Part 4! (MTR, DH, BAT, and Chuuouku)
Polite and formal to the point of sounding detached. This is intentional! Jakurai should always seem a little like he's trying to keep the world at arm's length.
In English, frames his thoughts and opinions as I-statements ("I fear that..." / "I must admit that I..."/ "I ask that...") to both take accountability for his feelings--which weigh heavily on him--and soften his statements.
Always tries to speak so as to do no harm. Does not always succeed.
Hifumi has three modes, each of which speak differently. Host mode Hifumi is formal and flattering, sometimes to the point of smarm. He can be larger than life because he's acting; it doesn't need to sound realistic.
Host mode Hifumi gets sassy in raps to the point that he can get a bit "sassy gay"-esque in English. That's not really intentional, but I mean... 3/4 of his host mode raps are just the ;) emoji directed at a guy, and the other 1/4 are "damn, bitch, you dress like that?" So I don't think it's inappropriate... More seriously, host mode Hifumi is showboating in a campy fashion, so I don't think adapting that to English camp is a bad idea.
Hifumin mode (ie, Hifumi around Doppo) is goofy and fun. He's slangy, but he's never teen slangy. Guys, he's 29. (Zero shade against 29 y.os, but I'm serious. I feel way out of the loop on teen slang already, and I have regular contact with teens. Hifumi doesn't.) He doesn't know what teens are saying anymore. He just makes shit up as he goes along.
I let Hifumin use more idiomatic language than most of the other characters because it's in line with his general goofiness. It also sells that this, too, is a kind of acting. While Hifumi genuinely means the things he says as Hifumin, he's also not letting on everything that he feels. This roundabout way of expressing himself is represented with the idioms.
When Hifumi is alone, his speech style remains conversational but becomes much more serious, dropping all of Hifumin's affectations. He's much more honest with himself. Direct translation is usually appropriate in these scenes with only minimal adjustment for tone.
Doppo is just how I speak at work............
Because Doppo is unsure of himself, I give him lots of softening filler. (Rather, I don't take the pains to cut it out of my own speech that I do otherwise.) He says "just" more than any other member of the cast.
Often formal, but slips into casualness in order to be self-deprecating. Can be rude to other people.
Has a foul mouth when he's upset but doesn't swear otherwise.
Totally relaxed and conversational around Hifumi. Can be sarcastic or joking with Hifumi. He'll do this in front of Jakurai but won't talk like this to Jakurai. Generally won't talk like this in front of other people.
Uses a lot of exclamation points because a) he's anxious and b) this is, again, how I talk at work when I'm trying to Express Friendliness.
Sasara is a piece of work, ngl. He's always on because he's uncomfortable sitting with himself when he's not. I punch up his lines a lot to indicate this. He's always got some gooftastic way to express something because the alternative is unbearable to him.
Can tone himself down in serious scenes. He just doesn't like doing this if he can avoid it.
In Japanese, Sasara has a strong Osakan accent. I've talked about this plenty of times before and don't have much to add here, so I'll just quickly recap it. I don't think it's necessary to add accents in English every time a character has one (for example, Roshou's accent is just as strong but doesn't say anything about him as a character), but Sasara's accent does introduce information. Osaka is associated with the manzai comedy Sasara and Roshou practice, but on top of that, Osakans are stereotyped as being loud, outgoing, funny, and always in a hurry. Sasara goes out of his way to personify this stereotype, and his accent is in service to that. It's yet another way of yelling, "Hey, look at me! I'm funny!" The problem is, English doesn't have an accent that encapsulates all of these ideas. I could see an NYC accent working--or an LA accent, but that (being in Southern California) sounds too similar to the rest of the Northern California cast--if this was in audio form, but I'm not confident that I could sell a natural NYC accent in writing alone. I don't live in NYC, and I don't have an intuitive sense of how people in NYC talk compared to anywhere else in the English-speaking world. I don't want to lean into stereotypes to make up for my ignorance, so instead, I go for the meat of Sasara's Osakan identity and play up his joking speech. I'm not ignoring the accent altogether, but I think this does a much better job of delivering the authors' intent than giving him a rural accent or, I don't know...having him go "Ey, I'm walkin' here!" like a caricature. There is an argument to be made that Osaka is considered less cultured than Tokyo, so a rural accent could be appropriate, but it's nowhere to the degree of an actual rural Japanese accent (of which there are many). Osaka is a huge city, and Sasara lives in an urban area. I would rather he speak in the same urban style as the rest of the cast.
