Hibisha | 27 | Doctor | Writer | Feel free to message me or ask me anything. I love creating radiodust scenarios & babbling about them till I'm forced to stop, so just send me the prompts!
Some language and translation trivia from episode nagi
So, I recently reread episode nagi 1-3 in japanese, and since I enjoy translation trivia a lot, I thought I would compile all my observations in a post. Please don’t take this too seriously! While I do have a language degree, I’m not a professional translator. In no way this is meant as a dig towards the professionals working on the official release! These are just some fun facts I thought I’d share.
without further ado, let’s delve into it!
On top of his already limited (kinda childish) vocabulary, Nagi’s speech bubbles often forgo complex kanji and favor writing the words out in hiragana. He sometimes does the same with (foreign) words that should be written out in katakana (example: Barou’s beloved “king”). We know this is a quirk of Nagi’s because he sometimes uses kanji for the same words. The most notable example is his favorite one, mendoukusai, “hassle”—mostly written in hiragana, sometimes shortened, sometimes elongated for dramatic, whiny emphasis, and rarely written out in kanji.
Since kanji are taught by grade in japanese schools, the foregoing them in a certain character’s lines can hint that the guy doesn’t have a higher education. However, in Nagi’s case, I think it’s meant to make him come across as unsophisticated or a bit childish. Or maybe just lazy. I think the former, though, considering how all his compliments always circle back to the same, like, 4 juvenile variations of "amazing".
(more under a cut for length):
Still on the topic of speech patterns, Nagi talks in plain form. For those who don't know what that means, it's an informal register, very common between teens. Nagi seems to use it with his elders, too, though, and that's a bit less common. You're supposed to talk in polite form to strangers and to your elders. Then again, pretty much everyone in blue lock talks that way. There's not a lot of respect for your elders in this series. Or for your peers, lol
As for Reo, he talks in male speech! Still very much informal and common, particularly between rowdy teens, but if plain form can still be acceptable in a lot of social situations, male speech is distinctly cocky, self-confident and impolite, so not what you'd expect from the distinguished heir of a billionaire who prides himself as a businessman in the making, ahah. He talks that way to Ego as well, btw.
Both of them tend not to use honorifics. Reo more so. In all three volumes, Reo used them once, to calm Nagi down while he was angry at Barou. Nagi mostly goes without too, but he sometimes uses them, when the situation calls for it, or a bit ironically. If you're curious, here's what I noticed: he uses "san" for Baa-ya when talking to her (when he leaves Choki in her care), but not when he's talking to Reo about her. He calls Zantetsu "dentist-san" when the latter drops his backstory, and "Zantetsu-kun" when the guy scores after listening to Reo's advice. And when all three finally link up, Nagi tacks on a "sama" to Reo's name while calling him a king (in the chess sense. Fun fact, it might or might not have been a pun, since Reo's name contains the kanji for king btw). That's pretty much it for epinagi so far. He just uses surnames without honorifics (or nicknames) for everyone else normally. Same for Reo.
When talking to Nagi, Reo refers to his mother as 母親 (hahaoya, "mom") and to his father as 親父 (oyaji, "old man, pops") and クソ親父 (kuso oyaji, "shitty old man") respectively. Idk if that changes when he's talking to them tho, as he hasn't yet in epinagi. But so far his contempt seems to be only directed at his father.
Upon seeing Kira, Reo describes him as "Japan's gem", but the word he uses for "gem" is 宝 (takara), treasure, pretty much the same he uses for Nagi (= 宝物 takaramono, or treasured thing, prized possession). Hence Nagi looking up, unimpressed:
To check out what the fuss was about. His face dhsvbdhdhdhsbs When Nagi thinks Reo's talking about Isagi, then, Reo corrects him by pointing his face toward Kira and saying not the dark-haired one, but that "really good looking guy". He calls him an ikemen btw, lmao.
I'm not sure if this was in the eng version too, but Reo calls Nagi and Zantetsu's team up the "neet combo". It's pretty self-explanatory how this relates to Nagi, but I wonder what about Zantetsu screamed "neet" to him.
When Zantetsu adamantly refuses to take Reo's advice, Reo gets super mad and calls him "obaka-sama", which. I can't with his pettiness ahah. Okay, let me explain. He's tacking on an honorific prefix ("o") and the highest honorific suffix ("sama") to an insult. 😂😂 Normally, you use honorifics to pay respect to and elevate the status of whatever or whoever you're tacking them on to. In this case, Reo's using them sarcastically, but he goes extra out of the way to be scathing. Zantetsu hates being called an idiot, but Reo feels he's acting unreasonable with his holier-than-thou attitude, so he upgrades his regular insult to mock that, basically. He's more or less saying, "oh great, revered moron".
