Goes to show you how many dogs I associate with.shouki wrote:I was going to post about this myself, but you beat me to it. However, some additional...Agent_Wax wrote:Fugu, I'm quite certain that the 'maru' kanji is not meant to be translated as 'circle' or 'sphere'. In Japan, pets are often given the honorific '-maru' (or sometimes '-chan'). A black dog could be called 'Kuromaru'. As such, the zombie dog's name should be just 'Dream'. '-maru' is also applied to the name of ships.
"maru" is somewhat like the "ko" suffix for girls. However, it is rarely used in modern times (except for boats). I might be remembering some of this wrong but it used to be the case that boys from noble or semi-noble familes would have an "childhood" name, often ending with -maru, and then change it to something else on becoming an "adult". The kanji might be different though...
Anyway, I think Yumemaru should be left as is - after all, why translate the dog's name but none of the other characters? I think the -maru part suggests that Yumemaru is male though.
I'll go back and change it when I get a chance. My new life in Tokyo has proven to be quite busy, so I don't have much time for translation.