“Hey! Learn our syntax here.”
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Pokémon (Slowpoke) › Basic : Evolves into Slowking, Slowbro, Dark Slowbro, Dark Slowking, Slowking ex, or Light Slowbro
Poké-BODY ⇢ Dense
Any damage done to Slowpoke by attacks from your opponent’s Evolved Pokémon is reduced by 10 (after applying Weakness and Resistance).
{C} → Bite : 10
illus. Atsuko Nishida
External: Pokemon.com ↗, Bulba ↗ · #ad / Affiliate Links: TCGplayer ↗, cardmarket ↗, Amazon ↗, eBay ↗
Translator
Usually, Poké-Bodies that have the same effect as a Poké-Body already printed will share the same name, but sometimes, when effects are only similar, then the name of the Poké-Body will also be “only similar.” Back in Aquapolis, Slowbro had a Poké-Body called “Dense Body”. That Poké-Body said that “any damage done to Slowbro by attacks from Basic Pokémon (except Baby Pokémon) is reduced by 20.” Now, as we see here, Slowpoke’s Poké-Body is reducing damage by 10, which isn’t quite the same, but that sort of thing …well, we can gloss over that. However, the effect is different in that Slowpoke is reducing damage from Evolution Pokémon instead of Basic Pokémon, so that necessarily involves a tweak to the name – and so from Slowbro’s “Dense Body”, we end up with “Dense”. A similar Poké-Body within the same evolution family, a similar name. It works very well.
Columbo
Is that true? Gee, I find that interesting. You know, I really hate to ask you this, but my buddies down at the precinct …well, they put me up to this. See, they figure when a Poké-Body has an effect identical to a previous Poké-Body, it’d make more sense to name the Poké-Body the same as the previous one, not try and come up with a new name that’s a tweak to a Poke-Body with only a similar effect? I mean, I’m no Pokémon card designer myself, but when they said that, I figured that sounded right.
Translator
I’m not sure I follow your point, detective.
Columbo
Well, I couldn’t help noticing there’s quite a lot of Poké-Bodies out there. I just wonder if there’s a Poké-Body that already exists that had the exact same effect as EX Team Rocket Returns Slowpoke’s Dense.
Translator
Now, why do I have a feeling you already know the answer to that question?
Columbo
Me? Oh no sir, I’d be the last person to ask about that sort of thing. But, I did speak to someone else about it – the folks in the comments on pkmncards.com. See, they happen to be somewhat of experts in the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and they said the effect of this card’s Poké-Body already existed in on a card – that a certain Kabuto had a Poké-Body with the effect, and I’ll read off the card here, “All damage done by attacks to Kabuto from Evolved Pokémon is reduced by 10 (after applying Weakness and Resistance).” It’s very similar to the text of Slowpoke’s Dense, it’s remarkable. You said it yourself – “Poké-Bodies that have the same effect as a Poké-Body already printed will share the same name.” – but the names of these Poké-Bodies are different. Now why would that be?
Translator
Let me take a look at this card of yours, detective.
Hm, Skyridge Kabuto, is it? Yes, you’re right, the effects of the Poké-Bodies are similar. But look here, Skyridge Kabuto’s Poké-Body does not specify that it blocks damage done to it from your opponents’s Evolution Pokémon the way Slowpoke’s Dense does. Suppose you had these two Pokémon on the Bench when your Active EX Sandstorm used Earthquake. Skyridge Kabuto would be protected from the residual damage of that attack, but Slowpoke wouldn’t.
Oh, and detective …you did notice the name of Kabuto’s Poké-Body, right? It says it right here: “Thick Shell.” It wouldn’t have made sense to have given the same Poké-Body to Slowpoke – hence why they tweaked its function, ever so slightly, so as to merit being a different Poké-Body with a different name.
Columbo
Oh, gosh. Thick Shell… would you look at that.
Gee, I guess you’re right. It wouldn’t make sense to give Slowpoke the same Poké-Body, then, if it’s going to sound like it’s referring to the very sort of shell Slowpoke wouldn’t have until it evolved. You know, that’s a foolish mistake on my part. I feel terrible, flooding the front page of the recent comments section on the front page of pkmncards.com like this.
