Sherlock and Holmes

[rdrouyn]

I'm very curious if there is an intended connection between these two characters. Obviously they can't be related to each other since their games take place in different universes, but their designs and classes are very similar. And the connection between their names is interesting. Was the pun with their names added in translation or was it already there in the Japanese version?

Is Kaga a Sherlock Holmes fan?

So many questions, so few answers.

[Saint Rubenio]

It's not a month yet, so it's technically not necroposting! I hope.

Anyway, I've long wondered this myself. It's not like the devs of the KagaSaga games ever tried too hard to hide their sources of inspiration. I mean, Sherpa is literally just Guts lol. There's definitely a chance someone on the dev team had a taste for Sherlock Holmes. Imagine if it were Esteban that was called Sherlock. That'd be even more blatant, considering he's like, Holmes's long lost, millenia-younger twin brother.

On 2/25/2023 at 4:59 AM, rdrouyn said:

Was the pun with their names added in translation or was it already there in the Japanese version?

I just did a little Google search, trying to figure out what they call Sherlock Holmes in Japan. Found a couple novels for sale on Ebay, plus Herlock Sholmes from Great Ace Attorney, who was named Sherlock Holmes in the original game.

From what I can tell, TRS Holmes and OG Holmes are identical in Japanese (ホームズ). Sherlock is where it gets a bit weird. BWS Sherlock's called シロック (Shirokku), but OG Sherlock is シャーロック (Shārokku). Honestly, it looks like a simple mistake to me. Wouldn't be the first time these games have tried to reference overseas stuff, but misspelled it. Still, it's worth pointing out.

On 2/25/2023 at 4:59 AM, rdrouyn said:

Is Kaga a Sherlock Holmes fan?

All in all, it seems likely. No way to know if it's Kaga himself, though. If there was a Watson in Vestaria or something like that, it'd be case closed, but I don't believe that's the case, so it could be some other people on the dev team that suggested these names. We'd have to know more about the intricacies of these games' development to figure it out for sure.

[rdrouyn]

6 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

It's not a month yet, so it's technically not necroposting! I hope.

Anyway, I've long wondered this myself. It's not like the devs of the KagaSaga games ever tried too hard to hide their sources of inspiration. I mean, Sherpa is literally just Guts lol. There's definitely a chance someone on the dev team had a taste for Sherlock Holmes. Imagine if it were Esteban that was called Sherlock. That'd be even more blatant, considering he's like, Holmes's long lost, millenia-younger twin brother.

I just did a little Google search, trying to figure out what they call Sherlock Holmes in Japan. Found a couple novels for sale on Ebay, plus Herlock Sholmes from Great Ace Attorney, who was named Sherlock Holmes in the original game.

From what I can tell, TRS Holmes and OG Holmes are identical in Japanese (ホームズ). Sherlock is where it gets a bit weird. BWS Sherlock's called シロック (Shirokku), but OG Sherlock is シャーロック (Shārokku). Honestly, it looks like a simple mistake to me. Wouldn't be the first time these games have tried to reference overseas stuff, but misspelled it. Still, it's worth pointing out.

All in all, it seems likely. No way to know if it's Kaga himself, though. If there was a Watson in Vestaria or something like that, it'd be case closed, but I don't believe that's the case, so it could be some other people on the dev team that suggested these names. We'd have to know more about the intricacies of these games' development to figure it out for sure.

Yeah, that is the same conclusion I reached, although I didn't have enough knowledge of Japanese to be 100% certain.

According to the Fire Emblem wiki, Holmes was "Homosu -> Romanized as Hormes in the game's instruction manual." That seems clear to me it was meant to be Holmes. I have no idea how Shirokku would translate into Sherlock.  I know that the letters r and l cause a lot of issues when transferred over to the Japanese language and Sherlock is probably a doozy for them to enunciate. But I don't know enough of how they'd work around that and convert it into a more natural sounding word for them. 

And yeah, Esteban/Estoban seems like a younger version of Holmes. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the most popular character from TRS and they decided to model several characters after him for the sequel.