Board Thread:Naruto News/@comment-945885-20160324191641/@comment-945885-20160324215526

Michita tsuki is obviously being used as a metaphor for Mitsuki. It's more poetic than using 満月（まんげつ）, which completely eliminates the homophonic connection to ミツキ. Granted, using mangetsu would still be a pun on his name, but this way furigana even clearly spells mitsuki:

I also doubt that the similarity between 満ちた月 (michita tsuki, "full moon") and 花つ月 (hanatsuzuki, "scarlet spring") is a coincidence. In addition to both having five syllables and ending with 月, they both convey a sense of "coming-of-age" for the respective characters.

You could translate it as "waxing moon," I suppose, but that doesn't quite convey the same meaning, as that describes the entire cycle from new moon to full moon, whereas michita tsuki is more like "the moon becoming full." If that makes sense.

Personally, I translated it the way I did because I assume it's going to be localized in a similar way, and I prefer to use whatever is official. Also, to a certain extent, I also feel like the connection between "Full Moon" and "Mitsuki" is already tenuous, as the act of translation inherently obfuscates the obvious connection between the phrase and his name; you'd have to know what the name Mitsuki means to get it. To further obfuscate it by changing it to "Waxing Moon" seems a step too far.

Edit: Oh, also, at first glance I thought what Mitsuki said in that bottom right panel seemed a bit familiar, so I double checked and, yeah...

http://i.imgur.com/gPBgE3N.png