You will find here all the links to the subtitle files for each episode along with the various translation notes and other useful info.
Fansub group introduction
Here’s where we got the video files we used to make the fansub: [link]
The subtitle files should also work with other raw files if they share the same timing.
Download the srt files to your computer. If you keep them in the same folder as your video files and make sure that both file types have the same names (except for the file extensions, of course), most video players should attach the subtitles automatically. For example, if your video file is called “episode 4.mp4” and your subtitle file is called “episode 4.srt,” opening the video should cause the subtitles to appear without requiring any additional steps. If this doesn't work, your video player should have a subtitle menu where you can add a file manually.
We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites. Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible--we put a lot of time and effort into this.
Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged
Links to posts:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Opening Theme Lyrics
Translation notes on the entire season
We also have a transcript document containing all of our subtitles for every episode in season 3. Towel put it together for meta-writing purposes. We'd be happy to share this transcript on request if anyone else thinks it would be useful.
Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 6 Eng Sub
VS SHOOTING and VS FALLING IN LOVE
It's the season 3 finale!
For downloading instructions and where to find the raw files, please check our masterpost.
[Subs link]
We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites.
Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible—we put a lot of time and effort into this.
Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged.
This is the final episode of this season! We're both going to miss working on this project. When it comes to plans for the future, we're still figuring that part out, but rest assured that we'll keep everyone posted here if we have another project in the works. For the moment, we once again want to thank everyone who has spread the word or had a kind word for us in the tags and elsewhere.
Big big thanks to our pal @my-rose-tinted-glasses for letting us make use of her talents and helping our posts and translation notes look special.
translation notes:
about “acknowledge the way I feel” (20:27)
The first, more literal translation of this line, which Hatano says on the bridge, was, “Can you accept my feelings?” That line definitely gets something across, but I knew we’d be leaving it open to varied interpretations–some of them inaccurate–if we didn’t make it more specific. I might go a little overboard in the specificity department sometimes. I think it’s probably due to a combination of my ADHD-related quirks and having spent too much time picking apart variables as a researcher. Whatever the reason, this time I was kind of in overdrive because this line seemed pretty important.
I asked Snow some questions about what “accept” meant in this instance. In English–and in the American cultural context I’m used to–there are lots of specific ways to talk about a situation like this one. Someone in Hatano’s position in the US would have a plethora of options for inquiring about Mob’s thoughts and emotions and/or making requests about how he might respond to their feelings. Is Hatano asking Mob to simply believe that he has these feelings about him? To let him show these feelings toward him openly, even if he only allows this passively, without offering anything in return? To receive them in a way that implies he returns them or that otherwise implies some degree of connection between them? And so on.
I was expecting cultural differences to come up around this line, but they came up in a way I wasn’t expecting. Snow responded by telling me that there wasn’t a really specific meaning behind the Japanese wording of this line and that that was characteristic of the Japanese language around such things. I knew that I was more intense than the average American about wanting to pinpoint the meanings of things, but it would seem that the average American is more intense about it than the average Japanese person.
That was a really interesting insight (one that I’m still thinking about), but it still left me with a conundrum when it came to this line. I could stick with “accept,” since it had a kind of vagueness to it (which was part of the reason I started trying to reword the line in the first place). But I thought “accepting” feelings sounded closer than I’d like to possibly reciprocating them, and I knew from my conversation with Snow that that shouldn’t be implied here.
I started looking at thesaurus entries and going down different synonym paths. I wanted a word that, in its broadest sense, would be asking very little of the other person. I figured if the Japanese wording was open to being interpreted as either asking for very little or asking for more, then the English wording should be something that could at least be taken as not asking for much, because the implication that Hatano wants more than that from Mob is already clearly present.
When I came across “acknowledge,” it fit the bill. At first, I just thought of its meaning on a smaller scale. It’s not much to ask of someone to simply acknowledge something, in most contexts.
But after just a little bit of thought, I realized it also had a useful kind of vagueness. Acknowledgement can be as small as a barely perceptible nod, but it’s also used to talk about thanking someone, giving credit, commending or honoring someone, even giving someone a reward. In a romantic context, depending on the specific story, you could imagine “acknowledge” meaning anything from “yeah, I see you over there” all the way to someone’s devotion being rewarded in all the ways they’ve hoped for.
Some of these uses are more of a stretch and would only work in just the right context. The default meaning of the word is clearly on the more modest side. But that works well, too. I took this request as coming from a pretty humble, unassuming place and I figured “acknowledge” was reflective of that.
I ended up being really happy with this word choice. Hopefully, it’ll get the right idea across to folks who watch the show with our subtitles, even if they don’t read this translation note. But I hope that reading this gets it across even more effectively.–Towel
Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 5 Eng Sub
VS THE START OF A ROMANCE and VS HELPING
For downloading instructions and where to find the raw files, please check our masterpost.
