#translator's notes

[brightgreendandelions]

[a-silent-notion]

Execution (Eguzekyuushon): Translator's Notes

When I took on this project for myself to translate Mafu's latest song, I didn't realize what an intensive process it would be to translate something completely from scratch ^^' Luckily, my school had fall break this past week and I've had time to work on this translation between studying for my Japanese and engineering midterms. (And if I counted this as studying for my Japanese written midterm, that's my business, okay?) Truthfully, there are still parts of this translation that I'm not 100% on, and I am still a novice, so I would prefer if people would use this translation merely for reference, rather than some definitive translation (so that my misunderstandings of Mafumafu's intent don't get reprinted all over the internet, ehe). If you would translate certain parts differently, I would love to discuss. 日本語を勉強している学生として、もっと上手になりたい！

Execution is a song I adore for both its lyrical beauty and the incredible instrumental. Really, the melodic/harmonic contours, the instrumentation, the story of the song, and Mafumafu's dream-like voice are just a few of the things that draw me into this song. Particularly in his diction, I wanted to draw out a few of the themes I noticed as I was translating: Noh theatre, Othello, and opposing pairs.

Noh Theatre

Honestly, I'm not extremely knowledgeable about Noh Theatre. However, I have two things to point out. Firstly, the word he uses for farce, kyougen, does at face value refer to a lie or falsehood. But, depending on what characters are written, it can also refer specifically to a theatrical farce presented in the interlude of a Noh play. Secondly, the word I translated as "act" in "as the curtain resists falling on this act" is 幕 (maku), which is both the curtain and the act. So, I wanted to note this as another theatrical connection.

Othello

Although I write it quite ambiguously as "game board" in the first verse, the game board here is almost definitely an Othello board. I consider it to be confirmed, since he mentions Othello later in the song, and he mentions the board as being lined up in black and white—Othello is a game with two opposing player, where one plays as black and the other plays as white. Truthfully, I only recently learned how to play it on iMessage as "Reversi" with a friend, but I can explain that the premise of the game is to outmaneuver your opponent in order to turn as much of the board to your colour as possible.

Other than a game board, Othello is also a Shakespeare play where the eponymous protagonist is manipulated into believing his wife is committing adultery, and resultantly murders her out of rage. Certainly Shakespeare's story of Othello, too, has ties to Mafu's lyricism, as he describes in the song his own distorted love game. Don't you know what murder means?

Opposing Pairs

Throughout the song Mafumafu expresses several dualities. He expresses the duality of Othello with tragedy and comedy and the duality of the self with black and white. The duality I could not convey for the life of me was his use of 裏 (ura) and 表 (omote) in the line "Within the interior and facade of a birdcage are the imprisoned remnants of reality." Ura and omote are complete opposites, with ura expressing the rear, underlying, hidden, "offstage," or internal aspect of an object, and omote representing what is external, surface-level, or some visibly evident principle. In the end, with each word encompassing many abstractions I failed to adequately translate each in a single word T_T Other than that, his language itself encompassed two extremes. 病み可愛い (yami kawaii) which is "sickly cute" sounds very modern, is derivative of 夢可愛い (yume kawaii) and is strongly tied to the modern menhera aesthetic. Then, he gave me a hard time when he used a classical form to express "without believing." I am not yet proficient enough at Japanese to plumb the depths of his lyrical genius, but I was sincerely impressed by Mafu's dedication to this theme in even the extremes of diction he used.

Misc. Notes

Other than that, I wanted to point out a couple other things I noticed while translating. 口封じ (kuchifuuji) which I wrote as muzzling, can also have the implication of murdering someone in order to guarantee their silence. 定め (sadame) which I wrote as fate, does have the meaning of destiny/fate but also rule/regulation, which lends credence to the fact that the laws in this world are decided by powers beyond the speaker’s reach, almost as if within a play. Personally, I think this word also expresses another duality within itself.

Those are all the notes I have for this song. So, I'd like to end by saying that Mafumafu may be on an indefinite hiatus, but of course I still adore him with all my heart. He has cheered me on for nine years, so I will wait for him even if his hiatus were to end up being nine more years, www. Rest up Mafu-kun, and return when you're ready! Remember, your health and happiness are most important!

[galliavalentine]

Translator’s notes for 木兰诗/Mulan

Mulan is one of those poems it seems like everybody has to read in school — I think nearly every college student who takes classical Chinese has to read it for class, and it’s one of those poems that parents in China like make their children memorize — but for all that, I’ve never come across an English translation that I liked. I don't really agree with the practice of trying to make classical poetry in other languages sound like classical English poetry, which is what all the English translations I’ve seen do.

