#KATAKANA!VERSE

[theauthor0]

KATAKANA!VERSE

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GENERAL INFO

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Katakana!Verse is an alternate multiverse where a tree is the multiverse itself that created Ink and Error who is the first guardians of creation and destruction that created other guardian to help manage the multiverse/Tree

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THE MULTIVERSE/TREE

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The multiverse itself it like a giant tree surrounded in what looks to be smth similar to the doodle sphere

The Au’s hang from the tree branches of the tree like fruit

Any Au’s that become forgotten or unpopular fall from the tree into the roots of the tree which is connected to the void

To be clear the void is inside the space where the tree is and that the roots reach down into the void

The void is like the “dirt” for the roots with the Au’s falling through/into the void

The Tree maintains everything inside the multiverse however with one being maintaining every single thing in the multiverse became a problem as it caused mistakes

To prevent these sort of mistakes, the tree took parts of itself to create Ink and Error

Ink, The Guardian of Creation responsible for maintaining all of creation

Error, The Guardian of Destruction responsible for maintaining all of destruction

With there creation the tree was no longer responsible for maintaining those things, however this has a drawback as now if Ink or Error were to die through any event, it would cause disorder to the multiverse bringing it closer to destruction

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THE GUARDIANS

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The Tree created Ink and Error, who after some time created the second guardians

The Second Guardians are Guardians that were created by Ink or Error personally, theses guardians represent certain aspects of the multiverse that belong to their respective creators

If Ink or Error were to die, their creations (AKA the second guardians of their respective creators) will also start to slowly die

There can only exist 3 categories of guardians

-The First Guardian which are guardians that were directly created from the Tree with Ink and Error being the only ones

-The Second Guardians which are guardians that were created by Ink or Error aka the first guardians

-The Third Guardians which are guardians created by the Second guardians that represent a certain aspect of the Second guardian

Guardians themself are equal or comparable of that to gods being literal representation of those aspects with the weakest guardians being the Third Guardians

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CHARACTERS/GUARDIANS

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Ink (___: The First Guardian of Creation)

Error(___: The First Guardian of Destruction)

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Dream (Sans: The Second Guardian of Positive Emotions Created by Ink)

Nightmare (Sans: The Second Guardian of Negative Emotions Created by Ink)

Meta (Alphys: The Second Guardian of Code and Reality Created by Ink)

Aries (Asgore: The Second Guardian of Space and Time Created by Ink)

Athena (Toriel: The Second Guardian of Magic Created by Ink and Error)

Fara (Frisk: The Second Guardian of Life Created by Ink)

Kali (Chara: The Second Guardian of Death Created by Error)

Atrocity (Amalgamate: The Second Guardian of the Void Created by Error)

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Insanity (Papyrus: The Third Guardian of Insanity, Corruption, and Genocide Created by Nightmare)

Horror (Sans: The Third Guardian of Monstrosity’s Created by Nightmare)

Fallen (Undyne: The Third Guardian of Darkness and Vengeance Created by Nightmare and Kali)

Scrap (Glyde: The Third Guardian of Dead Worlds Created by Meta and Atrocity)

Anti (Madjick: The Third Guardian of Anti-Matter Created by Aries)

Glyphs (Madjick: The Third Guardian of Matter Created by Meta)

Shine (Papyrus: The Third Guardian of Light and Mercy Created by Dream and Athena)

Alma (Asriel: The Third Guardian of Souls Created by Fara and Kali)

Entropy (Flowey: The Third Guardian of Chaos and War Created by Nightmare and Kali)

Endri (Astigmatism: The Third Guardian of Dreams Created by Dream and Nightmare)

Ved (Gerson: The Third Guardian of Wisdom and intelligence Created by Athena and Fara)

Tem (Temmie: The Third Guardian of Energy Created by Meta and Athena)

Vega (KnightKnight: The Third Guardian of Gravity Created by Aries)

Monochrome (Grillby: The Third Guardian of Balance Created by Dream, Nightmare, Fara, and Kali)

Gaia (Muffet: The Third Guardian of Nature Created by Fara and Athena)

Pest (Moldsmal: The Third Guardian of Disease Created by Kali)

Terra (Mettaton: The Third Guardian of Earth and Steel Created by Fara and Athena)

Aeolus (Aaron: The Third Guardian of Storms and Weather Created by Fara and Athena)

Pele (Fuku: The Third Guardian of Fire and Lava Created by Fara and Athena)

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GUARDIANS BODIES/POWER INFO

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A Guardian body is immune to physical and magic attacks to that of lower beings

To be more clear, Third Guardians aren’t entirely immune to magic and physical attacks from normal beings or mortals, they more have a great resistance to it, however depending on what that third guardian represents they can be immune to certain things and weaker to other things

