Thursday, March 7, 2024

Super Mario 64 1-4

Star #4 - 8枚の赤コイン > はちまいのあかコイン > Hachi mai no aka koin > The Eight Red Coins

This stage was officially localized as "Find the 8 Red Coins". While I'm generally not into collecting items in 3D platformers, the red coins stages were handled well for the most part. This stage title is full of essential Japanese words. Broken into 5 parts:


1. 8 > はち > Hachi > Eight

Surprisingly, Japanese commonly uses the same Arabic numeral system that English speakers are well acquanted with. However, they still pronounce the numbers with the native Japanese word. In this case, eight is pronounced はち (Hachi). The Nintendo 64 itself is called the "Nintendo Roku Yon". It literally means "Nintendo Six Four," but not SIXTY four, which would be "Roku Juu Yon." In cases where kanji are used for numbers,  八 happens to be the character for “eight”.


2. 枚 > まい > Mai > Sheet counter

Depicting a hand holding a stick (木), 枚 is generally used as a suffix for thin flat objects. In this case, the large round coins of Mario games qualify.


3. の > No > Denotes listing

Having a ton of other uses besides indicating possession, here の is used to point out the number of red coins. It functions similar to the “X” in the "Mario X(bold) Life Number" and Star X(bold) Star Number" in the game's user interface.


4. 赤 > あか > Aka > Red

赤is believed to be a depiction of the earth (土) on fire (火).  If you were to describe Mario' hat, you could add an い (I) to create an adjective, 赤い/あかい/Akai. In this case , the noun form is used: simply あか/Aka.


5. コイン > Koin > Coin

Here, the English loan word for coin was used. However, in the title for Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, Nintendo went with the proper Japanese word for coin: 金貨/きんか/Kinka


Broken down again, this level’s title is: 8枚の赤コイン > はちまいのあかコイン > Hachi mai no aka koin > The Eight Red Coins. This same exact sentence is used in all 15 main worlds. Rather monotonous, but so is gathering all those red coins, especially the standard 100 for the seventh star of each world.


View Next Lesson: Star #5 - 空に羽搏け Wing Mario Flaps to the Sky 

View Previous Lesson: Star #3 - 空の島迄打っ飛べ  Fire Towards the Island of the Sky

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