Generally conversational. Can be accidentally brash or blunt.
Ready to tell Sasara off at the drop of a hat. Catch phrase is "For crying out loud..." Can be witty or casual to the point of rudeness (including swearing) in these moments.
Like Sasara, he has a strong Osakan accent, but it's not as central to his character. It's just a matter of him being born and raised in Osaka. As a result, I don't incorporate it into his speech style.
I try to make him sound a little older than most of the cast. Uses some older turns of phrase like "my smokes."
Very casual and conversational. Never takes anything seriously, including himself. (At least, when anyone's watching...)
In Japanese, he calls himself "oi-chan" (middle-aged man) frequently, which lends him a playful quality. I deal with this in a handful of ways, including "this old man," "big daddy," or "daddy-o." You cannot look me in the face and tell me Rei wouldn't call himself "big daddy" in English.
Similarly, because Rei's songs and speech sometimes contain a playful flirtatious quality, I don't mind writing him small innuendos here and there. Again, see "big daddy."
Treats the Chuuouku ladies with the same level of playfulness. Because this is intended to be rude, I'll sometimes have him take a slightly misogynistic/demeaning tone that I wouldn't have the other characters use.
Despite what I said in Samatoki's section, I do let Rei say "brother" and "sister" because it feels extremely natural for him to do so.
Honestly, I just write Rei based on vibes these days... If I can hear Kuroda saying it, it goes on paper.
Hyper casual. Swears conversationally past the point which I'd consider acceptable in a for-profit work, but it's fun and reflective of how real people (me, I'm the people) talk, so... Can and does say "fuck" often. It shouldn't contain heat, but that's fine. Kuukou gets upset pretty rarely, and even when he does, he gets upset for other people. That he can't escalate because he's already yelling and cussing up a storm doesn't work against him in this instance.
I find him wildly funny in Japanese, so I try to make him just as funny in English. He's not that creative--or rather, like Jirou, he's creative in the worst ways--but I feel like his sheer audacity translates well into humor in both languages.
Has a large vocabulary that he simply chooses to use infrequently.
In Japanese, he frequently misquotes proverbs or mangles real proverbs such that they sound fake. (I know I said previously that he makes them up wholesale, and I think he does really just make some of them up--unfortunately, as I've discovered via another work where a character does the same damn thing, a number of them come from real proverbs that are so far removed from their origins that they don't show up on Google...) While some proverbs have similar English equivalents and most of the English-speaking audience isn't culturally Buddhist like the JP audience is, I generally translate these straight because a) I don't like erasing Kuukou's Buddhist core and b) 98% of what he's saying is bullshit and doesn't matter. I sometimes play up other character's reactions to indicate what's real and what's Kuukou being Kuukou.
I have him say "y'all" and "all's y'alls" as a fun thing. It's not to reflect his accent or anything like that. To be brutally honest, the first person I met who used "y'all" gave me such an aversion to that word, I wanted to make a character I like say it so that it would cancel out my negative reaction... I wouldn't do this nowadays, but I don't mind what it adds to his character. It's kind of cute, right? Because he's so often addressing a group of people as part of his role as a Buddhist "guide," he needs a casual form of "you" that's recognizably plural. "Y'all" works really, really well for that.