[Subs link]
We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites.
Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible—we put a lot of time and effort into this.
Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged.
Thank you so much, as always, to everyone who has left nice comments in the tags and such. Y'all really make the hard work we put into this worthwhile!
And big big thanks to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for gifs and spreading the word about the fansub.
translation notes:
About “naresome”
As tends to happen when translating Japanese, this is one of those words that don’t exist in English. Its literal translation is “the start of a romance.” So, while we’ve chosen to translate it as “get together,” it would be more accurate to give a more extensive explanation. It is a noun that specifically refers to the moment that love begins. So when we’re talking about “naresome” we’re talking about the thing or situation that triggered the romantic relationship or romantic feelings.–Snow
about casting Tominaga Yuya as a guy who gets busy when it rains
I think this is another tokusatsu Easter egg. Tominaga Yuya, who plays Jouji in the “Vs. The Start of a Relationship” chapter, was also on Avataro Sentai DonBrothers, a Super Sentai series that ran from 2022 to 2023. His character, Sonoi, was the agent of a culture from another plane of existence whose members feed off of the brainwaves of human beings. At first, he and his associates Sonoza and Sononi were enemies of the DonBrothers, but they eventually joined forces with the Sentai. A big reason this happened was that Sonoi had a special connection to the leader of the DonBrothers, Momoi Tarou. Their relationship reads as pretty darned queer to a lot of viewers, myself included.
Momoi Tarou and Sonoi bonding, before they found out they were nemeses
Many JBL fans know Higuchi Kouhei from My Personal Weatherman/Taikan Yoho, in which he played the titular meteorologist, Segasaki. Part of the premise of that series is that at the start of the story, Higuchi’s character only has sex with his partner on sunny days. Jouji, Tominaga’s Zettai BL character, does the opposite: he and his “sex friend” only do it on rainy days.
Basically, the writers of Zettai BL 3 have made Higuchi’s toku boyfriend’s story into a reverse Taikan Yoho situation. What are the odds that’s just a coincidence?–Towel
Also, he gets his own “Zettai BL” title card moment (and he’s the only one out of the secondary cast who get to have that).–Snow
That’s right!
I’m going to put this in context a little because I’ve given a lot of thought (probably too much) to who’s been featured in the opening credits of the different Zettai BL seasons. For every season of the show so far, Inukai Atsuhiro has had four other actors perform with him in the opening theme dance number. (All of whom also get a crack at some of those title card moments.) For two seasons, three of the four spots were taken up by Yutaro (Ayato), Shiono Akihisa (Toujou), and Itou Asahi (Kikuchi). The fourth spot was taken up by different actors in the first two seasons. It was the guy who played the attractive dude from the goukon in the first season, and it was Izuka Kenta, who played Kikuchi’s ex Igarashi, in the second.
This time around, I had hoped that Sekoguchi Ryo would take the fourth spot, because he’s my blorbo and of course I wanted to see him in a retro dance number (boy was that wish ever granted!). But I hadn’t expected Shiono not to appear this time. Maybe there were specific reasons for this, like a scheduling conflict or an injury. It’s not like Shiono appears less in season 3 than he did in the others, so that’s not the reason. It’s hard to say. But in that context, it seems even more significant that they gave a spot to Tominaga Yuya. We don’t know the reasons for this. But it’s possible they featured him more heavily in this way because of his tokusatsu backstory and the inside joke it allowed them to make.–Towel
about “pudding relationship” and “prince and princess”
This part was tricky to translate. As you might have noticed by this point, Mob likes to make puns. In Japanese, pudding is written as “purin” and it is used to refer to pudding as well as custard. Mob goes on to follow with “prince and princess”, which in Japanese are pronounced as “purinsu” and “purinsesu”. In here, there’s wordplay with these similar sounding words and the image of the ToujouAyato couple.–Snow
about “cuteness overload”
Japanese is a language that uses a lot of onomatopoeia. There’s 4 types, iirc: animal sounds, object sounds (like rain, creaking and the like), things that don’t make noise (smiles, stares, silence, etc), verbs turned onomatopoeia (I unfortunately cannot remember this properly but it was something like that). In this case, Mob says “Kyun ga tomaranai” (which literally means “the kyun can’t be stopped”). “Kyun” is an onomatopoeic word to refer to a “momentary tightening of one's chest caused by powerful feelings,” usually tied to a romantic context but not exclusively. Taking this into account, we thought “cuteness overload” might be the closest expression in English.–Snow
It’s worth noting that Mob is also saying “kyun” right after the “cuteness overload” line. I really thought at first that he was saying “cute,” since it sounds so similar, it would make a lot of sense contextually, and English loan words are so common in Japanese. But no, it was “kyun.” There was no way we could get across the meaning of “kyun” in one or two syllables of English, so we went with “adorbs,” which is just another word for “cute,” but at least it has a cutesy pronunciation that steps it up a notch.–Towel
about bouhan buzzers (16:06)
The translation note shown onscreen during this scene reads: “a bouhan buzzer is a security gadget carried by Japanese schoolchildren.” We did our best to summarize the meaning of this term briefly, so that it would be readable in the amount of time it was possible for us to keep that caption onscreen. But here’s a longer explanation for those who might be curious.
