well as so many interesting arguments and with his fellow friends on record about all their theories.

Check out Sigmund Freud’s Fakebook and Twister!