Fate/Stay Night Discussion Topic ~Spoilers~

[Sunhawk]

The verses I've generally seen are:

ARCHER'S UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS
I am the bone of my sword.
Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.
I have created over a thousand blades.
Unknown to death,
Nor known to life.
Have withstood pain to create many weapons.
Yet, those hands will never hold anything.
So as I pray, Unlimited Blade Works.

SHIROU'S UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS
I am the bone of my sword.
Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.
I have created over a thousand blades.
Unaware of loss.
Nor aware of gain.
Withstood pain to create many weapons.
Waiting for one's arrival.
I have no regrets. This is the only path.
My whole life was "Unlimited Blade Works."

If incorrectness I be having,  free feel to be correcting, yes? :-p

[KLSymph]

Here are the Japanese versions (might have to download a font if the characters don't show) plus my translations, keeping in mind that my translations might be more than a little off since three semesters of college Japanese don't make me an expert in poetic syntax. I just translated the words and fit them together with hints from their particles in the way that most matches the speaker's story.

ARCHER'S UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS

体は　剣で　出来ている
血潮は鉄で　　心は硝子
幾たびの戦場を越えて不敗
ただの一度も敗走はなく
ただの一度も理解されない
彼の者は常に独り
剣の丘で勝利に酔う
故に、生涯に意味はなく
その体は　きっと剣で出来ていた

karada wa tsurugi de dekite iru
 The body is created by the sword
chishio wa tetsu de kokoro wa garasu
 The blood is iron, the heart is glass
ikutabi no senjou o koete fuhai
 How many battlefields have been crossed over, invincible?
tada no ichido mo haisou wa naku
  Never once was there a single retreat
tada no ichido mo rikai sarenai
  Nor once was there ever being understood
kare no mono wa tsune ni hitori
 His self was constantly, always alone
tsurugi no oka de shouri ni you
 At the hill of swords, he drank to victory
yue ni shougai ni imi wa naku
 Thus there was no meaning to his entire life
sono karada wa kitto tsurugi de dekite ita
 That body was surely created by the sword

SHIROU'S UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS

体は　剣で　出来ている
血潮は鉄で　心は硝子
幾たびの戦場を越えて不敗
ただ一度の敗走はなく
ただ一度の勝利もなし
担い手はここに孤り。
剣の丘で鉄を鍛つ
ならば　　我が生涯に意味は不要ず
この体は無限の剣で出来ていた

karada wa tsurugi de dekiteiru
 The body is created by the sword
chishio wa tetsu de kokoro wa garase
 The blood is iron, the heart is glass
ikutabi no senjou o koete fuhai
 How many battlefields have been crossed over, invincible?
tada ichido no haisou wa naku
 Never once was there a single retreat
tada ichido no ryouri mo nashi
 Nor once was there ever a victory
ninai te wa koko ni minashigori
 Here is a bearer, an orphan
tsurugi no oka de tetsu o kitaetsu
 At the hill of swords, iron is forged
naraba wa ga shougai ni imi wa fuyousu
 Thus my entire life has no need of meaning
kono karada wa mugen no tsurugi de dekite ita
 This body was created by infinite swords

[Shuten]

Sunhawk, that wasn't what I was refering to. I know both of those but thanks for the consideration. By the way that is TypeMoon's "translation" and not the literal one I was interested in.

KLSymph, that's exactly what I wanted to know... Thanks. ^^


Sincerely,
Shuten

[KLSymph]

Don't suppose anyone wants to take a crack at translating these? The Comic Battle collections are in Chinese though (or the first one is, didn't look at the second one).

[Dracos]

Finally ended up watching the ending.  Shuten's right, it's kind of lame how they ended like Tsukihime.  Slightly better, in a way, but also left me going "And what's next?"  I dunno.  You've got practically the start of a sentai team sitting at the end.  A set of mages and wild energetic people.

Dracos

[KLSymph]

Having just seen the ending myself, I'll just say in conclusion that, story and ending aside, this anime suffers greatly from "attack names five notches more awesome than attack animations" syndrome.

Most plainly demonstrated by Gilgamesh. Enûma Elish is supposed to be a rank EX anti-world attack, but apparently all an EX/anti-world attack amounts to in the end is a lot of red swiggles and a trench (and frankly I've seen more impressive drainage ditches in China).

Hard to forgive when the only thing I was looking forward to in an anime of the game was better animation (and voice work, which was okay).

[Dracos]

The whole anti-personnel, anti-weapon, anti-army, anti-world shit?

Total crap.

Dracos

[KLSymph]

The whole anti-personnel, anti-weapon, anti-army, anti-world shit?

Total crap.

I agree.  The problem is it's hard to discount it without breaking suspension of disbelief over the entire metaphysics of the story. I demand consistency like everyone else after all, so if you say that a certain group of people are legendary heroic spirits, and Gilgamesh is really the mythical demi-god Gilgamesh, fine. If you say that his sword is named after the Babylonian deity of creation and magic, and that sword's ability is named after the Babylonian creation epic, fine though pretty pompous. If you make up some sort of classification/rating system, and tell me that the ability is really powerful and has a extremely specific, descriptive blurb like "The Star of Creation that Splits Heaven and Earth", I am going to expect that the actual thing is not very far from its name on the awesomeness scale, especially since the user has the qualifications to have a weapon like that.

