Once and for all, what does "Raiden" mean??....

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:32 am

I've variously heard "lightening thunderbolt", "lightening fighter", and "lightening thunderbolt fighter"!

So, what exactly does the term mean??

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:43 am

I'm guessing as you said, "lightning fighter."

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:45 am

Whatever the exact meaning is, methinks you have the basic idea. Why bother worrying much further than that?

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:53 am

I think it means "God of Thunder."

Well, that's what the dude with the same name in Mortal Kombat was anyway...

PsikyoPshumpPshooterP · Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:55 am

pronounced "ray-den" or "rai-den"?

ok that was a stupid question but i still wanna know

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:58 am

English people say Ray den, but Americans seem to prefer Rye den.

It helps when the intro screen shouts out the name of the game

I remember when I was a little one I said sea-ga, instead of Say-ga. It wasnt until Sonic came out on the Genesis/Megadrive I knew the correct pronounciation.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:58 am

AFAIK in Japanese "a" is always "ah" and "i" is always "ee," so I guess your second possibility would be closer.

Zach Keene · Post by **Zach Keene** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:59 am

雷電 (らいでん) (n) thunder and lightning;

First syllable rhymes with "eye". (Yes, MK pronounces it wrong. Who's surprised?

)

gunbird18 · Post by **gunbird18** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:00 am

BulletMagnet wrote:AFAIK in Japanese "a" is always "ah" and "i" is always "ee," so I guess your second possibility would be closer.

Thanx! I wondered about that myself.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:41 am

Yeah, Zach has the definition. "Raiden" essentially means "thunderbolt." Rai is the thunder, den is electricity/lightning. The 2 words are often combined to refer to lightning and thunder together in a thunderstorm.

"Fighter" isn't in the title, unless you read something about Raiden Fighters.

Zach Keene wrote:(Yes, MK pronounces it wrong. Who's surprised? )

Gotta give Boon and Tobias some credit; they actually knew Raiden's logo on his arm meant "thunder." Unfortunately, they also stated (when fans asked about Kung Lao's chest and Raiden's arm) that it was specifically a Japanese word when it's actually kanji and means the exact same in Chinese. At least they were a lot more educated than Acclaim, who initially answered that they were just made-up symbols...shows why they didn't localize very many JP games...

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 4:44 am

I thought Raiden was this guy....

Frogacuda · Post by **Frogacuda** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:06 am

It's pronounced Rye-den, but I say it wrong anyway. Just like I say Ick-uh-ROO-guh, even though I know that's wrong too, just because people look at me like I'm retarded if I say Ee-KAH-roo-gah.

IlMrm · Post by **IlMrm** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:16 am

tehkao wrote:I thought Raiden was this guy....

One of my favorite movie.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:18 am

I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Donpachi" as "DHOEN-pahch" as the JP announcer does. Then again, I don't think anybody's talked to me about Donpachi period...

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 7:31 am

Ganelon wrote:I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Donpachi" as "DHOEN-pahch" as the JP announcer does. Then again, I don't think anybody's talked to me about Donpachi period...

I'm not sure if this has been posted here before, but in case it hasn't...
Donpachi is slang for "the firing of guns", or "gunfight", used in war. However, the kanji (Chinese characters) used to write this in this game would normally be read and interpreted as 'shuryoupachi', where 'shuryou' means 'head, chief', and 'pachi' means 'bee'. But by writing 'chief bee' in the characters, and saying it should be pronounced 'donpachi' (in hiragana), you get a double meaning. This is a common practice in Japanese writing (playing with their multiple scripts to create double meanings within a single written segment--in other words, a word simultaneously having a 'visually-elicited' meaning, and a different 'aurally-elicited' meaning). At least this is my interpretation of it. Also explains why in this game you're an attack ship shooting your guns to blow up crap that is shooting back at you, but collecting bee icons to power up.

