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Passport to Darkness (暗黒の旅券) 1959 dir. Seijun Suzuki

status: completed - download here

・The film frequently uses the word pei-kan ペイ患 (or pe-kan ペー患) for “drug addict”, which was commonly used at the time to refer to heroin addicts. This particular slang is notable as its origins lie in the Chinese word for “white”, pe 白（ペイ）- referring to the white powder of heroin - and the Japanese term for “(sick) patient”, kanja 患者, hence why the first part is written in katakana (often used for foreign loan words) and the second in Kanji. The “pei” part was also often used as slang for “heroin”, but there are a few moments in the film where the katakana transliteration for “heroin” (ヘロイン) is also used as well. Where possible I’ve translated both of these as “heroin”, but another drug-related word often used in the film is the neutral mayaku 麻薬, which is still used today as an umbrella term for “drugs”, and the translation reflects this difference in nuance as much as possible.

・The term zaibatsu 財閥 sometimes pops up in English (particularly in media from the 20th century), and coupled with the fact that it is a proper noun unique to Japan I’ve chosen to leave it untranslated. For those unsure what a zaibatsu is, the short explanation is that they are massive business conglomerates that have (or rather, had) a huge sway over the Japanese economy - think companies like Mitsubishi. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu

・The name of an important location in the film, Bar Tsubo, is conveniently displayed in neon English lettering in the film, but I’d like to elaborate a bit on the name here. Tsubo 壺 means “pot” (as in the ceramic vessel) in Japanese, and both the Kanji itself and the logo of Bar Tsubo that is shown in the film depict a pot-like shape. Are there any connotations with regards to *that * type of pot? Who knows! But it’s unlikely - I don’t believe “pot” has ever been used in Japanese to refer to marijuana.

・When Ibuki goes to hire the private detective to investigate Moriwaki, there is a close up shot on his memo pad, which contains handwritten information not directly related to the scene itself yet still quite important. It’s a little hard to understand with subtitling, so I thought I’d make it clear here. Basically, the detective asks Ibuki for his name and address, and he begins to write it down on the April 30th page, which is presumably the day that scene is taking place. On the previous page, however, there is already a written memo that reads what I’ve also put in overlapping subtitles at the same time: “ICHIRO MORIWAKI INVESTIGATION / CLIENT: KENZO ISHIMARU”. The viewer might be confused as to why the detective thinks the man he’s talking to is Ishimaru, but the implication is that Ishimaru had already been to the same detective with the same request as Ibuki.

・Some reviews of Passport to Darkness praise its use of real location shots, a lot of which encapsulate what Tokyo was like in the late 50s. One of the standout locations in the film is Ueno Fugetsudo 上野風月堂, a Western-style cafe/patisserie that has been a mainstay in Tokyo for a very long time (since the Edo period - it was established in 1747), featured in the scene where Ibuki and Michi meet with the clerk from the Renoir clothing store. Fugetsudo’s speciality is Western style sweets, particularly what they call “Gaufre” or “Gaufres” - taken from the French word for ‘waffle’ - which can be seen in English lettering on the wall behind Ibuki and Michi. Fugetsudo Gaufres are delicious, very thin wafer biscuits with flavored cream in the middle. They’re still being sold at souvenir shops around Tokyo - I’d recommend trying them if you get a chance. More info about Fugetsudo’s long and interesting history can be found here (in Japanese): https://corp.fugetsudo-ueno.co.jp/history/?_tag_plus=coO9EpvSXvtz2Lb9656x2sE57uFx9aK3

・The word “gay-boy” - gei-boi ゲイボーイ - is used exclusively when characters in the film talk about Kenny and his (ex-) coworkers. This term is obviously not appropriate to use as-is in English, but was the proper term to use at the time when referring to the feminine male staff that worked as hosts at gay clubs. There’s no convenient noun in English to use as an equivalent for this term, so where possible I’ve translated it as “gay club host”, and sometimes simply “gay man” or “gay”. I’m also presuming the viewer knows what the subtitles mean by a “host” or “hostess” in the adult entertainment industry.

・When Ibuki visits Chidori, one of the hosts tells him that Kenny had someone do mi-uke 身請け for him. Mi-uke is a fairly old/traditional term often used with geishas, when one of their patrons would pay the necessary amount of money in order to release them from the bonds of their employer, and essentially come and live with them as their partner or spouse. This kind of culture has been the subject of many dramatic plays, books, and films both inside and outside Japan, so I don’t need to go into detail about it here, but it has an interesting presence in Passport to Darkness due to its LGBT slant - while Kenny is a man and worked as a gay club host, people talk about his mi-uke as if it were the same as a geisha: Ibuki isn’t particularly taken aback by something like that even happening, and the bartender at Tsubo is incredibly supportive of Kenny. While it has a relatively exaggerated, antiquated treatment toward drugs, jazz, and LGBT culture, perhaps in this way Passport to Darkness could also be seen as somewhat progressive.

