I'd just like to say, on the record and in writing, that if Alan had taken Eric seriously when he walked into the house with his clothes in tatters after several days of inexplicably injuring himself doing everyday activities and told him directly that he wasn't doing well, the entire future would've changed.
It's a nothing moment. It means nothing. It doesn't get a ton of attention. It's not a big deal. I doubt either of them even remember it.
But this moment changed their lives.
Because if Alan had listened and taken it seriously and gotten Eric some counseling or something? The kid would've been better equipped for life. He could've learned how to cope with stress and failure and anxiety and disappointment in a healthy way.
Alan didn't take him seriously, though. Eric said, "I'm not doing very well." and "You didn't go to college, why do I have to go?" and "Why try? What's the point? We're all just gonna die anyway." and Alan heard, "I don't wanna work hard for this. I am being lazy and avoiding my responsibilities." And that's what he responded to.
Things could have been different. Things could have changed right then and there, in Season 2, at that moment.
I read the new chapters of Ore Monogatari!! and y'know what? I would totally read an Ore Monogatari: The College Years. I'd probably also read Ore Monogatari: Oops Me And My Wife Live Next Door To My Childhood Best Friend And We'll Be Together Forever and Ore Monogatari: We're Old Now And I Have A Lot Of Grandchildren And A Happy Life
Oh. Hello. It's you. You're here again. Welcome...!
I'M here again wading into a bit of translation drama with my extremely amateur opinion. It's My Hero Academia this time.
So... there's a fan translation and there's an official simul-translation.
I tried to read the fan version. It's clumsy and tends toward more literal translation than localization, I would say. I think. I'm not really sure how to describe what about it rubbed me the wrong way, but there was something. I couldn't handle it. It felt dead. There is one thing they do that I like better than the official translation, but I'll get to that in a minute.
The official translation feels alive and more natural and overall better, but they make some choices I disagree with. This is without reading it raw because I never had any intention of getting as invested in this series as I appear to have done.
So. People who read both versions FREAKED THE EFF OUT over the latest chapter. They seem dissatisfied with the official translation in general, but it feels like most of them didn't go read it raw to see which one was closer to what was in the original, so their opinions aren't really based on anything but personal preference.
Spoilers ahead. Major spoilers. Giant massive enormous spoilers.
The last line in this chapter is what people have a problem with.
...and I can see where both the fan translation AND the official translation are coming from with what they've put in their translations.
The line is from Bakugo talking about cleaning up All For One since some other person isn't capable of doing it. From here on, things get confusing.
The original manga uses "AFO" and "OFA" and usually has them read as "All For One" and "One For All" respectively. HOWEVER, Japanese being the way it is, occasionally, it still says AFO or OFA but is read differently. The "reading" would be what the character actually said out loud, but there's a meaning in the AFO or OFA being what was used in the speech bubble instead of them just talking normally.
For example, a couple of panels before this, All For One uses "OFA" read as "my younger brother".
...which is very difficult to translate in a natural way without losing meaning...
You can do what the official translation did and have him mention One For All and his brother. The fan translation did something similar.
But when you come to Bakugo's line at the end, the difficulty is compounded by the fact that what he says is very vague.
What he actually says is, "OFA ni nuguenee mon wa kocchi de nuguutte naaaa!!!" but with OFA read as "aitsu". He/they/it, singular and unclear.
The Fan Translation took the callback to what Bakugo told Deku during the stupid Darkness Arc (about how he and the others would handle the things Deku was too busy with destined-battles to handle) at face value and decided that the "aitsu" in question was Deku. They translated it with that in mind and are standing behind it.
The Official Translation took the vagueness of it into account and simply translated it as "One For All" because until we get more context, it's literally impossible to tell who or what Bakugo means when he says "aitsu." This results in a somewhat awkward translation, but not one that's wrong, especially if you're planning on coming back and clarifying once we get the next chapter and you actually have a clue what's going on.
Ideally, the person doing the translating would know in advance because it would be a completed work and they would have that context. But because it's a simultaneous release, your options are either to guess/assume or to be vague as well, however awkward it might sound when read.
The drama comes in because the Fan Translation is standing by their version HARD and people who either like their version better or like to jump on bandwagons are backing them up because they like the Bakugo-means-Deku version better for whatever reason and so they're calling the Official Translation wrong. Which it's not. It's just not perfect for reasons beyond its control.
I can see where you'd read that and go, "Oh, it calls back to what he said to Deku about being okay with playing second fiddle so long as he can be the best at non-destiny stuff." Buuuut until we get context, that's not explicitly what he meant.
The fact that he used OFA read as "aitsu" instead of just saying "aitsu" or even using a person's name or just saying OFA is significant. It's vague on purpose. And honestly, until we get context, I feel like it means EVERYONE. It means All Might, who has always been All For One's Final Boss until this moment. It means Deku, who currently holds One For All and is the target he's heading for. It means One For All as an entity and all the people inside of it.
He's saying he's here to tie up any loose ends that One For All--All Might--Deku--can't get to for whatever reason. And that's the translation I'll stand by until Sunday at approximately 11 o'clock when I go back to not reading this series raw anymore.
Complaints about the Fan Translation:
- They use AFO and OFA as if the characters are actually pronouncing them that way
- It feels dead in a way I can't explain
Complaints about the Official Translation:
- Making All Might call people "kid" all the time smacks of like... 1990s Hollywood Movie Man™? Like the guy who rolls in with a CELL PHONE and calls everybody "kid" and "babe" all the time. That's not what he's doing at all. He's doing that superhero thing where they love all their citizens equally or whatever. "I love you, too, Random Citizen!" That kind of a vibe. Not to mention, if you translate "Shounen" and "Shoujo" or "-shounen" and "-shoujo" as "kid" then when people use words like "kozou" which would be closer to "hey, kid" or whatever, things become muddled. They're very different modes of address. One is vaguely condescending and actually is like calling somebody "kid" while the other is more like a weirdly, awkwardly formal and somewhat distant but still fond term of endearment.
I know it's too late for them to go back and fix it now from the beginning, but like... it's the one thing the Fan Translation did that I was fully on board with.
I was about to do a ranking of Kingdom Hearts Character Themes, but then I realized I couldn’t do it objectively and it’s definitely not fair to... Aqua, Terra and Ven-Ven... because I hate them...
I also don’t care for Sora’s theme, but I’d rank it higher than theirs because I love him and, again, hate them.
...Maybe I’ll do one anyway. It just doesn’t feel right, though. It’s not my authentic opinion of the music if I move things around based on how much I hate just those three people specifically and also Xehanort if he has a theme...
Anyone else bothered by the fact that episode 6 of Hatamaou season 2 didn’t even bother giving Lucifer white wings during that beach scene when it was explicitly described that his wings were white in the light novel?
Y’know... I’m wondering if it’s not Carly and her birthday that are cursed, but Spencer’s attempts to make each birthday the “best birthday ever” to make up for ruining the one before. She was real excited about her 16th birthday so the year before seems to have been the first bad one she’d had...
Like, he took her to the petting zoo and the goat did whatever the goat did that we don’t talk about. So he threw her a breakfast surprise party and made her the gummy bear lamp to make up for it, but the lamp burned down her room. And then we skip ahead to her 27th when he throws her ANOTHER surprise party and death and physical trauma abound...
I mean, it may not explain the other two weirdnesses she mentioned, since she was probably off with their dad for her 19th birthday and who knows where she was when she turned 24, but you never know...!
you’ve ruined it now i hope you can’t sleep and you dream about it and when you dream i hope you can’t sleep and you scream about it i hope your conscience eats at you and