It took a while for me to understand what these things were. At first I pictured something like a hand buzzer–the kind that people used to use to prank people. But it’s nothing like that. They’re sometimes referred to as “personal security alarms.” They’re little doodads that you can clip onto a backpack or carry in your pocket, and if you activate them (the most common mechanism for which seems to be pulling some kind of tab or string), they make some form of alarm-type sound. I found a video, below, that shows someone activating two different types of buzzers, showing the sound they make.
These two make the same sort of beeping/chirping noises you’d associate with an alarm protecting a car or the entrance to a building–not really a “buzzing” sound, or anything that resembles the sound Mr. Cheerleader makes in this scene. But maybe there are other types that are more buzz-like, or sound more like the sound our buddy is imitating.
According to some things I read when I looked these up, children often play with their bouhan buzzers, making it somewhat less likely that people will be on alert when they hear them go off. I don’t think I could have resisted setting off a gadget like this if I’d had one as a child. They seem to be available with all sorts of characters on them and in all sorts of colors and shapes, which is cool but might make them seem even more toy-like.
From what I’ve seen, these things are most commonly used by children, but adults sometimes use them too. If you look for them for sale online, there are more adult-looking versions available (say, a rose-gold blob instead of something with cute characters on it–though of course, adults might want those too). One listing I saw advertised that they’re useful for kids, women, and the elderly.–Towel
Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 4 Eng Sub
VS SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS and VS SCHOOL FESTIVAL
For downloading instructions and where to find the raw files, please check our masterpost.
[Subs link]
We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites.
Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible—we put a lot of time and effort into this.
Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged.
We'd like to thank everyone who has left messages in the tags and elsewhere who've had nice things to say about the fansub. We'd particularly like to thank @respectthepetty for some especially kind praise. Every word of encouragement is deeply appreciated!
And big thanks to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for gifs! We’re so lucky to be able to benefit from your skills.
translation notes:
about “konpuraiansu” (4:28)
This was a tricky situation because Japanese uses an English loan word, compliance/konpurainsu, in a way that has a really different connotation from the way that word is usually used in English. It usually makes sense to translate Japanese words that are loan words from English as the same English word in a subtitle. But in this case, it didn’t really mean the same thing.
Personally, when I think of the meaning of “compliance,” I think about bureaucratic systems of rules. Before grad school, I worked for a number of years in admin positions at a large university. Every year we would have to do “compliance training,” which mostly involved reading interminable powerpoint presentations and answering quiz questions about them. They were about things like using a strong password or not accepting gifts worth more than a certain amount of money. Not exactly the same type of thing Mob alludes to here.
From what I gather, in Japanese “compliance” means something more like acting in accordance with social mores. English really doesn’t have a word that gets this idea across, as far as I’m aware. Thankfully, we do have a number of ways of talking about social norms.
Another factor that complicated the task of translating Mob’s observation about contemporary teenagers is that the literal translation was that they are “too conscious of compliance.” This also wouldn’t be a typical way to use “conscious” in English. So I ran some replacement word options past Snow that described various ways in which a person might be too aware of or focused on something, and we landed on “preoccupied.” The line then became, “Aren’t high schoolers these days too preoccupied with social expectations?” (Correspondingly, the title of the segment became "Vs Social Expectations.")
In my conversation with Snow about this line, I also learned about some cultural context for this line that I hadn’t been aware of before. She explained that it was related to the Japanese word seishun, which basically means “the spring of youth.” Apparently, the literal meaning is “blue spring.” Part of the idea of seishun is that when you’re young, you can act in an impulsive, passionate way that flouts societal rules because you aren’t as aware of the rules and/or as concerned with the approval of others as a proper adult would be. Thus, if adolescents are excessively worried about adhering to social norms, it’s like they’re wasting the opportunity to enjoy a kind of freedom that won’t be available to them later in life.
