Hojo: The mother is strong, yet has her weaknesses.
This line, delivered by Hojo during a meeting of the Shinra brass as they discuss using Aeris to find the Promised Land, has always bothered me. I wondered if it was a case of using the wrong tense, since Ifalna, Aeris' mother, is long dead at this point. Here's the line in the original Japanese:
æ¯ã¯å¼·ã……ãã—ã¦å¼±ã¿ã‚’æŒã¤
My best estimate: [Her] mother [particle: wa] stubborn...therefore weakness [particle] has.
I translated "å¼·ã" as "stubborn", rather than "strong". Also notice "ãã—ã¦", which means "therefore", not "but". It's a cause-and-effect relationship. Does he mean "Her mother was stubborn, so she'll have the same weakness"? At the time, they were talking about crossing Aeris and Red XIII to produce a sample capable of withstanding long-term research. Something along the lines of "if she is as stubborn as her mother, she'll be useful"? Like I said, I'm not the best translator. Any help?
å¼·ã can be interpreted in quite a few ways, but there are many better words to describe "stubborn", so I highly doubt that was the initial intent of the word. Also, it's used in the adverbial sense... "The mother ____'d powerfully"
So it's probably more likely "[Her] mother wasn't (since this is adjective is negative
I'm afraid I don't see how it's negative. It's "tsuyoku" not "tsuyokunai", unless Amadeus didn't post the accurate original line. If it is negative, though, it'd certainly make a lot more sense as "The mother strongly.... and has weaknesses" doesn't really fit the bill.
My two cents are that this line makes as much sense in english as it does in Japanese. It's probably a case of Hojo being Hojo and rambling to himself (hence the dots). My impression is that Hojo isn't referring to Aerith or her mother when he says "Yowami wo motsu." I think he's referring to the experiment. A good translation would probably be something like
"It's mother would've endured...mumble..mumble...the plan will be hindered."
Aeris: Sorry, bad timing on my part
It's not so much this line that confuses me, as what Aeris is laughing at in this scene. Cloud falls through the roof, they talk, Cloud says he's a jack-of-all-trades, then Aeris starts giggling for no readily apparent reason. Here's the scene in Japanese, if it helps.
クラウド
「俺ã¯ã‚¯ãƒ©ã‚¦ãƒ‰ã ã€
「仕事ã¯â€¦â€¦
 仕事ã¯ã€Žãªã‚“ã§ã‚‚屋ã€ã ã€
エアリス
「ã¯ã……ãªã‚“ã§ã‚‚屋ã•ã‚“ã€
クラウド
「ãªã‚“ã§ã‚‚ã‚„ã‚‹ã®ã•ã€
Presumably I'm missing something here. The scene seems to read about the same in English and Japanese.
You're missing the important part of that scene!
right now the dialogue is:
Cloud:
"The name's Cloud."
"What I do is... I do a little bit of everything."
Aerith:
"Ahh...jack of all trades."
Cloud:
"I'll take any job."
The bad timing on my part line isn't even there. Although I haven't played Crisis Core, I think I'll buy that she's laughing at Cloud's resemblance to Zack.
-Red's "Spring Gun Clip" is supposed to be a "Spriggan Clip".
wtf is a 'spriggan'??
this? Really? It's either that or a reference to
Chrono Cross, but did Chrono Cross even come out before FF7?
The Mysterious "Highblow ST"
An unused bit of text refers to an item called "Highblow ST", which doesn't seem to exist in the game. It actually does; this is what Vincent's Supershot ST is called in the Japanese version (although I think it's supposed t be Highbrow ST). This line of text was probably removed once they decided on the name change. See, sometimes they do try to get it right!
I also doubt it was the Highbrow ST. (just cause that's a really stupid name) Terms like "Highblow" are common in japanese as kata phrases. I can see that it would have been changed to "Supershot" for the same reason "Force Eater" was changed to "Force Stealer".
I just went over the dialogue for the scene where your party first meets Vincent. This was a prime example of how the shaky translation made an already confusing plot all the more puzzling:
After Cloud updates Vincent on the Sephiroth situation...
Vincent: Sephiroth knows he was created five years ago? And about the Jenova Project?
This makes no sense, as Sephiroth was definitely not created five years before. Even if we're still under the mistaken impression that Sephiroth was artificially produced, Cloud had been a fan of Sephiroth's since he was nine years old. And Vincent knows all to well the truth about Sephiroth's origins.
What he originally says is something along the lines of,
Vincent: Sephiroth learned the secret of his birth five years ago? About the Jenova Project?
This makes more sense. Five years ago wasn't went Sephiroth was born, it was when he discovered the "truth" about his creation and went crazy.
Vincent mentions Lucrecia, Sephiroth's mother. Cloud reacts by saying he thought Jenova was Sephiroth's mother. Vincent replies,
Vincent: That's not entirely incorrect, but it's just a theory.
Bzzzt! It seems like they confused "theory" and "metaphor".
ãã‚Œã¯â€¦â€¦é–“é•ã„ã§ã¯ãªã„ãŒã²ã¨ã¤ã®ãŸã¨ãˆãªã®ã
The best I can make of this is:
"That is...not entirely incorrect, metaphorically speaking."
It's not a theory; Vincent knows exactly where Sephiroth came from.
The context in which I hear the term "tatoe" most often is in the expression "tatoeba" meaning "for example". Of course, translating this literally, since the "ba" is just an accented "wa" which is spelled "ha" (ha + accent -> ba), it means "the [tatoe] is..". putting "metaphor" here technically makes sense, but saying "The theory is..." can be used interchangeably with "For example..." alot better. So tatoe DOES mean theory. At least in that interpretation.
This is an accurate literal translation:
"Sore wa machigaidewanai ga, hitotsu no tatoe nanoda." --> "That is not a misunderstanding but, it's one theory."
FF7 translators got that one right (for a change).
As for the first one... you got me, without the original japanese text, it's impossible to say what was meant...your explanation makes sense, though.
I've been making small retranslations while playing through the game. Just a small part of my plans, though...