Dodonpachi means 'raging gunfight' aurally in the pronunciation and 'angry/raging chief bee' visually in the characters (as 'do' means 'angry' or 'raging'). Daioujou is sorta formal, and means 'peaceful death' (both aurally and visually).

As for the pronunciation, 'pachi' is often pronounced [pach] in many Japanese dialects because they delete or devoice high vowels and (the latter much more often than the former) after certain voiceless consonants.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:18 am

Raiden means Thunderbolt, which has already been pointed out, but what is perhaps a bit more interesting is that there exists a real airplane called Raiden!

Under WW2 Mitsubishi designed and built the J2M Raiden (Thunderbolt), here are some links to details and pictures:

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/b ... r/j2m.html
http://www.mmpbooks.biz/books/839163277 ... 22776r.htm

rtw

icepick · Post by **icepick** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:47 pm

twe wrote:I'm not sure if this has been posted here before, but in case it hasn't...

That's cool, twe! Thanks for the insight! I found it interesting.

8 1/2 · Post by **8 1/2** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 7:50 pm

Ganelon wrote:I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Donpachi" as "DHOEN-pahch" as the JP announcer does. Then again, I don't think anybody's talked to me about Donpachi period...

I actually do. I trained myself to always say it like that, and now when I hear the "I" pronounced as "EE" it sounds weird to me.

Anybody remember the SNES ports of the Mortal Kombat games when Acclaim changed Raiden to Rayden? Why was that?

Vic Bengal · Post by **Vic Bengal** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 7:52 pm

icepick wrote:
twe wrote:I'm not sure if this has been posted here before, but in case it hasn't...
That's cool, twe! Thanks for the insight! I found it interesting.

Just to be informative, Raidan was also the codename of the main character from Metal Gear Solid 2. His real name was "Jack" which was the codename of the raidan plane.

Zach Keene · Post by **Zach Keene** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 8:06 pm

8 1/2 wrote:Anybody remember the SNES ports of the Mortal Kombat games when Acclaim changed Raiden to Rayden? Why was that?

Yeah, I almost brought that up earlier. The only explanations I've ever heard were variations on "avoiding trademark violations due to the Raiden shmups/the Raiden character in Fatal Fury/etc." theme, none of which ever explained why this wasn't a problem in the arcade version as well.

(Didn't the Sega versions get "Rayden" as well?)

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 8:55 pm

8 1/2 wrote:
Ganelon wrote:I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Donpachi" as "DHOEN-pahch" as the JP announcer does. Then again, I don't think anybody's talked to me about Donpachi period...
I actually do. I trained myself to always say it like that, and now when I hear the "I" pronounced as "EE" it sounds weird to me.

I say it the Japanese way. But then again, I'm anal about pronunciations.

Zach Keene wrote:
8 1/2 wrote:Anybody remember the SNES ports of the Mortal Kombat games when Acclaim changed Raiden to Rayden? Why was that?
Yeah, I almost brought that up earlier. The only explanations I've ever heard were variations on "avoiding trademark violations due to the Raiden shmups/the Raiden character in Fatal Fury/etc." theme, none of which ever explained why this wasn't a problem in the arcade version as well.

(Didn't the Sega versions get "Rayden" as well?)

Perhaps they changed his name so there wouldn't be confusion as to how to pronounce it. There are several ways to pronounce "rai," "ray" is pretty much always going to be "ray." Granted, it's not the right pronunciation, but I doubt they would care about such trifles.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:03 pm

I'm not sure if this has been posted here before, but in case it hasn't...
Donpachi is slang for "the firing of guns", or "gunfight", used in war. However, the kanji (Chinese characters) used to write this in this game would normally be read and interpreted as 'shuryoupachi', where 'shuryou' means 'head, chief', and 'pachi' means 'bee'. But by writing 'chief bee' in the characters, and saying it should be pronounced 'donpachi' (in hiragana), you get a double meaning. This is a common practice in Japanese writing (playing with their multiple scripts to create double meanings within a single written segment--in other words, a word simultaneously having a 'visually-elicited' meaning, and a different 'aurally-elicited' meaning). At least this is my interpretation of it. Also explains why in this game you're an attack ship shooting your guns to blow up crap that is shooting back at you, but collecting bee icons to power up. Wink