・Navy Day was a national holiday commemorating the navy (actually just a single sea battle) in Japan, yet it stopped being celebrated in 1945 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Day). Perhaps this is why Ishimaru makes such a point about it in the movie (Nationalist leanings perhaps?).

・In Passport to Darkness we also come across the “onii-san” problem: namely, two characters are revealed in a plot twist to be siblings, and once that fact is known to the audience the word “onii-san” is used to either establish that fact or produce dramatic effect. As I’ve mentioned in a previous subtitle note post, phrases like “Thanks for saving me, my brother” (when talking to one’s actual brother) don’t sound natural in English, and so for this film I’ve opted to have Kayoko use Moriwaki’s first name, Ichiro, in order to get a little closer to establishing the sibling nuance.

・The Red Garters’ oft-requested tunes, “Honey Sweet” and “Anata no mune ni (’Within Your Heart’)”, are (as far as I know) original songs written for the film, but interestingly The Peanuts had a single by the same title of “Anata no mune ni” in the 60s - a completely different tune, though.

・There’s quite a few idioms used in the dialogue, some of which are Japan-centric and others that are common in other languages. As with idioms shared between languages and cultures, the Japanese version of common English idioms contain some interesting variations, so I’ll list them here for novelty’s sake.

odoru aho ni miru aho 踊る阿呆に見る阿呆 - literally “a dancing fool, and a fool that looks on”, meaning “you’re a fool if you dance, and a fool if you just look on”. In the film, this is said by one of the gangsters driving a captured Ibuki, but is followed immediately by the “kiku dake yabo” idiom below. There’s all of 2 seconds of screen time to convey both of these idioms in one line of English subtitles, so rather than using a wordy representation of them I opted for a more contextual translation (”You’re going nowhere if you don’t keep your trap shut.”).

kiku dake yabo 聞くだけ野暮 - literally “simply asking would be insensitive”, could also be taken to mean a “tasteless/rude question”. I particularly like the roughness of the word yabo 野暮 here, as it is closer in nuance to “boorish”, “uncouth” or “unsophisticated”.

sawaranu kami ni tatari nashi 触らぬ神に祟り無し - literally “the god you do not touch will not curse you”, and is the Japanese version of the well-known idiom “let sleeping dogs lie”.

kunshi ayauki ni chikayorazu 君子危うきに近寄らず - literally “a wise man does not approach danger”.

・The film often uses the term rappa ラッパ as a kind of slang when referring to brass/wind instruments - in particular Ibuki’s trombone - rather than be specific about using the proper terms for “trombone” (though there are one or two instances), “trumpet”, or “saxophone”. Traditionally, rappa would mean a standard trumpet (specifically a bugle-like valveless horn), and would call to mind the kind of basic horns that were used for announcements or spruiking a business. It’s kind of an umbrella term for “brass instrument” or even “wind instrument used in jazz”, and depending on the circumstance I’ve either translated it as “trombone” for Ibuki, or “horn”, which is a term often used in the jazz world to refer to any wind instrument (i.e. “come to the jam session, and bring your horn!”).

・I couldn’t find any official English spellings of character names anywhere, so I can’t be certain, but I have chosen to translate the name given to the French character that appears in the film, franku フランク, as “Franc” with a ‘c’ rather than a ‘k’, as I believe that’s a more common French name than “Frank”.

・While not strictly translation-related, there’s an interesting tidbit about the film I discovered in a comment review written in Japanese. During the climactic shootout scene featuring Katsune that takes place outside of Tokyo, Masumi Okada, Katsune has his face obscured for almost the entire time he is on screen. His face is relatively visible when he is holding Ibuki and Kasamatsu at gunpoint, but the viewer may notice that it doesn’t quite look like the Katsune they’ve been seeing up until then - and they would be correct, as it appears to be a completely different actor. What’s more, it’s possible to visibly verify that the actor is E. H. Erick, also known as Taibi Okada - Masumi Okada’s real life brother. So what happened here? There isn’t any background information readily available, but the commenter speculates that Masumi was incredibly in demand at the time of filming, so he may have had some scheduling conflicts during the shooting of that scene (which looks to be on location somewhere outside of Tokyo - to my eyes, perhaps somewhere like Hakone or Okutama) and called in his brother (who, while not as much of a star as Masumi, was also a well-known celebrity at the time largely due to his “odd gaijin” face) to stand in. The interesting shots in this scene may have been in an effort to conceal Katsune’s face as much as possible, despite it being maybe the most important scene in the film concerning Katsune.

[ohakosubs]

Thousand Cranes (千羽鶴) 1969 dir. Yasuzo Masumura

status: completed - download here

・The film starts with Kikuji realising he's walked unknowingly into an o-miai, which is an arranged meeting between two people for the purpose of getting engaged and married. At the beginning of the film, although admittedly a little rough, I managed to translate this custom with a line including the phrase "wife candidate" - mainly because it fits with Kikuji's tone in Japanese for the line - but later on, at around 17 minutes in, there is a line where it becomes very difficult timing-wise to translate o-miai without resorting to a long-winded English phrase, so I opted to use the succinct proper noun "o-miai".