Translator
I’m glad that’s sorted then. You know, Columbo, I would’ve expect more astute powers of observation from you. Now, as you said, let’s not flood the recent comments section with this ridiculous conversation. Good day, detective.
Columbo
You know, it’s a funny thing, the name of that Poké-Body.
Thick Shell. It’s a strange name. Sure, you could take it literally, or you could read it another way. Like, suppose it’s suggesting Kabuto is too ‘thick’ to understand the full extent of the damage that’s been done to it. Too… ‘dense’, even? I know it’s crazy, but I can’t help but think that Slowpoke and Kabuto’s Poké-Bodies should’ve had the same name …but, no, that doesn’t sound right at all. Almost like I’ve got it completely backwards, even. I’d hate to take up any more of your time.
…but you see, there’s one more thing that’s bothering me. I’ll let you go right after after I tell you this story. My wife, she’s originally from Japan, and she has a childhood collection of Pokémon cards. Now, she gave away a lot of her cards to friends and family, but there’s some sets she really liked – gosh, I hope I’m saying this right… Umi kara no kaze? That’s the third e-Card set, sir, and it’s the card Aquapolis Slowbro came from. And because she was so fond of the e-Card sets, she happened to have kept that card. And I have it right here with me now, so you can look at the name of Slowbro’s Poké-Body for yourself. As printed in the original Japanese, it’s にぶいからだ – “nibui karada”.
Now, I’m not a translator like you. I don’t know a word of Japanese, so I asked her how you could translate “nibui karada”. She said it could be ‘dull body’, maybe even ‘thick body’. Something like that. “Dense Body” seemed fine. Well, what about the Kabuto? She just happened to have that card too, and its Poke-Body was.. ah, what was it? On the tip of my tongue…
どんかん – “donkan”! Yep, donkan. That’s it. Anyway, she said that could also be translated as something similar – ‘thickheaded’, stuff like that. So I asked her – what about ‘Thick Shell’? She said there’s no way.
Now ain’t that something.
Translator
Yes, I suppose it is something, detective, but I don’t see why you’re telling me all this. I mean, really ..you do know I’m not the one who translated Skyridge Kabuto’s Poké-Body?
Columbo
Oh, yes sir. I did my homework on that. You took over from Wizards of the Coast starting with the 2003 set EX Ruby & Sapphire. It should’ve been a clean break, but with 5 years of translation work from Wizards as your precedent, you didn’t have an opportunity for a clean slate. Instead, you were stuck with a balancing act of translating the text that was given to you, while making enough continuity nods to keep players happy. And then one day, here comes this Slowpoke, with a Poké-Body with the same name as Skyridge Kabuto, but wouldn’t fit the flavor of Slowpoke, and you had to make a choice: translate it the way Wizards did, and end up with a ridiculous card with a “Thick Shell” Poké-Body that doesn’t suit it, or come up with a new translation that people might not recognize. And you weren’t happy with either choice – and so that’s when you did it.
You changed the translation.. maybe you even changed the phrasing! All so you could send everyone on a wild goose chase looking at a Slowbro that had nothing to do with either card.
Translator
You think I mistranslated the card on purpose? Where’s your proof, Columbo?
Columbo
Oh no sir. You know I can’t do that.
Like I told you, my wife only had a childhood collecting of Japanese Pokémon TCG cards, and she stopped just before the sets you started translating – I have no way to double-check any translation you’ve ever done. You’ve put me in the position of the rambling commenter who makes pedantic “um actually” replies to every pkmncards.com comment. I gotta hand it to ya! You committed the perfect crime.
Well, except for one thing. Do you see what this is? It’s a bill from Yahoo Japan. My wife might not have collected any PCG era cards as a kid, but it turns out she’s started collecting them again as an adult. I got this bill in the mail yesterday, and then, my wife got this card in the mail this morning. PCG3 Yadon. To a schmuck like me, that’s Japanese for EX Team Rocket Returns Slowpoke. And the name of Poké-Power on the Japanese print of EX Team Rocket Returns Slowpoke? My wife read it off for me this morning. It’s どんかん – “donkan”.
Maybe if I was a bit more どんかん myself, you would’ve gotten away with it.
Jiří z Poděbrad
This is the best thing I’ve ever read…. bravo!
