Moonlight Syndrome Video Translation

The first half of the game was roughly translated by Izzeybee. The second half has been translated by Jolovey, who then went back re-did the first half as well. Additional notes were provided by PT and NewWorldOrder. Gameplay recordings and custom graphics were produced by Paradise Hotel.

NOTES:
4:09 – The second choice just skips the cultist’s speech with no change to Mika’s dialogue
16:12 – A pun on Aramata’s name and “soredewa mata” (それでは また)

NOTES:
15:42 – Jiraishin is a manga series known as “Ice Blade” in the west.
17:16 – Go Nagai, a mangaka creator of (among others) Mazinger, Cutie Honey, Devilman and Violence Jack.
22:11 – This choice changes nothing.

NOTES:
2:21 – Lit. 庶民 “Shomin”, commoners.
10:12 – Lit. ココロの洗濯 “Washing of the heart“.

NOTES:
Some of the text in Mika’s nightmare is taken directly from aDrW’s translation of “Prank” for consistency.
32:08 – This choice makes no difference.
1:01:07 – “Violence Kouno” is the Fire Pro Wrestling name of real-life wrestler Masahiro Chono. Kouno has appeared in both the Suda-directed Fire Pro games, III: Final Bout and Special, although using his full name of Masahiro Kouno. The first instance of him being called Violence Kouno is in Super Fire Pro Wrestling X, released on December 22nd 1995 on the Super Famicom, exactly a year after Special.

NOTES:
3:13 – チョーパ/Choupan is a shortening of 朝鮮パンチ (Chousen Panchi/Korea Punch). Headbutting was apparently a common move for Korean delinquent students, hence this colloquialism.
3:16 – The Exploder is a Suplex used by Jun Akiyama.
3:51 – In Japan, excitement is associated with high blood pressure. Therefore “donating blood” is being used as a figure of speech to imply that she needs to calm down.
6:50 – Hakkōda Mountains
9:45 – From this point onward, all of Mika’s text is written in Katakana. Katakana speech is usually associated with robotic characters and implies a distortion, or at least inconsistent and faltering speech; Unfortunately there is no real way of conveying that in English, so we chose to use spaced out letters to convey a similar unnatural feeling.
In this specific case, Mika’s speech may be similar to Sakura’s in the original Twilight Syndrome, as the scene seems to take place in Hinashiro Grove.

NOTES:
6:12 – PHS stands for Personal Handy-phone System. A cellphone.
23:44 – KinKi refers to a male Idol duo, Koichi and Tsuyoshi Domoto.
1:16:46 – In Japanese, Arisa is making a pun about the shows Hagure Keiji Junjoha and Hagure Keiji Passionate Kei, where she is following Chisato’s “Hagure” with the rest of the title. Of course, it could not be translated directly, so Jolovey found a replacement that would keep with the investigator theme.

NOTES:
5:45 – Roland TB-303.
5:58 – “Parlor” is literally “ヘルス” HEALTH, colloquialism indicating a Health Club, a form of prostitution service / brothel, which is usually translated as “Massage Parlor”. The implication being that the TB-303 guy, after failing to pick up girls at the club, just moves on to a brothel.
7:40 – Gold was a disco club in early 90s Japan.
7:43 – FFD is an Italian punk band from the 90s.
Derrick refers to Derrick May.
PICO refers to Mark Pico, an Australian underground musician.
10:46 – Fresh Fruit (フレッシュフルーツ) is a Dutch record label.
25:23 – This is an extract from The Tale of Genji. The translation is from Royall Tyler.
27:11 – Chisato’s speech is referencing 電波系/Denpakei.
33:10 – Miho and Mika are referencing the ending song of “Hachiji Da Yo! Zen’in Shugo”, where one of the members, Kato, would interject with lines like ‘Don’t stay up too late!’, ‘Get your homework done!’, ‘Brush your teeth!’, ‘Take a bath!’ etc.
36:28 – Noshinbo (のうしんぼう) is a fictional town from the one-shot manga of the same name by Hajime Yamano, based on the alternate reading of the real-life 能真坊.
36:46 – Urayasu.

