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I think I've finally figured out what the name "Ruoginin" (the 'large' healing item in the Japanese version of Phantasy Star) is supposed to be a play on.

As some of you might know, the Japanese version of Phantasy Star has two healing items: PelorieMate and Ruoginin. The name PelorieMate is most likely a play on the product name CalorieMate. The picture of PelorieMate in the game manual resembles a CalorieMate bar, which is a Japanese-made energy bar.

I was stumped by "Ruoginin", though. The manual shows that it's some sort of potion or beverage, so I thought it must be some kind of energy drink (very common in Japan), but I didn't know which one. But now I'm pretty sure that it's a play on an energy drink called "Aruginin (Arginine) V". The names are very similar in katakana: ルオギニン (ru-o-gi-ni-n) and アルギニン (a-ru-gi-ni-n) -- not to mention that the names sound a lot alike. Yesterday I randomly came across the drink while buying some water from a vending machine close to downtown Hiroshima. Here's a page that shows bottle of Aruginin:

http://www.beverage.co.jp/product/carbonic/arginine.html

Anyway, it feels nice to clear that up, for my own personal sanity. :)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That feels better.

Still doesn't look like the label, but never mind :)

Arginine is actually an amino acid which has been thought (by cheating body-builders, not real scientists) to be linked with muscle growth because it can promote growth hormone release. Other quacks think it's good for erectile dysfunction too which is odd because Wikipedia says it promotes oestrogen release...

How about "Rarginine" for the re-Anglicised version?

Let's change them to Red Bull and Luna Bar.

Roarginine, perhaps? Rawginine?

TheRedEye wrote

Let's change them to Red Bull and Luna Bar.

I think the whole world has Red Bull these days but I think energy bars are more regional. Also, we'd have to alter the names a bit to keep in the original spirit.

I know, I was kidding. But if you do want to go as far as to localize the names into clever references to similar english-language products, let me know and we can brainstorm.

Paul Jensen wrote

I think I've finally figured out what the name "Ruoginin" (the 'large' healing item in the Japanese version of Phantasy Star) is supposed to be a play on.

As some of you might know, the Japanese version of Phantasy Star has two healing items: PelorieMate and Ruoginin. The name PelorieMate is most likely a play on the product name CalorieMate. The picture of PelorieMate in the game manual resembles a CalorieMate bar, which is a Japanese-made energy bar.

I was stumped by "Ruoginin", though. The manual shows that it's some sort of potion or beverage, so I thought it must be some kind of energy drink (very common in Japan), but I didn't know which one. But now I'm pretty sure that it's a play on an energy drink called "Aruginin (Arginine) V". The names are very similar in katakana: ルオギニン (ru-o-gi-ni-n) and アルギニン (a-ru-gi-ni-n) -- not to mention that the names sound a lot alike. Yesterday I randomly came across the drink while buying some water from a vending machine close to downtown Hiroshima. Here's a page that shows bottle of Aruginin:

product/carbonic/arginine.html

Anyway, it feels nice to clear that up, for my own personal sanity. :)

Thank-you! That was an amazing find.

It's a little late to discuss this now, but instead of "ruoginin" I think it should be called "Roginine".

Since the only difference between アルギニン and ルオギニン are the first two characters -aR and Ro- (which in fact is just one character that is different -"a" & "o"-, because the r/ル just switched places), maybe we should use the same romanization of the product, just like we did with PelorieMate.

In the end we would have PelorieMate for CalorieMate and Roginine for Arginine.

PS: I don't understand what the label of Roginine says in the official Japanese PS1 manual. Is it "RUGNIGN" ? If that name makes sense, then it could be Rugnign.

Maxim wrote

TheRedEye wrote

Let's change them to Red Bull and Luna Bar.

I think the whole world has Red Bull these days but I think energy bars are more regional. Also, we'd have to alter the names a bit to keep in the original spirit.

Red Butt? :)

bladesms wrote

It's a little late to discuss this now, but instead of "ruoginin" I think it should be called "Roginine".