Mulan, like a lot of longer Chinese poems, is written in symmetrical couplets where the end of each rhymes with the next, and the rhyme pattern will change every so often, as will line length. I’ve tried to keep to the couplet pattern here — [phrase, phrase] or [sentence; sentence] --- but as the rhyme pattern falls apart a bit in modern Chinese (even in e.g. Cantonese, which comes much closer to Middle Chinese pronunciation than Mandarin/Putonghua) I’ve quite happily thrown that out the window in English in favor of the rhythm.

who are you thinking of? what’s on your mind? Strictly this is “what are you thinking/longing for? what are you remembering?” with the connotation that Mulan is expected to be missing her lover, as that is generally what girls sitting at the loom in poetry are doing.

The lack of distinction drawn between ‘Khan’ and ‘emperor/son of Heaven’ indicates that the ruling dynasty at the time depicted is not originally from China but rather from the north. (The literal word for 'emperor’ is not used in this poem; 天子/son of Heaven is a synonym both for emperor and, before China was an empire, for the king.)

The litany of Mulan buying riding equipment from different markets is not literal, but meant to give a sense of her gathering everything in a great hurry.

The Huanghe is, of course, one of the two great rivers of China, known in English as the Yellow River.

The word used for the voices of Mulan's parents (聲) is the usual one for human voices; the one used for both the river's splashing and the nomads' voices (鳴) is one commonly used for animal noises. Thus that line is　sometimes translated as the voices of the nomads' horses. In addition, the splashing of the river, the nomads' voices, and the later whetting of the knife are all described with onomatopoeic words, similar to the clack-clack of the loom in the first line. I have used the word 'babbling' as a similar onomatopoeic adjective for foreign language sounds.

Both 'ten' and 'twelve' are used at different times in the poem to indicate an indistinct but relatively large amount. Except for the 'twelve ranks' I have translated the phrases they occur in without attached numbers.

Mulan does not say 'soldier' when speaking to the Khan, but 'son'.

The point-of-view and tense shifts in this poem, as in most Chinese poems, are difficult to identify due both to the nature of the language itself --- Chinese is not a language that spends extraneous words on tense or pronouns when not strictly necessary, and the older or more literary the language the truer this is --- and the lack of punctuation in classical texts. I have chosen to use quotation marks only for the Khan's speech and Mulan’s comrades to keep these boundaries between third-person and first-person Mulan blurred, and to make the Khan's words stand out. (Even whether he speaks at all is arguable.) Keeping everything in lowercase and using limited punctuation and rigid line breaks is in effort to emulate the original style as well.

Strictly speaking Mulan asks for a camel.

The 'when [relatives] hear Mulan is coming/has arrived' structure is repeated in full each time. Something that takes three characters in Chinese sounds exceedingly repetitive in English.

The word 'girl' (女郎) used here is composed of characters for 'woman' and 'young man'; another gender pun.

Whatever saying about rabbits here referenced is lost to history, but the basic meaning is clear. I have here swapped the literal 'both running next to the ground' for the more military and straightforward 'on the ground'.

Where possible I have tried to keep to the feeling of the poem rather than the exact literal meaning or sound-rhythm. Overall I have done my best to convey my own experience of reading 木兰诗. If you enjoyed my translation, I suggest you seek out other translations in this and any other languages you speak, so that you can experience other facets and angles of this poem. Every translation is built on the original, and each one is a different thing itself.

[quiet-courage]

So, in manga, I love when the couple’s romance is going at a leisurely walking speed while the translators’ minds are sprinting full speed ahead, all hyped up, with translator’s notes like “just kiss already!!!.” It is the most hilarious and adorable thing ever. My love to all translators <3

[too-fond-to-be-fearful]

日本語勉強から小話

私の中高一貫校で特別な日本語の教室があった。あそこで全部の日本語の授業をしなかったけど、むしろ理由は日本の姉妹校から贈り物で飾れた。特に、その一つはとてもきれいだと思った書道だった。

