There's a pizza place in my town that has an arcade. All of the games, as far as I can tell, come straight from Japan. Most of the text is symbols (Kanji?), but some is in English. Like the marksmanship game where you shoot a mug and it explodes:
THE CUP WILL SPLATTER! TEST YOU SKILL!
Or the street luge game that promises:
AMAZING ACTION DOWN THE HILL! TRY YOUR RIDE!
These are good for a chuckle, similar to the crazy popularity of ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.
That would be the end of it... but today I was searching for the latest Elmo toy (hey, give me a break), clicked I'm Feeling Lucky, and this came up, courtesy Engrish.com:
"Engrish", I find, has quite a following. It is the term used to describe poor Japanese to English translations. I remember looking at a puzzle game in line at the gas station, with the directions telling the owner to FIRST ONLY DECOMPOSE THE CUBE, and saying to myself: huh.
Well, the folks at Engrish.com and a boatload of other sites have collected many of these crazy things for you. Some are beyond belief. "They must be Photoshopped!" you cry. "Crap my hands?!" The webmaster says no, they're all legit. Like:
My first thought was that the term "Engrish" was just too inappropriate, and that I couldn't ever bring myself to use it. I still may not out loud... but it sure is all over the place, and seems to be the accepted term. That doesn't make it OK, I realize. I am still amazed at how something so niche can have such a following on the internet.
Which makes me again wonder: If there's so much Engrish stuff in cyberspace, why can't we get more ARK II information out there?
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