AbuThonk

Copse hime? I have never heard that word used before, why not just forest or grove?

I expected Ido to make a joke about de-potatoing the boss into Matsu.

What's the association with monsters?

So... uhh Monster cures her?

Look at her ear thingies. They resemble the Monster branding.

"Morizo (モリゾー) and Kiccoro (キッコロ), collectively known as "Moricoro," were created to be Aichi Banpaku's mascots. The popular fluffy green creatures are both from the forest of Seto." Wikipedia

Abukuma associated her name(Matsu=Pine tree) and hair with these characters.

halseyttk said:

Copse hime? I have never heard that word used before, why not just forest or grove?

Basically boils down to size, composition, and origin distinctions.
Forests are damn big, and natural.
Groves are small to moderate, generally tend be all trees, and a tendency to being planted rather than naturally occurring.
Copses are roughly the same size as groves, and have lots of brush in them.

Lugin said:

Basically boils down to size, composition, and origin distinctions.
Forests are damn big, and natural.
Groves are small to moderate, generally tend be all trees, and a tendency to being planted rather than naturally occurring.
Copses are roughly the same size as groves, and have lots of brush in them.

I'm not arguing that the translation is wrong, just that I think a more conventional translation would be better. I think the word "林" is used in regular conversations in Japanese, or if not it is at least apparent that the kanji roughly means "group of trees." The word copse is almost never used in English unless you actually work in agriculture. If an average English speaker were to see a "林" they would probably call it a grove, or a small or manmade forest.

For some background: this princess is the Abyssal version of Matsu, of course. The Matsu-class destroyers were all named after various tree species and thus sometimes referred to as 雑木林 (zoukibayashi, lit. "forest of mixed trees"). This princess references this by containing 林 in her name. Copse/coppice is certainly in the Japanese-English dictionaries for this term, and that's why it was the initial translation choice in many places. However, it does not actually convey the meaning of a mixture of trees and may indeed convey the opposite, given that copses are small clusters of trees.

When translating the first mention of this term in KanColle-material I chose mixed forest as a term that conveyed this without being too wordy. The wiki translators and editors debated this at length, but we settled on Destroyer Forest Princess to match. This was a stylistic choice - maybe we could've done "mixed copse" or "mixed grove", but indeed copse is an unusual word and grove sounded almost mystical.

I'll submit a bulk update request unless there are objections.

I used copse because I saw coppice in the stage (which is 茂み not 林, really), and just went with copse in the same general area. I certainly don't think it's that unusual a word - nor does grove sound 'mystical' in any way, being a perfectly normal every-day word.

I mean, I was going to go with forest by default since that's what hayashi is often translated as - although as you need to differentiate between 森 and a 林, 'forest' really isn't always the best way to translate it - 'woods' or 'thicket' implies the smaller general size in comparison to a full-blown forest. But with coppice already in the tag, I worked with that - assuming that it was already decided-upon.

Thicket is actually in dictionaries as a translation of 雑木林, and critically, a plain 'forest' is not. (Thicket is also a reasonably common word, depending on where you live.) Hence, if 林 is a contraction of 雑木林, the translation needs to reflect that, and not be a straight translation of 林.

Paracite said:
I certainly don't think it's that unusual a word - nor does grove sound 'mystical' in any way, being a perfectly normal every-day word.

Yeah, it does come down to a bit of a stylistic choice, and I know our translations have disagreed on that in the past. The wiki translation/editor team universally said copse was rare or unheard of. Opinions on grove was more divided. To me it brings to mind druids and other Celtic things, and I wasn't alone on that. "Forest" doesn't really have any nuances and every English speaker knows it.

although as you need to differentiate between 森 and a 林, 'forest' really isn't always the best way to translate it - 'woods' or 'thicket' implies the smaller general size in comparison to a full-blown forest.

That's true, would prefer wood over thicket in that case. Personally I rarely differentiate between the two, and the Matsu-class is pretty sizable (18 destroyers, excluding the Tachibana-class). Fletcher-class would have to be a rainforest!

But with coppice already in the tag, I worked with that - assuming that it was already decided-upon.

That's our bad, I'm probably the only person on the team with any activity on Danbooru, and I'm not very active. We assumed Danbooru would pick it up from the wikis eventually - I guess that is what we're discussing now.

Thicket is actually in dictionaries as a translation of 雑木林, and critically, a plain 'forest' is not. (Thicket is also a reasonably common word, depending on where you live.)

I linked to that entry as well in my post - it also has "mixed forest".

A 'mixed forest' without the 'mixed' is just a forest, without any external clues as to the meaning, people are just going to gravitate towards the default 'big-ass area of trees (and usually monoculture)', which isn't really a 雑木林. Just my two cents there.

"Forest" is imperfect, but I don't think copse/coppice conveys the sense of mixture either. And I'd be willing to wager a significant portion of readers have no idea what it is. It seems coppicing leads to monoculture as well as it's meant for harvest, although on closer reading I have learned in England they will have old-growth "standard" trees of one other species scattered throughout the coppice to anchor the soil etc.

Would it be better to create the Bulk Update Request and have the yay/nay discussion there? Not sure what the proper etiquette is.

No, I mean rather that copse or coppice (which I do agree is a bit much), thicket or wood would be better, in comparison to forest. In my mind, anyway.

Let's move this to the forum.