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Hong Kong Pokémon fans protest over Pikachu translation
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have caused a minor international kerfuffle after deciding to reduce the number of languages it translates Pokémon games into. Back in February, the pair revealed that Pokémon Sun and Moon would be released in traditional and simplified Chinese -- the former for Hong Kong plus Taiwan, and the latter for Mainland China. But rather than keeping the three original sets of localized character names for these markets, the companies dropped Cantonese -- the main dialect of Hong Kong and many overseas Chinese folks -- and unified the Mandarin Chinese names used by the two other larger markets. The news didn't go down well with Pokémon fans in Hong Kong, and yesterday, around 20 locals staged a protest outside the Japanese consulate, with help from anti-communist political party Civic Passion. They came armed with banners demanding that Pei-kaa-jau (Pikachu's new name in Cantonese) should be restored to Bei-kaa-chyu (the original Cantonese Pikachu) for their local market.