Since the only difference between アルギニン and ルオギニン are the first two characters -aR and Ro- (which in fact is just one character that is different -"a" & "o"-, because the r/ル just switched places), [...]

I don't agree. You can't just silence the "u" part of ル in ルオギニン, since the ル makes out the first syllable of the name. "Roginine" would look like ロギニーン (ro-gi-nî-n). Completely different.

bladesms wrote

PS: I don't understand what the label of Roginine says in the official Japanese PS1 manual. Is it "RUGNIGN" ? If that name makes sense, then it could be Rugnign.

It looks like it. Would also explain why there's no chôon after the ニ character. The word "Ruoginine" would be written like ルオギニーン, and that's not what it looks like in the game. Maybe the item is supposed to be called "Ruognign" (with the "-nign" pronounced as in "benign"). A soft "g" could be transcribed as a ギ, and the ニン doesn't explicitly state that it needs to be spoken long (not as much as ニーン, anyway), so I'd go with Ruognign.

Of course, now it seems that I digressed too much from the word "Arginine" that might have been referenced, but the above-mentioned seems to make the most sense to me, taking into account the picture of the item in the Japanese manual and the way it's written in Japanese.

mk1995 wrote

bladesms wrote

It's a little late to discuss this now, but instead of "ruoginin" I think it should be called "Roginine".

Since the only difference between アルギニン and ルオギニン are the first two characters -aR and Ro- (which in fact is just one character that is different -"a" & "o"-, because the r/ル just switched places), [...]

I don't agree. You can't just silence the "u" part of ル in ルオギニン, since the ル makes out the first syllable of the name. "Roginine" would look like ロギニーン (ro-gi-nî-n). Completely different.

bladesms wrote

PS: I don't understand what the label of Roginine says in the official Japanese PS1 manual. Is it "RUGNIGN" ? If that name makes sense, then it could be Rugnign.

It looks like it. Would also explain why there's no chôon after the ニ character. The word "Ruoginine" would be written like ルオギニーン, and that's not what it looks like in the game. Maybe the item is supposed to be called "Ruognign" (with the "-nign" pronounced as in "benign"). A soft "g" could be transcribed as a ギ, and the ニン doesn't explicitly state that it needs to be spoken long (not as much as ニーン, anyway), so I'd go with Ruognign.

Of course, now it seems that I digressed too much from the word "Arginine" that might have been referenced, but the above-mentioned seems to make the most sense to me, taking into account the picture of the item in the Japanese manual and the way it's written in Japanese.

Ruognign makes sense... besides it matches the picture from the Japanese manual.
The other option would be Ruoginine then (to match the official romanji of Arginine).

It's cool that this thread is still active after all these years.

Thinking about it now, the item names would probably be best localized instead of transliterated as-is. Most westerners wouldn't be able to make the connection between PelorieMate and CalorieMate, or between Ruoginin and (\(insert name of energy drink here).

Somebody before mentioned using Luna Bar and Red Bull. Something like that might be a good choice for western audiences. For example, PlowerBar and Blue Bull could work.

Phantasy Star Retranslation Redux, anyone?

Paul Jensen wrote

It's cool that this thread is still active after all these years.

Thinking about it now, the item names would probably be best localized instead of transliterated as-is. Most westerners wouldn't be able to make the connection between PelorieMate and CalorieMate, or between Ruoginin and (\(insert name of energy drink here).

Somebody before mentioned using Luna Bar and Red Bull. Something like that might be a good choice for western audiences. For example, PlowerBar and Blue Bull could work.

Phantasy Star Retranslation Redux, anyone?

That would be great (and let's not forget a PSGen1 re-translation).

Well, at least "PelorieMate" is still better than "Perolimate" (PSIV)... or hamburger. I think Proper Nouns shouldn't be translated, but it always could be an option to chose between localized or transliterated names.

Localize names can bring some problems too (and I'm not talking about the fact we can't localize everything). For instance, the magic "DoHeal" (PS1US:Cure) was retranslated into "Super Heal", but it shouldn't because that magic name already exists in PS Gaiden. In PSG we have: Heal, Do Heal, Super Heal (full restores HP), Meta Heal (a magic that works like "Sar" technique).

