I have a question on the choices made by the script writers for an old RPG game called Breath of Fire 2. Specifically, the question entails speculation over decisions made when titling characters, objects, items, and equipment in the game and their decisions to writen them in hiragana or katakana. Take a look at the Japanese vs. English translation list here:
[https://bof.fandom.com/wiki/Breath\_of\_Fire\_II\_Translations](https://bof.fandom.com/wiki/Breath_of_Fire_II_Translations)
You might notice that the Japanese terms for things in the game are either written in katakana or hiragana. Example: Under the Shields category, the first few shields are written as “\[whatever\] no Tate”, “Tate” being the Japanese word for shield (ex: “Tetsu no Tate” -> “Iron Shield”). However, the Flame Shield is written as “Fureimushiirudo”, which is the katakana rendering for the English term “Flame Shield”. This seems to be the general pattern for the Japanese script. Terms are written using one alphabet or another seemingly arbitrarily.
My question is, what’s the reason for this? What decides whether something gets written in katakana or hiragana? Is there a logical reason or is it just a stylistic choice the Japanese writers chose? Do some things just look or sound better when written in katakana vs. hiragana?
1 comment
something is written in katakana if it’s an outside thing or idea. so something that didn’t originate from Japan or a name of something that isn’t Japanese. Katakana is just used to write things that are in different languages, primarily English for most cases apart from アルバイトwhich I think is another language. As for hiragana, they use it as they’re regular alphabet, so pretty much anything thats in Japanese.