Katakana Tattoo.

I have seen Final Fantasy written in what i think is 'popular katakana' on wikipedia, and i am trying to find the words 'life' 'life stream' and/or 'gaia' in the same writing form. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Andrew,

Those words would be written as follows in katakana.
life = ライフ
life stream = ライフ・ストリーム
gaia = ガイア

If you give the URL to the page you saw, someone may be able to provide details of the font it is written in.

I would also like to know how they were presented on that site you saw.

Dave in Saitama's katakana words are perfect :) It's just that I wonder if it makes sense at all to make katakana versions of words like "life" and "life stream." "Gaia" and "Final Fantasy" are proper nouns (in that they are software/game name and fictional place name/name of goddess), but "life" and "life stream" are simply general nouns. If you have "Life" in katakana, people might think you are a big fan of the Honda car named Life lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_fantasy
that is where i saw it written.

and AK i am leaning more towards "Gaia" than the other 2 words for the reason you put on there, japanese characters always seem to have differant meanings and contexts. ^^

Why katakana? It is mostly used for transliterating foreign words and is considered the least "aesthetically pleasing" of the 3 writing systems as it is very angular.

Life written in katakana is just the English word transcribed, so "raifu". It does sound like a brand name of some kind.

The actual translationof the word "life" into Japanese, like 命 (inochi) or 人生 (jinsei), both meaning life with different nuances, would be far nicer as tattoos, and much less commercial looking!

Thank you, Andrew.

If you are referring to the writing "ファイナルファンタジー" in this entry, this is katakana alright, but written in very simple, newsprint font.

"Katakana" is a set of phonetic letters for writing non-Japanese or imported words such as "Final Fantasy," and the writing above says: fa-i-na-ru fa-n-ta-jii, as it is pronounced.

Since you said "popular katakana," I thought you might be talking about the *font* for the writing, but I suppose not.

Andrew,

The "ファイナルファンタジー" text at the start of the Wikipedia article will be displayed in whatever default font you have set on your computer, so how you see it may not be the same as I or other people see it (It's gothic on my PC).
So, I'm not sure now what you mean by "popular katakana".

Andrew, as mentioned I'm not sure what you mean by "popular katakana." Is there a "popular alphabet"? I don't think so.

I also don't know why you insist on using katakana when, for example, the title Final Fantasy is usually presented in English alphabet.

But I am guessing that by using Japanese letters you want to show the world how much you are devoted to the Japanese culture which created Final Fantasy. In any case the font showed in your Wikipedia link is too thin and would look cheap on your body.

I'm not at all sympathetic about using katakana nor kanji on tattoos, but if you must, why not refer to the _official_ website of Final Fantasy. I'm sorry I don't have the time to look for the word Gaia in it.
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/ff20th/

Btw, keep in mind that if you ever happen to come to Japan and decide you want to go to a gym or enjoy a public spa, you are likely to be restricted entrance for having a tattoo.

gaia also has Kanji too. There's three versions:

雅衣亞
凱亜
我居亜

I think that would look better than katakana.

Miyuki-san,

I know that those kanji *can be* used to represent that sound "Gaia," but as they are arbitrary selected for the sound (and partly for the looks), they are not really the original words. So I don't know if those can be/should be recommended. No, IMHO.

The 'popular' came from some translation web-site, and they had a 'popular katakana' and a 'native katakana" And I personally do like the way katakana looks, its kinda simple and i have not seen anyone else with katakana tattoos, just kanji. lol

Andrew, thanks for your response, and purely out of curiosity I would like to take a look at that website where you found 'popular katakana' and 'native katakana".

Also, I think one of the main reasons why we see no katakana tattoos is because compared to kanji, it looks dumb as tattoo designs at least from the native Japanese' point of view, so thank goodness I don't see them.

http://m.rubix.jp/ here is the website where they had popular and native.

im sure most japanese katakana or kanji would look dumb to native japanese, luckily there aren't many japanese in my town, because im sure i would look like a fool lol Do you ever see japanese people with tattoos in other languages?

in general, Japanese people usually don't do tattoos. If they do, it's just a picture... i hardly ever see script.

I know a lot of Japanese people with tattoos- it just depends on the circles you move in (no not yakuza in my case, I'm a yoga teacher, so many of my students are a bit "alternative";-)) One has "YES" tattooed on her shoulder in English, not quite sure why.

I have seen traditional Japanese tattoos with kanji- usually the kanji for dragon or tiger or similar. A Japanese Pride or K-1 fighter- can't remember which- has 大和魂 (Yamato spirit) on his shoulder, but most people do have a picture of some kind rather than script. Katakana I've never seen as a tattoo.

Pity you need to register to view Andrew's link.

Most tattoos that young Japanese people have for fashion (and not to show devotion towards yakuza) are of American designs and often has decorated English alphabet in it.

Among the famous ones, guitarist Kenichi Asai has a tattoo on his left arm that says "I only have a red guitar, the chords and the truth" (in English). You can see it in the inner sleave of Blankey Jet City's debut album "Red Guitar and the Truth".

That's interesting. Very similar to the line "All I need is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth" which was added to Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" by Bono on the U2 album Rattle and Hum- too similar to be a coincidence I think.

There's my music geek contribution for the day... ;-)

Sira, fellow geek, eh?

That's really interesting! I don't know about U2, but Kenichi "Benji" Asai always adored Bob Dylan. By the way, he does play a red Gretch and loooves the truth.

I didn't know the group Blankey Jet City, even though I was already in Japan when they split up, but from Wikipedia I see that the album "Red Guitar and the Truth" was released in 1991, whereas Bono was singing that line in concerts from about 1988 and the album "Rattle and Hum" which featured that line was released in 1989, so I think it's pretty safe to say that Blankey Jet City were influenced by U2 and not the other way around. I'm off to check out some of their videos on YouTube now ;-)

"and not the other way around."

Oh, I know that! ;p