・A furoshiki cloth is a traditional Japanese piece of cloth material used to wrap things when carrying them, or to be discreet about a package's contents.

・The traditional art of the tea ceremony has a central role in the film, and a lot of narrative themes both stem from tea ceremony aesthetic and play with their traditions. Tea cups particularly are almost like supporting characters, and the way they look and feel are indeed important when conducting a tea ceremony. The film constantly refers to the style/finish of certain tea cups used for tea ceremony: Shino ware（shino-yaki, 志野焼）is probably the one most referred to, as well as Karatsu（karatsu-yaki, 唐津焼） and Oribe（oribe-yaki, 織部焼） ware also appears. With the exception of the Oribe style, it's fairly simple to get an idea of what these finishes look like just by watching the film, but here's some additional information for those interested. - Shino ware: originally from Gifu. most commonly a whiteish, rustic glaze, but can be other colors. Shino items are usually smaller, squat & lightweight. often utilize defects in the glaze that look like little spots for extra wabi-sabi effect, which can be seen in the film as well - particularly the water server used for flowers at Mrs. Ota's memorial. - Karatsu ware: originally from Saga. can come in a range of both light and dark colors, but is most commonly associated with a brown/blackish, earthy rustic flavor largely due to the iron in the clay used. evidently one of the most popular types of tea ceremony ware. - Oribe ware: a lighter, more expressive type of finish than the rustic nature of Shino and Karatsu. usually associated with a greenish emerald glaze and hand-painted designs, though lots of different subgenres of Oribe as well - the Oribe featured in the film looks as if the glaze is almost black, and has no particular painted design.

・Chazuke (or o-chazuke, literally "submerged in tea") is a common, modest Japanese dish that is usually made by pouring a small amount of green tea in to a bowl of rice. It usually serves almost as a snack rather than a full meal, but can be made to be a bit more filling by adding things like vegetables, pickles, or fish.

・ Senmaizuke are pickled turnips sliced thinly into largish pieces. They're also a little spicy, and are part of the well-known category of kyo-yasai 京野菜, or Kyoto vegetables.

・For the entirety of the film Ayako Wakao's character is solely referred to as Mrs. Ota - Ota no oku-san 太田の奥さん, the "wife of Mr. Ota" - and it's hard to ignore the nuance that prefix/pronoun conventions in Japanese lends to how her character is portrayed. Whereas in English we might distinguish between two members of the same family by using first names, it's more polite in Japanese (especially regarding females) to use words that denote their familial relationship - both Chikako (Ms. Kurimoto) and Kikuji usually use the word oku-san 奥さん ("the wife") when speaking directly to Mrs. Ota, and the standard Ota no oku-san when talking about her when she's not present - there's never really an instance where she is just plain Ota-san. In other words, her character is always defined by her marital status, which is easy for Chikako to weaponize against Kikuji. Her daughter, Fumiko, on the other hand, is by default referred to by her first name, but often with the added suffix o-jou-san お嬢さん (literally 'young lady', but also an honorific to refer to someone else's daughter, though not in use much today). There's an interesting play on this convention in two scenes involving Kikuji at home with his father's old woman housekeeper, who at first opts to use the aptly formal Ota-sama 太田様 naming convention for when Mrs. Ota visits, which results in Kikuji not knowing whether she means Mrs. Ota or her daughter. Kikuji's father also mentions earlier in a flashback that Mr. Ota was a close friend of his, so my personal reading of the old maid's behavior in this scene is that she's either trying to infer distance between Kikuji and Mrs. Ota, or she's unsure of just how close they are and simply assumes it's the same kind of relationship as Kikuji's father and Mr. Ota. Hearing Mrs. Ota referred to with a naming convention that would equate to something like "The Honorary Ota" obviously catches him off-guard, and instantly thinks she's referring to the most distant Ota to him at that point: Fumiko. It can then be discerned early on in the development of the relationship between Kikuji and Fumiko that he, perhaps subconsciously, feels much more comfortable steering away from the Ota family name and solely refers to her as Fumiko. There's then a second instance that we see the old maid announcing a visitor's arrival at the house to Kikuji, but this time she uses the phrase Ota-san no o-jou-sama 太田さんのお嬢様, which is interesting because to Kikuji and the maid "Ota-san" isn't necessarily who Mrs. Ota ("Oku-san", or "Ota no oku-san") is - it's probably closer to Mr. Ota if anything. In any case, I've mostly managed to navigate all these Japanese naming conventions by using the tried and true English marital pronouns outlined below: Ota no oku-san = literally 'the wife of Ota', so Mrs. Ota Kurimoto-san = unmarried older woman, so Ms. Kurimoto Ota no o-jou-san = the 'young (unmarried) daughter of Ota', so Miss Ota (also used this for Kikuji's o-miai partner Miss Inamura, but she's sometimes also referred to as Yumiko-san)

・During one of the last scenes between Kikuji and Mrs. Ota, Kikuji uses this strange phrase to refer to Mrs. Ota's beauty: ningen izen no onna--ie...ningen saigo no onna 人間以前の女・・・いえ、人間最後の女 - which literally translates to "like a woman from before humans existed -- no...like the last woman on Earth". There doesn't seem to be much context for this, and it felt clumsy when I translated it as is, so I opted to go for a more flowery turn of phrase: "like Eve, the first woman...or - the very pinnacle of the human race". I wonder if this line appears in Kawabata's novel?