This sort of discrepancy sort of ruins the entire concept, and I'm a big proponent of setting up correctly and delivering for maximum effect. I have to decide between not accepting the final product or not accepting the setup. Bah. Makes me wish for the overkill of Dragon Ball Z.

[Sunhawk]

Finally ended up watching the ending.  Shuten's right, it's kind of lame how they ended like Tsukihime.  Slightly better, in a way, but also left me going "And what's next?"  I dunno.  You've got practically the start of a sentai team sitting at the end.  A set of mages and wild energetic people.

Dracos

What's next?  Why, Ilya confesses that she's been cheating on Shirou with Rin, Saber re-appears at Shirou's door pregnant with Kotomine's child, Sakura runs off with Taiga Fujimura, and Shirou sighs and stares longingly at a painting of Gilgamesh...

It's "Fate/Stay Night: The Soap Opera Continues"!

[Dracos]

The whole anti-personnel, anti-weapon, anti-army, anti-world shit?

Total crap.

I agree.  The problem is it's hard to discount it without breaking suspension of disbelief over the entire metaphysics of the story. I demand consistency like everyone else after all, so if you say that a certain group of people are legendary heroic spirits, and Gilgamesh is really the mythical demi-god Gilgamesh, fine. If you say that his sword is named after the Babylonian deity of creation and magic, and that sword's ability is named after the Babylonian creation epic, fine though pretty pompous. If you make up some sort of classification/rating system, and tell me that the ability is really powerful and has a extremely specific, descriptive blurb like "The Star of Creation that Splits Heaven and Earth", I am going to expect that the actual thing is not very far from its name on the awesomeness scale, especially since the user has the qualifications to have a weapon like that.

This sort of discrepancy sort of ruins the entire concept, and I'm a big proponent of setting up correctly and delivering for maximum effect. I have to decide between not accepting the final product or not accepting the setup. Bah. Makes me wish for the overkill of Dragon Ball Z.

Absolutely.  What I mean more is it never should've been added.  If they hadn't gone and inserted the largely extraneous 'anti-x' thing into the anime, it never would've come up.  I wonder how extraneous it is in the original game as well.

[KLSymph]

I wonder how extraneous it is in the original game as well.

Actually, it's mostly because the classification was presented pretty nicely in the game that made me look forward to it in the anime. In the game, there was a section in the "extras" menu (along with the gallery, sound test, etc.) called "status", which listed all the Servants, gave their ratings, and listed their attacks. And the section was well laid out too, menus and pictures and spiffy font, so you know somebody took the time to write up all of this info and make it presentable. Since it was "extras", you can say it was pretty extraneous, and I don't remember it really being an issue in the game itself.

The thing about the classifications in the game, though, was that if you looked at the gallery art for the attacks, there wasn't anything about the depictions that contradicted the classifications.  Enuma Elish in the game art (which was Gilgamesh with the Ea, charging up the attack) was detailed and colorful (lot more than the anime made it look) and it looked powerful, proportionally more powerful than the pictures for attacks that were reportedly not as good.  Which makes sense.

So I don't really blame the presence of the whole anti-whatever classification for being too exaggerated. It seems to fit the concept and it's not hard to say to myself "maybe Gilgamesh toned it down because he didn't want to do that much damage". It's just that I don't see why they couldn't at least make the attack animation as good as the game art hinted.

[KLSymph]

Vacationing in China has left me much of the time sitting on trains going through the countryside. Since my laptop has only a two-hour battery, and these rides are 12 to 24-hour ones, I've spent my idle time doing essentially meaningless things. Just to demonstrate that I can do more than criticize the I am the bone speech, I've thought up my own version by mixing and matching lines from the originals.

Anyway, the skill of making quotable quotes is very useful for writing fanfics that aren't forgotten after one reading, and I'm always on the lookout for chances to practice.

Best viewed side by side, I think, and it loses something without a scene to provide context. Unfortunately I don't have the time to try to table the post, much less type out two full scenes.

===

ARCHER

I am the bone of my sword--

Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.
I have created
Over a thousand blades.

How many fields
Of battle have I crossed,
Unknown to Death, nor known to Life?

Though I have suffered, and endured,
To create many weapons,
Nothing will be, by these hands,
Ever held--

So as I pray,
Unlimited Blade Works.

===

SHIROU

I am the bone of my sword--

Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.
I have created
Over a thousand blades.

How many fields
Of battle have I passed,
Neither knowing loss, nor knowing gain?

I suffer and endure,
To create many weapons,
Forever as I wait for one--

I have no regrets.
This is the only path.

My whole life was Unlimited Blade Works--

My body was born from infinite swords.

===

Since I have maybe three minutes left of webcafe time, I'll leave the explanation for the changes (and there's a paragraph or two for each change and wording; I had a whole lot of time) for when I get back.