If that's the case, then it's silly anyway; "pain spoon?" Lol, I get that the gimmick with the name might be cooler for a native Japanese speaker but for us English speakers it's just lame. I've been disappointed a lot recently with attack/ability names ("spit innocently," "flower selecting," "garbage attack")
It's not just a 'gimmick', it's (1) an opportunity for Japanese speakers to pick up English phrases and learn a second language, and (2) an opportunity to break the language barrier at high-level organized play [that mistranslations like this undermine].
On point (1), I'll note that despite hundreds – if not thousands – of attacks in the Japanese TCG being phonetic English, we haven't really seen the English language TCG attempt this at all? On the contrary, in fact – when Japan's Generation 6 cards had the gimmick of M Pokémon EX having the Japanese attack name complimented by the English spelling in the art of the card, the English edition undermined this by changing many of the attack names anyways. The JP cards act as sorts of "Rosetta stones" for learning some English phrases and even characters, the lack of consistency with how the EN TCG meant you're probably not learning anything.
For the Japanese, the Japanese video games improved their Japanese vocabulary, and the Japanese TCG went on to teach them some English here and there. For English speakers, the English video games did help improve many players' English vocabulary, but the EN TCG hasn't done anything to help anyone pick up many – any? – Japanese words.
(2) Imagine being a Japanese player at Worlds who happens to use a card like this Alakazam in a deck and is matched up against an English player, or are matched up against an English player using the card. Wouldn't it become noticeably bizarre that how you understand the attack to be named – in English, as "Pain Spoon" – is contrary to how the person you're playing against?
"Painful Spoons"? Where is the "ful" coming from? Wait, ペインスプーン is plural? Did I misread one of the kana? Huh.
Is there any purpose to this kind of deliberate mistranslation?
Put another way: even Japanese players in the 10-and-under division all, by manner of how ubiquitous phonetic English is in the Japanese TCG, have picked up some baseline English vocabulary and pronunciation. On the other hand, there are probably many English players in the Masters division who can't speak any Japanese beyond the 'konnichiwa' and 'sayonara' they've picked up from outside of playing the
Pokémon Trading Card Game, a fundamentally Japanese product.
Looking into the attacks you mentioned;
Spit Innocently is originally おとぼけスピット, but it's more pretending you're innocent/don't know what you're doing, than being innocent. Like "oh sorry I was spitting and didn't notice you there I didn't meant to hit you except yes I did haha". This wouldn't really be anything to get up in arms about as such, since it's not something you could readily translate into a snappy attack name for the English TCG.
Flower Selecting is originally はなえらび. This translation also seems fine.
Garbage Attack is the correct transliteration of ガベージアタック.
Silver Tempest releases in the...