・When Kikuji goes to visit Fumiko after her mother dies, one of the first things he says is "It's already been a week, hasn't it?" In Japanese, it's a little more specific: he mentions that the day he's visiting is hitonanoka 一七日 (literally "the first 7 days"), an auspicious day in Buddhism that falls on the seventh day after someone's death.

・Displaying a large portrait photo of the deceased as a centerpiece of a memorial at a funeral, etc. is standard practice in Japan, but usually the subject is looking straight at the camera - i.e., they're looking straight at the mourners that have come to say goodbye. This kind of context is in my opinion necessary to understand more about why Kikuji and Fumiko spend so long talking about Mrs. Ota's memorial portrait, particularly given the fact we see her almost in profile, and with an unusual head and eye angle.

・Though I am in no way an expert on the art of the tea ceremony, I'd strongly encourage anyone interested in the tea aspect of the film to read more into it - particularly anything on the life of tea master Sen no Rikyu. The filmmakers have gone to great lengths to honor the tradition of tea ceremony in this film, to the extent that the iemoto 家元, or head of the Urasenke 裏千家 school of tea ceremony - one of the most well-known - at the time of filming, Sen Soushitsu, was credited as being "tea ceremony supervisor".

[ohakosubs]

An Ode to Yakuza (やくざ絶唱) 1970 dir. Yasuzo Masumura

status: completed - download here

**translation notes:**

・The name of the Ishikawa clan’s rival group in Japanese is 東風会 Toufuu-kai, which roughly translates to “eastern wind club”. I initially thought about using the Japanese transliteration for the subtitles, but decided to go with an original English translation to avoid confusion with other Japanese names. As far as I can tell the name of the group doesn’t particularly hold any significance with regards to real-world yakuza groups, but there seems to have been an older group called the 東声会 Tousei-kai, which the movie is perhaps alluding to. As a side note, there is a 2006 film about the Tousei-kai.

・An interesting point about how Minoru and his yakuza cohorts refer to life outside of prison - they constantly use the word 娑婆 shaba, which is I believe originally a Buddhist term used to refer to “this world of suffering” or “this corrupt world”. I think they only use it to easily differentiate between prison and the free world, but it’s an interesting nuance. 

・At one point Kanae refers to Minoru as a “bloodsucking leech” - she uses the word ひも himo in Japanese, which has popped up before in my translation notes for Girls of the Night. A “himo”, literally meaning “string”, is generally the word used for a good-for-nothing man with no steady income that relies on a female to support them.

・The Tomei Expressway is a long highway that connects Tokyo and Nagoya via places like Kanagawa and Shizuoka.

[ohakosubs]

The Blossom and the Sword (日本侠花伝) 1973 dir. Tai Kato

status: completed download here

**translation notes:**

・A word about the film title in Japanese: the main title is “Nihon Kyoka-den”（日本侠花伝）, which, roughly translated, means “A Japanese Legend of Chivalry and Flowers”. Other films centered around yakuza often featured the kanji for “chivalry” used here, “俠”. Interestingly, although it is only ever alluded to on posters and advertisements, the film is actually made up of 2 parts, titled as follows: “Part 1: Japanese Thistle”（第一部 野あざみ）, “Part 2: Blue Peony”（第二部 青い牡丹）. 

・The “e-toki” books that Mine sells on the train in the beginning of the film are picture books that have illustrated depictions of notable Buddhist tales and figures, for use in educating people about Buddhism. The history of e-toki is a long and complicated one: as the tales depicted within were often “performed” with musical accompaniment, these performances gradually began to be viewed as their own art form akin to theatre, though usually performed by female beggar nuns. From the 12th to roughly 18th century, these “nuns” essentially became prostitutes, but from the 18th century onwards their presence in brothels waned, and those that went around peddling e-toki were generally lowly females trying to scrape together a living.

・The Seiyukai was one of the main political parties active during the period in Japan depicted in the film. It is considered a conservative/right-wing political party by modern definitions. The opposing political party, as mentioned in the film, was the slightly more liberal Kenseikai.

・The “tokko” police, or Special Higher Police, was a sector of the Japanese police force in the early 20th century that dealt with high policing and political-driven criminal investigations. They were also thought of as the “Thought Police”.

