Nagasaki Kitty
Sounds like a rendition of Hello Kitty, or does it?
In a world of all things kawaii and pink, Nagasaki Kitty casts a shadow on a culture of decadence by reminding us about Japan’s historical past--before the time of Cool Japan. Directed and written by Ryan Scheiding and developed by his team, Nagasaki Kitty is a choose-your-own-adventure/ visual novel type PC game that features a young protagonist named Ayako during the aftermath of the atomic bombings in Nagasaki. In her quest to find her mother, Ayako encounters the harsh realities and tragic loss of those around her. The story, though fictional, recounts the real events of the utter devastation brought upon by the bomb, which is conveyed in the monochromatic, sumi-e style illustrations done by Marilyn Sugiarto. The music by Steven J. S. Bowcott sets the tone of the game, and all these elements are brought together by the tech savvy, Luciano Frizzera. Stay tuned for Samia Pedraça, the 3D modeler for the next iteration of the game!
My role as a translator was both exciting and challenging. Exciting because it was the first game that I translated and challenging for two reasons. First and foremost, I asked myself, how do I begin to translate the experience of war? Would my translation cause offense to those who actually survived the war? This led me to a host of other questions: does the game’s translation lend itself to how some hibakusha narratives have been utilized to repress the memory of conflict between Japan and America, which functions not only to redefine Japan’s relationship to America as its ally, but at the same exonerate Japan’s colonial history, as scholars such as Yoshikuni Igarashi once said? In what ways does it reconstruct Japan’s cultural memory about the war and its role as victim within it? Am I thinking too much? Secondly, as a woman educated in Hyojyungo Japanese, how do I capture Nagasaki-ness? Do I imitate and appropriate Nagasaki-ben or do I leave it in Hyojyungo? I grappled with these questions in my translated version of Scheiding’s prose. At the end of the day, and with the help from friends, I decided to incorporate some Nagasaki phrases and words, while maintaining the flavor of Scheiding’s original. My aim isn’t to reproduce with precision and accuracy an historical event that is beyond comprehension to begin with--neither is this the aim of the game--rather, Nagasaki Kitty offers an interesting cross-cultural interpretation of Japanese history through a contemporary North American lens, which isn’t without its limitations as well as potentialities, but it ultimately sparks and invites conversation and critical discussion.
Check out the team’s individual websites & of course Nagasai Kitty!