Concept art for Whiteholm Castle's gardens! This has been something I wanted to translate for a while, purely because it's just really pretty :)
Translation notes and image ids under the cut.
Translation Notes:
"Resting place" might have meant something more like "shrine," but given the appearance I leaned toward "resting place."
"Unreal splendor" was lit. the Japanese phonetic spelling of English's "unreal" + the Japanese word for splendor. I'm not really 100% sure why that English word was used there, but I think it's just meant to be a little extra fancy/emphasized.
There were a lot of little words on here that I was a little iffy about, in part because the handwriting was kind of small and I had trouble making out the characters. Longer sentences are usually actually easier to translate because you can use grammar and sentence structure context clues to figure out what the word is supposed to be. When it's a one-off little label, it becomes a lot more important that you know exactly what each character is. The image of the lantern hanging on the lanternpost is one in particular that I still feel sort of unsure about (it definitely mentioned hanging the lantern, but I couldn't 100% figure out what exactly the rest of it meant).
Image Id:
[id: A set of 4 images. The first is the original Japanese version of the page of concept art for Whiteholm Castle's gardens.
The second is the top third of the page, with English translations. It has the heading, "CountryA_Garden/SacredTreeVersion." There is a small shot of Whiteholm Castle with a red box outlining the section with the gardens, which has the label, "here is a wide shot of the area," as well as another label pointing to some trees outside the gardens that reads, "a forest grows around the castle." There is then a much larger and detailed illustration of the gardens, which has a large tree centered to the far right side. There is a label that has a text box with the heading, "Sacred Tree." The text in the text box reads, "A large tree that has been growing here since before the kingdom's founding, and keeps watch as the land develops. The tree is old, so its leaves have long withered away. But at night (maybe once every few cycles?), fireflies gather and form glowing leaves, returning it to its former glory." There is another nearby note that reads, "White gradient from the base to the trunk and brown gradient from the trunk to the branches." Another small label is put on the smaller, less distinct foliage nearby, reading, "forest." There is a small image of the tree at night, labeled "Sacred Tree (Night)" with the caption, "Countless fireflies are drawn by the tree's special sap and form a tree of light."
The third image is the middle section of the page, and is labeled "Country A Garden." It has a small diagram of the streetlamp with the label "Streetlamp (The idea is that it's illuminated by a lantern candle rather than a gas lamp.)" Another nearby note reads, "Lantern hands from pole." There are several additional simple labels pointing to the lotus flowers that grow in the large rectangular fountain, as well as the small semi-circle fountain that serves as a source for the rectangular one, a gazebo that is called "resting place," some large stone flower vases, some benches, some flowering plants and ivy that hang from the balustrades around the garden, and the reflections on the water, which reads, "The sky is reflected on the surface of the water." Off to the side there are some more detailed close-ups of the stone vases (which contain yellow roses), a stone bench, and a "general purpose balustrade."
The last image is of the garden at night, labeled "Country A Garden/Firefly Version." It is the same as the previous image, but with different coloring, and devoid of many of the labels. It has the same note about the streetlamps. At the bottom, there is an illustrator's note that reads, "In an effort to avoid making the garden look gaudy, we paid special attention to not overdoing it with flowers. But at night, we send out fireflies with the deliberate intention of giving it an "unreal splendor." (Tatsuaki Urushibara) /end id]
I’m not 100% what the distinction is between King’s Room, Boardroom, Assembly Hall, etc. is. The throne room definitely seems to be the King’s room, and the Assembly Hall is definitely the one with the staircases. However, when it comes to the Boardroom, I think it refers to the King’s Room (since that seems to be noted in the Assembly Hall image) but it felt a little unclear. I’ve probably mixed up some terminology throughout it all, so sorry about that.
As I’m going through more pages, it’s dawning on me that “A” references both Glenbrook AND Wolffort (and possibly Serenoa specifically). The note on the diagram that talks about “A’s territory” is most likely in reference to Wolffort. (As an aside, this means I’ll probably go back and update Lady Destra’s concept page at some point--there was one thing I translated as “Parent of A [meaning Glenbrook]” when it probably should have been translated as “Parent of A [meaning Wolffort/Serenoa].”)
The Kingdom of Glenbrook’s crown city is situated along the banks of the Norzelia River. Once plagued by frequent, deadly floods, previous monarchs oversaw projects to control the river’s flow, transforming the capital into the idyllic city people know today.
A bustling town and crystalline waters dotted with merchant ships from all over the realm—there is no more fitting image for a kingdom of commerce. To top it all off, Whiteholm Castle has come to be known as Norzelia’s most picturesque palace.
There is more to the castle than its beautiful exterior. Genius feats of engineering went into constructing such a mammoth in the middle of the river, which becomes the castle’s best defense the moment the bridge is raised. Out of all the castles ever built over Norzelia’s storied history, there is no question that Whiteholm is the most impressive.
