Yoko Taro Looks Back at 2018 and Ends With a Sweet Rap!

In a recent interview with 4Gamer, Yoko Taro answers a couple questions as he reminisces over the past year… and it ends on a typically odd Yoko note.

Q1: Among the games released in 2018, which one impressed (or shocked) you the most?

The “Tiny Arcade” series. Releasing licensed mini arcades first began on Kickstarter. As one who pretty much grew up in arcades, I was surprised that the feeling of the times could fit into such a tiny thing, and before I knew it, I ended up importing them all. It’s pretty easy to get through domestic forwarding services, so if you’re a fan of these mini arcades, by all means… (And I’d really love it if somebody, somewhere, could make mini table arcades in the future.)

Q2: What do you think was the most impressive piece of entertainment sold or released in 2018?

I was shocked the most by the move “The Greatest Showman” this year. It’s about a man who’s failed at his job and starts a freak show. The story is pretty flat and it’s not a movie that appeals to your ideological beliefs, but the “show” that fits between the story scenes were amazing. The idea of the showman who “abandons all and devotes himself to the show” is embodied in the movie itself in a meta-structured way that “abandons the humanity of the main character and the story”. When I realized this, I found myself crying in the theater and I couldn’t get up for a while after the end of the movie. I think I was just overwhelmed and tired with various things going on in my life at the time, though. As member of the entertainment business myself, it made me think what you win and lose. I think this was a movie that really confronted me with this.

Q3: In 2018, who spiked your interest the most?

I thought about talking about “someone who released something in 2018”, but I suppose I’ll change that thought a bit and answer candidly. I would say Ueda Fumito and Iuchi Hiroshi. I honestly can’t wait for their new work.

Oh, I’m also curious about Hijikata Kurone and her needle felting dolls. The way she melds the soft curves of animals with a feminine figure is so facinating. I’d like to get one someday (although it’d be difficult to obtain since they’re sold separately). 

Q4: What is your New Years Resolution for 2019 and message for our 4Gamer readers?

I feel like this was a year of events, with the YoRHa Musical, YoRHa Boys and KimiShini Zero_KAI stage plays, as well as the NieR and SINoALICE orchestra concerts. This is all because these titles were a hit and all the fans and customers supported us. Thank you very much.

Therefore, I plan to be reduced to nothing in 2019,
Simply, I will not die that easily. Yoko Taro

Yo Yo

Gaming industry hang on
shining young guys crush 'em
find the cute guys kill 'em

medical exam escape the numbers
here is my liver all worn out
here is my doctor all pissed off

hee hee hoo hee hee hoo
Advent of Lamaze
Yeah, Thank you.

(Aw, give me a break. No one’s going to call me to work on this project next year…… What is Lamaze……?)


Source: 4Gamer
Translated by: Fire Sanctuary

Grimoire Weiss and Noir Necklaces Decoded!

For the most part, I’ve finished decoding and translating the angelic script that appears inside the new necklaces of Grimoire Weiss and Noir that are currently available for pre-order on the Square Enix e-STORE Web site.

Here’s a quick glance at what they look like. Click on the images to go directly to the product page of the e-STORE.

> Grimoire Weiss
     

> Grimoire Noir
     

So, you can see that there are two pages of angelic script. In the most recent livestream that showcased the NieR Orchestral Arrangement Soundtrack, we were shown a couple close-ups of the text that proved to be a godsend to even attempt to translate these before their release since the images on the SQEX e-STORE page were much too small to read.

Pictured below is the text that’s printed inside the boxes for the necklaces: Grimoire Weiss (left) and Grimoire Noir (right).

               

And here’s the tentative decoding / translation:

There are still several parts that I can’t figure out, so if you have any idea what any of the (?) parts are supposed to be, please let me know and I’ll update it! And I just noticed that there’s a line that I didn’t translate, so I’ll get on that shortly… orz

Lastly, when I was decoding the text for Weiss, Twitter user Riv helped me by pointing out that the last segment was actually…the words spoken by Weiss at some point… (spoilers). This made it much easier, then, to translate and locate the spoken line by Noir. Firen_hawk also helped me out with sending me some screenshots of the angelic script before I had a chance to watch the livestream (I couldn’t watch because I was performing in two separate concerts that weekend) and also reminding me that I hadn’t worked on this yet! Thanks a lot for getting me in gear! 😀

> EDIT: 09/07/2018 3:17:59 AM

As an added bonus, I just spent several hours decoding and translating the additional angelic script that is within the top cover of the NieR:Orchestral Arrangement Special Box Edition.

