Hope my Tshirt isn't insulting people

January 7, 2009 8:23 AM

What's my new Tshirt say? Need a translation of the vertical characters.

The lovely Mrs. Writer purchased this They Might Be Giants Tshirt for me, but we're interested in what the vertical characters "say."

Is there a real sentence, or is this just a mishmash of random characters picked to look cool?

The Tshirt in question - click here.

posted by fijiwriter to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

It says "zei-mai daisakusen". "Zei-mai" is a plausible way to abbreviate "They Might Be Giants" in Japanese; the whole thing reads something along the lines of "Operation TMBG" or "The TMBG Mission".
posted by wanderingmind at 8:39 AM on January 7, 2009

No clue on the translation, but here is the artist's web site (there's a picture of the t-shirt on her flickr page).

http://web.mac.com/sheishine/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html
posted by logicpunk at 8:45 AM on January 7, 2009

The shirt also seems to be a reference to Mission: Impossible. In Japan, the show is called "スパイ大作戦" (the shirt says "ゼイマイ大作戦"). I could be looking too much into it, though.
posted by Dreamcast at 8:49 AM on January 7, 2009

From my friend:


I think it translates as: They Might Be Giants Collection.

The thing that makes it uncertain for me is the chinese character word, it can translate to the following: series (as in a TV show), battle (as in Battle of the Bulge), or blitz (as in an advertising blitz). I'm going with the first usage and thus translating it as collection or ouvre.
posted by cazoo at 9:34 AM on January 7, 2009

I'd translate it as "The TMBG Challenge". Daisakusen is quite a common word in Japanese - you'll often see it on videogames or competitions or game shows on TV where people are being put through the hoops or doing a challenge of sorts (The "dai" bit means "big"). Taken together with the pic, it means "here's the TMBG machine. Are you game to take it on?"
posted by dydecker at 9:59 AM on January 7, 2009