Kuukou is challenging to translate for a non-culturally Buddhist audience, so especially in his raps, I have to strike a middle line between writing out his character and culture and confusing the audience. I accomplish this in two main ways. In some instances, I slightly flatten his intended message to one that's recognizable to someone who doesn't know much about Buddhism (non-cultural Buddhists might not know what the "Pure Land" is, but "Paradise" makes sense) or use generic terms shared between religions, like "hell." In other cases, I can build natural-sounding gloss straight into the rap. In one drama track rap, I took the line "我らを護れよ水神ナーガ 巻きつけ奴らの首に輪っか" (lit: Protect us, water deity Naga; wind about the necks of the other guys like a loop) and wrote it as "Protect us, o Naga, serpents of the sea, and strangle the foes standing opposite me." The "serpents of the sea" explains what Naga are for those who've never heard of them, and by making that the focal point of the rhyme, it looks like an intentional part of the rap and not an explanatory gloss.
Can not shut up about asses. This comes from JP (weirdly enough), but this is reflected in English with "we're gonna kick your ass" / "punk-ass" etc.
Like Hifumi, Juushi has two distinct modes. His performance mode is over the top because it is, again, acting. I ham up his lines as much as possible because they're very, very goofy and contain very, very little meaning in JP. They should scan as convoluted and quirky because they're convoluted and quirky.
With that said, I'm careful about what, if anything, I add to his speech or raps. In line with his established motifs, I might throw in a few words of European languages (usually Latin or French) or references to European mythology (usually Greek). Juushi rarely, if ever, references Asian mythology. Most v-kei aesthetics don't.
Normal Juushi is much more subdued. He sounds young and a little anxious at all times. I write him with a conversational style, but he shouldn't sound super comfortable in social situations, even around Kuukou and Hitoya (especially early on).
To soften his speech a little more, I have him use the word "so" more than most of the cast. I was inspired to do this by the っす (ssu) that he ends his sentences with in JP, which has the same purpose. This is, in hindsight, a kind of weird way to come up with a character trait, but whatever works...
Can be formal, but generally conversational. Self-assured and confident, even when he doesn't feel that way. Becomes more crass around Kuukou, who brings out the worst (or best, one could argue) in him.
Swears occasionally. Favors "son of a bitch" or "Christ" to express frustration. As I said in Juuto's section, I wouldn't use "Christ" nowadays, but it definitely gives him a distinct flavor.
Can be pithy, but not to the extent of Riou. Rather, I want everything Hitoya says to have an impact (see the self-assurance), so I work to cut down my natural verbosity.
Can also be the biggest dork alive. His raps are so goofy....... Due to the subject matter (once, he rapped at Matenrou about hot dogs), I have difficulty saving Hitoya from himself on raps.
Very formal. Very detached.
I don't allow Otome to use contractions. This is, apparently, a common pitfall young translators fall into, but I actually feel like it works...? Definitely don't do this for major characters, but because Otome has so little screen time, I don't think it ever gets distracting. The lack of contractions and her overall formality give her a coldness and a graveness that suits her well.
I imagine every one of her lines delivered slowly, so everything she says should sound like it comes with great thought behind it. Eschews filler.
Very sure of herself. Domineering, sometimes to the point of rudeness. She often retains a level of formality even in these moments. Certainly, she's not conversational.
Around Otome, much more deferential and polite.
I don't feel like I do anything special with her. For her baseline, I write her the same way as a domineering character in another work and simply ignore his character quirks. That character has a few traits that lean into his masculinity that I ignore with Ichijiku. Her text is pretty gender neutral in Japanese; that is, the dominance she speaks with typically scans as male, but her choice of personal pronoun and occasional specific word choices are feminine enough that it cancels out, so to speak. She doesn't sound heavily masculine or heavily feminine. Which is good! I'm very, very happy to see a confident and domineering female character, because that goes so against the stereotype for female characters and Japanese women in general.
I don't mind letting her use dramatic language when insulting the guys because she's over the top in JP too.
Around Chuuouku, usually formal (but not excessively so) and serious. She's a serious character with a lot of conviction in general.
More casual around Samatoki. Willing to tease him or be snarky with him, especially in pre-canon. As of the 2nd DRB, she is usually formal and serious with Samatoki but shows him occasional blips of affection.
Again, I don't feel like I do anything special with her because she has so little screen time.
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