This theme continues when Mob chases after Hatano and his parents see them running from below. Not recognizing Mob, his mother comments on the “energetic young men” they see. When they each mention “the spring of youth” (starting at the 5:46 mark), they’re saying “seishun.”–Towel
about “when I’m 20” (4:39)
You might think, from this line, that Hatano is saying he’ll confess to Mob again when he’s 20 because that’s when they’ll be legally able to date. That’s what I presumed when I first heard it. But there’s actually no legal reason why Mob couldn’t date Hatano if he wanted to. Hatano’s dramatic daydream about Mob being handcuffed in a jail cell aside, it’s actually not illegal for someone in their early 20s–or any adult, for that matter–to date or have sex with a 17-year-old in Japan. Actually, when I looked up age of consent laws in Japan I was surprised to learn that the age of consent was only raised to 16 a year ago and that prior to that, it was 13! But of course, laws are one thing and social norms are another. If Hatano wants to date Mob openly without fear of being judged, criticized, or snubbed–or, perhaps more importantly, without fear of inflicting that sort of treatment on his beloved Mob–he’ll have to wait until he’s an adult in a social sense. Snow explained to me that traditionally, this happens when a person turns 20. Apparently 20 was also the legal age of adulthood for a long time, and it remains in place for some purposes (for example, the legal drinking age in Japan is 20). But even though many laws have changed, the idea that 20 is the age when someone becomes an adult in a social sense remains.–Towel
about “if I keep on believing” (9:09)
Here’s a little Easter egg. I was finalizing the lines Haruhiko speaks here when I noticed something–they were already very close to the lyrics of a song from the Disney movie version of Cinderella called “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes.” I haven’t seen Disney’s Cinderella very many times, but my sister sang this song at a school recital in fourth grade, so the lyrics got burned into my brain. The part in question goes like this:
No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
The dream that you wish will come true
This part of Haruhiko’s dialogue was already really close to these lyrics, so I exchanged a few words (no change to the meaning, just switching out synonyms) to get it even closer. Here’s what his lines look like if I arrange them to match up with the song lyrics:
No matter how sad I feel now
If I keep on believing
My dream will definitely come true someday
Not the same, but kind of a remarkable resemblance, all things considered.–Towel
blackboard writing (16:44 and 18:20)
At a couple of points during the scene in Mob's university classroom, there's writing on the blackboard at the front of the room. Snow translated what was written there, but there was no way to fit that translation in the subtitles. The information given there wasn't so crucial that this posed a big problem. But it's interesting enough to be worth including here.
At 16:44, the writing on the blackboard says:
School festival play:
Momotaro
Cinderella - 26 votes
King Lear
Yotsuya Kaidan
Prison Break - 1 vote
101 Dalmatians
Toyama no Kin san
Planet of the Apes
24 - 1 vote
This is clearly a list of ideas for what story to base the class play on, along with the number of votes each idea received.
At 18:20, it says:
Cinderella:
Cinderella
Prince - Ouji
Stepmother
Stepsister 1
Stepsister 2
This is clearly a list of roles, only one of which has been assigned so far--the role of the Prince, given to Ouji.
about Mob’s horse sounds (19:24)
This might be a bit excessive, and it’s certainly an example of my perfectionism. But when I got to the part of this episode where Mob starts making horse sounds, it didn’t seem sufficient to just caption it “horse sounds.” I knew there were some specific terms for the sounds horses make, and I had heard of some of them, but I didn’t know their exact meanings. I went looking around for resources and finally found a really good youtube video that explained a bunch of different noises horses make and what they mean. In the end, the only new term I needed was “nickering.” When he’s not neighing or saying “gallop gallop,” Mob is nickering. The person who made the horse sounds video had an amazing quote about this type of horse sound–they described nickering as “a melodic symphony in the equine lexicon.” I’m guessing that other people watching the show with our subtitles mostly won’t already know the exact meaning of “nickering” either, so maybe I shouldn’t have bothered. But I like getting the specifics of things right. And who knows, maybe a horse enthusiast or two will watch this and appreciate the accuracy.–Towel
If you'd like to hear some examples of real horses nickering, or hear the narrator of this video wax rhapsodic about horse vocalizations, here's the video I mentioned:
Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 3 Eng Sub
VS CONFESSION and VS CUPID
For downloading instructions and where to find the raw files please check our masterpost
[Subs link]
We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites.
Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible--we put a lot of time and effort into this.
Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged.
Thanks so much to everyone interacting with our fansub posts and leaving appreciative comments in the tags! It’s super motivating for us and makes all the effort worth it.
And big thanks to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for gifs! We’re so lucky to be able to benefit from your skills.
translation notes:
about “suki” vs. “tsuki” (3:32)
This is explained in a brief translation note in the subtitles, and there isn’t a ton left to say about it that wasn’t stated there. But due to the amount of dialogue happening in this scene, we had to keep the note as short as possible and we weren’t able to keep it onscreen for very long, so it still bears mentioning here.
In Japanese, the words “suki” and “tsuki” sound quite similar. “Suki,” as a lot of BL viewers know, means “like” or “liking,” whereas “tsuki” means “moon.” Hatano is saying “suki desu” to Mob, which in this context means he’s basically declaring his love for him. Mob is using the resemblance between “suki” and “tsuki” to pretend that he thinks Hatano said something to him about the moon. Then he uses the English word “moon” a couple of times, seemingly to ensure that Hatano won’t be able to turn around and take his “tsuki” as “suki.”