Not a linguistic trivia, but. Nagi has a weekly planner for his bread eating habits. The day Reo joins his class to spy on him was a tuesday, cause tuesdays are melon bread days.
When he's making a confident remark, Reo occasionally speaks with a sing-song in his voice.
During the match against team X, Barou mocks Reo and Nagi's coordination and mutual dependence with a jab. He calls them a couple who wear matching outfits. Still laughing about this one tbh
now onto my favorite one
Ever wondered why Nagi’s response here doesn’t come across as reassuring to Reo? Well, I think I have finally figured it out!
While the translation above is 100% correct, I feel like the miscommunication lies in a matter of contextual ambiguity. When Reo says, quote, “You were supposed to team up with me,” in japanese it’s more like, “But teaming up with me is a must!” To which Nagi replies, “You and I are going to be the best in the world. That’s a must.”
The theme (=what is being talked about) of Reo’s sentence is the “must” (zettai) part. Meaning, something that is absolute, unconditional. Reo is making a conjecture, the assumption that they’ll work with each other as they promised, but he’s also implicitly expecting Nagi to agree. He’s saying our combo is the unchangeable condition here. You know this.
Nagi responds with something he means as reassuring, as a confirmation that he has their promise in mind. But since he echoes Reo’s word choice (zettai), and applies it to something else, it comes across wrong, more like he’s correcting Reo on what the “must” actually is. Not teaming up with each other until the end like Reo posits, but the simple agreement that they’ll be world class one day. With or without each other.
This miscommunication is made worse by the fact that Reo’s declared ego is making Nagi the best striker in the world. So when Nagi follows this with a remark about how their team up wasn’t the strongest, Reo of course takes the “correction” to mean “someone else can better help me become the best instead of you. bye. nice hanging out with you till now. see you at the world cup, xoxo”
Simply put, Nagi thought he was explaining himself, but what he got across was that he was rejecting Reo’s ego altogether and moving on. That’s why the art then shows Reo’s ego chains falling apart.
When Bachira asks Nagi if he’s secretly the “super cold type” right after leaving for the 3v3, in japanese it’s a neat, direct callback to the scene in chapter 2 where Nagi tells Reo he's okay with him teaming up with someone stronger than himself, and Reo calls that “heartless.” Both times the word used is the same, 薄情 (hakujou), cold-hearted, heartless, though iirc it was translated differently in english
They both say they feel lonely after their split up. Nagi in response to Bachira’s line as per the previous point (here’s a post I made about it a while back). And Reo when he thinks about Nagi’s change in chapter 13 and says he feels lonely, scared and weak. I will go down with the idea that they’re each other’s first friend.
Ending this on a less sad note, when Rin calls Bachira “bowlcut”, the original phrasing reads okappa, from the mythical creature’s hairstyle. Now please google what an okappa looks like, lmao
__
More epinagi language and translation trivia you might enjoy:
notes on Nagi’s line “I’m gonna say something selfish”
notes (and misconceptions) about Nagi and Reo calling each other “partner”
"I read a great Radiodust fic where it was a strictly BDSM relationship, which sure, had sexual undertones for Angel but was just about sadism and control for Allastor."
Saw this description of a fic on tiktok and was trying to find someone to help me find it with no luck. It's been weeks of me searching.
Hmmmm—- I can’t be too sure if this is the fic you’re talking about but it’s the one I remember reading because it’s so so good so here you go. If this isn’t it, let me know of any other details for the fic bc there’s a lot of bdsm fics between these two because they just work so well with that.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
@hibisha sent me a meme that I couldn’t NOT turn into a comic, she also wrote the hilarious last panel. Please gift her with a tribute of cola for her genius
Angel was unprepared for the battle he started haha
A massive thank you to my friend PARANOiD DJ for brainstorming with me and writing a large portion of the dialogue. Wouldn’t have been nearly as funny without his input XD
Congratulations to @hibisha
for winning the 2nd Prize in @/ContentChaos12’s Bingo Raffle! She requested a scene from her Serial Killer AU fic “Concede and Give In To Your Inner Demons”
It was a blast to work with her and ContentChaos!
Link to Hibi’s fic!! Check it out!!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24319234
Angel twisted in his seat to give his sister a panicked look, desperately tearing the veil off of his head, gripping the delicate fabric so tight that his claws almost tore through. His female counterpart responded with an exasperated look in turn, rolling her eyes affectionately as she took the veil from his hands and placed it back on his white fluffy head, fussing over it as she tried to set it in place.
