Dr. Oh No! The name is Bomb. James Bomb

Japan, Inc., Jan, 2003 by Mark Schreiber

Suffering scribe gives garbled 007 manuscript the Goldfinger and scores a point for human translators everywhere.

IT BEGAN, AS MY jobs often do, with a telephone call. My British friend Gavin, a translator, had been approached by a publisher searching for an editor. The publisher was about to release a coffee-table book in Japanese for James Bond film buffs and was obliged by the terms of copyright usage to submit the text in English to obtain the rights.

The printed book would number over 120 illustrated pages, and when translated into English, it would exceed 20,000 words. To speed things up, and perhaps to cut a few corners, the publisher had fed the Japanese text into a computer.

"The translation is, uh, readable," Gavin explained, "but it still needs a little brushing up, and I don't want to do it. Are you interested in taking on the job?"

Sure, I responded. I'd seen most of the old Bond movies anyway, so I knew the stories. I'd just type in a few corrections, fix a few misspellings and smooth out the kinks. Sounds like a breeze. Right?

To permit me to edit at the keyboard, I requested that the translated files and original Japanese be sent to me by email. The publisher dashed them off. I backed them up on a floppy, clicked on the first icon and found myself looking at, "Maximum and highest hero in this century, his name is James Bond!"

Wrong. As it turned out, I learned the hard way that when entrusted with rendering Japanese into English, computers are capable of turning out remarkably convoluted vocabulary and disjointed syntax. In cases where I had actually seen the film and recalled the plot, I could usually figure out what the text meant. But it was by no means a sure thing.

Okay, I told myself, this is awkward, almost comical, but still comprehensible. I rewrote it and moved on. Soon I was looking at sentences like, "The fight is shown in this huge badness and the scene of exciting activity of Bond which challenges and the crisis visited one after another shows the interest of the excitement action enough."

Hmmmm. This took a little bit more effort.

Bond, I was then informed, "...is a man who belongs to the British secret information part, and has Homicide permit' of 00 No."

This one stopped me in my tracks. Okay, "Homicide permit" obviously meant his double-O license to kill. But what the hell is a secret information part? Did "part," perhaps, refer to data about Bond's private parts, which are frequently used to service the films' leading ladies?

Throwing up my hands in defeat, I reached for the Japanese original and saw that "secret information part" was a direct translation of himitsu joho-bu. Bu, in Japanese, can be rendered "part." It also means "department" in an organization. By this, it became evident that it meant the British Secret Service.

The text continued. "About 1963 year when hero's James Bond appeared to the screen was an age of the cold war of the United States and the Soviet Union which became tense. Moreover, in 1963 it is year when President Kennedy to like to read 007 was assassinated. On a chaotic all over the world inside, even the hero who showed up dashingly was dispelled Bond as for the gloom in the world. An uneasy political situation it."

The above passage can't quite be described as English, but it's still not all that bad. So I input my corrections and plunged ahead with the next section of the puzzle.

"Bond is preeminent in the language study power (1), and is well versed in versatile sports and mechanism (2) and popular among a beautiful woman. He is the hero who has all power for which a man all over the world wishes. That is James Bond. Action of Bond which gets over crisis by intellect and action power, sexy Bond girls, secret arms (3), and monster enemy (4). There are a lot of fans enchanted to them. Bond movie of 35 years kept being manufactured."

I was able to figure out the four numbered expressions above by mentally translating them back into Japanese. They are, respectively, intended to convey:

1. linguistic aptitude

2. mechanically inclined

3. esoteric weapons

4. insidious villains

Next came some useful biographical information about James. According to his profile, he was 183 centimeters tall and figures/76K in weight; Small-boned physique; It is black hair and eyes are blues; It is in a right cheek and a left shoulder and there is a mark of the plastic operation on the shell* of the scar and the right hand.

(* shell in Japanese also refers to the back of the human hand)

Mr. Bond's curriculum vitae also included the following:

* "The second inside Bond great war was taken an active part as the British navy special duty commander."

* "Bond becomes a member in British information part {M16) because of the recommendation of 'M' who is the superior during the war."

* "Love wandering/There are quite a lot of numbers of women who attached Bond after the virgin is lost in Paris at the age of 16 each other."

* "Drinks/Martini is done in shake without mixing it and the drunk custom has never been broken even once except You Only Live Twice of the movie. Champagne, the brandy, and the Scotch whisky are drunk liking it.