・The silent film being shown at the cinema in the film is “Play Safe” (or its two-reel version “Chasing Choo Choos” which only features the train chase), which was released in 1927. This is odd, because the period of time depicted in The Blossom and the Sword is approximately 1915 to 1918. The film is being narrated by a benshi, a traditional Japanese narrator that would “perform” dialogue and narration from films throughout the Taisho era. Most Japanese films made during the era of the benshi were made with them in mind, but in the case of Western films like this one, it was likely that the benshi just made up the story as they went along (the names of the characters have been changed).

・The song Tsuru sings as she walks home with Mine from the hostess bar is “Hito wo Koiuru Uta”（人を恋うる歌）, a famous Taisho-era ballad. It was written by Tekkan Yosano, well-known Japanese poet Akiko Yosano’s husband.

・A “lined kimono”, as the name suggests, is a thicker kimono with inner lining. The reason Mine says “You’re still wearing your lined kimono!” is probably because at that point, although summer has arrived (as mentioned by Tsuru in the bar earlier), all Minoru does is lay about in their apartment.

・ The Ushi-oni Festival is a traditional festival held at Uwajima, Ehime, and features bullfighting, parades, and fireworks.

・The song Kinzo starts singing after rescuing Mine and Minoru is from a bunraku play called “Hadesugata Onna Maiginu”（艶容女舞衣）, about the trials and tribulations of a wife in feudal Japan, with themes of forbidden love and lovers’ suicide.

・The rice crisis that forms the basis of the storyline in the second half is based on real events that occurred in Japan in 1918. There have been numerous times when rice shortages have caused extreme inflation in Japanese history, but the rice riots that happened over the course of several months in 1918 is the biggest recorded rice disaster in the country’s history. Rising populations, post-WWI rice market booms, and large portions of rice reserved for troops as part of the Siberian Intervention were amongst the factors for the rice inflation in 1918, and led to city-wide riots in places like Toyama, Kobe, Kyoto and Nagoya. Japanese rice being sent overseas for the military was particularly held in disdain by impoverished citizens (i.e. farmers that would earn much less than what their own rice was being sold for), and protests at fishing ports would often lead to buildings being destroyed and general havoc. It is said that women - particularly the wives of fisherman and farmers that suffered the worst during the crisis - were at the forefront of these demonstrations, and played a big role in communicating the dissatisfaction and economic suffering of the lower class.

・There are a few references to the yakuza “code” of virtue or ethics, which, like similarly depicted in other yakuza films, is primarily concerned with a bent sort of chivalry and respect for one’s fellow man. The particular phrase “tosei no jingi” （渡世の仁義）is mentioned, which can be considered as “the rules by which a yakuza must live”. Given the amount of betrayal and underhanded tactics in this film - a representation perhaps of the dying out of the “old ways” of the yakuza at the time - every time a reference to this code is made, it is likely said with irony.

・References are made to “anko-beya”（アンコ部屋）, which has been translated to “laborers quarters” - barely livable, cramped residences in which laborers (usually female - “anko” is an old word for female) live. This word also appears frequently in Nuclear Gypsies.

[ohakosubs]

The Far Road (遠い一本の道) 1977 dir. Sachiko Hidari

status: complete download here

**translation notes:**

・The conversation had by the Takinoue family after Ichizo’s award ceremony regarding saying “good work” to him is to do with the Japanese expression ご苦労様 (gokuro-sama) which, like the more colloquial お疲れ様 (otsukare-sama), is a phrase that literally means “it looks like you’ve done some hard work”, but contextually means “great job” or “you’ve done well”, usually after certain work has been completed. The difference between gokuro-sama and otsukare-sama (which literally translates to “you seem tired”) is that gokuro-sama is often said by superiors to people lower down in business hierarchies, or when particularly difficult work has come to an end, while otsukare-sama is a softer, more casual phrase often also used generally as a greeting; meaning that a job that upon completion earns an otsukare-sama probably wasn’t big or tough enough for a gokuro-sama. There are no phrases in English that truly communicate this difference between gokuro-sama and otsukare-sama, or the importance in Satoko Takinoue and Mrs. Iwata urging Toru to say gokuro-sama to his father. While I have opted to go with the easily digestible “Good work”, more context is needed to understand the exchange: as we learn later in the film, Ichizo most certainly worked hard, but it was arguably unnecessary work, and done in vain. Given that, it is understandable why Toru may not want to say gokuro-sama to his father despite the others stressing how important it is to say in that situation, and why Ichizo might not want to hear it from his son, either.

・I’m not sure what song the children are singing at Ichizo and Satoko’s wedding - I couldn’t find any information about it, and the words certainly seem strange: they sing 「縁切れた」(en kireta), which literally means “a relationship has been broken”. Weddings usually signify the unity of two people, so it strikes me as odd that the children are singing about the exact opposite of that, but perhaps they’re referring to Satoko leaving her family for Ichizo’s. It might also be an obscure Hokkaido tradition. In any case, I have translated it in as general a manner as possible. If anyone can shed some light on this, I’d be interested to know more!

