this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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Antique Memes Roadshow

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Giving you the backstory and appraisals of vintage memes!

Submissions should be vintage memes or commentary about vintage memes. Commenters are advised to appraise the internet value and provenance meme antiquities.

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[–] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 37 points 5 days ago (2 children)

For what it's worth, this doesn't sound quite as stupid in Japanese.

An ideal translation would be like:

"What's 'Swiftness'?"

"It's an attack that that increases your Pokemon's speed!"

But of course the already-established English translation of the move is not Swiftness but Extreme Speed and that's what the translators had to use and so they both sound like idiots

[–] swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago

Maybe because there's already a move called "Swift"?

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Not sure about the original pokemon audio so idk if this is applicable, but it got me thinking: it would be cool if localizers/dubbers inverted the languages so foreign speech was still foreign.

One of my favorite animes, the twelve kingdoms, has a dub that appears to do exactly that: has a lot of language play and it tricked me into learning some japanese while thinking I was learning about a fictional fantasy language

[–] Elgenzay@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago

The original audio is fine, the meme is just wrong:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=N4qqX5Tjsoo "It's an attack that increases a Pokemons speed, and by using it during battle it will almost guarantee you the first attack."

[–] DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Your idea made me think of Monster, which doesn't do any of that at all. The main character speaks English, japanese, and German but to the audience, he just speaks English (in the dub). There is an episode in which he is traveling with a German kid and they meet an old british couple. All the voice actors speak English, but the kid and old couple can't communicate at all, and the main character translates for them. All in English lol

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 2 points 5 days ago

I've watched monster multiple times and I completely forgot about that. Yep

[–] jaycifer@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wait, I wasn’t going to post this until tomorrow! How did it get posted so extremely speedily after my last meme!?

Once you had a taste of the extreme it's difficult to hold back

[–] sirico@feddit.uk 9 points 5 days ago

I mean it's just doing zoomies

[–] dalekcaan@feddit.nl 4 points 5 days ago

In his defense, I'm not sure what May was expecting.

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 5 days ago

Don’t lie Brock. It’s when you give your Pokemon, some meth.