This comic features two of my favourite things: Tengu and Engrish. I’ve been wanting to find a place for some engrish in the strip for a long time and when I got the idea for this Tengu character, the lines practically wrote themselves. I have to say, it was incredibly difficult not go whole hog and have him speak entirely in Engrish.
As far as Engrish goes, I got some wonderful results for the poster by using Yahoo’s impossibly bad babelfish translator. The site is fiendishly awful for acquiring any sort of purposeful information from other languages. If attempting to translate something using it, please be aware that it spits forth only venomous lies and misinformation. However, if you like to use things improperly (as I do) for hilarious results, you would be wise to try translating something from english to japanese, taking the japanese results and translating them back to english. I believe William made some awesome Facebook statuses this way.
That said, please do not correct my Japanese. I do not speak the language and I didn’t even try to get anything right. The more wrong it is, the funnier it is to me.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way…
Japan is an interesting place, rife with strange creatures, some terrifying, some meant to be terrifying but that are actually hilarious. The Tengu falls into the latter category. There are a great many different kinds of Tengu, originating in different time periods from many different people and for gods only know what reasons exactly. These humanoids began their mythological lives as terrible bird demons and somehow became ridiculous red faced men with long noses and bulging eyes. Not what we would call a respectable and impressive retirement.
I can’t wait for that movie to come to the US. Let’s viewing!
Woo! I get a Japanese Mythology comic for my birthday! I accept your offering.
It’s awesome… Engrish, it’s so awesome…
Ah, Tengu- you’ll always be an A-list Engrish actor in MY heart. <3
For more Babelfish fun, I highly suggest the website http://www.translationparty.com , which basically is a SUPER Babelfish. What happens is it basically takes your English phrase and translates it back and forth until it is either solved or completely broken; one of my personal favourites can be found at http://translationparty.com/#5724511 . Numbers will usually break it automatically, I've found. :3
For being such a regular commenter and all around swell person, Ryoff, I have made you some birthday art. Please enjoy and be the envy of the neighborhood.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f192/TehKiah/happybirthdayryoff.jpg?t=1261147596
I made it with my mouse because I am visiting family for a couple of days and I left my tablet at my apartment!
Although it may not give you quite the joy that babelfish does, I feel like you’d enjoy this site:
http://translationparty.com/
Awesome poster ^^
The work whose comedy today is good, as for that you see largely. As for me English which is mistranslated, everything which can point to that is loved much funny.
Happle Tea is like a mythology class that takes place two times a week.
Awww, I is touched! Thanks Scott!
Great strips.
Tengu is amazing drawed and his nose too.
that girl….LUCKYYYYY!! well…one day…ill be there.
“Tengu no ai no tame,” when pasted into Bad Translator (http://www.conveythis.com/translation.php) spits out, 54 Google translations later, “Added Value.” When using “天狗の愛のため,” you get “Last Guardian.”
I like that.