Same thing with Salamander, I forget exactly for that game. There was an explanation up on one of my preferred rh0msites, I'll dig it up sometime.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:09 pm

alpha5099 wrote:
8 1/2 wrote:
Ganelon wrote:I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Donpachi" as "DHOEN-pahch" as the JP announcer does. Then again, I don't think anybody's talked to me about Donpachi period...
I actually do. I trained myself to always say it like that, and now when I hear the "I" pronounced as "EE" it sounds weird to me.
I say it the Japanese way. But then again, I'm anal about pronunciations.

Well, the "Japanese way" can be either Donpach or Donpachi, depending on the dialect. Speakers of the western dialects (like in Osaka, Kyoto, etc.) will always say Donpachi. But speakers of central and eastern dialects (such as those spoken in Nagoya, Tokyo, etc) will usually drop the final vowel and say Donpach.

Both are equally "Japanese".

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:26 pm

Neon wrote:Same thing with Salamander, I forget exactly for that game. There was an explanation up on one of my preferred rh0msites, I'll dig it up sometime.

You can find the same information on the non-ROM site http://www.mameworld.net/maws/.
The information itself is taken from history.dat, which is compiled from http://www.arcade-history.com.

The passage you're thinking of:
Note : The kanji on the Japanese version title screen actually reads "Sa Ra Man Da", meaning "Sand Gauze Wide Snake". This is an example of "ateji", where Japanese artists use the phonetic value of a character to fit the game's name allowing them to write the name in kanji as opposed to a kana.

And an extra note from Salamander 2's information:
... (often choosing those that fit the game; the 4th kanji here means snake).

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:32 pm

Ganelon wrote:I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Donpachi" as "DHOEN-pahch" as the JP announcer does. Then again, I don't think anybody's talked to me about Donpachi period...

The same guy also calls bombs "bom-bers".

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:49 pm

Neon wrote:
I'm not sure if this has been posted here before, but in case it hasn't...
Donpachi is slang for "the firing of guns", or "gunfight", used in war. However, the kanji (Chinese characters) used to write this in this game would normally be read and interpreted as 'shuryoupachi', where 'shuryou' means 'head, chief', and 'pachi' means 'bee'. But by writing 'chief bee' in the characters, and saying it should be pronounced 'donpachi' (in hiragana), you get a double meaning. This is a common practice in Japanese writing (playing with their multiple scripts to create double meanings within a single written segment--in other words, a word simultaneously having a 'visually-elicited' meaning, and a different 'aurally-elicited' meaning). At least this is my interpretation of it. Also explains why in this game you're an attack ship shooting your guns to blow up crap that is shooting back at you, but collecting bee icons to power up. Wink
Same thing with Salamander, I forget exactly for that game. There was an explanation up on one of my preferred rh0msites, I'll dig it up sometime.

Not quite. What you're thinking of is ateji, as incognoscente posted here. What is used in Donpachi is half ateji (the pachi part), and half the opposite (the don part), which is choosing characters not for their phonetic value but for their semantic value. There is a name for this process in Japanese but it escapes me. I'll ask one of my Japanese friends later today and see if they know.

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:29 am

Nemo wrote:
Ganelon wrote:I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Donpachi" as "DHOEN-pahch" as the JP announcer does. Then again, I don't think anybody's talked to me about Donpachi period...
The same guy also calls bombs "bom-bers".

Who doesn't pronounced it that way?

Freak.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:35 am

'Raiden' translated into English means one of two things

1. - "No not Ray-den, RAI-DEN - as in 'shove-a-lightning-bolt-up-your-ass-Raiden"

or

2. - Long haired sissy boy who isn't Snake.

Those are the official translations from my Japanese-English encyclopedia. And yes that was a Die Hard WAV joke.