# Japanese translators? (warning: Kitty glurge!)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-translators-warning-kitty-glurge/113582>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 12, 2002, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-translators-warning-kitty-glurge/113582 "2002-06-12T03:32:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2002, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-translators-warning-kitty-glurge/113582/1 "2002-06-12T03:32:44Z")

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‘I need closure on that anecdote!’

The victims of this thread:

[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=118962&highlight=cutest+singing+kitten](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=118962&highlight=cutest+singing+kitten)

watched the shockwave kitty sing the song.

[http://www.geocities.co.jp/Milkyway-Lynx/9043/c-song.htm](http://www.geocities.co.jp/Milkyway-Lynx/9043/c-song.htm)

It’s -extremely- cute, beautiful and very well done. There’s lots of Japanese characters (letters), especially on the box that is taped shut at the end.

A translation please?🙂

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**Author:** ![Tsubaki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@Tsubaki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tsubaki)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2002, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-translators-warning-kitty-glurge/113582/2 "2002-06-12T06:33:29Z")

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Basically means “place to rent”. A direct translation is “We are looking for a tenant”. Then under that it says “Mona Real Estate”.

And on the crates is written “Mona Beer”.

WTF Mona Beer is, I have no idea.

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**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2002, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-translators-warning-kitty-glurge/113582/3 "2002-06-12T07:38:19Z")

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**Tsubaki** got the translation right. As for what _mona_ is, it’s sort of a mascot of a famous - or shall I say, infamous - Japanese on-line message board called [Channel 2](http://www.2ch.net/). I say infamous because it’s an unmoderated anonymous message board with extremely low signal-to-noise ratio. ( **Tsubaki** might find the bicycle section interesting.) One of the common phrases on that board is “omaemona” which means “you too,” usually used to return an insult. This phrase can also mean “you are mona.” Somehow this name “mona” got attributed to an ASCII drawing of a cat-like character which pops up all over that message board. This explains the strange face on that singing cat - it retains the ASCII face. (Actually it’s not pure ASCII, it’s made up of characters from the Japanese character set.)

OK I’ll shut up now.

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**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2002, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-translators-warning-kitty-glurge/113582/4 "2002-06-12T08:00:04Z")

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There are two light, flowing characters on the box at the beginning.

The taped-up box at the end has lots of detailed characters.

Sheer profundity 😉