sinnesspiel: (It's-a me!)
In Japan a popular game to celebrate the new year with is called Karuta; poems starting with every letter of the syllabic alphabet are read, and the picture card corresponding to that poem is grabbed from the spread out pile. Whoever gets the most wins! The comics released some manga versions that had readable poem cards and Arakawa drawn/colored pictures. The anime had a card set with readable poem cards, picture cards with relevant anime screen captures, and the bonus of a CD that you could put on random mode that had the seiyuu reading off lines/poems.

You can download the CD here. Each track is only about 15 seconds as it's one line, so it barely passes 5mb.

Below are the translations of the poems (in the order they're in if you play the CD on non-random):
Ed, Al, Winry, Roy, Hughes, Hawkeye and Armstrong read poems for karuta. )
sinnesspiel: (Imagine this post in Wakamoto's voice.)
 Notes from the script in the Shamballa Scenario Book, which has the film's script. I'm just picking out excerpts of the side notes I thoughtwere interesting. Note that parts of the "final cut" script aren't in fact in the final print! I translate these while at work when I don't havethe movie playing in front of me to check scene by scene, and I'd been feeling out cut scenes from the prototype based on what was in theprototype but not the written final cut script.  

Maybe one day I'll watch the movie with the script in hand and note any cut parts or details from the final script, too. For now I'll include thefinal script's written ending since there's a good note about it and I think it helps see what the staff were going for in some of the ideas theyhad even if they weren't implimented. 


That said, I've kept my personal sentiments out of translations. Quotes are ALWAYS direct translations, other times I don't feel like comingup with a good way to match the words exactly in the text and summarize the content so I won't put it in quotes but I'll still be going for a kindof indirect quote if that makes sense. On those I put 'they' as in the staff, whereas it says 'I' or 'we' originally. This isn't my introspection ontotheir work. Note that the writers tend to put 'I think' and 'probably' in their own written text; that's normal in Japanese even on things aboutwhich they are the authority. That's not MY sentiment being written as a quote.

 
Prototype script notes are on the Prototype posts.




Shamballa Script Notes - Part D and Epilogue )
 
sinnesspiel: (It's-a me!)
Part D and the Epilogue had a few changes, and most of them are based on dropping things from removed plot threads and the like. I've also tried to include when scenes that are new to the final cut are missing from the prototype. As usual the prototype script notes are included, along with two closing notes by the script writer.

This is the end of the Shamballa Prototype script; I hope you've enjoyed it and that it's deepened your appreciation of the series/movie. If you're just looking to hate on the old series some more by fuming at their characterization (presumably anything written in here would also be in character for the pre-existing cast despite changes in the final cut) or the story or the writing or the setting or anything else, then I hope you have all the fuel you need to rage.

Speaking of the writing, there are a lot of ellipses. Those aren't because I'm omitting anything. The script just makes heavy, heavy, heavy use of them in the dialogue and descriptions.



Prototype Script - Part D, Epilogue )
sinnesspiel: (Imagine this post in Wakamoto's voice.)
A little more detail on how Gate alchemy works, what's going on in the nation of Amestris and on Roy's situation. His relationship with Winry is shown to be rocky but still more intimate than his relationship with Hawkeye and his relationship to Hughes and Ed is given more weight. The Noah-Ed-Alfons love triangle comes to a head, and there's a note by the writer on how Alfons was originally an extension of and written for Kugimiya!Al.



Prototype Script - Part C )
sinnesspiel: (It's-a me!)
Notes from the script in the Shamballa Scenario Book, which has the film's script. I'm just picking out excerpts of the side notes I thought were interesting and/or may be useful to people discussing the series, roleplaying, etc.; those that I am skipping are historical facts that one could look up in far more detail if they had interest, things already assumed to be known by most English speakers (that racism or delusional beliefs were a thing espoused at the time and not necessarily the views or beliefs of any directors making period pieces, that the picture of everyone with Haskin's bomb is fiction rather than history, Fritz's film and personal history, etc.) or references back to the series that I think all fans will know without reading it here (Who Envy is in relation to Hohenheim, etc.)

Prototype script notes are on other posts with the prototype tag.

Feedback, questions, comments and discussion welcome!

I've kept my personal sentiments out of translations and I think it's clear when it's my statement rather than a translation. Quotes are direct translations, other times I don't feel like coming up with a good way to match the words exactly in the text and summarize the content. Note that the writers tend to put 'I think' and 'probably' in their own written text; that's normal in Japanese even on things about which they are the authority. That's not MY sentiment being written as a quote.

Shamballa Script Notes - Part C )




Part C was pretty short! I'll probably merge D and the epilogue together since the epilogue is two measly pages.

Thanks for reading!
sinnesspiel: (Default)
Notes from the script in the Shamballa Scenario Book, which has the film's script. I'm just picking out excerpts of the side notes I thought were interesting and/or may be useful to people discussing the series, roleplaying, etc.; those that I am skipping are historical facts that one could look up in far more detail if they had interest, things already assumed to be known by most English speakers (what the Aryan race is, etc.) or references back to the series that I think all fans will know without reading it here (who Sig and General Hakuro are, what 'Flame Alchemist' means, etc.)