As Mob says, usually a maneuver like this would make the person declaring their feelings get so self-conscious that they’d back off. But Hatano’s not a typical suitor, as Mob soon learns.–Towel
about “perfect match” (15:31)
I mentioned in our translation note about episode 1 that the red and blue beams that shoot out of Mob’s eyes seemed like a reference to his character from Kamen Rider Build. This time, I kind of made my own Easter egg about that show.
I mentioned before that Inukai Atsuhiro played the main Rider–and title character–on Kamen Rider Build. Kamen Riders always have some kind of transformation item, sometimes with interchangeable components. They're typically some kind of object attached to a belt, sort of like a massive buckle, that you can put smaller items into. The components that Build (a.k.a. Kiryu Sento) used at first (and to an extent, later in the series) involved “bottles” that were each named after some kind of object or animal. He would use two at a time, and the resulting juxtaposition (e.g. RabbitTank) would be reflected in his suit form somehow. But not every combination of bottles worked together, and some resulted in more effective suit forms than others. When Sento found a really good combination, his transformation device would designate it a “best match.” A “best match” resulted in more strength and more effective abilities to fight villains.
Sento showing Banjou how best matches work
The phrase “best match” didn’t exactly fit here. But when I was polishing up this line and the word “match” came to mind, I felt like I had to at least try to word it in a way that would allow me to say something reminiscent of it--hence "perfect match." I hope some Build fans will recognize the sorta-reference!–Towel
Banjou annoying Sento by guessing a best match combination on his first try
Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 2 Eng Sub
VS SMELLS and VS AGE GAP RELATIONSHIPS
For downloading instructions and where to find the raw files please check our masterpost
Subs link
We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites.
Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible--we put a lot of time and effort into this.
Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged.
translation notes:
about Fish Cake Man (7:28)
As we state in the subtitles, this guy’s monologue isn’t something we’re equipped to translate and if we did, it probably wouldn’t make much, if any, sense to English-speaking viewers. We learned from Snow’s Japanese friend that he's a comedian who is famous for doing this particular bit. After we had already finished most of the subtitles, I rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of the show and found that he was also in the other two seasons. In the first season, when Mob is explaining about how he's a side character and intends to keep it that way, he looks at a gardener on his university campus who is pulling weeds, illustrating that the world of BL needs to include some people who are unlikely to ever become main characters. That’s this dude. He appears again in season 2, when Mob is scouring the university for signs of Kikuchi after reading his goodbye letter. In every appearance, he's shown wearing the same sort of nondescript work clothes and cap and seems to work in some kind of maintenance or cleaning capacity at National BL University. –Towel
His name is Nou Misoo (脳みそ夫) which means brain tissue. I believe there's a pun here I'm missing but you can check out his sillyness on youtube, instagram or tiktok. –Snow
about “the gods decided to smite me” (10:24)
The first version of this line said that Mob “received divine punishment” for his Mob Move. That was already a great line! But I thought it had the potential to be a little more specific and evocative in an English-speaking context. At first, I was just trying to think of something a bit more specific to replace “received.” I thought of a few possibilities, including “I was smitten by divine punishment.” But since “smitten” is barely used anymore except to describe someone who's in love, it had the wrong connotation. Then I thought about how another tense of the same verb, “smite,” avoids those connotations and has a kind of King James Bible quality. But if I was going to say “smite,” I’d have to change the sentence from passive voice to active voice (which is generally best anyway) and give the sentence a subject who is doing the smiting.
I thought a unitary, capital-G God would make it sound a little too Biblical, possibly tipping it over into sounding overtly Christian. I knew that some religious traditions practiced in Japan, like Shintoism, included multiple gods. So I tried “the gods decided to smite me.” This seemed to balance out the Old Testament-ish aspect of “smite” a bit. The end result seemed more vivid than the earlier version, and it seemed like something Mob would say.–Towel
about “select shop” (11:30)
Observant English speakers might notice that when the guy who used the same shampoo as Mob talks about where he got it, he uses a term made up of English loan words. He says he bought it at a “serekuto shoppu" (in English, a "select shop"). While both parts of the word are borrowed from English, the term you get when you put them together isn’t commonly used in the US. I ended up replacing it with “boutique,” which gets across some of the meaning. But I’ll explain in more detail here.
It turns out that a “select shop” is a kind of smallish shop with carefully curated items that all fit a certain aesthetic. A business like this might be called a “lifestyle boutique” in America, but it’s slightly different from any business model used widely here. The big selling point of a shop like this is the fact that they’ve already vetted and coordinated these products. Their offerings are tailored for a particular niche, so that if you’re into the general idea a select shop is going for, you’re likely to be interested in a lot of what they’re selling. The items for sale will also have been hand-picked by a professional who’s able to find just the right thing in a way that a typical consumer wouldn’t be able to.
