Hello and welcome! I'm Nik and this is mostly my translation blog where I post my Japanese to English solo translation projects. I'm a native French speaker and I'm still studying Japanese, so I'm open to feedback if you have any. My askbox is also open for just about any comment you might have.
I translate whatever I want, but the usual fare is game content and song lyrics. I don't really care about being the first to TL something, and I don't like calling dibs on things either, so I'll most likely end up posting content that was already translated by some of my peers. Still, thank you for taking the time to read my TLs!
Please note that I have quite an extensive backlog that already exists on my Dreamwidth and Twitter, especially when it comes to my Ride Kamens translations.
I listened to Utsu-P's latest album last night and Perfect 10 resonated so much with me that I had to temporarily break out of my translation hiatus to try my hand at cracking it. I think I can easily call it my favorite song from the album, and I feel that the more time I spend listening to it, the likelier it is to be one of my favorite Utsu-P songs altogether.
I'm a bit rusty in the song translation department, but hopefully I did this song justice.
This post includes the original lyrics, the transcript (romaji) and the translation alongside TL notes.
Content warning: Shooting and possible murder-suicide attempt, depending on how you interpret the song and its lyrics
Hoo ni fureta jimen
Sore yori mo tsumetai tekubi no kinzoku to yajiuma no shisen
SAIREN no oku de koe ga suru
Un'yoku "mukou-gawa" ni nareta hitotachi no manten kaitou
Zutto maru ga moraenakatta jibun ni maru mo tsukerarenakatta
Uzukumatte maruku nari komoru netsu ni taeru hibi
Jiyuu to iu na no mugen jigoku de kinou no nokori o tabeteita
Aru hi kabosoi kumo no ito ga kireru oto ga shita
Maru de kami-sama ni natta mitai ni rojou o boutto nagameteita
Makka ni somatta hanamaru ano toki zutto hoshikatta mono
Taishougai bugai reigai senryokugai
Kengai jogai sogai kaya no soto
Kizukeba subete no sotogawa ni ita
Miraretai yobaretai tada itai
Sore dake de PERFECT
Jibun wa sotogawa janai to omotteta
Aru hi totsuzen sotogawa ni natteita
Kizuita dake na no ka nari hatete shimatta no ka
Sukima kara naka o nozoku to maru de DEJITARU SAINEEJI mitai ni
Tanoshisou na hitotachi no eizou ga ippou-teki ni nagareteiru
Hito mo sakuhin mo daremo kochira o mite orazu
Toujisha dewanai to tsuki tsukerareru bakari
Dare ka dare ka kocchi o mite
Daredemo ikitete yokatta hoshi no hazure de
Tada futsuu o sagashiteta
Taishougai bugai reigai senryokugai
Kengai jogai sogai kaya no soto
Kizukeba subete no sotogawa ni ita
Miraretai yobaretai tada itai
Sore dake de PERFECT
English
The metal on my wrists and the stares of onlookers
Are much colder than the ground touching my cheek
Voices resonate deep within the sirens
It's the perfect answer of those fortunate enough to cross to the other side (1)
I've never gotten full marks on anything, I couldn't give myself full marks either
Crouched with my back round, I spent days suffering from a fever building up inside of me
In this hell of endless suffering called freedom, I would eat yesterday's leftovers
And one day, I heard the faint sound of the spider's thread being cut
I looked at the road in a daze as if I'd become God
And saw what I'd always longed for, a flower mark tainted red (2)
Ineligible, an outsider, an exception, not part of the team
Out of range, excluded, neglected and ignored
Thinking about it, I'm a stranger to this world (3)
I want to be seen, I want people to call my name, I simply want to exist
Just that would be perfect
I thought I wasn't an outsider
But one day, I suddenly became one
Had I just become aware of it, or had I just ended up in this situation?
When I peeked inside through the gaps, it felt like watching an electronic billboard
Playing one-sided footage of people who seemed happy
No one and nothing looked my way
Thoughts of having no ties to them kept stabbing at me (4)
Someone, someone please look at me
All I was looking for was a sense of normality
Outside of the stars' reach, where anyone would be happy to live
Ineligible, an outsider, an exception, not part of the team
Out of range, excluded, neglected and ignored
Thinking about it, I'm a stranger to this world
I want to be seen, I want people to call my name, I simply want to exist
Just that would be perfect
TL Notes
満点回答 could be literally translated as "an answer getting you full marks/a perfect score". I just went for "perfect answer" for the sake of flow. I took some liberties with になれた by using "cross" since I thought it'd fit well with the concept of the other side.
