i misinterpreted the "mars coconut" part as being a flavor woops. it's not talking about an energy bar. that should be:

during season 2, the energy bars the guys are seen eating (the ones called "maximum") come in cheese, banana, and bbq flavor. however, mika continues munching on mars palms/dates.

i forgot the little nut/date-looking things he's always taking out of his pockets are called kaseiyashi.

Oh that makes sense.

Although hang on a moment...

Nah, no joy. I wondered if they showed the wrapper for the bar Mika wolfs down at Edmonton but they don't. I can't recall if we ever see him eating them elsewhere. Usually, if it's not Mars plums (which is what the dub calls them, although the English subs uses 'Mars palms'), it's Atra's sandwiches/wraps.

Oh, and hey, I realised after I reblogged the earlier version of your post that the ages given for Makanai fit relatively well with my assumption that the epilogue takes place 5-6 years after the final battle (I picked up a '6 years later' figure at some point early on but could not tell you where!).

#im impressed with eugenes ability to catch random strays whenever i open a book

Poor Eugene. Longing to be an action hero, born to be a logistics manager.

Regarding House Issue, the Urdr Hunt game introduced Okina Uroka, an old family retainer who worked to secure the future of the line after Carta's death. This is a separate character from the person described here, who sounds like it must be Carta's sick father, as referenced in the show itself. I am however somewhat intrigued by them having the same character at the start of their names, since Okina is *very* heavily Issue-coded himself (he's got the eyebrows), which suggests to me he's meant to be an illegitimate child of the family. I'm probably stretching, but it'd be cool if they named him to emphasise a connection to Carta's dad.

Hmmm. And with the Saisei, I don't suppose there's any indication if that's meant to be a trip around the *entire* Belt? McGillis and Gaelio's journey to Mars and back takes two months. A month's travel would seem reasonable for Tekkadan's arrival at Earth too. And it only takes them ten days to reach the Saisei, all of which is while the relative positions of the planets are thus:

Which implies a month from Earth to Mars is the high end of the range. But also that the Saisei must have been closer to Mars than Jupiter for that first meeting with McMurdo. Given the way the Asteroid Belt is distributed, a direct plunge into it from Jupiter surely wouldn't account for a whole three months of travel. On the other hand, six months around the whole of the Belt would be much faster than the other implied speeds. Which I'd think was entirely plausible, since when you have unlimited power, the only reason not to push up to some serious fractions of lightspeed is the necessity of slowing down sufficiently to actually do stuff at your destination beyond whizzing past or slamming into it. Cruising for extended periods at very high speed would likely allow for going much further than ships navigating between the inner planets.

Why yes, I have spent considerable time over-thinking this stuff.

Wait, sorry, no. It's *three* months that Gaelio and McGillis are gone from Earth, not two. But, again, later examples of travel times are much lower - the Hotarubi can get from Mars to Earth, at full speed, in a little over three weeks and Kudelia's round trip in the epilogue might be even quicker. So a month plus a couple of weeks would be the high end of the range, which would be a curved orbital path rather than a straight line.

mm doesn't give any specifications about saisei's travel; just says that the journey from jupiter to asteroid belt is a 6+ month round trip (whops i forgot the + in my post lol) maybe vague about how far along the asteroid belt it goes so it can mysteriously appear near mars whenever they need it to in the story

Yeah, that makes sense. I think I'd half-assumed the Saisei cruised between Jupiter and Mars, given how easily everyone is always getting to it from the Mars-based locations. But if it's cruising around the Belt most of the time, that still kind of makes sense.

Jupiter takes nearly twelve years to complete a single orbit, so it'd probably see a lot more variation in travel times over all. Given that, it might even make more logistical sense for the Saisei to usually be far closer to the inner solar system.

On a related note, I need to check my working for this latest fanfic and maybe bump up the length of a few time skips!

Yamagi = best death glare in Tekkadan

Shino = most oblivious member of Tekkdan

Eugene = stuck in the middle and presumably desperately avoiding being the one who has to Say Something

I never get the details quite right but it is pleasing when my impressions for how this all went down in the background turn out to be at least close to what the writers came up with when they explored it. (For the first two at least; I think I credit Eugene with a bit more awareness than is necessarily warranted; I just find it extremely funny to imagine him privately despairing of the two of them.)

(And, also, as I have put extensively on the record by this point, my conclusion on the various configurations of shipping these three is firmly 'all of the above', albeit not without a lot of set-up and *ahem* minor adjustment to the outcome of events. Funnily enough, though, I've always assumed Shino genuinely invites Eugene along exactly and only because he thinks it'd be fun and doesn't want Eugene to miss out by being a serious-minded grump. In my mind, they're best friends before they're anything else.)