・The Sanbashi Dispute at Muroran alluded to in the film is likely the dispute between Nihon Steel and its Muroran workers in 1954, wherein Nihon Steel sought to dismiss over 1000 workers from the company, the vast majority of whom were part of a union. The union and the families of its workers fought the plan for nearly an entire year, and the dispute resulted in the dismissal of 662 workers. The union also split into two differing groups (more on the “second union” below). Sources: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14672715.1991.10413141 http://www.senshu-u.ac.jp/~off1009/PDF/180220-geppo654,655/smr654-sida.pdf (Japanese)

・The “Marusei” movement depicted in the film refers to a period from the 1960s to the 1970s in Japan where predominantly labor union groups protested against efforts by the National Railway and the Post Office ministry to "improve productivity" (re: labor cuts). The protests themselves were referred to as “anti-Marusei”, or the “struggle against the Productivity Movement”. Violent disputes broke out across the country, but the struggle ended in victory for the labor unions, with National Railway officials resigning and unions gaining further workers’ rights, such as the right to strike without consequence. Sources: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AB%E7%94%9F%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95 (Japanese) https://www.doro-chiba.org/english/nakano/works/on-rail/ch01.html

・”Shunto” (春闘) is a Japanese term that refers to annual wage negotiations between unions and employers. The kanji used for the word are the characters for “spring” and “fight”. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunt%C5%8D

・Numerous mentions of a “second union” are made in the film. When postwar labor unions started to spring up in companies around Japan, differences in philosophy and demands would often end with the initial union group splitting into two. In the case of The Far Road - and likely in other cases of second unions - the “second union” seems to be more closely aligned with the company at odds with the first union, and thus appears to receive more lenient (and even favorable) treatment. Leaving the original union to align oneself with the second union is considered a kind of betrayal.

・The island that appears in the final climax of the film at Sata’s hometown is none other than the famous Hashima Island, or Gunkanjima (“Battleship Island”). Situated close to Nagasaki, Hashima Island is a small island that was abandoned after its coal resources were depleted, and stands in ruins to the present day. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island

[ohakosubs]

Haruka, Nostalgia (はるか、ノスタルジー), 1993 dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi

status: complete download here

**translation notes: (contains spoilers)**

・The name of Shinsuke Ayase’s publisher, Lil’ Bunko, references the term bunko 文庫, short for bunkobon 文庫本, which are A6-sized softcover books - the most common format for novels. A lot of publishing companies in Japan use the word bunko at the end of their name.

・The term lolicon may not need explaining for many viewers of this film, but as I chose to translate it as a proper noun rather than directly translate it, I feel the need to provide a small explanation as it is quite central to the film’s plot. Lolicon is short for “Lolita complex”, and is used to refer to someone (usually male) that has a fetish for young (read: underage) girls. 

・Some context is needed for the way the name Yoko Miyoshi is introduced and the influence it has on the story. The kanji for “Yoko Miyoshi” is 三好遥子, which can be broken down thus: 三-> the number 3, 好-> ‘like’ or ‘favorable’, 遥-> ‘distant’ or ‘far away’, as in the Japanese verb haruka, 子-> child.  Haruka’s name is thus taken from the first half of “Yoko”, the kanji that when used on its own can be pronounced “Haruka”. Haruka plus the kanji for “child”, 遥子, can be interpreted as meaning “a distant/far away child”. I have attempted to include as much of this information in the subtitles as possible.

・nishin ニシン (鰊) is Pacific herring, and nishin-don is a local delicacy in Otaru. In reference to the dish, I have chosen to use nishin-don as a proper noun, but when Haruka tells the story of the herring that disappeared from the ocean, for clarity’s sake I chose to use ‘herring’ instead of nishin. 

・A small aspect that gets lost in translation is the term Haruka uses to describe young girls as ‘passionate’ during her impassioned speech about Ayase’s behavior. She uses the term mune ga atsui 胸が熱い, which literally translates to “a hot chest/breast” - meaning that when someone gets worked up about something (mostly in a positive way), they feel a hotness in their chest. This coincides nicely with the ‘physical’ nature of her speech.

・Haruka mentions that the school song she sings is from her high school, Otaru Shiomidai, but in actual fact it is the real school song from Otaru Choryo High School (though the melody may not be identical). The school Haruka and Ayase visit together is not Shiomidai either - though Ayase mentions that he went to the same school as Haruka - it is Ishiyama Middle School.

