Not Red Reviews

This episode of Gargantia proved a lot more challenging than I thought.

During this episode I saw so much of the “writing of Earth” that I tried to figure out what it was. At first I thought it was Thai or Khmer, since it looks very similar to those, but after I called in the anons for help (huge thanks and over 9000 internets to everyone who helped!), it was quite soon decoded. The contract on screen is titled “Certificado de Conexao de Aprovacao” which is Portuguese for “Connection Approval Certificate” and the subtitles are all “Article (1)” and so on.

The script is written in a tricky way, just like the IGHL alphabet (that’s used in for example Chamber’s subtitles for Ledo) that got decoded a while ago: while it’s Portuguese, the words a reversed by pairs (or triplets or whole syllables sometimes) of letters (so for example “conexao” would be “aoexonc”). The IGHL script does the same with German. (The pretty-much-complete (though mousewritten) transcription chart for the earthling alphabet can be found in the thread I linked.)

This one is the toughest. I still couldn’t figure it all out. In the middle it says “Mr. Ledo” and the big letters in the left corner probably say “bill”. The serial number is indicated by “bill numero” in the top right. As for the text in the bottom right, the first line is probably “pretendente” (probably literally translated from “suitor”), but as for the second line, only the middle three words make any sense: it’s “representa o xeque”. This could be a part of “the suitor is legally bound to repay this check until the deadline”, but then the Portuguese is seriously broken (according to Portuguese-speaking people).

One thing is sure: Gargantia is quite a bureaucracy.

He speaks in broken Japanese. At least Japanese think that when foreigners start learning Japanese, they speak like that. I’ll tell you a big secret: they’re wrong. Real “beginner Japanese” in broken in very different ways (and is much less understandable).

The sign on the left is in some calligraphic font and we didn’t manage to figure it out. It looks like “CREF OINP”. Once the camera pans down, there is a sign saying Marumiya.

This sign in the foreground reads Asamaru (or Uramasa, depending on which direction it’s supposed to be read in) and the sign in the back says Taro maybe, I’m not sure about that. Sometimes they use Japanese words like that.

The signs on the blinds say Kagoshima, probably the home of someone on staff.

This is what started it all. I just couldn’t resist so many books. (The other books in Doc’s room are also the same, just different colors.)

The brown books are the Cosmic Atlas. The green one’s title is Totonyan, which is the name of a Japanese art company who are contracted to draw the backgrounds in Gargantia.

The cyan one is Satsumakenshi Hayato (in romanized form, in Japanese it’s written as 薩摩剣士隼人), a drama series set in Kagoshima. Yep, someone on staff definitely must be from Kagoshima.

The magenta one reads Shouyu Tottekure (しょうゆとってくれ, “please give me the soy sauce”), which is apparently a standard example sentence in junior high English textbooks in Japan.

The red one says Suiyou Dou Deshou (水曜どうでしょう, “Do you like Wednesday?”), a Japanese variety show.

The blue one reads Red Dwarf, which is likely a reference to the BBC sci-fi franchise.

The last one is Ryokucha (緑茶, green tea). I’ve got no idea if it’s a reference.

The left page is the star map of the area within 15-20 light years from Earth. The right page shows an illustration of the Daedalus Project vessel.

The book is titled The Ocean.

I thought I’d point it out that the writing on Chamber’s chest (not on its head) says “Store carefully. No open flame or plasma.” Yep, “or plasma”. Made me laugh so hard.

I find his character development impressive. He started learning the local language and even question his own place.

Did you notice that Chamber answered on its own here? I can understand now why would Ledo make the effort to learn the language himself.

Through that headset, Chamber’s supposed to see and hear everything Ledo does. Then how come it didn’t notice the starmap in Doc’s book?

This entry was posted by Vale.