Good luck with the translation efforts!

So, if you'll forgive me dropping a long rambling response on you, this is something I've had a lot of thoughts on for a while but not really had a chance to expand upon.

(Though I'll first apply the caveat that since I neither speak nor read Japanese, the following is based mostly on art choices and other details I've noticed by obsessively rewatching this show multiple times.)

That localisation potentially adds to an understated bit of world-building in the IBO setting, which is that the official language of Mars appears to be English, not Japanese. Or, I should say, English is very obviously Gjallarhorn's official language, since every document we see from them is written in it, and this is also reflected in Mars signage and so on. And of course it's what Kudelia teaches the kids to read and write.

Japanese is then highlighted specifically as the language Teiwaz uses, not only on formal occasions like the Sakazuki ceremony but also in their internal documentation. The work we see Radice doing at the start of season 2 is all written in Japanese, which likely means he's the only one at the Earth branch who can actually read it!

Japanese is also used for text in the spin-off game Urdr Hunt (soon to be released as a movie), which is set around Venus, suggesting it's not a Jupiter-specific phenomenon. And likewise, the spin-off manga, Moon Steel, set closer to Earth, features a mix of written languages. Most of the computer messages (e.g. for diagnostics and ID codes) are in English, while emails are written in Japanese. There's some physically printed documents too, but it's unclear which language they're meant to be in (the layout matches the way English is typed, but the art doesn't render it in enough detail to be certain).

Taken together, this indicates both languages are common in the setting. Indeed, I'd go further: if Mars follows Gjallarhorn owing to their rule of the planet, it's possible English is what most of the characters we encounter are 'actually' speaking. (I want to be clear again that this is me extrapolating from the art and I'm basically just saying there's room for reading in a standard fiction 'translation convention' to apply, where everything gets rendered in the language of the production even if that isn't true to life.)

However, if this is the case, it's equally plain Japanese is in wide-ish use on Mars as well, likely as a direct result of people having to regularly deal with Teiwaz. For example, there are several points where things characters say point to translation going on in-universe. I'm thinking primarily of Kudelia and Orga's discussion when he announces that he's renaming the group 'Tekkadan'. She initially unpacks it as iron fire and he has to correct her. We also have the twins (Embi and Elgar) arguing over the spelling vs pronunciation of 'Mika(d)zuki' during their lessons a few episodes later, a background joke the English dub breaks, because the actors unfortunately leave out the 'd' sound when they say the name! (I am a huge fan of the dub because it's really well acted and scripted, but this isn't the only case where things like that get lost.)

So. What does this mean for Shino's pet naming convention? Well, given the overall social structure, English would presumably be the language of the ruling class. We see this not just in Gjallarhorn's documents, but also in the artifacts they preserve: both 'History of Revolution' and 'The Life of Agnika Kaieru' are written in English, as are the Gundam operating systems. English is therefore associated with high standing and official sources (the news, computer OS, the Ariadne Network, etc) and is what people tend to put on public-facing signs (see Haba's Store, Sakura Farm, the people protesting for Martian independence, the Turbines' logo etc).

Meanwhile Japanese is used by organisations lying outside or below the Earth-centric core: the Jupiter mafia, a space-colony-based trading company, a contractor from Venus. And it's common enough even in Gjallarhorn-controlled areas that people like Orga can bring it in explicitly for special occasions (to say nothing of how many characters have Japanese names!).

Which I think could mean that Japanese, at least in the Martian context, is associated with fringe and criminal groups. And assuming that, Shino picking literally 'Ryusei-Go' as his personal brand is, like with Orga picking 'Tekkadan', because it's Japanese and Japanese sounds cool/rebellious/edgy.

Everything to do with Shino's aesthetic is textually 'vulgar'. He's loud, he likes bright colours, he goes way over the top, and it makes a lot of sense to me to read his use of 'Ryusei-Go' within that framework. The localisation choice therefore reinforces the idea of Japanese being a cooler option in a way straightforwardly translating it wouldn't have.

(His then getting out-punned with 'Riden-Go/Raiden-Go' is very funny, because there are hints Ride is one of the more educated kids in Tekkadan: he doesn't need to attend Kudelia's classes to be able to read off Yamagi's pad in season 2, for instance. I don't think we're necessarily meant to think Shino doesn't know what 'Ryusei-Go' means - but his motif does not actually incorporate shooting star imagery, whereas Ride is putting lighting bolts on that thing immediately.)