書道では文字が凝って書かれるから、日本語が少し苦手だったらあまり分かりにくいかもしれない。だから、ある日読める事を気づいた時に、本当に嬉しかった。

猫を被る

と言った書道だった。

信じられなかった！凝った文字を見分けたばかりか、その文字の意味も知ったさえ！

…じゃあ、そう思った。

実は、字義通りの意味を分かっても、この文は慣用語句だった。字義通りの意味は「頭で猫を被る」けど、本当に「優しそうのに、見せかけだけ」のような意味だ。英語では「羊服を着る狼だ」という同じような慣用語句がある。けど、その時にもちろん知らなかった。

そのため先生に「どうして誰も頭で猫を被る？」と聞いた。

誰にもこの意味を間違いやすいけど、まだ恥ずかしかったね～

…今思えば、あの書道は本当に猫を被っていた。

A Short Misadventure from my Japanese Studies

At my high school, we had a special Japanese classroom. We didn’t hold all the Japanese classes there, but rather, it was the Japanese classroom because it was decorated with gifts from our sister school in Japan. In particular, one of them was a piece of what I thought was very beautiful calligraphy.

Since characters can be very elaborately written in calligraphy, it can be hard to understand if you’re not very good at Japanese. So one day, when I realised I could read it, I was overjoyed.

The calligraphy read:

to wear a cat

I couldn’t believe it! Not only did I manage to make out the elaborate characters, but I even knew what they meant!

…Well, I thought I did, at least.

In reality, although I had understood the literal meaning, this sentence was actually an idiom. Literally, it means “to wear a cat on your head,” but the real meaning is something along the lines of “even though it looks nice, it’s all just an act.” We have a similar idiom in English, “to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” But of course, I didn’t know this at the time.

So that’s why I asked my teacher why anyone would wear a cat on their head.

It’s an easy mistake for anyone to make, but it was still embarrassing…

…Though now that I think about it, that calligraphy really was wearing a cat.

[kinounaniresource]

Why Shirou swears

As you may have noticed, my Shirou swears quite a bit. I’ve made hell and crap his go-to words. This is a choice I’ve made as a translator to highlight differences in Shirou’s and Kenji’s speech patterns (and consequentially personalities) because in Japanese they sound very different.

Japanese is a highly gendered language. Within the language there exist various speech registers, and the register you pick depends on your age, gender, social standing and relationship to the recipient.

Shirou uses a distinctly masculine register. You can often hear him end his sentences with zo or daro. On word-level zo has no meaning; it’s simply used to give your message an assertive, masculine flair. There’s a scene in episode 7 where they talk about Shirou not using gay slang, but this is actually my free translation to save space and make it easier for non-Japanese speakers to understand. What Kenji really means in this scene is that Shirou doesn’t stray from his masculine register, though at work he uses a more formal register, whereas with Kenji he’s quite crude. He can be crude with Kenji because he feels close to him. He often calls Kenji omae, which is a crude yet affectionate way to refer to someone you feel close to. Kenji on the other hand never uses it because it doesn’t fit his character.

Compared to Shirou, Kenji is more soft-spoken. Sometimes in Japanese media gay people are shown to speak in a fashion that is gendered pronouncedly female. Kenji doesn’t follow this stereotype, but the way he talks is still softer than Shirou’s. Where Shirou says daro, Kenji says desho. Both mean the exact same thing in English, but the difference lies in the nuances. Daro sounds masculine and assertive, desho softer and more gender-neutral, definitely more feminine than masculine.

So when Shirou swears in my sub, he’s not necessarily swearing in Japanese, but it's my way of attempting to salvage information about to be lost in translation. Whether this difference should be maintained in the translation is up for debate.

[kinounaniresource]

Hi! I'm really enjoying the show but there's something I'm curious about- it seems shirou and kenji never really display affection physically (like hugging, kissing goodbye, etc), small things everyday couples do. I'm not familiar with japanese shows, is physical affection between couples something that is usually not shown? or do you think since they're a gay couple, it's 'safer' not to show affection, so as to maybe appeal to a more general audience?

Hi! I’ve answered a similar ask in the past, so I’m linking it here.

To paraphrase myself, I think the lack of physical affection essentially comes down to two factors. First off, there’s no physical affection displayed in the manga the show is based on. This is probably partly due to what you said about it being ‘safer’ not to show affection. Most queer comics are published in specialised magazines targeting niche audiences, but this one’s been running on a magazine aimed at straight males for 12 years now. 

