Bill Trinen talks Wara Wara Plaza naming, working with Miyamoto
A portion of a KillScreenDaily interview with Bill Trinen...
KSD: Could you talk a little bit about that naming decision?
BT: One of the things we saw coming out of E3 was when we ran the original video on Miiverse, and when Mr. Iwata first introduced it, he described it using the term they referred to it as in development, which is the ‘Mii Wara Wara.’ With ‘wara wara’ being this [Japanese] term that suggests the milling about of people. During that video, people reacted very positively to it on social media. They thought it was something fun, something very Nintendo, uniquely Nintendo that few other companies would necessarily go with. I think it works, I like it. It’s fun.
KSD: Most people know you as your role in translating for Miyamoto during press conferences. I was curious about that relationship. Do you confer with each other about what to say, or do you just go out there and translate what he’s saying as he’s saying it? How much of a back-and-forth is it?
BT: We’ve been doing this since about 1999, which is a long time. I can’t believe how long that is. [Miyamoto] is a lot of fun because he is very free-spirited. He knows what he wants to say. We’ll work together on the script, I’ll put that into English. In that process, I may suggest changes to it, he may suggest additional changes. He’s a tinkerer. He’s a craftsman, by trade, really. It’s what he does. He always wants to make everything as good as it can be, up to the last minute. So there’s always late changes.
But the best part is when we get out on stage, and then the script really just becomes a sort of bullet-point, or a guideline. He doesn’t read off the teleprompter. And so I don’t really get to read off a teleprompter. In fact we’ve had years where he has a teleprompter in Japanese, and I have nothing. [laughs] And so I just have to listen to him.
A lot of times, if you watch closely, if you ever catch him saying something and kind of glancing over at me, that’s his way of saying, ‘That was totally off-script.’ He’s looking to see if I’ve caught it.
KSD: Could you talk a little bit about that naming decision?
BT: One of the things we saw coming out of E3 was when we ran the original video on Miiverse, and when Mr. Iwata first introduced it, he described it using the term they referred to it as in development, which is the ‘Mii Wara Wara.’ With ‘wara wara’ being this [Japanese] term that suggests the milling about of people. During that video, people reacted very positively to it on social media. They thought it was something fun, something very Nintendo, uniquely Nintendo that few other companies would necessarily go with. I think it works, I like it. It’s fun.
KSD: Most people know you as your role in translating for Miyamoto during press conferences. I was curious about that relationship. Do you confer with each other about what to say, or do you just go out there and translate what he’s saying as he’s saying it? How much of a back-and-forth is it?
BT: We’ve been doing this since about 1999, which is a long time. I can’t believe how long that is. [Miyamoto] is a lot of fun because he is very free-spirited. He knows what he wants to say. We’ll work together on the script, I’ll put that into English. In that process, I may suggest changes to it, he may suggest additional changes. He’s a tinkerer. He’s a craftsman, by trade, really. It’s what he does. He always wants to make everything as good as it can be, up to the last minute. So there’s always late changes.
But the best part is when we get out on stage, and then the script really just becomes a sort of bullet-point, or a guideline. He doesn’t read off the teleprompter. And so I don’t really get to read off a teleprompter. In fact we’ve had years where he has a teleprompter in Japanese, and I have nothing. [laughs] And so I just have to listen to him.
A lot of times, if you watch closely, if you ever catch him saying something and kind of glancing over at me, that’s his way of saying, ‘That was totally off-script.’ He’s looking to see if I’ve caught it.
