Since PPA's been PPA, we now have access to the World Guidance book and will be working on translating passages of interest. They'll be posted here(in later posts, since keeping them together won't fit).
THE BOOK LIKES TO USE A BUNCH OF WORDS THAT MEAN THE SAME THINGS AS OTHER WORDS AND I'M MORE SURE NOW ABOUT WHAT WORDS I SHOULD BE USING BUT I'M LEAVING THIS SECTION HERE JUST IN CASE ANYONE HAS ANY COMMENTS:
神々-'the gods.' We all know who they are, but for whatever reason, everyone in the games talks about them like they're still alive, even though they died back in Ragnarok(every game takes place after it). If "the gods" shows up in something talking about stuff after Ragnarok, it probably just means the Magi. If it shows up when talking about the people that made the surface worlds and stuff, it's the gods. They're apparently computers.
守護天使-'guardian angel.' The Heaven's Gate entry thinks this is "Archangel," but Kitten used the term once(supposedly).
地上-'above ground,' the plane of existence that the surface worlds(地上世界) exist in, so it's the surface. You could think of it as a big ring/shell that wraps around the underworld(which is infinite...maybe it actually wraps around the heavens :U), with Asgard on the other side.
冥府-directly translates as 'hades' or 'realm of the dead.' By now it's obvious that the games use "the underworld" as its meaning, but it apparently doesn't describe the entire place.
魔界-'demonworld', this is the whole place, but it's rarely spoken about. I'm pretty sure Zolgonark/Hades just owns most of it, so a lot of it falls under his name. I'M GOING TO CALL IT UTGARD BECAUSE IT'S THE OPPOSITE OF SHINKAI/ASGARD
魔神-'demon gods'. The book calls Zorgy one, but I don't think they have a proper title yet in the localized games. I don't think any others have appeared in the series yet.
魔物-'demonthings', seems to fit with what everyone calls "demons." It even mentions Slimes and Skeletons. THOSE ARE TOTALLY DEMONS. This looks like the term they use when referring to tangible ones.
魔族-'demontribes,' shows up when they talk about demons as a species/race/whatever.
Japan loves adding title and whatnot to their names, but English takes up way more space, so the localizations usually drop them unless they're being silly and using extra words. Some of the localized titles are slightly different from what Japan used, but I think I left everything as their English equivalents.
For whatever reason Japan can't stick to just quotations or brackets or parentheses, so I'll be copying whatever they do for the appropriate words/phrases in the translations. Omittableyetstillkindofimportantwords will go in [] brackets inside the sentences, and stuff in parentheses past the period are just my notes on how silly sounding or confusing the passage/sentence was.
(If anyone wants the scans, send me a PM or hit me up on IRC for the link.)
Regarding the first Ancardia entry: Perhaps it means that the people of Yggdra's post-good ending realm (or her realm itself) were called thus?
Since Rhia seems to be asleep and Walrus seems to be out of commission due to having to deal with a hurricane, I'm putting this up so we can compare notes later.
Fallen Angel 'Archangel'(堕天使アークエンジェル)
walrus is probably also asleep
"聖域" is not necessarily sanctuary. in this case i'd say it isn't.
http://www.google.com/search?q=聖域+holy
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9F%9F
holy land yggdrasil or maybe yggdrasil sanctum.
空中庭園リヴィエラ
i prefer "floating garden". the kanji are sky/void center garden, and the hanging isn't implied.
NO TRANSLATIONS IN THIS POST SORRY
Hi Rhia needs a Tsuki or more direct object markers to deal with this horrible third sentence (it's even bolded for speedy finding!). I get totally lost the moment I meet a verb after the first comma because I don't know who's doing what to who or where. I also don't know if that's supposed to be だけ に限らず or だけに 限らず. Which probably isn't helping with the whole confusion thing.
PAGE 113
third sentence, page 113
They can't be naming the floating island Ancardia, since it was already called that. They're either calling the descendants that, or the descendants are calling their world that.
Page 130, Amardians to The Seven Magi
Page 131, Grim Angels to Western Forces
Page 132, Seth-Rah to Balmores
Page 133, Fantasinian Kingdom to Rondalians
Something a little more backstory instead of what Ein did. They have no problem stating Eintachi's various adventures, but they're not always clear about things that happen outside of the games.
This post be for the bits at the top of certain pages from 80-92. The stuff in the beginning is all pretty much in the Tome of Lost Souls, as well as the artist/designer comments. 57's is just about Kiyudzuki or whatever, and 100 on is Before Crisis junk. ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS IS LESS "DIRECT AND HISTORICAL STATEMENTS" AND MORE "I MADE THE GAMES AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED".
This post will have everything from 108-113(since I did run out of space), excluding the designer's notes(since that's probably not very story relevant) and the little comments on the art(also not relevant).
Page 109
Pretty pictures are picture pretty.
Thanks for the scans!
FINE GO TO BED BEFORE I FINISH EATING
[04:01:09] <AHH> CANNOT MEAN LIKE
[04:01:13] <AHH> IT
[04:01:24] <AHH> 'S A NOMINALIZER OR JUST BASICALLY MEANS "INTANGIBLE THING"
[04:01:28] <AHH> (LITERALLY ANYWAY)
[04:01:53] <AHH> WHICH ACTUALLY MAKES THAT SENTENCE PRETTY BIZARRE
[04:02:02] <AHH> SINCE YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO USE IT WITH TANGIBLE THINGS (WHICH THE STAFF SHOULD BE)
[04:03:03] <AHH> UNLESS IT'S REFERRING TO THE WHOLE SENTENCE
[04:03:07] <AHH> SINCE AN EVENT IS PRETTY INTANGIBLE
IN OTHER WORDS YOUR TRANSLATION IS SOUND
ALSO DON'T TOUCH 124-125 AGHART WAS AN ACCURSED I'M RIGHT ENOUGH
Not done, can't Japan anyway. Walrus can edit this if he does the stuff I didn't do. CHECK THE EDITED BY BOX IF YOU DO. Bolded things I'm pretty sure I don't understand. ACTUALLY FORGET IT EVERYTHING IS QUESTIONABLE AND THE ONLY THING I'M CERTAIN OF IS THAT I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE AGHART. Also Sting admits they didn't really plan the whole Hades thing out in Riviera.
Pages 124-125 (Riviera Q&A)
Okay, too much junk in my previous post, so 114-120 or wherever is going here.
Page 114, not really sure why there are pictures of Gulcasa...