For the trailer, I pretty much lifted the name translations off Kevin N. from the Tokusatsu Network. The names were taken off the image links of the official website and it reads okay so I don't see why I shouldn't use them. Here's his Twitter thread discussing it:
(And is the link to the article!)
But even Kevin was rather stumped on how to translate "bittomo".
So, what is "bittomo"?
I decided to wait a while to see how they utilized the word. To be honest, while I can see that they were also going for "beep" like the video game beeps, after watching the trailers, the YouTube extras and the first episode, I found that they barely reference it that way. Instead, it's actually short for "ビビッとくる" (Bibittokuru). Here's the dictionary definition from Weblio:
ビビッとくる
大きな衝撃を受けたかのような心理状態を感覚的に述べる言い方。閃き、直感、一目惚れなどを表現する言い方として用いられることが多い。
A way to emotionally convey the mental state of experiencing something incredibly shocking. Often used as a way to convey your feelings of inspiration, intuition, love at first sight, etc.
Japanese Google searches also brought up a lot of threads on "fated encounters", "soulmates". Basically, it's a very emotional word to describe good chemistry with people.
It took me at least a week to figure out if there were any words in English that could translate this phrase. At the very least, I wanted to keep the translation as close to the original as possible. And wouldn't you believe it, there is miraculously one word that has similar emotional connotations: Vibe.
Here's the Oxford definition:
Vibe
(Noun) A person's emotional state or the atmosphere of a place as communicated to and felt by others.
(Verb) Enjoy oneself by listening to or dancing to popular music
(Verb) Transmit or give out (a feeling or atmosphere)
It's not a direct correlation with bibittokuru, but it's close enough (also vibe is an emotionally neutral word so it's actually more correct to say good vibes) and it thematically fits the show! And it can be used as both a verb and a noun so that actually solves a lot of issues with when the show dumps ビビッと all over the place.
1) ビビ〜ときたキラリ
Kirari who is feeling good vibes
2) 心おどるとビビ〜ときちゃうアッツイ小学5年生
An energetic fifth-grade elementary student that starts getting good vibes when she gets excited
3) 友達になりたいとビビ〜っと思った相手と「ビッ友」に！
Will become "vibebuddies" with people she wants to be friends with that she gets good vibes from!
ビビッとセット Vibe and Set
ビビッとショット Vibing Shot
ビビクトリー Vibe-victory
I ended up creating the word "vibebuddy" as it's a decent enough translation of the word "bittomo" with similar syllables. That was my whole thought process behind translating this word~ Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!
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