Again, Today, He Cheerfully Searches For Coins

October 18, 2020 9:18 PM

The Mario Bros. theme was apparently given lyrics in Japan and released as a pop single in 1986 (SYTL)
posted by CarrotAdventure (21 comments total)

I can't decide if I like this more or less than Do The Mario.
posted by jordemort at 9:42 PM on October 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

Do the Mario is great and all, but I really love how this one tackles the entire song.
posted by CarrotAdventure at 9:44 PM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

Weirdly I worried this was going in the "ruin your childhood memories" category but it's fantastic.
posted by MillMan at 10:08 PM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

What's with the 80s translations of Japanese to English that gave us things like, "Mario he cheerfully jumps for coins?" that's parodied so well in the Simpsons. Is this sort of poor translation still around or was this a thing I only remember from the 80s/90s? I assumed it was the result of someone who doesn't speak English natively, or even well, hurrying a translation at the last minute.
posted by geoff. at 12:07 AM on October 19, 2020

Since word order is different in Japanese, if you translate one word at a time in the same order instead of rewriting the sentence as a native English speaker would, you get exactly the kind of thing in your example / mr sparkle.
posted by thedaniel at 12:38 AM on October 19, 2020

Well not quite exactly but you get the idea
posted by thedaniel at 12:40 AM on October 19, 2020

Yeah totally makes sense it is a word order thing now.
posted by geoff. at 12:55 AM on October 19, 2020

Tim Rogers (same guy whose spoiler video just hit the Blue) talks about having internalized Japanese word order & now even after having been back in the U.S. for years he still says things like "I'm going to make some more, the popcorn"
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:17 AM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

There’s also other stuff like how some things in Japanese can just be adverbs when they can’t be in English, like how in English you can’t “eat deliciously.” The actual way people talk in different languages is much more than a simple difference of which words you say, akin to the way that guitar chords and piano chords are differently structured.

I also have Opinions on the topic of Tim Rogers and what proportional quantity of shit he may or may not contain, based in no small part on his novella about EarthBound that was largely built around easily verifiable things that he very obviously just plain made up
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:58 AM on October 19, 2020 [5 favorites]

I also have opinions about how full of shit Tim Rogers is, except based on many examples over his entire career
posted by Merus at 4:24 AM on October 19, 2020 [5 favorites]

On a related note, here is someone playing the theme on a sheng, which is an ancient Chinese instrument that looks like someone is playing some sort of Gothic cathedral spire.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:00 AM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don’t care if Tim Rogers is full of shit, that’s part of his shtick.
posted by rikschell at 5:07 AM on October 19, 2020

This was delightful!!!

(But fuck those flying fish mother fuckers.)
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:21 AM on October 19, 2020

Does 'cheerfully' mean something different in Japanese than it does in English? Because this song leans pretty heavily on it.
posted by box at 8:30 AM on October 19, 2020

I love this
posted by Going To Maine at 8:36 AM on October 19, 2020

Does 'cheerfully' mean something different in Japanese than it does in English? Because this song leans pretty heavily on it.

The word that's being translated as "cheerfully" is "genki" (元気), a tricky word that doesn't have a one-to-one English equivalent, with etymological origins in traditional Chinese medicine. Depending on context, it carries connotations of cheerful, energetic, vigorous, healthy, indefatigable, and countless other nebulously related concepts. Here's an article.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:57 AM on October 19, 2020 [9 favorites]

Yeah, genki is an interesting one when a Japanese person is learning English, because their go-to translation is typically "cheerful" regardless of context. Earlier in our relationship, my wife was always asking if I was "cheerful" or not when she meant things like healthy / tired / etc.

In this video, it would probably be more accurate to use words like "vigorously" or "energetically" ("Kyou mo genki ni Mario ga hashiru hashiru" -> "Today, Mario is running vigorously again" or something... I'm not a translator :) )
posted by thefoxgod at 11:28 AM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

Translation issues aside, the lyrics are kind of...well, terrible and amateurish. I was wondering why, and:

Japanese lyrics were originally submitted in 1985 by fans of the Japanese radio program Takao Komine All Night Nippon. The recorded version of the song with lyrics was released in 1986 under the name "Go Go Mario!!".[9][10] The song is interpreted by Princess Peach, voiced by Hiroko Taniyama.[11][12][13] The song was also released on vinyl, called Mario No Daibouken.

posted by star gentle uterus at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

Here's the B-side, the Koopa Family Counting Song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJUS1lk2FQs

If you are so inclined, you can buy the vinyl single on Amazon Japan for 4800 yen.
posted by LostInUbe at 3:05 PM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

Huh, I wonder if there was something more to the All Night Nippon tie-in thing, given the special weird version of Super Mario Bros. they made based in part on that show
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:24 PM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

Mario: he cheerfully jumps where no one has jumped before.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 5:03 PM on October 19, 2020