Groucho Translator

This piece of equipment belongs to Mantisian, who uses it to make sense of speech he cannot otherwise understand. Its single famous use comes when Bamora, an alien girl, needs her words turned into something the others can follow. The device debuts in the manga during the encounter at Mantisian's farm.

Shaped after the gag novelty known as Groucho glasses, the translator carries oversized brows, a bulging nose, a thick moustache, and a set of false lips. Whoever speaks an unfamiliar language wears it on the face. From there the gadget runs a forceful comparison routine, matching the spoken sounds against a stored library of countless alien dialects and similar-sounding terms until it forces out an approximate meaning.

Okarun, Jiji, and Kinta bring Bamora to Mantisian's farm hoping he can identify her, since she is an alien like him. Mantisian admits he has never met her kind, then fits the comical mask onto her, a sight that sends Jiji and Kinta into laughter. The strained output eventually conveys that she traveled to Earth to fight a strong opponent, with marriage as the price of losing. Bamora insists Okarun beat that foe and is now her husband, though Kinta argues he landed the real blow. When Okarun asks for a translator of his own, Mantisian says he has none and must return to work before tinkering with the device further.