More of a culture note: in Japan, it's common to give flower marks to schoolchildren to indicate that they got a perfect score on an assignment.
I took liberties with the wording with this line. More literally, it'd be closer to "once I realized/became aware, I was standing outside of everything". I used "stranger to this world" to avoid repeating "outsider" in my translation.
当事者ではない is closer to "I'm an unrelated party," but it just sounded strange worded that way in English, so I opted for this wording instead.
It's just what it says on the tin, really. I'm going on an indefinite hiatus.
The short and cynical version is that I want to kill myself and I've only got myself to blame for it. Don't expect anything from me anymore. I'll be safe physically because I'm too scared of death to actually make an attempt on my life. Have a good day/night.
The long and more sincere version is the following.
I've been struggling for over a year with my mental health and I've reached a point where I can't pretend I'll get over it and carry on with the expectations I've placed upon myself.
One of the contributing factors is that RK wiki editing has been weighing too much on me. What started as a hobby turned into more of a chore, to the point where it soured a lot of things in my personal life.
I've only got myself to blame because frankly, nobody asked me to do anything. Nobody gives a rat's ass what I contribute to a game's community, and I have to stress that nobody has directly pressured me to do anything in a time-sensitive manner. It has only been self-inflicted pressure. However, I think that trying to be helpful and do what I could resulted in me biting way more than I could chew.
I think it wouldn't be that much of a problem if I knew when to take a break and was less hard on myself to begin with. However, I'm someone with a fundamentally frail sense of self, and I feel like whatever I do ends up defining me somehow, so if I stop doing what I think people expect me to do, what am I, really? Nothing, that's it.
And now we reach the second contributing factor and what I consider to be the most important, really.
I've felt like nothing for a very long time. I've been drifting away from the people I love to the point where I feel like I'm constantly lagging behind, and people don't care about letting me catch up to them. It's been more common for me to spend my nights fantasizing about killing myself simply because it seems easier than going on with life. I also haven't been doing great physically, so it only exacerbates that urge to kill myself. What's the point of living if I wake up thinking there's no point to being awake and my body's actively antagonizing me?
I'm some kind of lonely stubborn idiot with a death wish who can't get it through his head that his life will never amount to much. I guess that'd be the best way to define my current mental state.
That being said, I'm self-aware enough to realize I'm never going to get out of that hole if I keep sinking instead of trying to climb back to the surface.
So, indefinite hiatus. I won't translate stuff for a while, and I don't think I'll work on wiki stuff for a while either. I also don't think I'll really be that active on social media. I think I'll just keep to a few private places and that's it. I need to take time to figure stuff out, and have an idea of what I want to do moving forward.
I don't know how to end this. To be honest, I didn't expect myself to ramble for that long. I thought I'd end it at the short and cynical explanation of the hiatus because talking about whatever is wrong with me frankly makes me uncomfortable and I'd rather wave off my feelings as something that's easily dismissible. I feel like I've been transparent about my current mental state, at least.
It's almost midnight and I'm exhausted mentally and physically, so I'm gonna post this, link it wherever relevant and call it a day.
The mysterious heir of the Yukimi family of "White Priests" and a descendant of the Cosmos Conglomerate
The heir of the Yukimi family, a family of talented doctors known as the "White Priests" descending from the Cosmos Conglomerate.
Little is known about him despite the fact that the previous Agent favored him as his successor.
He has a particularly princely way of talking and holding himself, and has a tendency to toy with the people around him.
Profile
Height: 173cm
Weight: 60.7kg
Age: Unknown
Voice Lines
"You commoners won't regret it."
"I'm a better fit for the agent succession. I know what the Riders and the agent's duties entail."
"Very well then, I'll show you willpower."
TL Notes
No matter how hard I refreshed his profile page on the website, the very end of his voice lines are cut off on my end, so I would generally take the translation of his voice lines with a grain of salt.
Ride Kamens Event Snap | Ep.29: Summer's for Going to Sunny Spots
Text version and TL notes under the cut.
--
(Temperature: 23°C.)
Haruma: Huh, you both came in summer clothes!? Aren't you cold?
Kyosuke: It's gonna get hotter, right? So no problem. Plus, I'm all fired up!
Hayate: Right, we gotta raise the temp with our attitude!
TL Notes:
More of a reference note for Americans: 23°C is roughly 73°F.
Shizuru: Hey… that dog kinda looks like Rui, doesn't it?
Lance: … Pfft!!
Rui: Huh? It looks nothing like me.
