Super Energy Retrieval · Neo Genesis (N1) #89

2 comments

1. 

   Warnock 2022

   (2 years ago)

   Superior Energy Retrieval (2013) is similar to this, with a few subtle differences.

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2. 

   Ambassador

   (1 year ago)

   This card was mistranslated.
   · If you discard 1 or 2 Basic Energy cards from your hand to pay to use this card, you absolutely should not be able to retrieve those cards back with the effect of this card.
   · You maaaybe should have the option of 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 “𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰 4 Basic Energy cards” from your discard pile, rather than being 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 to retrieve 4 (or else as many as you can). It’s not clear-cut because it’s up for grabs whether the JP print of this card was or was not subject to a Japanese errata regarding the phrase 「最大○枚」. Online documentation regarding this errata seems to be lacking – Pokémon Card Book Official 2000 is the only reliable material I have scans of and it allows “𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰”, but it may be the case that a guide published later on changed it to a requisite rather than elective maximum.

   Trivia;
   · This card has a JP-exclusive pre-neo print. Alongside Energy Retrieval, there is a brief window of time where Japan’s Energy Retrieval cards were able to retrieve Special Energy cards from the discard pile, a novel utility that wouldn’t reliably exist again for a very long time. (c.f. N1 Energy Charge and the comments there.)
   · The original name of this card is 超エネルギー回収 [𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐔 𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐆𝐘 𝐊𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐔𝐔], and I think calling it “Super Energy Retrieval” set the TCG up for problems down the line because it is inconsistent with other cards that actually *had* the word スーパー [𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑] in them. It’s not so much that “Super” is a bad translation of 超 [𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐔] at all, but when there are other cards in the same set that use スーパー [𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑] when they actually 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to mean Super, it should’ve been a prompt for the WOTC translator to at least think of a synonym for “Super”.
   · I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the card we know as Superior Energy Retrieval is called スーパーエネルギー回収 [𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐆𝐘 𝐊𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐔𝐔]. Becuase of this card’s mistranslations, the effect of that card is spiritually more similar to this EN print of Super Energy Retrieval than to Japan’s print, and I think PCL tweaked its name as either a metatextual continuity nod or else (maybe) a friendly poke at their new colleagues at the recently established TPCI. If either of those are the case, TPCI staff didn’t pick up what Japan was putting down, and scrambled to invent a new name for “Superior Energy Retrieval” where “Super Energy Retrieval” would’ve been playing into the bit of an “American” card in a “Unovan” TCG block.
   · “Few subtle differences”? lol, get mogged on

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