So, in a global PS perspective we have a total of 5 healing magic: Heal(PS1/PSG), DoHeal(PS1/PSG), Medici(PS4), SuperHeal(PSG) and MetaHeal(PSG).

Paul Jensen wrote

Thinking about it now, the item names would probably be best localized instead of transliterated as-is. Most westerners wouldn't be able to make the connection between PelorieMate and CalorieMate, or between Ruoginin and (\(insert name of energy drink here).

Somebody before mentioned using Luna Bar and Red Bull. Something like that might be a good choice for western audiences. For example, PlowerBar and Blue Bull could work.

Phantasy Star Retranslation Redux, anyone?

That sounds like an idea. Maybe there could be two translation patches: One that sticks closer to the original Japanese script and another that localizes the references someone living in the West couldn't get unless they have a broad knowledge on Japanese products. Experience tells me that a fanbase tends to split in that regard, so we could be pre-emptive by doing that in order to appeal to both groups. Then again, if it's just CalorieMate/PelorieMate and Arginine/Ruoginin (Ruognign/Ruoginine/whatever-else-you-can-think-of), it's probably not worth making an extra patch for it.

This is good to know. I had no idea what those words were when I started playing the 2008 retranslation.

Author	Message
Paul Jensen Joined: 29 Jun 1999 Posts: 254 Location: California, USA; Hiroshima, Japan	Phantasy Star item names - mystery solved Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 3:34 pm
	I think I've finally figured out what the name "Ruoginin" (the 'large' healing item in the Japanese version of Phantasy Star) is supposed to be a play on. As some of you might know, the Japanese version of Phantasy Star has two healing items: PelorieMate and Ruoginin. The name PelorieMate is most likely a play on the product name CalorieMate. The picture of PelorieMate in the game manual resembles a CalorieMate bar, which is a Japanese-made energy bar. I was stumped by "Ruoginin", though. The manual shows that it's some sort of potion or beverage, so I thought it must be some kind of energy drink (very common in Japan), but I didn't know which one. But now I'm pretty sure that it's a play on an energy drink called "Aruginin (Arginine) V". The names are very similar in katakana: ルオギニン (ru-o-gi-ni-n) and アルギニン (a-ru-gi-ni-n) -- not to mention that the names sound a lot alike. Yesterday I randomly came across the drink while buying some water from a vending machine close to downtown Hiroshima. Here's a page that shows bottle of Aruginin: http://www.beverage.co.jp/product/carbonic/arginine.html Anyway, it feels nice to clear that up, for my own personal sanity. :)

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:51 pm Last edited by Maxim on Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
	Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That feels better. Still doesn't look like the label, but never mind :) Arginine is actually an amino acid which has been thought (by cheating body-builders, not real scientists) to be linked with muscle growth because it can promote growth hormone release. Other quacks think it's good for erectile dysfunction too which is odd because Wikipedia says it promotes oestrogen release... How about "Rarginine" for the re-Anglicised version?

TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 5:42 pm
TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	Let's change them to Red Bull and Luna Bar.

ICEknight Joined: 03 Apr 2001 Posts: 601 Location: Asturias	Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:18 pm
	Roarginine, perhaps? Rawginine?

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:59 pm
	TheRedEye wrote Let's change them to Red Bull and Luna Bar. I think the whole world has Red Bull these days but I think energy bars are more regional. Also, we'd have to alter the names a bit to keep in the original spirit.

TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:19 pm
TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	I know, I was kidding. But if you do want to go as far as to localize the names into clever references to similar english-language products, let me know and we can brainstorm.