From an image that Goto Takanori shared earlier on Twitter, we knew that a portion of it said “from Beepy”… but I never imagined that there would be an entire alloquy, a prayer to those who have been lost…

There was some confusion regarding the fourth line,
but if you take a look at this page, you will see that the last
word of that line 「与えん」has the same meaning as「与えよう」.
It is not meant to be a negative but actually a positive,
“I shall give thee” sort of thing. 

New Song Lyrics in the YoRHa Musical

The YoRHa Musical Ver.1.2 was massively upgraded and revisioned from the previous Ver.1.1 stage play that had its last run in May 2015. One of the new additions to the musical was newly added song lyrics penned by Yoko Taro himself.

Back in February when I went to the musical and later watched it several more times via NicoNico Douga, I wrote down the lyrics as I heard and understood them, later translating them into English. This was really difficult to do and I knew there would be plenty of discrepancies and mistakes.

Now that the Musical has been released on blu-ray, they’ve included the lyrics to these songs, so now all we have to do is translate them. There are a couple additional verses to the song “Grandma” that does not actually appear in the musical.

Below you can find the lyrics as they’re shown in the booklet along with the Romaji reading and my preliminary English translation. It’s still pretty barebones right now and I may tweak them some more so that it sounds more like song lyrics without losing the intended meaning and feeling.

「還ラナイ声」/ kaeranai koe / Voice of No Return

[ JAPANESE ]

我が見えし
祈りの太刀
現闇に
惑いながら

彼の敵と
滅びの火は
何時 光 未だ見えなくて

それは 虚ろな
それは 贖い
ありもしない 御霊が
歌に 遠い 歌に
今も 壊れゆく

[ ROMAJI ]

waga mieshi
inori no tachi
utsuyami ni
madoi nagara

ka no teki to
horibi no hi wa
itsu hikari imada mienakute

sore wa utsurona
sore wa aganai
arimoshinai mitama ga
uta ni tooi uta ni
ima mo kowareyuku

[ ENGLISH ]

My vision
A sword of prayer
In the present darkness
While lost

His enemies and the fire of destruction
When the light still cannot be seen

Is it empty?
Is it redemption?
Those imaginary spirits in the song, the distant song,
Even now they break

 

「オバアチャン」/ obaachan / Grandma

黒 寄る辺なき光
白 薄闇と
空 届かない祈り
歌 今もなお

音 侵されて
刻 戸惑いて
音 奪われて
刻 彷徨いて

赤 砕けゆく命
灰 運命が
牙 曇りゆく刃
傷 忘れ得ぬ

音 狂わせて
刻 失って
音 間違えて
刻 呪われて

[ ROMAJI ]

kuro yorube naki hikari
shiro usuyami to
sora todokanai inori
uta ima mo nao

oto okasarete
toki tomadoite
oto ubawarete
toki samayoite

aka kudake yuku inochi
hai unmei ga
kiba kumori yuku yaiba
kizu wasureenu

oto kuruwasete
toki ushinatte
oto machigaete
toki norowa rete

[ ENGLISH ]

Black, No light to turn to
White, With the pale darkness
Sky, Unreachable prayers
Song, Even now

Sound, Is distorted
Time, Is confused
Sound, Is stolen away
Time, Is lost

Red, Life falling to pieces
Ash, Fate
Fangs, Growingly cloudy blade
Wounds, Cannot be forgotten

Sound, Is mad
Time, Is lost
Sound, Is mistaken
Time, Is cursed

Famitsu Special Feature on Yoko Taro – Interview

The interview with Yoko Taro in the special feature this week covers four pages worth of interesting details about his past and much more! There’s a TON here, so I don’t think I will be translating it word for word but will be making notes about all the interesting things that I come across.

This post will be edited the further I progress into this section (I’ve only read half of it yet), so please expect the info on here to change over time. I’m also getting pretty exhausted right now, so the phrasing here might be rather lackluster. I’ll try to fix this up over the next couple of days. xP

Here we go!