You can imagine what kind of college student would not only shop at this sort of place but declare it proudly. Even if Mob was going to fall in L with a B, this guy would be a bad fit.–Towel
about “a listless ne’er-do-well” (19:04)
The more literal translation of this part goes “a man like this, without ambitions or vitality.” It’s a nice turn of phrase, definitely, but I thought if I could localize it a bit it might evoke more of the right feeling. I thought it would be more typical in English to express this in terms of an adjective plus a noun describing the kind of person he’d appear to be, rather than saying he was without these qualities. From “without ambition” I got “ne’er-do-well” and from “without vitality” I got “listless.”–Towel
Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 1 Eng Sub
VS PHYSICAL CONTACT and VS HALLOWEEN
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translation notes:
about Mob’s eyebeams (3:47)
Maybe I just think I see tokusatsu references everywhere, but I think there’s an Easter egg of sorts in episode 1. After Mob comes back to himself and celebrates having escaped L’ing a B, he runs through a field beside the airport and some sort of laser beams shoot out of his eyes. The beams are two different colors: red and blue. I suspect this is a reference to Kamen Rider Build, in which Inukai Atsuhiro played the lead rider (also called Kamen Rider Build). Build had a number of forms (different suits, basically) that had different colors and features. The one he’s best known for (the one that comes up at the top of your results if you google “Kamen Rider Build,” among other things) is his “RabbitTank” form, which is half blue and half red, with one blue eye and one red one.
Kamen Rider Build in RabbitTank form
It’s particularly appropriate for them to reference Build in this show since Inukai’s character on that show, Kiryu Sento, had a pretty ship-y relationship with Banjou Ryuga, a character played by Akaso Eiji from Cherry Magic. At the time, the phrase “a heated relationship between men” was used to describe how they related to each other, and Kamen Rider fans have referenced it ever since when things between two Kamen Rider dudes seem “heated.” The fact that both actors went on to be BL legends is very fitting. And it makes this reference even more appropriate for Zettai BL.–Towel
Inukai Atsuhiro and Akaso Eiji as Kiryu Sento and Banjou Ryuga, toku boyfriends
about “pretending to be possessive” (07:08)
Mob actually says that Ayato is pretending to have a “brother complex,” sometimes abbreviated (as Mob does here) as “brocon.” While this concept is somewhat Western due to its roots in psychoanalysis, it has a specific meaning in Japanese culture that you don't find elsewhere. It describes an obsessive attachment to one’s brother that may include possessiveness and jealousy toward the brother’s romantic partners. Brother complexes are classically associated with sisters, but it’s no surprise that a brother might be expected to have a brother complex in BL World.
To be clear, though, Mob doesn’t believe that Ayato actually has a brother complex. He thinks he’s pretending to have one so that he’ll have an excuse to act out his actual possessive feelings about Toujou, brought on by Toujou touching Mob.
Instead of assuming all viewers would be familiar with the idea of the “brother complex,” we decided to describe what Mob is saying in terms of Ayato’s pretending to be possessive. But knowing the specific reference Mob was making here should help to get a more nuanced sense of the meaning of this line.–Towel
It's also relevant to say that in spoken Japanese almost anything can become a "con". Such as brocon, siscon, lolicon, etc.–Snow
about “fair prince” (6:18)
Snow explained to me that Toujou was described here using a word that's associated with classical and poetic Japanese. Historically, it was used to refer to lords and ladies, and it's particularly common in classical Japanese literature. In modern media, it's often used in period dramas and may be used in contemporary settings to describe the person being referred to as admirable in some way. Since it has multiple meanings with specific connotations and various points of reference in Japanese culture, there was no direct equivalent of this in English. Translating it literally word-for-word wouldn't get the point across at all.
I tried to think about what an equivalent type of literature would be in an English-speaking context and what sorts of words or phrases would bring those things to mind. I tried to see if I could get one or two Early Modern English words in there (the kind of English Shakespeare spoke). I also looked for a link to Toujou’s rose motif by checking some famous rose-related quotes from older literary periods. But neither of those methods yielded anything that fit.
Then I started to think about fairy tales, which gave me the idea of calling him a “prince.” I added “fair,” not for any reason related to his coloring (though it’s somewhat appropriate given his blondness) but because it made the description sound a lot more antiquated and fairy tale-ish. Later in the episode, when a similar description was applied to Toujou in his vampire costume, it made perfect sense to make him a “dark prince” instead.–Towel
Tag list: @c1nto @my-rose-tinted-glasses @twig-tea @sorry-bonebag @porridgefeast @bengiyo @lurkingshan @wen-kexing-apologist
Translation notes for the entirety of Zettai BL S3
Here you will find translation notes pertinent to the whole season!
If you have any question or doubt regarding how the subs came to be or why we made them the way they are, feel free to jump into our ask box!
Translation decisions
Translation notes for the opening lyrics are here.