I'll admit, this is mostly me working things through from a rather limited perspective. Given the conscious class-division elements in the story, I can't believe use of English or Japanese isn't strongly connected to how those divisions are being conceptualised. We have Mikazuki expressly calling out Japanese characters are more beautiful than English letters, after all. However, as mentioned above, there are certainly decisions around e.g. word usage and spoken dialects that I'm missing due to my ignorance.

But I still find it a really interesting artistic flourish, because while I would usually assume any anime defaults to Japanese being the de facto 'normal' language, the foregrounding of English via Gjallarhorn and then the introduction of Japanese via Teiwaz suggest that this doesn't necessarily apply in IBO.

Heya, thanks for the response! I agree with the general premise about English versus Not English regarding classism. Regarding the in universe naming, Teiwaz's mobile suits are all very specifically references to the swords of Chinese Emperor Sun Quan. And even though he had a Graze at first, Shino's ryuseigo/shooting star/yolomobile is also one of these swords, and he named his Graze after they met the Turbines, and iirc they also used some Teiwaz tech on the modded Graze. Even something like the name Saisei is a carry over from the Chinese term for Jupiter. There are also names like the booster unit the Kutan/Cutan?, which seem to have a different origin. So, if I am being straight forward, I'm not sure if you are meant to see Teiwaz as strictly "Japanese" in universe, especially with the Chinese naming theme, and perhaps they are meant to be more of a melting pot? (Notably, Ride's Riden/Raiden is not named after one of the 9 swords.)

....nine swords you say? You don't, um, happen to have a full list with handy romanisations that you could point me towards, do you?

I have been struggling for ages to come up with the name for a successor to the Hekija (for fan-fic purposes) and hadn't the first idea where to start keeping it on-theme. I was tempted to dig into Japanese WWII planes, since I believe 'Shiden' is, via Kai Shiden from Gundam 79, a reference back to those. However, that didn't seem like it would fit the pattern (Hyakuren, Hyakuri, [Rouei], Hakugo, Shiden, Hekija), and I wasn't even sure if Shiden should count -- and basically I would be eternally grateful if you can help with this problem, since I am rapidly running out of space to write around it!

Anyway, totally selfish questions aside, you are right that the Graze custom got upgraded with Teiwaz parts to become the Ryusei-Go. However, it's possible the name predates that, since the Shiden version in Season 2 is specifically Ryusei-Go III, with Flauros becoming Ryusei-Go IV. Since there was only a single mobile suit prior to that in the sequence, a popular theory is that Shino's pink mobile worker from the start of Season 1 is in fact Ryusei-Go I, while the mobile suit should more properly be Ryusei-Go II.

Expanded fiction has since introduced a repaired variant of the Graze custom that could be the missing Ryusei-Go II, but it's not been labelled as such in any of the official material so far, and I'm clinging to the fandom theory for now. It's cute and very on-brand.

My reason for associating Teiwaz with Japanese is mostly down to things like Mr McMurdo's aesthetic (robes, bonsai trees, swords) and the Sakazuki ceremony. It's clearly not *just* Japanese (I always joke that Teiwaz are the Italian-Japanese fusion mafia that is sadly missing from so much of sci-fi), but they seem to be where those elements come most to the fore. Although, of course, it's not entirely clear how much of that is meant to be affectation on McMurdo's part, specifically, and how much is about the culture of the broader organisation.

For reference, here's the aforementioned shot of Radice's screen.

I'm going to have to double-check but that might be the only time Japanese text shows up on computer displays in the show? If that is indeed what it is meant to represent; unfortunately this isn't one of the screens that gets pulled out in any of the art-books, so I'm actually not 100% certain of the intent here. But it would be peculiar, given the care taken elsewhere, if someone just screen-grabbed Excel for this specific case!

sun quan's swords:

the six swords:

1. 白虹: hakugo
2. 紫電: shiden
3. 辟邪: hekija
4. 流星: ryusei
5. 青冥: seimei
6. 百里: hyakuri

the three other swords... this is a distinction that idk how to render in english haa...