  • First gaming experience was with the Cassette Vision in 1981. The game that impressed him the most was “Gradius” and it was this game that eventually got him interested in entering the gaming industry.
  • Both his mother and father worked, so his grandmother took care of him most of the time. He felt like he was mostly raised by his grandmother. She gave him considerable freedom as long as he studied, so he often could have whatever food he wanted, etc. and his grandmother would do it for him. He got a little chubby around this time in junior high where his grandfather was the principal at his school. He knew his grandmother loved him very much but says that she had the “soul of a demon” and referred to her as a “Spartan”. Apparently, she would tell other teachers in the school to favor her grandkid. She was also extremely overprotective of him, and he thinks that this lead way to the collapse of his personality. (His real-life grandmother sounds a lot like Kali, Kaine’s grandmother…)
  • In junior and senior high school, he didn’t exercise and a strange feeling aimed against those who are good at sports: “Stupid offline ppl!” His grandmother stopped checking to see if he was doing his homework since he entered junior high and so he never did it or studied. His grades plummeted. He even thought that he was becoming a real idiot and still he loved games and anime–they were fun. So, this is how he passed every day in folly.
  • His parents wanted him to join the kendo club at school but he was more interested in the ping pong club that was next door, so he eventually switched clubs. He never aimed to enter the national tournaments, so he merely had fun.
  • In high school, he joined the manga club but was sucked into the art club. He grew to hate the authority of “art”. With a spirit of malice, he thought things like “at some point you guys will be replaced by games and new media.” This is around the point where his flame of hatred is ignited. “The people around me who chastised me like that are bad, aren’t they?”
  • Ever since he graduated from high school, he lost contact with his old friends. He called out three of his friends to contact him at his twitter: Mutou and Ichikawa from Ogidai JH, and Teshima from HS.
  • His father is a cook and owns a small restaurant that has unique set meals every day. He never had anything negative to say about Yoko going into the gaming industry, even though it’s very distant from his own profession.
  • Yoko has a younger sister.
  • He was in the “science” path in high school even though his grades weren’t very good and he knew he wouldn’t be able to go to a science focused college. Since he liked to draw, he thought to aim for an art school and from the summer of his third year in high school he went to an art cram school. Just, he never told his teacher that he wanted to enter the gaming industry since he was embarrassed by it.
  • He wasn’t very good in English, so he looked for a school that didn’t require English, and he decided on Kobe Design University. He also chose this school because they offered a course in CG art, which was a pretty niche course given the technology at the time. He learned some computer programming, video editing, and a bunch of other related things– it was a fun time.
  • He didn’t really play many games during college, though. He has very few memories of the Super Nintendo because of this.
  • He met many of his current friends and business partners at this school in Kobe. Iwasaki Takuya (ILCA) is the same age as Yoko but was one year below him. Okabe Keiichi (MONACA) is one year older than Yoko but because he was learning to be a hair stylist before, he was in the same school year with Iwasaki. Yasui Akira (director of DOD2) was in Yoko’s same graduating class.
  • Yoko went to study in the UK for a year, so his graduation was thusly delayed a year. He had just been dumped by a girl and felt like he couldn’t bear to be in Japan. It was during that time that he saw a recruiting notice about a study abroad program. After he decided on the study abroad program, he still had about a half a year before leaving, and in that time he was again dumped by a girl. He throughly felt like there was nothing left for him in Japan. He thinks even to this day that should he have been even the slightest bit more popular among the girls or if he had more fun in life, he might not have ever entered the gaming industry. He felt some strange darkness pushing him toward the world of making things.

Famitsu Special Feature on Yoko Taro – Questionnaire

Today was the release of the 8/2 edition (Issue No.1546) of Famitsu magazine featuring a 22-page special on Yoko Taro. There is a massive amount of information in here that will take sometime to get to everything, but here’s a first look at the 2-page questionnaire segment.

What’s your favorite color?
Gray.

What’s your hobby?
Work is my hobby.

Which do you prefer, dubs or subs?
I like them both.

What alcoholic beverages do you like?
I like white wine, beer, and highball.

What food do you like/dislike?
Food I like→ Tenka Ippin, Yoshinoya
Food I dislike→ Bento boxes that have curry flavor pasta salad.

Have any fetishes?
I realized this somewhat recently, but I seem to like female characters that have their eyes closed slightly……

What sports do you like?
I like the 100 meter dash from the first “Track and Field”. I remember the skill that would vibrate a metal ruler when you used it being rather popular.

Had any part-time jobs?
I’ve been a cashier at a supermarket, worked for a moving company, dishwasher at a restaurant, and took photos at various events. It’s refreshing that I wasn’t very good at any of it.

Where did you go on your first date?
Where did I go…… Uh, this question isn’t necessary, is it?

Do you collect anything?
I collect the names of people who have crossed me, and I write them in a notebook. Once I’ve exacted my revenge on them, I cross out their names in black. I look forward to flipping through the pages everyday while having a nice drink.

What is the most fun thing you’ve done recently?
Playing with my nieces. But you know, your uncle~ is an avenger~.

