Wait and See Hammer · Lost Thunder (LOT) #192

3 comments

1. 

   Twylis

   (2 years ago)

   This card got a significant piece of support that never got released in English:
   https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Alolan_Meowth_(SM-P_Promo_255)
   Ability: Dismissal
   Once during your turn (before your attack), you may discard a Wait and See Hammer from your hand. If you do, draw 2 cards.

   It actually seems like a very good combo in an energy denial deck, increasing the chance that you get this card in hand on your first turn by running a full four count, and then using this Meowth to turn the remaining ones into draw power later in the game. And the art’s super good, too — it got featured in the Pokemon TCG Illustration Exhibition, which is how I’m now discovering it.

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     Foon-Gus FringTwylis

     (2 years ago)

     That is so disappointing that we didn’t get it!! Would have actually made this card worth playing.

     Reply
2. 

   Ambassador

   (1 year ago)

   I was curious on the original name of the card, since “Wait and See” doesn’t necessarily sound like a Japanese aphorism – it’s [あとだしハンマー 𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑], and it’s the [あとだし 𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈] bit that we’re going to be most interested in here. Plug あとだし into Google and the first set of results you’ll get will talk about “waiting to see one’s opponent’s move before doing anything”, and even DeepL will give you something similar (currently “waiting to see what happens next”)¹.

   But I believe there’s actually a connotation of cheating to this term – the first results on Google, in full, say “waiting to see one’s opponent’s move before doing anything (𝙚.𝙜. 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙠-𝙥𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙧-𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙨)”; Wikitionary’s definition doesn’t list an example with cheating as connotation, but is a bit more direct about it, implying atodashi’s main use as a term is in the context of cheating in RPS.

   Of course, Japan knows the game as “Janken”, not RPS, and a Google search for “Atodashi Janken” (あとだしじゃんけん) reveals there’s a form of Janken where someone is the “leader” of the game who throws their hand out first, and so it’s a test of the second player’s reaction time to send out the winning hand. There is a JP Wiki page for this specific variant of the game; https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%82%E3%81%A8%E5%87%BA%E3%81%97%E3%81%98%E3%82%83%E3%82%93%E3%81%91%E3%82%93

   To try and throw this back to how the term might’ve been better translated, not sure! Most other instances I’ve found online that attempt to translate atodashi also go with “Wait and See”, and if it happens to be in the context of Janken, they can translate it as “Wait and See Rock Paper Scissors” (or something along these lines), but when it’s not in that context, the most extreme variants I’ve been able to find were to translate it as “late” or “tricky” ..and there the game connotation is also entirely lost. Ultimately, for lack of a variant of RPS that has its own name that would ‘match’ Atodashi Janken, or any idiosyncratic term to refer to someone who cheats in RPS, I think “Wait and See Hammer” is as good a translation as one can proffer, and it’s a footnote best suited for a site like this to explain what’s been lost as a result.

   ¹ There’s even a user query on the meaning of HiNative about a year before LOT released internationally asking about the term, submitted by a Cobutter, and getting the exact same response. It might be coincidental but it’s not the first time I’ve come across someone submitting enquiries about the same terms I’m looking up, usually about 10-12 months ahead of the card’s release. I’d been dismissing them as coincidental *because* that felt too far in advance, but this same time range keeps coming up. It’s something to keep an eye on, maybe, because if it keeps happening from the same username(s), we get some insight on the lead time in card design/dev/translation. (I’ve got to be honest, though, 1 year in advance feels too soon.) https://hinative.com/questions/4916757

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