Oga versus Orga

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What do you think it should be?

Oga
8
33%
Ouga
5
21%
Orga
11
46%
 
Total votes: 24
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takenoko
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Oga versus Orga

Post by takenoko »

So I received this nice e-mail from a fan:
You may have gotten this before in the past few days, but I have an issue with your translation of "Kamen Rider Oga".
That being that it's incorrect.
Orga is not an alternative spelling, it is the actual spelling.
On Souchaku Henshin toy boxes it says "Orga". With a very clear capital R.
The pictures I've found are small, but it's clear enough that you can see it.
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But I would say this case that popular opinion can be thrown out. Most fans and even staff at Toei and whatnot probably have never thought about what the best spelling for Oga would be. They either chose the most basic way to romanize it or pulled something out of their ass and then it stuck because that's the only way people have known it.

Well, a lot of people thought slavery was a good thing and that the sun revolves around the Earth. Sometimes the masses have got it wrong. To get scientific on this, no one would ever argue that fact is created by popular vote. Nor would anyone argue that one's opinion is more right just because he's got a lot of friends who think the same thing.

To get a the heart of my reasoning, Orga just doesn't make any sense. There's no R when they chant his name. It doesn't represent Omega or King or anything. It just looks like someone saw the dash in オーガ and arbitrarily filled it in with an R. Probably a toy maker who was working independently from whoever created the character or some executive.

Oga and Ouga both represent the thing they shout. Plus...

Oga makes sense since it's O + ga. You see a lot of O's in the movie when he appears. And his transformation command is 0 0 0 which also looks like O's. Plus it looks like an abbreviated Omega
(O _ _ g a).
To take another example, in OOO, the O Medals are spelled the same was as the O in Oga in katakana. No one would ever write Or Medals, since the dash represents a long vowel, not an R sound.

Ouga makes sense if you imagine the kanji for it as being 王我 which means King and Self. (So Pysga would be Psi and Self). Since these are known as the Emperors' Belts, this sort of sounds right. The only reason I wouldn't go with this is because if they wanted to use kanji, why not just write it out in kanji? I saw one site that supports this theory, but the evidence for this seems a lot weaker than Oga.

Sorry to guys who are just used to it being Orga. But just because you liked something the old way doesn't mean it's better. Letting go of an old notion and embracing a new (better) one is all a part of learning and bettering oneself. Unless I missed something, there just isn't really any real evidence that supports Orga. Our jobs as translators is to convey meaning, not reenforce people's ignorant notions.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by ReversedSentai »

I agree with takenoko. I personally like Oga a bit more. The way it is written in Japanese is 仮面ライダーオーガ. Yes, the katakana for "o" is being stressed, but if one were to pronounce it in the katakana it is written, then it literally is "Oga". You don't hear the "r" in the middle; it's not オルガ. Besides, Japanese toy makers don't always accurately translate stuff from Japanese to English.

As for Ouga: that's like going back to Go-Busters with Yoko and Youko. Technically, both spelling are correct but the "u" in the middle is stressing the second constant for the katakana; both sounds fine and are both correct. I personally like Oga because it is simple and that's how it would sound the most accurately in Japanese pronunciation.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by crazybus »

First off, I agree.

Second (forgive me if it's already been asked before), is there a reason you use "Faiz" instead of "Phis." Yeah, phis looks weird (and faiz is the actual romanization), but considering they use the phi symbol in the logo, it makes more sense. I'm not complaining, so I don't wanna start a fight (which will likely happen anyway - this is the internet), I just figured I'd ask and this seemed the best time.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by Lunagel »

Partially because it looks weird, like you said, but aside from phi, you have to remember the 555 thing, so if you take 'five' and 'phi' and put them in the blender and hit 'frappe' you kinda get 'faiz'
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by ReversedSentai »

crazybus wrote:First off, I agree.

Second (forgive me if it's already been asked before), is there a reason you use "Faiz" instead of "Phis." Yeah, phis looks weird (and faiz is the actual romanization), but considering they use the phi symbol in the logo, it makes more sense. I'm not complaining, so I don't wanna start a fight (which will likely happen anyway - this is the internet), I just figured I'd ask and this seemed the best time.
Faiz is also the proper pronunciation of the word in both English and Japanese no matter how you look at it. Phis would make Americans who have no idea on the fields of Tokusatsu pronounce it like "piss" XD
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by fool »

I agree that context is king but I thought that this comment here was not sound reasoning:
To take another example, in OOO, the O Medals are spelled the same was as the O in Oga in katakana. No one would over write Or Medals, since the dash represents a long vowel, not an R sound.
I've often noticed loan/transcribed words in Japanese ditching the "r" after a vowel in order to preserve the emphasis of the vowel over the "r". Some examples would be "ornament" becoming "oonamento" or "over" becoming "ooba". Note how the "r" was dropped from the "or" and the "er".

And the process of transcribing foreign or made-up words is not exact. If I may take Gundam Unicorn for example, the protagonist's name officially is Banagher Links. The Japanese pronunciation used for "Banagher" is "Banaaji". Would a translator spell his name as Banaji? Or would he take what the creators have adopted officially and use Banagher, even if "gher" sounds absolutely nothing like "ji"?