・A note about the lines of dialogue in German: As verified by a native German speaker, Noboru’s German pronunciation is incredibly hard to decipher, and the lines seem to have been directly translated from Japanese by a non-native, riddled with incorrect grammar and strange vocabulary. As the most important parts of these lines are the Japanese sentences Noboru says after them, I have refrained from transcribing them for the subtitles; however a native German acquaintance was kind enough to help out with attempting to decipher them, so here is a bonus cheat sheet for the German dialogue: 1. 0:06:05 “Alles hat seine Zeit.” -> “Everything has its time.” 2. 0:39:16 "Der Mench ist, was er isst." -> “Man is what he eats.” 3. 0:40:44 "Mit der Habgier wird der Entfremdete immer eifersüchtig." -> “With greed, the alienated person is always jealous." 4. 0:43:45 “Kein Mädchen findet dich selb besser schön.” -> “No girl thinks herself more beautiful.” 5. 0:43:56 (also 1:00:09) "Wissen ist das Traurigste auf der Erde." -> “To know is the saddest thing on Earth.” 6. 0:46:10 "(Ich hätte) es leichter als (Mädchen)." -> “I think I had it easier as a girl.” (best guess) 7. 1:29:42 “Die (echte) liebe (verdreht) sich erst auf.” (?) -> “Real love twists first.” (who knows...) 8. 2:00:57 “Sie (endet?) über Fragen.” -> “She ends with questions.” ? 9. 2:25:17 “Alles hat seine Zeit. Nur endet sie nicht. Sie hilft nicht zu machen.” -> “Everything has its time. It just doesn’t end. It doesn’t help you to do/make it.”

・There are times when Ayase refers to Haruka as simply “Haruka”, and other times he adds “-chan” on to the end of her name. As many viewers may already be aware, “-chan” is an affectionate suffix often used for girls of a lower age than oneself, or somebody the speaker feels particularly friendly towards. Haruka’s comment about Ayase using “-chan” doesn’t carry as much meaning in English as it does in Japanese. Similarly, at one point Haruka remarks that Ayase has started using the personal pronoun ore 俺 instead of boku 僕 (or watashi 私 in his narrations, which is more reminiscent of the language used in a first-person novel). Ore is widely considered to be much more masculine than boku, so the subtitles reflect that nuance.

・The koto is a traditional Japanese stringed instrument, one of the most common sounds in Japanese music. It is often referenced to as a symbol of old-style Japanese romanticism, largely thanks to its presence in literature such as The Tale of Genji.

・Toward the end of the movie, Haruka muses to Hiroshi, “What is Haruka, I wonder?” The Japanese used for this line is ima no Haruka wa, ittai nan-nan deshou? 今のはるかは一体何なんでしょう？ which directly translates to “What exactly is the Haruka of now/the present, I wonder?”. The line is meant to reflect several different things at once: Haruka’s confusion as to who she is, her role in Ayase’s story, and where she lines up with the criss-crossing of her (or Ayase’s) past and present. It is difficult to include all of those nuances, but I was intrigued by the way she used “what” instead of “who”, so I felt like “What is Haruka?” was a more concise way to reflect that line in English.

[ohakosubs]

Towering Waves (波の塔) 1960 dir. Noboru Nakamura

status: completed - download here

・Wakako recites a passage by Doppo Kunikida early in the film, presumably from one of his most famous pieces of writing, "Musashino" (available in the public domain here: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000038/files/329_15886.html). However, what she says is an almost completely paraphrased, somewhat over-elaborated version of his original writing. From what I could gather, Wakako is essentially drawing upon this line from "Musashino":

「水流林より出でて林に入る、落葉を浮かべて流る。」

which translates to,

"The water flows out from the woods, enters them, and carries fallen leaves as it flows on."

・The soba served at Jindai-ji is indeed famous, even to this day. The original author of the story, Seicho Matsumoto, apparently wrote a section of this novel eating there, and due to the popularity of the novel there is (or was) also a Matsumoto-themed menu item.

・The "sea of trees" mentioned in the film is, as you might have guessed, the forest at Aokigahara (though never mentioned by its name) - also known as the Suicide Forest, an infamous area of Japan that once again made headlines a few years ago thanks to a certain reprobate Youtuber. Matsumoto's original novel came to be known as one of the major catalysts for an increase in suicides in the forest after its release; women in particular, as the novel was serialized in Josei Jishin, a women's weekly magazine. There are stories of bodies being found in the forest that had a copy of the book in their bag, or had used it as their final headrest. There were so many instances of the novel being found there that the police showed up at Matsumoto's doorstep for questioning.

・There are a few very subtle phrasing nuances during the final scene between Yoriko and her husband Tsuneo that I feel may be worth a mention. The first is when Yoriko tries to tell Tsuneo something important, but gets interrupted by the warden warning her of the visitation time limit. Once time is up, she says, 「帰ります。時間ですから」 ("Time is up, so I'm going home"), to which Tsuneo replies, 「帰るのか。」("You're going home, are you?"). When taken at face value, this exchange could mean exactly what it means - "Well, time's up, so I'll be going (home to our marital abode in Tokyo) then!" - but there seems to be a deeper understanding between the two that she means something far more serious (i.e. that she's leaving Tokyo forever, and returning to the place she was born). Her choice of words, and his choice of response - together with their solemn delivery - gives just enough information to be understood both ways, and further illustrates how broken Yoriko is at that point. The second is her parting words: she begins with 「どうぞお身体を大切になさってください」("Please take care of your health"), to which he says the same thing in response; both fairly regular things to say when parting with someone you won't see in a while. However, Yoriko's final "goodbye" isn't actually "goodbye" - it's 「お大事に」("odaiji-ni"), which is usually what doctors say to you as you leave their clinic. For obvious reasons I haven't subtitled this line as "Take care", as in English it would seem like she says the same thing twice, but at the same time I also feel like my choice of "Goodbye" for the subtitles doesn't quite carry that nuance of, "You're sick/in poor shape right now - so I hope you get better soon".

