Requesting small Japanese (maybe?) to English translation

Tayrun

Hey all,

A friend bought me a lovely piece of artwork that I'd like to hang in my house. Unfortunately this friend is the mischievous type, so I'd like to double-check what the Chinese writing on it says.

I'm not sure which of the family of Chinese languages this is - I'll be honest, I can't even be certain I'm looking at something from the Chinese family rather than Japanese. I apologise to anyone who is offended by my cluelessness.

Edit: Seems more likely this is Japanese.



This writing is in the lower left of the work.



This writing is in the lower right of the work.



This mark is in the lower right of the work, near to the writing in the second image. I think perhaps it's more of a maker's mark than anything.

For context, the full image, a glorious historical depiction of Samus Aran kicking metroid ass:



Many thanks!

ceres

I always have a hard time with painted characters, but I'm pretty sure that's a Japanese name with the kanji on the left and some hiragana (the phonetic language) on the right. I can't read any of it, I am just really bad at that kind of writing.

BahamutZERO

I'm moderately sure those are japanese characters but that's all I can tell you

Tayrun

Thanks you two.

Updated thread title.

SilverWind

Artist's store is here: https://japanese-prints-by-ukiyo-e-heroes.myshopify.com/collections/handmade-woodblock-prints/products/infestation-woodblock-print

The left cartouche reads "Wanderer of Skies - iron will, iron skin", and the right cartouche is inscribed with the phonetic reading "Sa-mu-su".

Or at least that's what they are attempting to say-- I can't actually read it, and it could probably be a jumbled translation :P But at least it doesn't seem to be a prank on the part of your friend.

Tayrun

Hella helpful! Thank you so much @SilverWind !!

Gabriel_Pitt

SilverWind wrote: »

Artist's store is here: https://japanese-prints-by-ukiyo-e-heroes.myshopify.com/collections/handmade-woodblock-prints/products/infestation-woodblock-print

The left cartouche reads "Wanderer of Skies - iron will, iron skin", and the right cartouche is inscribed with the phonetic reading "Sa-mu-su".

Or at least that's what they are attempting to say-- I can't actually read it, and it could probably be a jumbled translation :P But at least it doesn't seem to be a prank on the part of your friend.

Just to be double-sure, I ran it past a native-speaker friend who looked at it, laughed, agreed with the translation, but called it 'creative Japanese.' :biggrin:

WiseManTobes

It's probably best I don't know how to write Japanese , I would just make the most pretty and stylish letterings saying the most , awful awful things.

BahamutZERO

Gabriel_Pitt wrote: »

SilverWind wrote: »

Artist's store is here: https://japanese-prints-by-ukiyo-e-heroes.myshopify.com/collections/handmade-woodblock-prints/products/infestation-woodblock-print

The left cartouche reads "Wanderer of Skies - iron will, iron skin", and the right cartouche is inscribed with the phonetic reading "Sa-mu-su".

Or at least that's what they are attempting to say-- I can't actually read it, and it could probably be a jumbled translation :P But at least it doesn't seem to be a prank on the part of your friend.

Just to be double-sure, I ran it past a native-speaker friend who looked at it, laughed, agreed with the translation, but called it 'creative Japanese.' :biggrin:

finally, revenge for all those engrish t-shirts

Gabriel_Pitt

I still wish I'd bought that big, glittery sparkle insect themed 'Buttfly' t-shirt when I had the chance.

Although all those terrible 'Asian character' tattoos should be revenge enough. Especially when using whatever that Word font was that would give you Hanzi/Kanji/Hanja characters, and so people assumed 'if you write Gabe using that font, those characters mean Gabe, right?' was popular.