Prototype script notes are on other posts with the prototype tag. Note that some prototype script notes actually include notes/intentions relevant to the final cut as well. Some notes also overlap, such as the ones about Roy's crews ranks. For these posts I'm doing them just by where the notes appear in the book; either at the bottom of pages of the final cut script or in the prototype commentary list at the end of the script. I may do a synthesis post on [community profile] ura_hagaren if I decide that's the best format.



Shamballa scipt notes, Part B )



That's all for Part B. Thanks for reading!
sinnesspiel: (Imagine this post in Wakamoto's voice.)
Part B had more changes and dropped scenes than any other part. The best part's the Izumi and Wrath scene, but there's some good Noah/Alfons/Ed bits, too. It really emphasizes how Al's lost all of his development from the series. To be frank, I can't stand amnesiac Al, myself.

Prototype Script - Part B  )
sinnesspiel: (Imagine this post in Wakamoto's voice.)
Notes from the script in the Shamballa Scenario Book, which has the film's script. I'm just picking out excerpts of the side notes I thought were interesting and/or may be useful to people discussing the series, roleplaying, etc.; many are historical facts that one could look up in far more detail if they had interest, or references back to the series that I think all fans will know without reading it here (like what the hand clap alchemy is, what a blood seal is, etc.)

Prototype script notes will be on another post.

Shamballa script notes, Part A )
sinnesspiel: (Default)
More things I've translated from interveiws in Anime Yawa to be organized for [community profile] ura_hagaren that are of interest.

Aikawa in regards to Izumi: Izumi didn't debut until the third season, so already half a year had passed for viewers. Of course, they were throwing around the word "Sensei, sensei" (written shishou) from early on so they (the anime staff) had to think about her place in the story too, while looking ahead at what she was in the manga.

"Ed and Al's mother is already dead. While she's like another mother figure, she's not merely a substitute. Their already dead mother, being dead, is also idealized, living on as an ideal like that in their hearts. So what does that make Izumi? Is she perfect after all? No, she is alive and, just as their mother may have been, she of course has human weaknesses in her. While we were thinking of that, we compiled Wrath's settings and because there are no perfect people in this work, I thought that this would be a way to display the incompleteness of the master who appears flawless at a glance."

When asked how Wrath came about, Aikawa said: "She asked 'Will the full 7 Homunculi appear?' " "They will." And so she laid out their details "They're like this and this and this. But it'd be bad to reveal that early. "

Mori's favorite was Scar. They talk about how he died even though he's still alive and well in the manga, and host Sato tries to give Aikawa guilt about not bringing him back to life.

"That's how it goes. There's certainly problems with managing the life and death of a character still active in the original work. As Scar is a character with quite a bit of anime settings added to him, we worried over quite a few of those details ourselves. For example, if you only read the manga his voice comes off a little younger that you'd expect. That was exactly what we were going for but even Okiayu (Ryoutarou) asked "Why are you having me do this role?" and seemed troubled by it. "Are you sure it's okay for someone like me with the voice of a boy in the prime of his youth to be doing the voice of this man who's like a Terminator, this sturdy guy," you know? That was something intended by Sound Director Mima, Director Mizushima and myself. In the original, Scar is immediately a man with a dark, mysterious grudge, but in the anime he has inconsistencies, feelings for his brother, feelings about Ishbal, and feelings towards those called State Alchemists, all making him into a wavering young man. So in all of that, in order to save Ed and Al, it was necessary to purify him to some degree, to show that there was no escaping that fate. "

They asked what Scar's appeal to women was, to the token chick.
"Just in the original, he sucks."
Thanks, that was insightful. (She says more, but she's not a staff member, so who cares about fangirl A? I just thought her frank first sentence was funny.)
sinnesspiel: (Imagine this post in Wakamoto's voice.)

BS Anime Yawa (BS Anime Night Talk) is a program that gathers renouned anime staff members and industry commentators to discuss anime of particular historical significance. The 2003 FMA anime series was ground breaking for covering unique material (infanticide, matricide, child abandonment, scientific ethics, just war theory, racism, etc.) in an indepth manner, in a show ultimately aimed at children and for crossing quite a few boundaries for its timeslot. It's also famous for its script and particularly for its quality in derrivation from the original work. Compare to most series that diverge sloppily due to running up to the end of printed canon or whose different material is mostly filler, or regarded as lesser qualiy by the fanbase unanimously. Many find the 2003 anime's differences a distinct improvement over the original material, which is rarer still.

Episodes I've seen of past Anime Yawas have included Macross, the original Gundam series, and Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. I've heard there's an Evangelion one that I really want to see if anyone drifting by here someday has a copy of it.

Here are some translations of things said during  the Fullmetal Alchemist special, by the head scriptwriter, Aikawa Shou about the script and production choices of the series, along with any commentary by the others I find particularly insightful or interesting.

This is my own translation dump for my convenience with a few of my own thoughts littered in while it's on my personal account. It should be clear what's my aside and what's a translation of others' words.

In other words, it's an info-dump translation post until I decide on a good place to put the information over at [community profile] ura_hagaren .

I don't even know who half of these people talking are. You're mostly getting Aikawa's comments as the only importat, actual staff member. )

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