[ohakosubs]

Love and Greed, a.k.a The Husband Witnessed (「女の小箱」より 夫が見た) 1964 dir. Yasuzo Masumura

status: completed - download here

・A note on the title of the film: there's another finicky situation with this film's Japanese title and its 'official' English localized title, in that there doesn't seem to be one. The original Japanese title is the somewhat awkward "Onna no Kobako yori - Otto ga Mita" (「女の小箱」 より 夫が見た), which directly translates to "The Husband Saw, from 'A Woman's Small Box'". To provide a bit more explanation, the film is based on one short story from Jugo Kuroiwa's short story anthology "Onna no Kobako" ("A Woman's Small Box"), and the title is trying to illustrate that for some reason (perhaps some kind of licensing agreement?). There's weird uses of brackets and spaces as well, and I can't think of any other case where a film adaptation of a novel has used this kind of bizarre title format - all in all, a bit of a nightmare for cataloguing and localization. To wit, the most commonly used English title for this film when being shown at overseas film festivals and so on seems to be split between "The Husband Witnessed" and "Love and Greed" - the latter, which seems to me personally a little more film title-like and less 'clumsily translated' than the former, seems to be most widely used online thanks to The Movie Database/Letterboxd etc. - but there are also instances of "With My Husband's Consent", including on Wikipedia. For these subtitles, I opted to include both of the most commonly used titles, using a trusty "a.k.a." - but let the record show that if I could have avoided doing something like that I would have.

・When Namiko tries to stay at her brother's house around halfway through the film, it is hard to establish in their conversation that he is her brother when translating the dialogue to natural English. As is somewhat widely known, using vocabulary like "onii-san/nii-san" (brother), "one-san/ne-san" (sister) when talking to one's siblings is an incredibly natural way to clearly establish relationships between characters without explicitly including a line like "after all you are my brother/sister", but doesn't translate well to English at all. It's one of the most common JP-ENG translation challenges there is, and I was nearly able to get away with establishing the sister-brother connection through using nuances like "...our relatives", but I felt it just didn't provide enough information for the viewer. In a later scene, toward the end of the film, there's better dialogue to naturally translate the sibling connection between the two, but by that point it's far too late in the story. To wit - the only way for me to include that information and give the story the context necessary was using a line like "That's enough, brother."; but as it's not great English I'm not terribly satisfied with it.

・In the same scene, Namiko's brother tells her, "Bungaku-shojo mitai na koto wo iu na" (文学少女みたいなことを言うな). Directly translated, this would read, "Don't say things a book-loving girl would say". To elaborate, the term "bungaku-shojo 文学少女", literally "literature girl", has the connotation of a young (early teen/teenage) girl that spends too much time reading romance/fantasy novels or manga, and thus has a kind of overly romanticized, 'rose-colored glasses' view of the world, particularly with regards to men and relationships. All this context is too much to include in a line that spans a grand total of about 1 second, so I opted to translate it as "Quit acting like a little girl." Hooray for localization!

・At a pivotal point toward the end of the film, Namiko makes a certain comparison between the life of a woman in Japan and a pearl. Her line in Japanese is, "Onna te kono pearl mitai...hako kara denakya dame ne" (女ってこのパールみたい・・・箱から出なきゃダメね), which I have translated almost word for word - save the key word "hako", which generally means "box". Once the "box" word appears here, the meaning behind the film's title comes in to perspective, and is a great little turn of phrase for the film to drive home its central theme; there's only one problem: pearls do not grow in boxes...they grow in shells. There's obviously a separate word for "shell" in Japanese that Namiko doesn't use, but I feel that the word "hako" in Japanese can be interpreted in countless different abstract ways, unlike "box" which just sounds pretty weird, especially when the subject is pearls. There is another, deeper layer to this "box" motif, too, however, which also ties in with the title of Kuroiwa's original short story collection, "Onna no Kobako". There's a common phrase in Japanese that reads, "hako-iri musume" (箱入り娘) which translates literally to "girl in a box", but means a "naive girl" - potentially one that has lived a sheltered or privileged life, and as a result has a fantastical, unrealistic view of the world. The "hako" kanji is included in the title, only attached to the kanji for "small", "ko" (小), turning it into a "small box"...one that might fit a pearl, perhaps? To wit - for the pearl line, I went for the more naturally English phrasing of "to come out of one's shell", so to speak, but let it be known that the "boxed in"/"married woman"/"naive girl" nuance is needed here too.