Daiya no Ace: The Dramas 11: Leader of the Pitcher Pack
An explanation… To keep my brain from rusting I started a project to translate the drama tracks that came with the character song CDs and other stuff relating to Daiya no Ace (because I love them and they’re all hilarious). My disclaimer - I am not a native speaker of Japanese, but I will do my best!
Character Song CD 11 – Kawakami Norifumi Drama 02 Featuring Nori, Sawamura and Furuya
Scene: The bullpen, at practice. Kawakami turns up to find a bullpen devoid of catchers, and, as senpai, he has to take charge of the warm up of the two first year idiots pitchers.
Sawamura: Morning, Nori-senpai!
Furuya: Morning!
Nori: Huh? Where are Miyuki and the other catchers?
Sawamura: Ah, the boss decided to call the catchers only to talk to them about something.
Nori: I see. So have you guys finished warming up?
Sawamura: Perfectly! Because I wanted to get into the bullpen and throw right away!
Furuya: Mine’s perfect too.
Nori: It’s still warm right now, so it’s not such a big deal, but when it starts to get colder, if you don’t warm up properly you can get hurt even from something minor.
Sawamura: That’s true.
Nori: Yep. I was often told by Tanba-san (he adopts a Tanba-ish voice): ‘Kawakami! A pitcher’s body is his life! Make sure you warm up properly!”
Furuya: Isn’t that something you could say to any player?
Sawamura: Furuya! Are you trying to undermine the words bequeathed to Nori-senpai from Tanba-san, that he’s now trying to share with us?
Nori: Tanba-san is perfectly healthy, you know, and has only retired…[implication, he hasn’t died!]
Furuya: Um…so is it bad, just warming up from running?
Nori: It’s not good.
Furuya :Do-o-o-o-o-n (sound effect)
Sawamura: (laughing): Furuya, you’re too naïve! I make sure I properly use a tire!
Furuya: In that case, even I…
Sawamura: But that’s my tire, right?
Furuya: Actually, it’s mine
Nori: You know, that’s also not warming up. And that tire doesn’t really belong to either of you. It’s part of the baseball club’s equipment, and it’s not like it has a name written on it.
Sawamura: I wrote my name on it!
Nori: You wrote on it?! More to the point, just running laps with that thing prior to afternoon practice isn’t really warming up, you know. You really should be doing something to just get a bit of sweat pumping and to warm your body up properly. I wonder if you guys can do that? Well, I guess for now the running is a start…did you do sprints as well?
Sawamura: We sprinted from the ground to the bullpen!
Furuya: I was fastest.
Nori: That’s not sprint practice…ah, fine, let’s go do that.
Sawamura: That’s Nori-senpai for you! It’s almost as if he were our senpai!
Furuya: Amazing.
Nori: Erm…I am your senpai…
(they go to complete this exercise and at the end, breathing hard, they return).
Nori: Right! Next are stretches! (Translator’s note, the Japanese word for stretch comes from the English but is written phonetically as sutorecchi. This is important for Sawamura’s next comments).
Sawamura: You know, just like I call Kominato Haruichi ‘Harucchi’, the word sutorecchi is really Nori-senpai’s term of affection for ‘sutoressu’ (Stress) – something like that, right?
Nori: Right. Just like I call Shirasu ‘Shirasu-cchi’….of course not!
Furuya: Ah! Nori-tsukkomi!
(Translator’s note: Tsukkomi is the kind of joke roleplay we often see with Sawamura and Haruichi, where Sawamura says something crazy and Haruichi reacts to it. Nori is obviously Nori’s actual name, but the word ‘nori’ can also mean to ‘get on board with’ something. The term nori-tsukkomi literally means to go along with a joke and then react to it belatedly in this kind of a way – just like Nori just did with the -cchi comments. So Furuya is making a clever word play that Nori got on board with Sawamura’s tsukkomi joking.)
Sawamura: Furuya! You think you just said something pretty cool, don’t you?
Furuya: Huh? (oblivious).
Sawamura: Nori-senpai and nori-tsukkomi! Ahh…I can’t lose to that!
Nori: So further explanations are unnecessary, and frankly, no, it wasn’t.