1. 百錬: hyakuren
2. 青犢: seitoku
3. 漏影: rouei

when did shino start naming things after shooting stars?

personally, i am under the impression the graze kai 2 is his first use of the name ryusei because of how the others react when shino says it. unless we are to take it to mean that he only called his mobile worker ryusei-go in his head? haha

it is shipper brain of me but i headcanon that shino starting to use the shooting star thing is something that occurred after the funeral rites part, and that its tied to his relationship with yamagi. asian media is extremely in love with the idea of expressing the transient, fleeting, ephemeral nature of life. the tekkadan imagery is something of a counter to that: the flower doesn't wilt. however, during the funeral episode, upon seeing yamagi's offering to the dead, the group speaks of the passing and fleeting nature of life. the icicle flowers are pretty, but they don't last forever and quickly fade away.

shino asks yamagi to make icicle flowers when he dies, but yamagi gets all tsuntsun on him and refuses. the ice imagery of course fits yamagi, who is this more quiet and "cool" character. but ice doesn't seem to fit shino, who is this more loud and derpy guy. thus, as icicle flowers are yamagi's way of expressing this theme, the shooting star is shino's way of expressing it. even before launching in the graze kai 2 and actually saying "ryusei-go" for the first time, shino tells yamagi that it'll be a while before yamagi needs to set off more icicle flowers. of course, that can be taken multiple ways: "no one's dying on my watch", "i'm not dying", etc. but perhaps also, yamagi's refusal is like telling shino to find a way of expressing this theme himself (yamagi can't do everything for you, you bum), and that's exactly what shino goes on to do.

(of course, why his choice happens to fit with the existing teiwaz naming scheme is... hm, shrug. happy coincidences in-universe to fit the irl meta naming scheme. or perhaps talking w/the turbines influenced it a bit.)

radice's space excel spreadsheet

lastly, for radice, out of curiosity, which characters on his screen can you make make out as distinctly being japanese? stuff like this area i boxed on his spreadsheet to me look more like english words written in caplocks w/a font like arial narrow, but just very blurry heh

Holy flip, I can just call it a Ryusei. Why didn't I think of that already? I've written in a direct link to *previous fanfic plot thread* and I never even thought of that. Hah ha! Fantastic, problem solved!

Thank you so much! They really were going down the list, weren't they? Ten years and nobody told the Gundam Wiki editors about this? That's mad. Heck, I cannot believe how much worry it would have saved me if I had seen anyone make that connection before. You're a gem!

With Radice's spreadsheets, I agree on re-examination that it's a stretch, at least in terms of intent. I got the idea it was Japanese from one of @stillness-in-green's analysis posts, and I have to say, I do still like the notion of Radice switching languages deliberately. I can't really judge one way or the other in terms of it being specifically Japanese, but this pop-up doesn't look to me like it would make sense as an English message, from the layout?

I'd also suggest that if this is an accounting spreadsheet, it doesn't look like the tally columns have been filled out using Arabic numerals? But I don't think it makes sense that it wouldn't be, so... yeah. Not sure. Maybe this is all just burry text with no particular intent either way beyond filling the screen with something (I checked and an earlier spreadsheet shown right after the kids take over the CGS is likewise illegible).

It *is* an odd outlier in not being visibly English content, apart from the actual file interface at the very top. However, after reflection, I wouldn't stake any world-building on it.

With Shino - yeeeeah, I guess I do imagine him not saying it out-loud until then! One of audio dramas introduced the concept that his ambitions to be a mobile suit pilot go back a fair way, so it made sense to me that he'd have all this bubbling ideas about what he'd do if he got the chance.

[EDIT: ALSO! The 'eye' motif appears in concept art applied to a mobile worker before anything else.]

But your read is lovely and I really like it. The interplay between Shino's expressed intent and what actually happens, and how that plays off Yamagi is something I have considered at, ahem, some length (*stares at the longest fanfic I've ever written*) and I tend to focus on Shino as someone caught between 'I'm going to live forever' and 'I'm the human sacrifice to get everyone else over the finish line' (which I mainly approached via his ego/lack thereof, as summarised here). I'd never made the link between the ice flowers and the Ryusei-Go motif before, though, at least not as something he was doing himself (it's plainly a thing the narrative is doing). That's a really interesting angle.

I think I tend to give more weight to Tekkadan's internal mindset as foolishly going against the idea of transience when considering the things they do. The funeral scene doesn't really impact on their attitude as much as it 'should' (and it's Eugene who expresses that sentiment, the guy who is simultaneously great and terrible at being the voice of reason).

But yeah . . . interesting. Thanks for sharing that.

black broken mackerel tabby with low white spotting

Swear in your search request. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the most effective way I've found of it not doing the AI summary is just to add "fucking" go my search.

Holy shit

It also seems to get rid of sponsored posts

GUYS THIS FUCKING WORKS OH MY GOD. BEAUTIFUL.

Hey, I'm already swearing at AI, may as well commit to it...