TL Notes:
I couldn't show it in the translation, but the title of this comic is a pun on the expression 他人の空似 which translates to "accidental resemblance", but refers more specifically to when you come across someone who looks like you despite being unrelated to you. Here, the 人 (meaning person) from the original expression has been replaced with 犬 (dog) to make fun of the dog's uncanny resemblance to Rui. I opted for "uncanny" in my translation to highlight the strangeness of the situation.
Thermo-kun: Wait wait wait! What's with that reaction!!?
Matsunosuke: Ah, er… (Looks like we've got a unique one again…)
Shion: Ahaha… nice to meet you, Thermo-kun.
TL Notes:
Provided for context here, Thermo-kun is the event story's talking object and as you may have already concluded from their name, they're a thermometer.
Oh dear, what do you mean it's been almost a year I haven't written a proper post on here? Anyway, I felt like writing an update post to at least give some thoughts on my current situation and just where I'm going to go from here.
It's going to be a bit long so for the sake of not dumping a massively long post on the poor people trying to scroll through their dash I'll put the rest of this under a cut.
Addressing the most glaring issues first: I haven't been translating much and I also haven't updated this blog's sidebar and masterlist in literal months. This is solely because I've been busy with making all kinds of different pages for the RK wiki. It's kind of embarrassing to say that something I first intended to be a quick thing ended up being the one thing I've dedicated myself to. As it stands, though, working on the wiki has been my biggest contribution to the Ride Kamens fandom.
I've also given up on the cast interviews. I don't really have another way to word it, really, I've just been completely discouraged at the idea of going back to them and fixing them and posting them. If by some chance I ever come back to them, I'll only post text versions of the interviews—I genuinely don't wanna bother with typesetting anymore.
So what's the plan if I'm just busy with wiki work? Well, I have a bit of a roadmap of sorts regarding this blog and even my wiki contributions, but I'll spare the wiki contributions talk, you can just check whatever happens on Miraheze if you're curious about that. Consider the list to come things I'd like to do eventually (and this only counts for myself, really, not things I'm working on with other people), but I can't say if I'll actually have the time to spare for it:
Update pinned post with more relevant information; I haven't used my Dreamwidth in solid months now so I might as well get rid of the link on there.
Update the masterlist and sidebar at last, and try to keep it updated every month.
Squeeze in some time for translating actual in-game Ride Kamens content. My priorities will still be my top 3's stories when I get to this because I'm biased.
I wanna translate things other than Ride Kamens someday but that requires finding something I'll feel insane enough about to translate and post, so who knows if that'll ever happen. I might also dabble in translating things from French to English from time to time.
What if I subjected you guys to horrors by not only posting translations but also my writing on there? Wow! (This is half a joke; I have an AO3 for my fics but I do need a place for my original safe for work writing and I feel way too lazy to make a writing blog so that could be an option)
Bi-weekly posts like this post starting July just to tell myself "hey, I have a blog that I can use to talk about things". I think I'd also like interacting with people on here? But I don't follow anyone and only use this blog to post things, so I don't know...
Hopefully I'll get into the groove of using Tumblr more often with that.
I guess that's it for now? I ended up running out of things to say and I also got massively distracted in the midst of writing this post.
Kakeru: Are you really not embarrassed walking around the street in this outfit…?
Fralio: Embarrassed? Your question is what's embarrassing! Listen, for an actor, the costume is…
Koki: … This place smells different from a Chaos World.
Saigo: *sniff sniff* …
TL Notes:
The original title is a play on words: 鼻が利く (hana ga kiku) literally translates to "having a good nose," but it means that you have a good intuition. In French there's an idiom that conveys that (avoir du flair) while keeping the olfactive theme, but from what I gathered, in English "having a good nose" means that you have it specifically for something (like having a nose for deals) instead of just in general like the Japanese expression implies. In the end, I preferred putting emphasis on the intuition part of the idiom, hence the current translation of the title.
Uryu: There's no overtime today so I'm heading back. After all, complying with the rules is a core tenet of being a member of society.(1)
Shizuru: Ahaha, right, right. Gotcha~!
TL Notes:
This is half a TL note and half a cultural note. Uryu says ノー残業デー which literally TLs as "no overtime day," but in a Japanese workplace context, it's a day where it's forbidden to give overtime work so employees don't end up burning out. This is why Uryu ends up talking about rules.
Saigo: Soun was holding a flower bouquet. It looks like he's going to receive more.
Haruma: There's a birthday party for Soun-san at the lounge today? They sure seem to be in high spirits!
