When I arrived at
Microsoft's International Community and Press Party, I knew I'd get at least two things -- alcohol and finger food. I'm a simple man, and that's enough for me, but nothing could have prepared me for this schwag I'd be presented with on the way in. This dark blue t-shirt depicts a slightly aggravated looking young woman, and to her right is something written in katakana ... which I certainly don't understand a lick of.
Luckily, I have a handy Japanese phrasebook, complete with a katakana script table. Slowly, but surely, I sounded it out and it reads: "Ko-ru-ta-na-o-su-ku-e." I'm a clever guy -- this must be Cortana from Bungie's
Halo series, right?
But why does she look so angry, and slightly like VH1's
Rock of Love's rich brat turned wanna-be rocker,
Lacey? And does anyone in Japan really care about
Halo 3? With three days left in the Land of the Rising sun, you're damned sure I'm going to find out.
Contest:
2:15 PM on 09.20.2007
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I'd rather just wander around Tokyo until I found a Spread Beaver shirt (which was an actual band, by the way)
nice linens.
I don't know what the osukue part is about, but that's the correct spelling for her name. Co and Ko are the same.
It's in Katakana (the character style) which means that it's probably thrying to give the Japanese equivalent of a western word.
That is Cortana (or as closely as you can spell it in Japanese), but I'm not sure about the rest of it.
The "o" isn't the normal o. I think it's mainly used for joining words or something (again, very new to Japanese).
I couldn't find a good translation on the rest of it though.
Found the translation.
"Rescue Cortana."
Obviously Cortana katakana is right, so yeah "rescue cortana".
Google FTW!