bladesms Joined: 20 Nov 2012 Posts: 3	Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 1:25 pm
bladesms Joined: 20 Nov 2012 Posts: 3	Paul Jensen wrote I think I've finally figured out what the name "Ruoginin" (the 'large' healing item in the Japanese version of Phantasy Star) is supposed to be a play on. As some of you might know, the Japanese version of Phantasy Star has two healing items: PelorieMate and Ruoginin. The name PelorieMate is most likely a play on the product name CalorieMate. The picture of PelorieMate in the game manual resembles a CalorieMate bar, which is a Japanese-made energy bar. I was stumped by "Ruoginin", though. The manual shows that it's some sort of potion or beverage, so I thought it must be some kind of energy drink (very common in Japan), but I didn't know which one. But now I'm pretty sure that it's a play on an energy drink called "Aruginin (Arginine) V". The names are very similar in katakana: ルオギニン (ru-o-gi-ni-n) and アルギニン (a-ru-gi-ni-n) -- not to mention that the names sound a lot alike. Yesterday I randomly came across the drink while buying some water from a vending machine close to downtown Hiroshima. Here's a page that shows bottle of Aruginin: product/carbonic/arginine.html Anyway, it feels nice to clear that up, for my own personal sanity. :) Thank-you! That was an amazing find. It's a little late to discuss this now, but instead of "ruoginin" I think it should be called "Roginine". Since the only difference between アルギニン and ルオギニン are the first two characters -aR and Ro- (which in fact is just one character that is different -"a" & "o"-, because the r/ル just switched places), maybe we should use the same romanization of the product, just like we did with PelorieMate. In the end we would have PelorieMate for CalorieMate and Roginine for Arginine. PS: I don't understand what the label of Roginine says in the official Japanese PS1 manual. Is it "RUGNIGN" ? If that name makes sense, then it could be Rugnign.

Kaunisto Joined: 19 Apr 2012 Posts: 51 Location: Finland	Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:43 pm
Kaunisto Joined: 19 Apr 2012 Posts: 51 Location: Finland	Maxim wrote TheRedEye wrote Let's change them to Red Bull and Luna Bar. I think the whole world has Red Bull these days but I think energy bars are more regional. Also, we'd have to alter the names a bit to keep in the original spirit. Red Butt? :)

mk1995 Joined: 11 Jan 2009 Posts: 116 Location: Germany	Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:53 pm
mk1995 Joined: 11 Jan 2009 Posts: 116 Location: Germany	bladesms wrote It's a little late to discuss this now, but instead of "ruoginin" I think it should be called "Roginine". Since the only difference between アルギニン and ルオギニン are the first two characters -aR and Ro- (which in fact is just one character that is different -"a" & "o"-, because the r/ル just switched places), [...] I don't agree. You can't just silence the "u" part of ル in ルオギニン, since the ル makes out the first syllable of the name. "Roginine" would look like ロギニーン (ro-gi-nî-n). Completely different. bladesms wrote PS: I don't understand what the label of Roginine says in the official Japanese PS1 manual. Is it "RUGNIGN" ? If that name makes sense, then it could be Rugnign. It looks like it. Would also explain why there's no chôon after the ニ character. The word "Ruoginine" would be written like ルオギニーン, and that's not what it looks like in the game. Maybe the item is supposed to be called "Ruognign" (with the "-nign" pronounced as in "benign"). A soft "g" could be transcribed as a ギ, and the ニン doesn't explicitly state that it needs to be spoken long (not as much as ニーン, anyway), so I'd go with Ruognign. Of course, now it seems that I digressed too much from the word "Arginine" that might have been referenced, but the above-mentioned seems to make the most sense to me, taking into account the picture of the item in the Japanese manual and the way it's written in Japanese.

bladesms Joined: 20 Nov 2012 Posts: 3	Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:17 pm
bladesms Joined: 20 Nov 2012 Posts: 3	mk1995 wrote bladesms wrote It's a little late to discuss this now, but instead of "ruoginin" I think it should be called "Roginine". Since the only difference between アルギニン and ルオギニン are the first two characters -aR and Ro- (which in fact is just one character that is different -"a" & "o"-, because the r/ル just switched places), [...] I don't agree. You can't just silence the "u" part of ル in ルオギニン, since the ル makes out the first syllable of the name. "Roginine" would look like ロギニーン (ro-gi-nî-n). Completely different. bladesms wrote PS: I don't understand what the label of Roginine says in the official Japanese PS1 manual. Is it "RUGNIGN" ? If that name makes sense, then it could be Rugnign. It looks like it. Would also explain why there's no chôon after the ニ character. The word "Ruoginine" would be written like ルオギニーン, and that's not what it looks like in the game. Maybe the item is supposed to be called "Ruognign" (with the "-nign" pronounced as in "benign"). A soft "g" could be transcribed as a ギ, and the ニン doesn't explicitly state that it needs to be spoken long (not as much as ニーン, anyway), so I'd go with Ruognign. Of course, now it seems that I digressed too much from the word "Arginine" that might have been referenced, but the above-mentioned seems to make the most sense to me, taking into account the picture of the item in the Japanese manual and the way it's written in Japanese. Ruognign makes sense... besides it matches the picture from the Japanese manual. The other option would be Ruoginine then (to match the official romanji of Arginine).