Sawamura: Really? But when we talk about stretching, it’s really a concept put about by the American Bob Anderson as a part of sports science theory…isn’t it?
Nori: You really know the most random things.
Furuya: That’s the thing Kudou-senpai told us before, isn’t it?
Nori: (understanding): Ah. It’s something you learned from Kudou.
Sawamura: Furuya, damn you!
Furuya: (still oblivious): I learned from Kudou-senpai how to prevent injuries by stretching properly. And in any case (shiny music), I’m the ace.
Sawamura: Gnnnnnn….Acee….
Nori: Sawamura, you have a really unpleasant expression on your face right now.
Sawamura: It’s fine! (he’s getting competitive now). I learned how to do the Mae-Ken warm up routine (Translator cannot remember which episode it is but it’s definitely in the anime) and I also learned ‘muscle stretching’ from Miyauchi-senpai!
Nori: I never heard of those stretches. Sawamura, stretching is something you should do each day, but not overdo. Something to warm up your body, relax, and sometimes, rest to prevent injury. Those are the key points. You should think of it as a conversation between you and your body.
(Translator says: Oh dear, Nori hasn’t learned from the finger licking incident about Sawamura and his literal mind.)
Sawamura: Like this? (He slaps himself) Moshi moooshi! My upper body muscles? Are you okayyy!
Nori: (weary) No, not like that…
Sawamura: Then how about this? (he adopts a Miyauchi voice) Oi! Muscles of mine. Today…HOW. ARE. YOU.” With that kind of a forceful approach?
Nori: That sounds more like the script for a comedy duo! Miyauchi-senpai would not say that, and I never heard of anything like that!
Furuya: And it’s annoying.
Sawamura: Gnnnnnn
Nori: Come on! Shut up talking and move your body instead! Before you cool down, we’re going to stretch our chest and arm muscles!
Furuya and Sawamura: Yes sir!
Nori: To check your condition each day, you should stretch your muscles carefully and with awareness. Especially with your shoulder and your joints, to make sure nothing is uncomfortable…carefully, huh?
Sawamura Look at me! I have a really flexible body and joints!
(He is clearly contorting himself about a bit.)
Furuya: That’s disgusting.
Sawamura: Don’t call me disgusting!
Nori: Honestly, I’m just envious. That flexible body and manoeuvrable joints are where those dirty pitches originate from.
Sawamura: (Insulted) What do you mean, dirty?
Furuya: They don’t spin properly and they bend in a gross kind of way.
Sawamura: Say ‘moving ball’ at least! Moving ball!
Nori: Okay, onto the next stage. This time we’ll do the back of the shoulders.
Furuya and Sawamura: Yes sir!
Nori: When we’re done with the shoulder, there’s the wrist, the fingers and the elbow to stretch, too. Which reminds me, Furuya, are you taking proper care of your nails?
Furuya: Yes, sir. When I finish practice, I always take care of them. I was told to do so by Miyuki-senpai as well, you see.
Sawamura: Even I’m doing it as well! I borrowed some nail polish from the girls in my class1
Nori:…Er…that kind of has a pinkish shade, doesn’t it…?
Sawamura: Apparently it’s cute and really popular!
Nori: …..I…won’t judge you, so please, remove that one and use some clear instead? I’ll lend you mine.
Sawamura: Huh? Is there a problem?
Nori: If the coach found out, he’d probably say, (Nori adopts a Coach type voice) ‘What are you thinking!? Go run until I tell you to stop!”
Sawamura: Eeeeeeh?! I definitely don’t want that! The mound will get even further away from me!
Furuya: It’s fine. I’ll just pitch from start to finish myself.
Sawamura: Shut up! The mound is mine!
Furuya: It’s mine.
Nori: You guys aren’t forgetting about me, are you?
Sawamura and Furuya: Ah!
Nori: (sigh): Ah, whatever. When we’re finished stretching both large and small joints, and the shoulder-blades, we’ll go play catch-ball in the bullpen to finish off.
Sawamura and Furuya: Yes sir!
Sawamura: Nori-senpai is really senpai-like today!
Furuya: Mm.
Nori: Like I said, I AM your senpai…