About the way Ayato addresses Mob
Ayato constantly calls Mob "aniki" (meaning, big brother), this is in part due to the fact that Mob does not have a name (as a good side character does). While this works in Japanese, it sounds unnatural in English, so we have done our best to go around this.–Snow
About sound descriptions
Folks watching the series with this fansub will probably notice pretty quickly that we decided to make the most of sound descriptions as a way not only of making the show accessible but also…well, I would say that we made a conscious decision to use sound descriptions to underscore some of the humor of the show, but that’s not really how it happened. It started with one joke in the first episode that I felt a need to narrate in a sound description,* and then I made the rest of the episode consistent with that scene, and made the other episodes consistent with that episode, and here we are. But I think the end result does underscore some of the humor of the show, and I like that.
I think the way we handled the sound descriptions might not be as appropriate for a different kind of show, but then again, other types of shows probably wouldn’t involve this much grunting, groaning, slurping, hyperventilating, and so on. If we do any other fansubs in the future I’ll definitely plan on re-examining the sound description policy to make sure it fits in with the tone of the show–without sacrificing accessibility, of course.–Towel
*If anyone's curious, it’s the part with “Bubble Mob” at the end of the tickling section.
Towel here! I thought folks might be interested in hearing more about my process for making the more literal translation of the opening theme lyrics into something that would make sense and flow in English.
Big thanks to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for these gifs! This explanation wouldn't be the same without a peek at the bonkers retro styling of these opening credits or a reminder of how weirdly dreamy Inukai Atsuhiro looks when gussied up like a 70s teen idol.
Before I describe my post-translation interpretation process, we thought some folks might like to have a romanized version of the opening theme lyrics in Japanese, as transcribed by Snow:
BL! BL! Zettai BL! x2
Furagu sa, koi no yokan wa furagu sa
Inochigake kaihi sa
Aragate B L
Koi shite mo runaway, far away*
Datte ore wa mobu
Kitto ore wa mobu
Iya sa (zettai)
Dame sa (BL)
Suki sa (BL!)
Boysu Rabu beraborena
Junjou nigete yokete
Zettai teppeki no mobu mobu
BL! BL! Zettai BL!
*This is how the Japanese captions portray the English part of this line, so Snow kept that wording. But it doesn't entirely match up with the way Tominaga Yuya sings it, which has one less syllable and to my ear, sounds more like "run away, go 'way."
I figured even non-Japanese-speakers like myself might find this useful. Maybe it's just because I've watched these episodes so many times for the fansub, but I get the opening theme in my head a lot and I've been (brokenly) singing it to myself while I'm doing things around my house. Now that I have the real romanized lyrics, I can be more accurate when I'm singing to myself while doing the dishes or what-have-you.
Now, down to business! I started my interpretation process with an initial, more literally translated version of the theme song, provided by Snow:
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
Flags, flags are a premonition of love
Risking my life avoiding them
Resist BL
Even if I fall in love
Run away far away
Because I am a mob character
I am undoubtedly a mob character
The dislike
The not-good-ness
The love
Boy’s Love beraborena
Pure heart, run away, avoid it
Absolutely impenetrable mob mob
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
Here it is after a round of easier rewording changes were done:
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
Flags, flags are a premonition warning of love
Risking I’ll risk my life avoiding to avoid them
Resist BL
Even if I fall in love
I’ll run away far, far away
Because I am I’m a mob side character
I am undoubtedly a mob side character
The dislike
The not-good-ness
The love
Boy’s Love beraborena
Pure heart, run away, avoid it
I’m absolutely impenetrable totally, completely mob mob a side character
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
Now for the trickier changes (the small numbers are footnotes and the notes that correspond to them are below):
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
Flags, flags are a warning of love
I’ll risk my life to avoid them
Resist BL 1
Even if I fall in love
I’ll run far, far away
Because I’m a side character
I am undoubtedly a side character 2
The dislike 3
The not-good-ness 3
The love 3
Boy’s Love beraborena 4
Pure heart, run away, avoid it 5
I’m totally, completely a side character
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
1. At this point in the song, It seemed best for the subject of the lyrics to be Mob, or “I.” That would make “resist BL” something more like “I resist BL” or “I will resist BL.” I wasn’t trying to make the English lyrics scan perfectly like real song lyrics that go together easily, but “I will resist BL” really, blatantly didn’t scan. But it’s just one mild rewording step from the latter to get to “I refuse to L a B.”
