Talk:Kara no Kyoukai Collaboration Event/Free Quest/@comment-112.209.100.199-20160225070517/@comment-556400-20160228224144

Looking at the literal translation "original body," "body" can be interchanged with "shape" or "form" without changing the meaning much. "Original form" or "original shape" are broader in scope, but as the name of the enemy we see in the game, it has the same meaning.

"Precursor" is a more specific version of "original," meaning "the thing that came before." "Original" can also imply "unique" or "first," which may or may not be the intent behind 素, a word that can also be translated as "source, base, elementary." "Precursor" fits more specifically to those meanings than "original" does.

If we want to integrate the KnK story as well, it makes more sense in the context of the magical experiments for the articulate enemies to not actually be "original bodies" but rather the first experimental bodies that successfully moved or were able to be controlled. In that sense, "precursor" is more apt.

One other thought process that no one has mentioned is that the translation of "original" is actually for 元, for which 素 is an alternate reading; 素 does not directly mean "original" in modern Japanese. If we look at the common meaning of the sole kanji 素, that can mean "raw, plain, simple." If we go down this road, there are a ton of other alternate translations/localizations we could arrive at. "Pristine body," "model of humanity," "unused mass"... that's without even really thinking about it.

In the end, I went with a flaired-up version of "original body." Again, I disagree with using "puppet" at all since the common Japanese words for "puppet" specifically carry the meaning of "not-human" or "human shape," something 素体 does not adhere to.