The examples I thought of are:
1. the Fairy type in Pokemon
2. Fairy Fencer F (game series)
3. Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy (a video game)
Do these translate to roughly the same thing? Are there different types of faries that get lumped in together in English?
The Gundam game name is what got me thinking about this. Most of the supernatural critters I know about in Japanese folklore are either Yokai or nature spirits.
I know this is probably more of a cultural question, but hopefully someone can answer this here! Thanks!
3 comments
Fairy Type **フェアリー**タイプ, Fairy Fencer **フェアリー**フェンサー, and Code Fairy 機動戦士ガンダム バトルオペレーション コード**フェアリー** all use the English word Fairy directly.
So they’re referring to the Western concept.
Non-western type of Fairy would generally be called [妖精](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yōsei) but with time it came to be synonymous with フェアリー so now it’s getting harder to find any real distinction.
I typically see 妖精 for fairies and 精霊 for spirits. Also i just wanna randomly add that i am personally more curious about the words that translate to ghost in English. 妖怪、化け物、幽霊 all can translate to ghost. Haha.