Paul Jensen Joined: 29 Jun 1999 Posts: 254 Location: California, USA; Hiroshima, Japan	Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:50 am
	It's cool that this thread is still active after all these years. Thinking about it now, the item names would probably be best localized instead of transliterated as-is. Most westerners wouldn't be able to make the connection between PelorieMate and CalorieMate, or between Ruoginin and (\(insert name of energy drink here). Somebody before mentioned using Luna Bar and Red Bull. Something like that might be a good choice for western audiences. For example, PlowerBar and Blue Bull could work. Phantasy Star Retranslation Redux, anyone?

bladesms Joined: 20 Nov 2012 Posts: 3	Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:36 pm
bladesms Joined: 20 Nov 2012 Posts: 3	Paul Jensen wrote It's cool that this thread is still active after all these years. Thinking about it now, the item names would probably be best localized instead of transliterated as-is. Most westerners wouldn't be able to make the connection between PelorieMate and CalorieMate, or between Ruoginin and (\(insert name of energy drink here). Somebody before mentioned using Luna Bar and Red Bull. Something like that might be a good choice for western audiences. For example, PlowerBar and Blue Bull could work. Phantasy Star Retranslation Redux, anyone? That would be great (and let's not forget a PSGen1 re-translation). Well, at least "PelorieMate" is still better than "Perolimate" (PSIV)... or hamburger. I think Proper Nouns shouldn't be translated, but it always could be an option to chose between localized or transliterated names. Localize names can bring some problems too (and I'm not talking about the fact we can't localize everything). For instance, the magic "DoHeal" (PS1US:Cure) was retranslated into "Super Heal", but it shouldn't because that magic name already exists in PS Gaiden. In PSG we have: Heal, Do Heal, Super Heal (full restores HP), Meta Heal (a magic that works like "Sar" technique). So, in a global PS perspective we have a total of 5 healing magic: Heal(PS1/PSG), DoHeal(PS1/PSG), Medici(PS4), SuperHeal(PSG) and MetaHeal(PSG).

mk1995 Joined: 11 Jan 2009 Posts: 116 Location: Germany	Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:47 pm
mk1995 Joined: 11 Jan 2009 Posts: 116 Location: Germany	Paul Jensen wrote Thinking about it now, the item names would probably be best localized instead of transliterated as-is. Most westerners wouldn't be able to make the connection between PelorieMate and CalorieMate, or between Ruoginin and (\(insert name of energy drink here). Somebody before mentioned using Luna Bar and Red Bull. Something like that might be a good choice for western audiences. For example, PlowerBar and Blue Bull could work. Phantasy Star Retranslation Redux, anyone? That sounds like an idea. Maybe there could be two translation patches: One that sticks closer to the original Japanese script and another that localizes the references someone living in the West couldn't get unless they have a broad knowledge on Japanese products. Experience tells me that a fanbase tends to split in that regard, so we could be pre-emptive by doing that in order to appeal to both groups. Then again, if it's just CalorieMate/PelorieMate and Arginine/Ruoginin (Ruognign/Ruoginine/whatever-else-you-can-think-of), it's probably not worth making an extra patch for it.

Satoshi_Matrix Joined: 23 Jan 2013 Posts: 9 Location: Ontario Canada	Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:01 pm
	This is good to know. I had no idea what those words were when I started playing the 2008 retranslation.

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