I got the Japanese PHB!

[shadow]

I took a trip this weekend and went to Chigasaki to visit some friends. I was browsing the train station bookstore and to my surprise I found a copy of the PHB and DMG in Japanese. There was also a GURPS book called GURPS Power Ups in Japanese (It looked like anime). Naturally I had to buy the PHB. I would have brought the DMG too, but I didn't have the money. It was pretty expensive. THe PHB cost me 6,000 (about $50), but it was worth it. Keep in mind that this is D&D 3.0e, not the "New and Improved 3.5e". (Japan is a little behind in RPG translations.)

Anyway I skimmed through it in the station. I few things struck me as odd.

All the class names were the English class names transcribed in katakana (a Japanese syllabic "alphabet"). For example, barbarian was baabaarian, instead of the native Japanese word "banjin". I supose this was to make the game more western, since many of concepts are very culturally specific. (For example, banjin often was used to describe the native Emishi and Ainu people of Japan, who were viewed as barbarians. The word doesn't really conjure up the the image of a Conan style barbarian.)

Also all the DaVinci style artwork at the beginning of each chapter was obviously taken from the Brazilian edition since all anotations were in Portuguese.

The feats were written all written in Kanji (Chinese characters) Which I can't really read all that well.

However, all the spell names were written in Katakana. I guess that makes them sound foriegn and "cool" as well as making it easy to alphabetize them. However, there was a Japanese translation of the spell name in the subtitle.

Overall it's pretty cool, especially since I'm studying Japanese. Maybe I can get a gaming group together here.

 

[Tallok]

I'm taking japanese too, and I've found that most things are in kanji, and thus I mostly cannot read them

 

[shoplifter]

Kanji gets MUCH easier after a few years.

 

[Bloodstone Mage]

I would love to get my hands on a Japanese D&D book. Not only does it look cool to your American friends, it can also help you learn Japanese. Has anyone spotted one on eBay? Or does anyone happen to know how I can get one, besides traveling?

Cheers!

 

[Tsyr]

Try http://www.sasugabooks.com/ They don't actualy list the books, that I can find, but they will do special orders, though the more information you can provide them on the book (ISBN, etc), the better. So if you can get Shadow to post it, you can probably get it easy enough... I've ordered a few things through them, generaly been happy.

 

[Arnwyn]

You can sometimes find them kicking around import stores, but it's really sporadic at best, and really depends on the store.

I picked up my (older) Japanese D&D DM's Screen a couple of years back when vacationing in Tokyo. Way cool.

 

[Graf]

You know, I've been here playing D&D, for a few years and this is the first time I've heard of any non-Japanese wanting to buy a Japanese translation of an English language game.

The translated books have been out for a while. You can always get them at Yellow Sub in Shinjuku (there are a few shops in Shinjuku you'll want to go to this one).
They have Japanese translations of Vampire, Shadowrun and a bunch of other games.

The only catch is that Yellow Sub keeps stuff in bags (so you kind of have to negotiate with them to see what's in it if you're not sure).

If you're planning on learning Japanese I recommend getting Kanji versions of Elanor Jordan's conversational japanese books. The PHB isn't going to teach you what you need to know to communicate with anyone. (I actually recommend moving to Japan and studying agressively for a year or two, but I realize that's not an option for everyone).

Your best bet is definitely
Amazon Japan. Despite the link on the right they can't display the page in English yet but you can probably bribe a Japanese friend to figure out where to click to get them to ship internationally (as in outside of Japan).
Most credit cards (at least Visa) allow you to purchase goods overseas at relatively competitive exchange rates. 5,800 yen should set you back around 48.35 USD + shipping.