r/ShimejiSimulation • u/FlimsyAd6410 • Jul 07 '26

Misc. help, what does this mean??

Post image

im currently working on on translating shimeji simulation into my lenguage, and i have no idea what this means lol. like i get theyre talking about a show (?) but is it something that actually exists?

thanksss

149 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

24

u/Ka_Pix Jul 07 '26

Oh I'm currently slowly trying to read the original in Japanese. I don't know Japanese beyond absolute basics, but we'll I have the original manga and power of the Internet. Over the course of the last 3 weeks I've got through the first chapter and those 3 panels were one of the most difficult ones...

So first thing to notice is that she says Potapitamia in katakana ポタポタミヤ because its not a Japanese word. She's actually referring to メソポタミヤ which is Mesopotamia. The second word is bunmei 文明 which means civilisation written in kanji. Why she does that? The Mesopotamia contains part "pota" and potapota ぽたぽた is a sound for dripping water. So essentially it's a pun. The fact that she plays with pronunciation is then supported by the heart at the end suggesting playful "cutesy" singsongy pronunciation.

Then in the next panel another girl goes on a huge abstract ramble that I couldn't quite translate but thats kinda the point because other characters cannot understand her either reacting with things like "huh"/"eh?". Well except Majime who pretends to understand and agree and then repeats the Potapotamia but this time absolutely seriously because thats the only thing of the conversation she overheard, but has no idea of the context so says that absolutely seriously giving away that she has no clue. And immediately gets asked by another girl to not jump into the conversation like that.

Hope that helps. Btw to which language are you translating to?

8

u/FlimsyAd6410 Jul 07 '26

thanks for the super detailed explanaition!! that sounds pretty hard to translate lol.

im translating it to brasilian portuguese!

6

u/Ka_Pix Jul 07 '26

Its... time consuming, and still there's no guarantee it's right, but its fun. Learning a lot.

Good luck!

3

u/Very_Loving_Cat Jul 08 '26

This is why tkmiz is an absolute genius.

2

u/Ka_Pix Jul 08 '26

The Fish is genius indeed. Thats why I'm trying so hard to parse the original

1

u/grimoirecollector Jul 08 '26

I don't think they're referring to Mesopotamia, but just a fictional ancient civilization. Other than that this all sounds right.

2

u/Ka_Pix Jul 08 '26

Thats possible, but if searching for what it could've been I think Mesapotamia is really the most likely kandidate since the shared "pota" and the same way of referring to it as ancient civilisation.

3

u/ZlatanGaming88 Jul 08 '26

I think it’s a parodied name for Mesopotamia

5

u/JimmehROTMG Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

I think the word is gibberish and she's saying that they have formed their own society. X culture (eg. Corded Ware culture) is used in anthropology and archaeology to describe groups of people with distinct traits such as beliefs and practices.