Pokemon translations are usually quite good (well, when it matters). Names of moves and abilities and such tend to be fine, at least in their original context (which tends to be mussed by puns and such long after release). The Z-Moves are, without doubt, well-named and evocative in English, and as usual, often silly to English ears if translated straight from Japanese.
Still, I’m always curious about translation things, so here’s what every Z-Move was originally translated from.
(*) indicates a move where the original was a classical Japanese kanji chain instead of the usual pseudo-English, and I have translated it as clearly as I could. (As the game shows the moves in kana, I’ve also added what the original seems to resolve to.)
(**) The Japanese name of Thunderbolt is simply １０まんボルト, or 100,000 Volts. The Z-Move is just that multiplied by 100. So the localization has added the name “Thunderbolt.”
The only one that really bothers me is “Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike.” I haven’t been able to see either the original move (Spectral Thief) or the Z-Move animation, which would make me a lot more sure one way or the other, but from here, だっこんたい seems to say the move itself is the state of the soul being outside the body, and from the descriptions of Spectral Thief and the user Marshadow, it seems more likely that it’s doing the stealing in a ghostly way rather than stealing a soul. I’m open to corrections, though!