“Tony, will ya just relax?” Happy with how it looked, Molly looked down and leaned in to cup his face in her palms, staring directly into his mismatched eyes and seeing the uncertainty hovering there. “When ya came to tell me your man had proposed to ya - Tony you were over the moon. I ain’t ever seen ya that happy. It's understandable ya getting cold feet now suga’ cuz I know it’s scary, tying yourself to one person forever. But ya gotta know how much he loves ya. Everyone can see it.”
“We keep fighting about the stupidest things.” Nervously fiddling with his dress, Angel bit his lower lip, eyes downcast. “This whole time: do we want lilies or carnations? Red or pink? So much. If we couldn’t handle even that, what's ta say he won’t bolt the minute we hit a slight hiccup? What if ten years down the lane he doesn’t love me anymore? What if he can’t stand ta look at me cuz he realized I don’t have much ya offer?”
“…you got all that from lilies and carnations?” Molly raised her eyebrow, both sets of her arms folded, looking dubious. “Seems a bit over dramatic if you ask me hun.”
“He also made boxed pasta last week, Molls. It’s like the man doesn’t even know me!” Angel waved his hand around looking agitated. “It was one of the worst things I’ve even seen him do. I had him sleep on the couch.” Snorting, Molly wrapped her arms around her twin, pulling him close so he could hide his face in her chest.
“The audacity! Tony, ya should have shanked him. He should be grateful he only got the couch!” Giggling, she stroked his hair. “But - I’m glad he takes care of you. Any idiot can see that he loves ya so much. And if he breaks your heart - well, ya know Niss has always been a tad bit trigger happy.” Wiping her eyes at the tears forming, she squeezed him tighter. “He’s a good one Angel. As good as they come in hell I guess. Though I gotta say, you sure do know how to pick em huh. A cannibalistic serial killer.” Angel laughed, a small sound but his shoulders were immediately set at ease.
“Thanks Molls.” Molly pulled away, beaming. “Now fix your dress hun. He’s waitin’ for ya at the altar and I’m pretty sure he’d burn the hotel down if he thought you were missing.” Molly took his hand and placed a soft kiss on his forehead, stepping back to look him over, tears starting to leak from the corner of her eyes as she stared at him. “Oh Tony, Ma would have been so happy to see ya like this.”
Angel quickly jumped to his feet, trying to ignore the pit growing in his stomach. Sharing one final hug between the two and they stepped out of the dressing room, walking over to the courtyard where everything was set up. Arackniss gave him one look and immediately looked away muttering but Angel was sure he saw a familiar emotion simmering in his eyes, and Angel could feel himself soar. Taking his brother’s arm, the two motioned for Molly to go take her place at the altar as Angel’s MOH. Once she was there, standing proud next to Cherri, they slowly made their way down the aisle themselves, Angel refusing to look at Alastor just yet.
The gasps around him were enough to let him know he looked stunning - something Angel already knew - but no one’s opinion mattered as much as Alastor’s and Angel was almost scared to raise his eyes. What was going on in that antlered head? Was he having second thoughts?
When he reached the front, his brother gently squeezed his arm and let him go. Angel raised his head, squaring his shoulder to face his husband-to-be.
Magenta pupils met widened red ones.
Alastor’s smile had disappeared- mouth parted slightly in surprise as he openly gaped at Angel. His ears twitched, an endearing habit that had Angel’s hand almost reach out to play with them. The music filtering through the speakers screeched to a halt, stations flickering as they reflected upon Alastor’s inner turmoil. One sharp elbow from Husk later, Alastor straightened up, a smile spreading across his face slowly.
“Oh darling, you look simply divine.”
And at that moment, Angel knew it was all going to be okay.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Alastor/Angel Dust
Additional Tags: this is a highly self indulgent fic, Minor Angst, Secret Relationship, Angel Dust Being Angel Dust, Angel Dust-Typical Sexual Content, Angel Dust Needs a Hug , Alastor is not an asshole in this AU, Soft Alastor, Fluff, Alastor works very hard, NSFW: Alastor's forearms are on display AGAIN
Summary:
No one said running a hotel and keeping it afloat would be an easy task. Alastor can feel the pressure slowly pressing down on him but luckily he doesn't have to shoulder the burden on his own - not anymore.
Preview:
Closing his eyes, he put his head down against the table top, exhaling softly.
A few moments wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Body going lax against his will, he missed how his shadows slowly flickered out existence, its chirping fading into blissful silence as his powers dulled down and his consciousness began to fade. Unwilling to put it back up, he strained his ears, trying to make out any stray callers around the hotel - even if it was quite past curfew and everyone was supposed to be in bed. Raising his head to squint at the clock, he winced as the clock stared back accusingly at him, flashing red.
1:15 am.
Ears twitching erratically, he yawned once more and put his head down, eyelids sliding shut.