NOTES:
3:47 – The white haired boy, Mithra, shares the same voice actress as Captain Tsubasa, hence this little Easter Egg.
7:45 – CDTV stands for Count Down TV, an MTV-esque show that went through the music charts.
8:57 – The Japanese text here relies on the use of Japanese pronouns あたしら/atashira and あたし/atashi. Specifically, Mika refers to herself using あたしら/atashira at times, which is plural and implies a consensus. But when asking what her mistake is, she refers to herself as the singular あたし/atashi. Some degree of adaptation has been employed to convey the idea that she’s breaking out of group-think in English.
11:42 – Picking the second option from this point onward will have the same dialogue loop.
12:06 – You know who Godzilla is.
12:09 – Mothra is a different Kaiju shaped like a moth.
12:12 – Gyaos and Legion are also Kaiju.
12:16 – Tiga refers to Ultraman Tiga, hero of the eponymous 1996 show, who has the ability to split into three different forms.
12:45 – Daigo is Ultraman Tiga’s human form / secret identity.
12:50 – GUTS is the organization backing up Ultraman Tiga.
13:36 – The brave Gamera is a hero to all children (minus Arisa.)
13:46 – Genki Dama, a technique in Dragon Ball Z.
13:59 – Rickson Gracie, Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu champion and Mika’s teacher.
14:18 – Superman and Batman are heroes from DC Comics, Spawn and Savage Dragon are from Image Comics. (QUICK FACT: Savage Dragon quickly devolves into monster porn.)
14:48 – Sodom is the biblical city of sin, with an Ultramain Dyna villain being named after it. The Kemur are also villains in the Ultraman franchise.
15:03 – Doraemon is a robotic cat from the 22nd century, created by Fujiko F. Fujio, who travels back in time to make sure that Nobita does his homework so that his descendants can be rich.
15:15 – The SOL is from Akira. The Dessler Cannon is from Space Battleship Yamato.
27:13 – Black Biscuits is a JPOP group.
32:01 – Definition of obatarian.
58:53 – Fuji TV
58:58 – Nippon TV
59:01 – Kusanagi is the actor playing Yuji in the drama いいひと。
59:07 – Mika is referencing the drama ふぞろいの林檎たち, with Taichi Yamada being the creator and showrunner, Yoshio Nakategawa being the main character and Tomiyuki Kunihiro being one of the main actors.
59:18 – Arisa is referencing the drama ひとつ屋根の下 (Our House), with Uncle Yuki being the nickname of Yukio Hirose, a secondary character played by Kei Yamamoto.
1:01:10 – Reservoir Dogs is a film by Quentin Tarantino.
1:01:14 – Sam Peckinpah is an american director.
1:01:20 – Jolovey: the original Japanese has Mika complementing Arisa’s usage of “wetto”, which can mean ‘sentimental’ but is also pronounced almost exactly the same way as “witto”, which just means ‘wit’ and also works as a descriptor of Woody Allen’s films. I couldn’t find any equivalent words to make the joke work in English so I made it ‘sleeper hits’ for the double meaning to be both the normal meaning of ‘sleeper hit’ and that Woody Allen had a film called Sleeper that was a hit.

NOTES:
7:15 – The following passage actually revolves around Classmate A using the English words “Training Camp” instead of the Japanese term 合宿, with Arisa being confused. Obviously there’s no way to translate that directly (Yeah, Training Camp. Oh sorry, I mean Training Camp.) so I came up with this replacement.
10:34 – Karuizawa is a town in Nagano, near Mount Asama. (For reference, Hinashiro is in Musashino.)
16:40 – In Japanese My Bloody Valentine and My Little Lover are shortened to Maibura and Mairaba respectively, hence Mika not wanting to mix them up accidentally.
19:04 – The censorship is in the original text.
35:24 – Picking the second option simply shortens the conversation.
59:47 – Picking the first option gives no additional dialogue.