Why is "boku ga tenshi ni natta wake" called "bokuten" in the english translation?

[kushidadousaku]

I want to read this VN since a pretty long time, but I still don't got the time to. Anyway...

Why is the english version called "bokuten"? I just want to be sure that its not different from the original one.

And could you guys please tell me what does "bokuten" stands for? without spoilers if possible.

Thanks!

[LostPomegranate]

It's the nickname of the game from the Japanese audience and may have come from the development team, I can't remember. But it's sourced pretty obviously from Boku ga Tenshi ni Natta Wake. MangaGamer likely left it on so when people searched for it by its most popular nickname - Bokuten - the English version would still show up, while it wouldn't show up under just "Why I Became an Angel". This one DOES actually share its nickname with another VN though - Boku wa Tenshi Janai yo - but that is not a popular VN, so I doubt anyone is talking about that bokuten when it gets mentioned. A lot of the development teams even announce an "official" shortened name for the fanbase to use when talking about a visual novel.

 

Tons of VN's have shortened names like this that you don't often see in their English titles though. Like Love, Elections, & Chocolate's shortened name is Koichoco from "Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate", Nukitashi is shortened from "Nukige Mitai na Shima ni Sunderu Watashi wa Dou Surya Ii Desu ka?" cause no one in their right mind would constantly refer to it that way, and they used that for the English title. Uso kara Hajimaru Koi no Natsu got shortened to its nickname "UsoNatsu" for the English title as well, and with ones that aren't in English they still get shortened, Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete got shortened to "Waremete", all the Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke o titles got shortened to Sonohana but kept their full translated titles in English of "A Kiss for the Petals". The short names are useful to talk about stuff quickly, but it can definitely be confusing if people use different nicknames to talk about the same visual novel, or if nicknames get too close to one another.

Edited Wednesday at 07:59 PM by LostPomegranate

[kushidadousaku]

4 minutes ago, LostPomegranate said:

It's the nickname of the game from the Japanese audience and may have come from the development team, I can't remember. But it's sourced pretty obviously from Boku ga Tenshi ni Natta Wake. MangaGamer likely left it on so when people searched for it by its most popular nickname - Bokuten - the English version would still show up, while it wouldn't show up under just "Why I Became an Angel". This one DOES actually share its nickname with another VN though - Boku wa Tenshi Janai yo - but that is not a popular VN, so I doubt anyone is talking about that bokuten when it gets mentioned. A lot of the development teams even announce an "official" shortened name for the fanbase to use when talking about a visual novel.

 

Tons of VN's have shortened names like this that you don't often see in their English titles though. Like Love, Elections, & Chocolate's shortened name is Koichoco from "Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate", Nukitashi is shortened from "Nukige Mitai na Shima ni Sunderu Watashi wa Dou Surya Ii Desu ka?" cause no one in their right mind would constantly refer to it that way, and they used that for the English title. Uso kara Hajimaru Koi no Natsu got shortened to its nickname "UsoNatsu" for the English title as well, and with ones that aren't in English they still get shortened, Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete got shortened to "Waremete", all the Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke o titles got shortened to Sonohana but kept their full translated titles in English of "A Kiss for the Petals". The short names are useful to talk about stuff quickly, but it can definitely be confusing if people use different nicknames to talk about the same visual novel, or if nicknames get too close to one another.

Now it makes sense...

Thanks a lot for explaining that!

[Clephas]

Translated VN names are often catastrophes anyway...  Bokuten's English title is one of the least abominable ones out there.  I sometimes hear a game I played in the past is getting localized, but when I see the translated title, I go 'Uh... which game is that again?'  lol

[kushidadousaku]

13 hours ago, Clephas said:

Translated VN names are often catastrophes anyway...  Bokuten's English title is one of the least abominable ones out there.  I sometimes hear a game I played in the past is getting localized, but when I see the translated title, I go 'Uh... which game is that again?'  lol

Yeah, I could get how annoying this would be...

[Clephas]

1 hour ago, kushidadousaku said:

Yeah, I could get how annoying this would be...

Sometimes I want to say to the people who translate the titles... 'You do realize there was no need to translate the title, don't you?  The translation wasn't even remotely correct and reads awful, so why did you do that?'  I mean, for anime, Shingeki no Kyojin turns into 'Attack on Titan' when 'The Charge of the Titans' or 'The Blitz of the Titans' would have been a much better and more dramatic title.  A lot of it is apparently the Japanese side doing the translation, and most Japanese have no idea of what good English sounds like...

[kushidadousaku]

41 minutes ago, Clephas said:

Sometimes I want to say to the people who translate the titles... 'You do realize there was no need to translate the title, don't you?  The translation wasn't even remotely correct and reads awful, so why did you do that?'  I mean, for anime, Shingeki no Kyojin turns into 'Attack on Titan' when 'The Charge of the Titans' or 'The Blitz of the Titans' would have been a much better and more dramatic title.  A lot of it is apparently the Japanese side doing the translation, and most Japanese have no idea of what good English sounds like...

Exactly. And the original japanese titles feels a lot more dramatic and charming to me tbh. I don't know why they would translate them...