A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

Since I have been parted from my laptop and must post from a cafe without my library, I need some help!

1. Someone had a post ages ago analyzing the kanji meanings of the names of all the characters in Bleach and their phallic symbols zanpaku-to. Link, please?

2. Can someone create vaguely plausible names for two characters whose kanji could be read as "vegetable of the ocean" and "related to the/in the family of the sea bream (tai)/any other fish?" They could use non-standard kanji or non-standard readings, ie, one actual character's name is Uryuu (rain dragon) which is clearly unusual, as Ichigo initially reads it as "Ametatsu." Could be surname and given name or just surname.

3. Tite Kubo had some cool-sounding chapter title like "Rosa Rubicundor" which supposedly meant "Ruby Rose" in Latin, or something like that. I am not getting the same result when I use an online Latin translator. Can someone provide cool-sounding Latin that means, more or less, the following phrases (cool-sounding is more important than absolute accuracy):

Night of Fire, Day of the Dead

Red as Ruby, Dark as Night

Festival's End

Festival of Spirits

I fled to a Borders with an attached Starbucks, and decided to browse and read manga until the weather got less cold and wet, as all my other plans involved a great deal of outdoorsiness.

I just spent the entire day in Borders. I have now read through volume 6 of Blade of the Immortal by Hiroaki Samura.Bautiful smudgy-pencil art, somewhat in the tradition of Lone Wolf and Cub (so is the story, come to think of it) but even better, or at least even more to my taste.

Last night I had some lovely flaky fried fish and soggy chips. The waitress asked me if I wanted "mushy peas" to go with it. My God! I thought, they do that on purpose! How horrible!

"Don't like the mushy peas," said the waitress wisely, before I could respond verbally.

I have been watching some of the Naruto anime that telophase was kind enough to send me before I left, and have some non-spoilery thoughts regarding language.

1. Apparently "Kakashi" is the best name ever to say in slow and gloating tones. It sounds really great when spoken that way, which is why all the villains who confront him tend to have dialogue like this: "So, Kakashi... I have found you at last... Kakashi... Heh heh heh."

2. Does "dattebayo" or "-te bayo," which Naruto uses so much, literally mean anything? Does anyone ever use it in real life, or is it purely a made-up character thing? It reminds me of Chichiri's "no da," which I think does have some sort of meaning but is basically just a speech tic. (Last night while at ish and chips the young Japanese woman at the next table, who was talking on her cell phone, ended half her sentences with "da yo!" It sounded similar enough (and her voice was pitched a bit similarly to Naruto's) that it really startled me for a moment.)

3. I had a 3, but I seem to have forgotten it. Hmm. Perhaps that Orochimaru sounds even creepier and more pedophilic when he has an audible voice than he did in the manga.

4. I think my all-time favorite of Kakasshi's lateness excusesis, "I got lost while walking the road of life."

ETA 5. I remembered 3! That thing Shikamaru says, "mendokusei," that gets variously translated as "how bothersome," "what a pain," etc. Is there a literal meaning?

I have been practicing my reading on a copy of the manga Saiyuki number five, which is not yet available in English. Most of it is an extended flashback to the first meeting of Hakkai and Gojyo, and how the two of them met Sanzo and Goku.

This entry http://www.livejournal.com/users/coffee_and_ink/382363.html?mode=reply from Mely's journal prompted me to write this entry, which may be thoroughly boring for anyone not interested in the Japanese language and/or my current obsession, the manga and anime Saiyuki. But I came across a certain bit that I thought was an interesting example of how translations are made, as it's obviously quite colloquial and funny, and it so happens that I have two different translations of it in addition to the original.

All the same...

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Anyway, this gives me a lot of respect for translators.