2. “Undoubtedly” gets its point across, but it doesn’t sound like a song lyric. So I thought about the kind of wording people use in the lyrics of pop songs, especially pop songs from the mid-70s, which this song seems to be emulating. So I replaced “I am undoubtedly…” with “I gotta be…”
3. These lines seem to be linked together, so I tried to find something that Mob might say that would link disliking, not-good-ness, and love. (For the record, Snow would totally have come up with something more polished-sounding than "not-good-ness" if she was translating for another purpose, but I needed the meaning of the lyrics presented in a direct way. A perfect final translation not only wasn't needed, but wouldn't have suited my purposes as well.) I thought the first two lines might be referring to the third, making this a statement that when Mob looks at this love, he dislikes it and thinks it lacks goodness. “The dislike” became “I dislike.” “The not-good-ness” became “worthless” because my understanding was that this wasn’t supposed to mean “not quite good” but rather “totally lacking in anything good.” And I had to make “the love” specific enough to refer to, so I knew I needed something like “this love” or something similar. Then it was just a short step to “I can’t stand” (a slightly stronger/more vivid way of saying “I dislike”) / “this worthless” (“this” because it’s referring to the love in the next line) / “kind of love” (using "kind of ____" to indicate a particular example of something).
4. “Beraborena” means “falling in love in an absurd way.” According to Snow's Japanese friend, it comes from べら棒 (berabou), which means absurd or foolish, and 惚れる (horeru), which means "to fall in love". When horeru is attached to another word, the "ho" turns into "bo", so "bera" from "berabou" and "bore" from "horeru" (like in "hitome-bore" meaning "love at first sight"). Apparently it’s a dated term that hasn’t been in wide use since the 1980s, which is interesting. The meaning of “beraborena” meant that this line literally meant “Boy’s Love, falling in love in an absurd way,” which I took to mean something like “Boy’s Love involves falling in love in an absurd way.” Rewording this and cutting out redundancy resulted in “Boy’s Love is absurd.” Given that the next line talks about running away and so forth, I thought the “beraborena” line might be the reason why someone should do all of this running away and avoiding. Hence “This Boy’s Love is too absurd.” A specific type of love (Boy’s Love) is being referred to, hence “this,” and it’s too absurd because the excessiveness of this absurdity is what makes it necessary to run away (if it was a tolerable kind of absurdity, why would you bother?).
5. So far, I had been viewing the song as Mob speaking from his own point of view about himself. That’s why “I” will risk my life, “I” refuse, “I” will run far away, etc. But something about this latter portion seemed like it could represent a shift toward addressing another person. After all, Mob is always advising those of us in the audience on how to steer clear of flags in the world of BL. It seems like he would include us in his song. So I decided that having a pure heart, running away, and avoiding it were things Mob was advising the listener to do. “Pure heart” became “stay pure” and the rest was just making the verb tenses fit.
After all of that, I ended up with:
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
Flags, flags are a warning of love
I’ll risk my life to avoid them
I refuse to L a B
Even if I fall in love
I’ll run far, far away
Because I’m a side character
I gotta be a side character
I can’t stand
This worthless
Kind of love
This Boy’s Love is too absurd
Stay pure, run away, avoid it
I’m totally, completely a side character
BL! BL! Absolute BL!
My process wasn’t actually this linear, as you might imagine. But I think it makes more sense presented in this way, and individual things did proceed more or less in this order.
I’m sure there are other valid ways of interpreting these lyrics so that they make sense in English, but I hope this one is decent! I really enjoyed this despite its being a bit more nerve-wracking than working with dialogue.
Ikeoji Subs started when Snow (@nieves-de-sugui) and Towel (@emotionallychargedtowel), longtime tumblr pals, talked about the lack of a fansub for Zettai BL season 3. Snow said she'd thought about attempting to make a fansub for it and Towel said she'd love to help with any part of the process that didn't require Snow's proficiency with Japanese.
Snow is an average Joe with an obsession for Asian media, and particularly Japanese QL since a pretty young age. Having done Asian Studies at university she knows enough Japanese to try her hand at subtitling. She has always been interested in doing fan translated work, but this is the first time she has done so, particularly thanks to Towel's support and help.
Towel is an overeducated, media-obsessed American with a penchant for Japanese QL and tokusatsu shows. She has always been fascinated by the subtitling process but doesn't speak Japanese, except for a few things she has absorbed over the years she's been watching Japanese media. What she did have coming into our first project was experience as a proofreader and writer. She was also able to teach herself a simple subtitling program and apply some standard subtitle-formatting guidelines, inputting and timing subtitles so Snow could focus on tasks that required her knowledge of Japanese.
The fansub has also benefited immensely from the advice of Towel's sister Porridge (@porridgefeast), an experienced professional proofreader and copyeditor. Some younger friends from the tumblr BL community also helped Towel make sure that her slang usage was up-to-date enough to avoid making Mob talk like a middle-aged woman.
We'd like to extend our special thanks to a friend of Snow's who will remain nameless, whose willingness to proofread the fansub as a native Japanese speaker served as a meaningful check against errors and helped our confidence immensely.
In case you're wondering, "ikeoji" means "handsome uncle" in Japanese. It's a word that's used in Zettai BL 3 to describe a DILF-y cafeteria worker.