Basically it's a matter of whose interpretation you choose: some dude whose job was to pick romanizations or a fan? And there's the possibility an actual creator-person had a preference/reason.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by Tuss4 »

The person who sent you that email, needs to learn Katakana and Hiragana.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by ReversedSentai »

Tuss4 wrote:The person who sent you that email, needs to learn Katakana and Hiragana.
I agree. I have a feeling that the person was just used to seeing Oga being Orga, but wasn't aware that it is literally pronounced Oga in Japanese too.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by takenoko »

>I agree that context is king but I thought that this comment here was not sound reasoning:

I agree that it's the weakest of my arguments, that's why I left it last

>I've often noticed loan/transcribed words in Japanese ditching the "r" after a vowel in order to preserve the emphasis of the vowel over the "r". Some examples would be "ornament" becoming "oonamento"

This is a good counter example. However, it doesn't work because in this case, the English word exists beforehand. The reasoning that someone would create Orga then assign it the katakana afterwards doesn't fly. You've got to have a reason for wanting that R there in the first place.

> "over" becoming "ooba". Note how the "r" was dropped from the "or" and the "er".

This is not a good example because the Japanese to English matching isn't as exact. In this case, the O- is just representing the long o in o-ver. The er is a part of the ver in ba.

>And the process of transcribing foreign or made-up words is not exact. If I may take Gundam Unicorn for example, the protagonist's name officially is Banagher Links. The Japanese pronunciation used for "Banagher" is "Banaaji". Would a translator spell his name as Banaji? Or would he take what the creators have adopted officially and use Banagher, even if "gher" sounds absolutely nothing like "ji"?

I don't think this is a good example either. In that case, the writers are trying to create a space or foreign sounding name. Yeah, they're not exact, but a name like that is totally arbitrary. It doesn't mean anything. Faiz is based on phi and 5, Kaixa on Chi and X, Psyga on Psi, and Oga on Omega. And this is how the O Medal comes in, I'm saying that it is possible to take the long O and have it be O by itself.

>Basically it's a matter of whose interpretation you choose: some dude whose job was to pick romanizations or a fan? And there's the possibility an actual creator-person had a preference/reason.

Like if the writer for Toei came into this thread and said "Yeah, I just picked Orga since it looked cool." that'd be one thing. But companies are big places and there's no way of knowing if the guy who created the souchaku toy for Oga even had any contact with the creative staff at Toei. You can look at the bad English on a lot of other toys and claim they're official because they're on official products... but this is where good reasoning needs to step in and one needs to go "Oh wait, that doesn't make sense. Why is it this way?"

That's the problem with Orga, no one can come up with any reasoning for it to be spelled with an R. The fact that it has ZERO evidence to support it makes it a bad thing to go with in my opinion. In order for Orga to be a thing, it's got to be based on something, but nothing comes up but anecdotal evidence. That's bad science in my opinion.

>The person who sent you that email, needs to learn Katakana and Hiragana.

Let's not all disparage that guy, that's not the point of this thread. He brings up a valid counter point.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by Ivanhobe »

I have always liked Orga because the first time i read the name was in the original subs TV-Nihon did for the movie, and because it remind me of one of Godzilla´s enemies, but looking back, the first time i read the name i thought it was weird because it didn´t seem like the crowd was screaming Orga but Ouga.

Now i think Oga makes more sense, and the best argument is probably the fact that Orga has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to Omega. I believe that if the creator intended for the name to be Orga they would have spelled it Oruga, in which case it would be clear how the name is pronnounced but as it is i don´t see how you could romanize Ouga to Orga.

Now if i had to choose betwen Ouga and Oga, i would go with Oga because it has a cleaner look. Well that and because Ouga reminds me too much of Ouja and i would rather avoid the confusion.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by gmottl »

who the hell calls it oga. for me its also been orga. sounds cooler too. i've never heard anyone say oga. if they do, they the kind of power ranger fan than goes, "what's sentai".

edit- sorry didn't read the entire post, i thought this was a much different topic then it was, ORE BAKA!. by the way, i edited so this would be post 300. i dont want that milestone to go to a mistake on my part.
Last edited by gmottl on Sat Jun 16, 2012 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by ReversedSentai »

gmottl wrote:who the hell calls it oga. for me its also been orga. sounds cooler too. i've never heard anyone say oga. if they do, they the kind of power ranger fan than goes, "what's sentai".
I'm guessing you don't really know how to read Japanese. Where do you hear the "r" in the name?
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by waywardultima »

I really don't care at all how it's spelled to be honest. I always referred to it as Orga because of the toys, and I wasn't aware there was another way to spell it. I just think it should be however you want it. If you're using the toys as an official way to spell things, then the Condor medal from OOO should be the Condol medal, and Mobirates should become Mobilates.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by TheLastTatlFan »

Not sure how much this is worth to you guys, but I'm pretty sure I hear an R in there when DiEnd's K-Touch says the name of the Rider after Ryuga and before Glaive. I'd personally take a single voice I can hear clearly over the muffled chanting of a crowd. Not sure if anyone has an intelligible line in PL where the Gear is mentioned by name though, don't really remember it very well.
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Re: Oga versus Orga

Post by takenoko »

That's a pretty good thing to bring up, but again, by that point Orga was pretty much the official spelling. Does it retroactively make it more correct?

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By the way, another reason Faiz is used is because it also is an official spelling. But remember, you can't take all the official spellings at face value. I'm sure most of us agree that Axel should be Accel by now. A lot of people work on these things, and sometimes mistakes occur. That's no reason to use Fourze Elek States or Roket if common sense can prevail.

Don't get me wrong guys; I don't care how you guys spell it. Someone brought it up, so I felt like it needed some explanation. Use whatever spelling you like best/think is most right.
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