Buster Hercules versus Buster Herakles

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takenoko
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Buster Hercules versus Buster Herakles

Post by takenoko »

I recently received a PM that I felt might be of more general interest, so I'm reposting my response here.

The PM originally asked why we went with Buster Hercules, even though the Greek pronunciation is clearly Herakles, the Greek version of the name.
takenoko wrote:Heh, you're not the only one who noticed that. This is a case where the Japanese/Greek pronunciation doesn't work. From what I can tell, the Japanese consistently use the Herakles Beetle pronunciation for Hercules Beetle, which is what the mecha is named after. And I wasn't able to find any examples of Herakles Beetle, which is why I decided to ignore pronunciation to go the intended meaning this time. This was noticed in the QC stage and I gave the same explanation there too.

Good observation though. I don't know how many of our viewers actually pay attention to the subtleties of the language like that.
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Re: Buster Hercules versus Buster Herakles

Post by butyoumight »

You know, I always wondered the same thing, but I just let it slide because I figured it was a choice. I didn't know that was the consistent Japanese pronunciation, though! Thank you :3
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Re: Buster Hercules versus Buster Herakles

Post by takenoko »

Yeah. It looks like Hercules uses the roman pronunciation in Portuguese, so I'm not sure why there's so many Greek pronunciations in Japanese. But I'm guessing they used Herakles first, so when Hercules Beetle came around, they just said "These two are the same word".

Interestingly, they do have a katakana spelling for the Hercules pronunciation in my dictionary:
ハーキュリーズ (n) Hercules, (P)

As well as a missile called Nike Hercules? Huh, that's obscure. Plus it uses a Greek word and a Roman word.
ナイキハーキュリーズ (n) Nike Hercules, (P)
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Re: Buster Hercules versus Buster Herakles

Post by Saejima Kouga »

I'm glad to see this explained. I often thought about that, but didn't want to get into a debate over it.
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Re: Buster Hercules versus Buster Herakles

Post by Catastrophe »

I have a friend who is a Professor in the classics department at the University I work at. He has told me that despite the fact the common spelling is the Roman version (Hercules), which is found in most texts for teaching purposes, all Classicists will pronounce it Heracles (Or Herakles or whatever), which comes from Hera (the Greek goddess) and kleos meaning glory.

Yep. I was that concerned about it I asked him pretty much as soon as possible after Buster Hercules debut last year.
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Re: Buster Hercules versus Buster Herakles

Post by EndlessWaltz24 »

Lol, "those two are the same word." I have a couple of Greek friends that would be annoyed by that.
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