Shion: I hope today will be a peaceful day for Soun-san.
Jigen: Today is Soun's birthday, huh… I hope he'll have a fulfilling year.
MADGUY
Kyosuke: That Soun guy was dressed to the nines today, is there somethin' goin' on or what?
Narushi: Don't you think it's nonsense to give bouquets as a present to someone with great knowledge of flowers?
Matsunosuke: Oh, so it's Soun-san's birthday? Talk about a happy day for him.
SLAM DAYS
Rui: Should I send him flowers, since stuff that's not high-class is fine? … Man, I don't even care.
Lance: I thought it was unusual for Q to order flowers, but it turns out it's Soun's birthday. I feel like he's planned something…
Q: What kind of prank should I play on Soun, I wonder… how about sending flowers to Wisdom?
Shizuru: I wanna treat Soun-san to a drink and have a toast next time I see him in a bar…
WISDOM THINKS
Soun: To think you'd come here as a customer to have me for yourself… Ah, no?(1) I'm happy. Well then, let's start with a toast, shall we?
Hayate: Today's one of the most important days of the year~! Alright then, let's all give a toast to our manager Soun!
Koki: … Strawberries are the tastiest this time of the year. I picked up some in the mountain, I'll let you eat them later.
Jo: Soun's birthday is the brightest day for Wisdom. Let's give a reception worthy of the greatest night.
TOWER EMBLEM
Taiten: Unfortunately, I'm extremely busy today. Please give him my regards.
Uryu: It's Soun-san's birthday, isn't it? … I wonder what kind of gift would make him happy…
GAMBITWIN
Kakeru: I saw a bunch of women flooding the lounge to celebrate Bangs' birthday when I passed by earlier!
Fralio: I think I'll give Soun something great! He might repay it back a hundredfold!
TL Notes
Putting this here for the sake of clarification, but we can assume the agent is asking if he's bothered, hence that response. I could have added more to the TL, but the OG itself doesn't have much extra context to go off of, so I just went for this.
Saigo: Q said that he's the main character today. So birthdays are when people can become main characters?
Haruma: When I wished Q a happy birthday, he gave me a riddle to solve… Nghn… I pass!
Shion: Whoa! Q-kun, you startled me… a surprise? Usually, it's the person whose birthday is being celebrated who gets surprised…
Jigen: A mouse? That's your face, Q! You're the one who told me to draw you a portrait for your birthday!
MADGUY
Kyosuke: That Q guy's so annoying… tellin' me, "You couldn't solve my riddle, so I want a present~" and stuff…
Narushi: Hmph, talking about how beautiful I could possibly be is more worth my time than celebrating Q's birthday.
Matsunosuke: Happy birthday, Q. If possible, take the pranks down a notch.(1)
SLAM DAYS
Rui: Q's acting even more like an attention seeker than usual 'cuz it's his birthday… annoying…
Lance: I found a present box from Q in our room, but I still haven't opened it because I'm scared…
Q: Of course, you're gonna celebrate my birthday instead of Lance's today, right?
Shizuru: Yeah, yeah, I also prepared something for you, Q! Here, have prank toys! You better not use them on me.
WISDOM THINKS
Soun: He came all the way here to blackmail me with prank threats if I don't give him a present… what a bother…
Hayate: What should I give them to make them both happy? Pizza-flavored gummies? Or a pizza with gummies on it? If you ask me, I'm curious about both…
Koki: Considering it's your birthday, I'll at least let you choose how I'll fillet you. In two pieces? Three pieces? You could even choose five pieces.(2)
Jo: Should I play a prank on Q today? … It's hard to come up with something, though.
TOWER EMBLEM
Taiten: Happy birthday, Q-kun. You sure look happy to have everyone celebrating your birthday.
Uryu: Knowing him, I think that Q-san will play a birthday prank on us, won't he?
GAMBITWIN
Kakeru: Right's riddles are super hard today… His birthday sure is putting him in high spirits.
Fralio: He told me that I had to give him a present 'cuz I couldn't solve his riddle… talk about an arrogant guy.
TL Notes
Took liberties here. The OG line is more along the lines of Agata asking Q to give everyone a break and slow down with the pranks, but I thought that wording was a nice way to combine both of those feelings.
Koki is making a clear reference to the different ways one can cut a fish, hence my wording here. I could have said "how many fillets I'll make out of you," but the 3 pieces and 5 pieces cut involves keeping the fish's bones, so not exactly the most accurate translation if I'd gone with that wording.