What game are you currently interested in?
UBUSUNA (a shooter by the creator of Ikaruga, Iuchi Hiroshi). ……but not much information has been released about it recently, so I’m a little worried.

What country would you most like to visit?
Alefgard (the country in which Dragon Quest 1-3 take place).

Did you have any nicknames when you were a student?
I didn’t have any particular nickname……maybe because I didn’t have any friends. What a sorry kid I was.

Are you right or left-handed?
I’m right-handed.

What’s your favorite video game genre?
Side-scrolling shooters. I’d really like to make one someday……

What video game genre do you dislike or are bad at?
FPS. The older I get, the more 3D graphics give me motion sickness.

What’s your motto of mottos?
“Everything’s a lie.”

What movie, manga, or whatever else has left an impression on you recently?
The movie “The Greatest Showman“.

Out of all the titles you’ve worked on, which one has left the most impression on you?
I’m really forgetful, so the project I’m currently working on is on my mind the most, but since it’s still in development, I can’t really discuss it here. Sorry.

What would you want to do if you were an android?
I would want to do that pen trick from “Alien 2” but do it super fast.

If you didn’t become a game creator, what other profession would you have chosen?
I would like to do some sort of work that I could enjoy a lot of money through unearned income.

What game would you like to make? (ignoring budget)
Ignoring the budget, I wouldn’t make anything and would simply run away.

What’s your favorite video game character?
I’m getting really tired of answering all these questions…… Um, what were you asking? My favorite character? Hm, let’s see… Can I answer this by saying something like, “There are many characters that I like, so there’s really no way I can answer this~”?

Are you S or M?
If I say S, people would say, “He’s totally an M”, and I wouldn’t be able to wield the flag of either side at any sex appeal events thereafter.

What’s something from your dark history?
One must not speak of their true dark history.

Is there any game creator that you aim to be like or who’s maybe your rival? (this isn’t limited to only game creators)
I respect many creators, but since I don’t think I can ever reach their height, it’s a bit different than having a specific goal. If anything, in order to prevent young people from gaining skills and thus becoming a threat, I try to nip them in the bud as quickly as I can.

What do you think is the most important thing necessary to create video games?
Not deciding on anything.

If any of your products were made into a Hollywood film, who would you want to portray the characters?
Nier→Christopher Lambert in his heyday.
Kaine→Christopher Lambert in his heyday.
Zero→Christopher Lambert in his heyday.
2B→Christopher Lambert in his heyday.
9S→Christopher Lambert in his heyday.
A2→Christopher Lambert in his heyday.
Alice→Christopher Lambert in his heyday.

Do you have any special object that you MUST have in order to do your work?
I like English keyboards. Even the SGI (CG workstation) keyboard I used when I first started out had an English layout, so I’ve gotten used to it. But as I think about it now, maybe my life started taking a wrong turn at that point.

What are you good at cooking?
I heard you’d be popular among women if you say you’re good at cooking Acqua pazza, but is this true? Uh, no… It’s not like I’m good at cooking Acqua pazza or anything…

Looking back at your life, can you identify any points that caused a shift in your life?
I think I drank too much last night…… I’ll be sure to drink lots of water.

What was the biggest shock of your life?
I went to the bathroom….. There’s now a bleeding man who falls to the floor. I take a closer look around… Where am I……? A love hotel? Why am I in a place like this?

What is your idea of a professional?
Now’s not the time to think about that……

Do you have anything to say to Famitsu?
Oh, right. Famitsu…… Yeah, I remember everything now. Famitsu asked me for an interview. The last time I was drinking with Sugihara-san, the editor, and actually got really drunk as we were doing the interview. Then Sugihara asked me some rather sexually harassing questions and he started saying that he’d leak my true identity…that I’m actually……a girl. Then he took me to a hotel room. I picked up a glass object from inside the room and hit him on the head over and over again, eventually killing him. I couldn’t stay there for long; I had to get out of there. Just when I started to get somewhere with this career in the gaming industry; it would all be for nothing…… But, what career is this? What really deserves to be protected? Doesn’t this sound like it’s becoming the plot for a cheap suspense game? Yeah, I will make a game out of this someday. If you play it, you’ll surely understand. Everything written here is the plot of a game, fiction, I haven’t done anything wrong…… But if you don’t see it my way…… I’ll have to kill you. Now, as you’re reading this very sentence, you’ve just……


Credits:

  • Famitsu Magazine Issue No.1546
    • 7/19 (release date)
    • 8/2 (publication date)
  • Translation by Fire Sanctuary