Over-analyzing things simply takes me back to my Evangelion fanboy days.
Just my neuroticism with overanalysing things.
Yeah, he probably just figured it was too weird to have the player call Crono by her first name. Sorry you obsessed over the translation though.
Maybe the translator thought it seemed unpersonal since you are C(h)rono and would not call her by her name. But that saved me some hours not to lament about how she probably was meant as Jina ... damnit, I still did.
That's interesting they kept her name in the Japanese version but not in the English. Especially since it could have easily been changed to Gina.
God, I am so stupid! I read Jina's name in that guide but have the Japanese version in my shelf but did not remember that the game actually uses the name! Well, still no answer to "is it Jina with J for us foreigners intended?" (but I still think it is) but it shows that I definitely have not played the original often enough for my taste. NOW of course some "huh, seems familiar" rings.
Yeah, you can really see some of his other creations through his designs of the CT cast. Lucca looks like a grown up Arale and you can easily see the Piccolo influence in Magus's design.
It would be more obvious if they actually took the kanji for hour but we know by now that they love their little naming games (and by taking a real kanji the name would be way more complex than by just taking katakana but as said, for naming puns and all that the way they did it would be fine - and even if it was not meant we still have Gina as normal female name). So I don't think it is far off. It would be easier if they had her name written out somewhere but I think we won't ever see the name of such an NPC in with our letters in a guide or manual. I also think Jiiru's name is interesting. Funnily enough it also is a mother that starts with "Ji" (but well, she has no child that has a time-related name). Zeal or Zhyle or one of the other Western versions never made any real sense to me except if they wanted to made some sort of allusion to "Seal" or "Sea" which would made kinda sense with the whole Ancient era, the Palace, Machine and Lavos. But since I know Akira Toriyama has named his characters names like "Gine" for Goku's which is a syllable swap of Negi or Saiya-jin which is a syllable swap of Yasai(-jin) with Yasai meaning Vegetable and Tsufuru-jin for Furutsu(-jin) for Fruitsu to make the Vegetable and Fruits people I think it could be some attempt of Jiiru being an allusion to the "Luci" (not Japanese though) for light. It would be a bit odd because it makes use of a katakana that I would not necessarily use but as a pun and allusion it could still be okay. Freeza is also not written in Japanese like Freezer. And I so love Marl's outfit. It is almost 100% a copy of Bulma's desert outfit in Dragon Ball vol. 2.
Forgot about the Two-faced god aspect of Janus. My Greco-Roman mythology knowledge is pretty rusty these days. Yeah I remember reading about Marle's name changes from the Japanese and how it was meant to be a short version of her full name. I find it amusing that the English translation kind of split the difference and just made the first half of her name the fake and her "real name" was a redone version of the back half of her Japanese name. Honestly the localization for this game was always amusing to me. The translation for Crono's mom's name is intriguing too. Thanks for clearing that up.
I am actually pretty sure Maou's English new Enlightened name (at least Maou returned later as title Fiendlord) comes from the fact that he lives two lifes. You know. The Janus Twinface. Yeah, I bought the Japanese walkthrough for 9 Euros. Unfortunately the names are not in the Japanese manual and Jina's/Gina's name is not written out in our letters so I translated it. But hey, at least they wrote Chrono, Marl, Lucca, Eira, Kaeru, Robo and Maoh. It also never knew until years later that Marl(e)'s abbreviation and nickname comes from the fact that her name is not Nadia but Marledia. What is cool in the original is that the Geno Dome is called Genocidome. It puts more emphasis on how the AI is another Agent Smith super killer AI. If I had to choose without actual evidence I would see the game as evidence enough and I would say her name is Jina and not meant as Gina. Ji (the specific Kanji though so they would take creative freedom by just thinking of the syllable of the katakana) means hour or time.
