#siflshonen

[spark-circuit]

fallen down the “who the fuck is Majima” to “looking at the entire Yakuza series” pipeline lads

[pikahlua]

Hey, so what if Dynamy can shed the grenade like a shell, like a hermit crab, and instead intends to occupy the crepe shell and just eat the filling? Hey, do you think I could convince a Dynamy to occupy a shoe? A sock? A toddler’s onesie?

shut up and take my crepes

[pikahlua]

If MHA were translated in the mid 00s, they would have kept most of the Japanese names but "Kacchan" would have been translated as "Katsie".

They'd name him Victor Bombowski and the fandom would all ironically yet affectionately call him Vicky because the dub's use of "Vic" would bother a significant number of fans.

[pikahlua]

fandom get on this right the fuck now

[pikahlua]

I think in one of your posts I saw something about devil man crybaby, if you did see the show, then hear me out:

Ryo: Bakugou/ Shigaraki

Akira: Midoriya

Miki Makimura: Uraraka

You're looking for one @siflshonen. Sifl, care to share your thoughts?

[pikahlua]

I would love it if you said something more on the subject of "Deku having annoying character traits because he's the protagonist" 'cause like... I thought I was the only one thinking this. Deku's is being ruined as a character to me right because of this. Sometimes Horikoshi forces such SJ protagonist bullshit on him it feels OOC 'cause it doesn't really fit his original core.

It's just a thing you pick up after suffering enough of the same stuff from shounen manga main characters lol. It's hard for me to put into words. Basically, it happens often when the main character represents some sort of paragon of goodness. You end up with weird moments where characters like Goku are lauded as purely good or occupy that space in the story when that's not actually a part of their character, but they are robbed of any complexity because the story refuses to meaningfully explore the gray areas in them. Izuku at least had some exploration of that with his solo run, but it wasn’t a very in-depth exploration. As @siflshonen aptly put it, “deuteragonists benefit from more dynamic character arcs than the protagonists have.” Izuku represents more of a morality compass for Katsuki, as Izuku’s foil, to evaluate, test, stray from, and refine. (Many characters do something like this with Izuku as their comparison point.)

You’ve also got Izuku set up as an overly muttering nerd to allow for exposition whenever Horikoshi wants it, and you have to sort of separate the boring exposition from Izuku’s character each time it happens. While exposition is necessary at times, it can gunk up the flow of a story and mess with suspension of disbelief. But the main character often has to be the vehicle for exposition since their POV is the most reliably present in the story.

The whole sweet, naive character thing that many protagonists like Izuku have can also get annoying if you’re more into genre savvy characters. You end up with a paradox where Izuku is somehow meant to be a paragon (again) of kindness and caring towards other characters and yet he seems completely incapable of putting himself in those other characters’ shoes (such as Katsuki’s or Ochako’s--thanks again Sifl, you’re really doing my heavy lifting for me here lol). And is this really something I should hold against Izuku as a character, or should I hold it against the general structure of a story? Because it’s very likely this is an issue of the writer saving these interrelationship revelations Izuku could be having for a more dramatic moment, even if it makes Izuku look absolutely clueless until then. Katsuki had a bit of this problem himself when everyone was clamoring for him to just apologize to Izuku already while Horikoshi clearly wanted to wait and build up to that moment:

Also, a big part of the story is about Katsuki’s moral development, his atonement, and his apology. This is a fictional story. Part of the art is in how Horikoshi wants to depict that apology. There’s no need to rush it. It’ll happen in some form or another. Just you wait.

So yeah, Izuku’s status as the main character itself just turns him into a chicken-and-egg paradox within the structure of a story.

[pikahlua]

siflshonen's Kirishima meta mentions that Bakugou lacks JP imagery in his militaristic hero costume while Kiri signals to Katsuki :"it’s okay to be proud of your place of origin. You don’t have to shy away from its darker history. You can embrace it all." How both boys link to delinquent asthetic and values which linked to the Samurai code. That got me thinking of Edgeshot and Hori future costume design of Katsuki hinting at incorporating Edgeshot/Samurai pieces, its a way to get Katsuki 1/2

Yes, it's a very good presentation. That's the one I definitely learned the most from, because that is a topic I haven't really looked into much myself. I'm sure @siflshonen would love to hear your thoughts on it. :)

[pikahlua]

In Defense of Swiss Cheese

I thought this would be a fun, lighthearted post to make, because this certainly gave me a chuckle.

The official Viz translation of chapter 322 is out, and as always there are some interesting translation choices.

Of particular note, this one’s been making the rounds:

I thought it’d be fun to go into why this is actually a pretty decent translation.

死柄木にぶっ刺された時言った事覚えてっか？ しがらきにぶっさされたときいったことおぼえてっか？ Shigaraki ni bussasareta toki itta koto oboete kka?

I originally translated this sentence as, “Do you remember what I said when I was stabbed by Shigaraki?” I try to give the most literal translations possible so that people can compare other translations to each other, but even the most literal translation will lose some important bits.

Katsuki uses the phrase ぶっ刺された bussasareta.

Sasareta means "stabbed." The ぶっ at the beginning adds the bus- part, which is a slangy, crude prefix that emphasizes extremeness. I see it often paired with violent words, turning korosu (“to kill”) into bukkorosu (which is hard to translate, so maybe like "kill you dead" or "kill with prejudice" or "FUCKIN' KILL").

Katsuki uses this prefix often. In general, he does this kind of stuff with his language a lot. He talks fairly crudely with a lot of slang, typically playing up the delinquent speech.

So, "Shigaraki made Swiss cheese outta me" is actually...a really good translation, even if it sounds corny in English. It gets across the slangy, crass/rude/offensive nature of Katsuki's speech, even if it's not as rough as the modern English slang you might expect to hear from a delinquent in 2021. It also--shockingly--maintains the passive tense of the verb conjugation.

Given the age range of the target audience, I have to allow for the validity of this translation, even if in real life we'd expect someone like Katsuki to say something a little cruder and more...memetic.

so it’s like… “remember when shigaraki stabbed the shit outta me”

“stabbed the heck outta me”

“remember how shigaraki skewered me!”

“shish kebabed me!”

“made a leaky bucket of me!”

- Al, 2021

"remember when shigaraki shanked me"

"remember when shigaraki super-stabbed me?"

“s-s-s-stabbed!”

- Pikahlua, 2021

Remember how he made me into his own personal showerhead? Yeah, that was a wash….

Remember how he made me into his own personal colander and had me strain his noodles?

‘Member that one time Shigaraki took, like, an army of hole punchers to me?

- Sifl, 2021