Secondly, this is very much a home drama rather than a straightforward romance. Japanese mainstream tv tends to be reserved when it comes to showing physical affection, even more so if the relationship is already established. Off the top of my head, I can’t name a single time I’ve seen middle-aged characters kiss each other goodbye on screen. There have been a few same sex kisses and romances on Japanese tv, the most notable one being Ossan’s Love, which was such a big hit that there’s now going to be a movie, so it’s not entirely unheard of, but the difference is that Ossan’s Love is a romantic comedy so there’s a whole build-up before the eventual kiss, making it a Moment. Physical affection with no build-up is far less common.

However! This show keeps pushing the envelope, it’s just very subtle about it. I’d never heard the words neko and tachi (top and bottom) uttered on mainstream Japanese television before episode 1. The zooming in on their faces as Shirou and Kohinata-san exchanged phone numbers was pretty wild. During episode 6 I had to blink when Shirou told Kenji there’s still round two after this, because the implications did not escape me. And the mochi cooking scene in episode 5! They really went there! Unfortunately I failed to translate it in a way that would’ve retained the original implications, but basically the exchange when Kenji asks if he can take the mochi out and Shirou tells him to do it was very much a deliberate innuendo because in Japanese dasu means both to take something out and to have an orgasm lmao. Just listen to the way Shiro-san says dashite ii yo in this scene, hahaha.

It’s also fair to keep in mind that the makings of romance are not culturally universal. Where a western viewer may expect a hug, a Japanese viewer may look for other clues. (I say ‘western viewer’ like it were an entity, but there’s probably a lot of variation there too since for example I come from a culture where I love you is not commonly said so saying I love you before heading out the door is not something I expect.) Many a page has been written on the concept of amae and its prevalence in Japanese culture. It’s hard to define this concept in just a few words, but basically what it means is a pleasurable dependence on another person. Many Japanese viewers may expect displays of amae even more than romance or physical affection when it comes to representing loving relationships. For instance, people were delighted by the way the usually independent Shirou showed amae towards Kenji at the end of episode 3.

Even if this show does shy away from showing physical affection, it still manages to portray a very loving relationship using other means while planting hints at a physical relationship. Hinting at instead of showing is a common characteristic of Japanese story telling in general. See for example ma in Japanese art.

So to answer your question, yes and yes!

[kinounaniresource]

Misc translator’s notes

Just a few miscellaneous notes about the past few episodes in a random order!

Shirou’s parents call each other okaasan and otousan, mum and dad. This is how most older couples address each other. In my translation I’ve however translated this as ‘dear’ because calling your spouse dad to their face feels unnatural in English. Likewise if you have to address an elderly person but you don’t know their name, okaasan and otousan are the safe bets.

Co-parenting after divorce is virtually unheard of. In divorce the child is often more or less stripped of a parent, which is why many people tend to wait until their kids are all grown up before filing for divorce. Shirou’s client Imamura-san has lost custody of her son in divorce even though she is not a bad parent.

Christmas in Japan is not a holiday, but it’s still a big event because companies want to sell you stuff. You can just smell the capitalism once December rolls in. My local supermarket puts up a massive inflatable Santa in November. New Year’s is a family event, while Christmas is for couples. If you don’t have a date on Christmas Eve, you’re free to lament how you’ll probably die alone. When someone asks whether you have plans for Christmas, what they’re really asking is whether you’re romantically involved. This is why Shirou’s coworkers are so eager to know about his plans, and why Shirou and Kenji’s first dinner at home is obviously not just bros being bros.

Mentaiko means pollock roe. It’s a popular topping on pasta and pizza, too.

Omoikkiri is a word that was used in episode 4 a lot. I translated it as bold in one place and spontaneous in some other places, but basically what it means is to stop overthinking and just do the damn thing.

Ni-choume is a queer district in Shinjuku with a lot of bars and clubs. A lot of straight people have also started to frequent it in recent years.

Moving in Japan is very expensive. You’re often asked to pay several months’ rent in advance, in cash. In addition, you need to pay deposit (shikikin), which can again be up to several months’ rent, and a sort of thank you money (reikin)  for the landlord to maintain a good relationship. You should get your deposit back once you move out, but in reality this never happens (somehow your deposit always goes towards these mystical ‘renovations’), and the thank you money is for the landlord to keep. This is what Kenji means by not having enough savings to move.

Their apartment feels very lived in. One of my favourite details is how they’ve used ugly duct tape to stick the garbage disposal calendar onto the wall. It also warms my heart to see they’ve bought a lot of their stuff after moving in together: for example the clay pot on top of the oven isn’t there in the flash-back scene, which is a wonderful detail because hot pot is one of those dishes you kinda want to share with someone.