Crobat · Skyridge (SK) #147

5 comments

1. 

   Blob Takeshi

   (9 years ago)

   The woman who drew this card helped design Various Eeveelutions, Pikachu and other Pokémon!

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2. 

   Ambassador

   (3 years ago)

   “Squared Attack” was originally グランドクロス, which is literally read as “Grand Cross”. Why they changed the name is beyond me, as it explains why Crobat – shaped like a big giant X, or cross, if you will – has the attack at all, or why it showed up again on Metagross, a Pokémon with, you know, a giant X slapped onto its forehead.

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     TwylisAmbassador

     (3 years ago)

     And Neo Revelation Crobat already had Cross Attack, so it probably wasn’t any weird 90s avoidance of using the word “cross” to avoid offending fundamentalists — which is the only possible reason I could think of.

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       TwylisTwylis

       (3 years ago)

       On second thought, that might actually be why — Cross Attack uses cross as a descriptor, but in Grand Cross it’s a noun. In the US, “cross” is rarely associated with X shapes, and it has a much more common religious connotation — which is something WotC was probably *very* wary of given all the satanic panic stuff with Pokemon in gen 1, and also other IPs they had a hand in, DnD especially.
       Logically nothing would have come of it, but logically nothing should’ve come of Dark Kadabra either :U

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         AmbassadorTwylis

         (3 years ago)

         I don’t think “ok as a descriptor but not as a noun” holds up wonderfully, but perhaps after printing a card in Neo Revelation(!) with a Cross(!) Attack, they got a complaint letter or two and felt obliged to change the next time ‘Cross’ came up like this. But, by the time they were translating Skyridge, do you really think they cared anymore? (Did they care when they named two Neo sets after books in the Bible..?)

         On further reflection, my impression is that the translator thought the attack was making a math pun – flip 2×2 coins, get it? – that needed to be clarified because Americans don’t usually talk about ‘crosses’ when they multiply, so they tweaked it a bit – 2×2 is equal to 2² – and changed it from what they assumed was a multiplication joke to an exponent joke. Of course, they might’ve been right – the attack might be making a math pun at the same time it’s pointing out Crobat is shaped like a giant X, but there’s no point changing it because Crobat isn’t shaped like an exponent, and neither is Metagross.

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