By Circe -
Just as a side note -- yes, I am aware that there are Professor Layton novels/puzzle books out in Japan. To the best of my ability to determine, they have not been, nor are they going to be, published in any other language. The three are:

  • Professor Layton and The Wandering Castle
    (Layton-kyouju to Samayoeru Shiro / レイトン教授とさまよえる城)
  • Professor Layton and The Phantom Deity
    (Layton-kyouju to Kaijin Goddo / レイトン教授と怪人ゴッド)
  • Professor Layton and The Forest of Illusion
    (Layton-kyouju to Gen'ei no Mori / レイトン教授と幻影の森)
[Edit: Also that there's a manga called Professor Layton and the Cheerful Incident (Layton-kyouju to Yukai Jiken / レイトン教授とユカイ事件), which is aimed mainly at children. And manga adaptations of the games, and anime books for the film.]

If anybody cares to send me some of these things -- a legible scan or PDF, I mean; I'm not holding my breath for someone to send me actual physical books, although you can if you want -- I'll have a bash at translating them. Be aware that it will take a very very long time. They are each 300pp+ and will undoubtedly require extensive footnoting, particularly on word-based puzzles. I would not be doing scanslations, although someone else who wants to sit down and fuck around in Photoshop with however many illustrated pages there are out of the total thousand is welcome to do so.

I would be doing it strictly out of the goodness of my own obsessive little heart, although don't think it didn't cross my mind that a good localization of even a short segment of something that complicated and full of brain-trickery would look stunning on a résumé.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 25, 2020 at 4:55 PM

    Assuming you haven't found any yet... I haven't been able to find phantom deity tho..

    The Forest of Illusion:
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WNKQObI39xbce7jbHbObJ4KinyUIuqujDDl72ybq28w/mobilebasic

    The Wandering Castle:
    https://alraye.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/professor-layton-and-the-wandering-castle/

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 20, 2021 at 6:09 AM

    I know this was a long time ago but just in case you were still interested and hadn't seen this you can find scans of the novels here:

    https://laytonerd.tumblr.com/post/638735412182007808/my-belated-christmas-gift-to-the-layton-fandom

    I don't speak Japanese but I have begun translating the Phantom Deity as best I can with multiple translation apps.
    I'm a couple of chapters in and It's really good so far.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The mystery of "Himmmm"

By Circe -
[Note: This entry has been edited from its original publication. See here for explanation.] The gossip blogs are alight today with the breaking news that some dude who leaves a lot of comments at a site called Crazy Days And Nights  under the screen name "Himmmm" is "really" Robert Downey, Jr. Nobody has any proof, of course, and there has been no comment from RDJ -- possibly because the story is too new, possibly because it's true and he'd rather not have to lie, possibly because it's not true and he thinks it's too funny for words. Normally, I just laugh at these things, because really, who the fuck cares beyond the entertainment value? But one of the more interesting things about "Himmmm" is that he seems to have made it a point to go after people who have done Really Bad Things. He's most famous for popping in and letting other commenters play 20 Questions about who's being talked about in the most recent blind item, and  c
Read more
By Circe -
About a week ago, I crewed a show at the studio theater for a non-profit outfit up from New York. The guys who run it are friends of our executive artistic director, and they come up two or three times a year. I like them; I dealt with them a bunch when I was at the box office, because when you're the most experienced person they have around they hand you all of the EAD's friends, and I have an unofficial standing request to work their shows even when I'm not the only crew who is both in town and not drowning in finals. One of the guys, as it turns out, is laid up with an injury right now, so the other one had to fly solo, on top of performing in the show. I ran into him coming down the stairs as I was going up, and as soon as he saw me he just lit up like, oh, it's you!  How are you are you working are you going to be my box office again! I told him I'd swapped over to doing tech and he asked if I was disappointed that I didn't get to dress up anymore. I
Read more

WARNING! Sweeping generalizations inside!

By Circe -
Captain Awkward -- who is one of my new favorite people, by the by -- has apparently been getting a lot of flack from her post about creepiness and how not to engage in it . I say flack specifically because it's not necessarily all directed at her personally, but when you're in the middle of a field of anti-aircraft guns all firing in random directions, you're likely to get some shrapnel in your hide whether anyone is aiming at you or not. One of the running arguments down in the comments (in her blog, in other blogs, on reddit, on the astral plane, etc.) is about whether it makes a difference whether someone is painfully socially awkward, has Asperger's or an autism spectrum disorder, or is just a boundary-free creepy fucker, whether these things are comorbid a lot, and what to do about it. I think it's really damn easy to tell the difference between them, myself. I suspect it's because I do tact about like a Panzer tank does ballet. The people who seem to
Read more