For example, The third guardian of Fire and Lave, Pele would be immune to all forms of fire and lava magic as well as physical attacks however she would be weak to water magic

Second and First Guardians are entirely immune to magic and physical attacks unless that attack comes from an other guardian

Second and First guardians would also be immune to the thing they represent for example, Kail who is the guardian of death, cannot be killed by death, if the attack itself causes death no matter what, it would not effect Kali due to being death itself, this applies to the other guardians as well

First guardians aren’t entirely immune to the second guardians attacks, they can resist it but are not fully immune, this is more apparent to Second guardians that were created by the opposite First Guardian

To be more clear, depending on the second guardian creator, there attacks can be more or less effective, for example, if the guardian of life were to attack Ink who is the guardian of creation and is Fara creator, there attacks would not be effective at all against Ink, however if Kali were to attack Ink, there attacks would be more effective since Kali is Error creation not Ink’s and there power directly opposes Ink power

Does this mean Kali wins against Ink in a fight, No it just means their attacks are more effective

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GUARDIANS SOULS

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Guardian Souls are entirely unique and separate from both Monster and Human souls

Each Guardian soul is looks entirely different and unique from each other however they are still considered a guardian type soul

A Guardian soul takes the form of whatever that guardian represents, there are even guardians that don’t have visible souls making them look soulless even tho their not

A Guardian soul is unaffected by normal soul manipulation, magic like blue magic, green magic, strings, and etc, this also extends too other types/kinds of soul manipulation

A Guardian is only effected by those things is by a guardian of a higher level, however the only guardians that can actually manipulate souls themselves are the guardians creators

For example, A Second Guardian can manipulate the soul of their creation Aka their Third Guardian, but that Second Guardian cannot manipulate the souls of other Second guardians and the souls of other third guardians that are not their own

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GUARDIANS POWERS

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Each Guardian has the different type of power and I don’t mean the obvious, I mean they have different ways on how they increase or maintain their power and depending on how that is, it makes some guardian’s extremely powerful

There are 3 ways of power a guardian might have

1. Diverse power- This means a guardians power is based the number of beings for example Dream power is dependent on the number of beings in the multiverse that are feeling positive emotions, this can either decrease or increase Dream power

2. Conditional Power- This means a guardians power can only increase in specific scenarios for example Entropy power requires that he has to be present in a war or conflict in some kind, this type of power makes it so his power only increases and when not present in a War or conflict his power decreases to his default state

3. Set Power- This means a guardians power cannot increase or decrease naturally making them have a set level of power for example Alma has a set power as no matter how many souls there are, there power will not increase or decrease

Each Guardian rule over the thing they were created for and have complete control over that thing but cannot surpass their representation

What I mean by that is for example Kali who rules over death, Her power of Death allows to kill anyone and anything that is alive or living in a sense, she can even kill being that cannot be killed normally

Kali can basically kill anyone that can experience death in some form but she cannot kill immortal beings

Immortal beings are well beings that surpass death so despite being a being of death, she can never really kill immortal beings

This doesn’t apply to all guardians but is best shown in Kali

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INK AND ERROR BACKSTORY/INFO

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Error once kept the balance of Destruction and Creation with Ink, in the past they were best friends or even brothers (not to say they didn't have any disagreements or fights)

While Error can create guardians despite being the guardian of destruction, he never really sought out in creating more guardians

Ink was the opposite as the guardian of creation, he loved to create as many guardians as possible

As the Guardian of Destruction, Error was responsible for destroying anomalies, mistakes in the multiverse that could possibly cause harm to the tree or cause chaos in the many universes

As the Guardian of Creation, Ink was responsible for correction or fixing of universes and the tree, anything that was missing or broken, Ink was their to fix it, Ink could also help the tree in creating more universes

While it is unknown what caused Error Corruption or his disappearance into the Anti-void, it caused a lot of problems

Due to Error corruption in the Anti-void, it corrupted his mind warping his goal of destruction into destroying the multiverse instead of maintaining it

Fortunately nothing happened to the guardians he created however with this change of mindset and goals of Error, it now caused Ink to try and take over Error original job which wasn't easy

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CREDITS

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Ink created by @comyet

Error created by @loverofpiggies

Dream and Nightmare created by @jokublog

Meta inspired by @infectionstale

Horror created by @horrortalecomic

Fallen inspired by @ask-dusttale

Corruption inspired by @rahafwabas

Scrap inspired by @askscrapsans

==============================

[abyssus-aeterna]

汝よ、くたばれ。反敵意主義などもくたばれ。由無ければなり。

内なる月影の中を忍び寄る翳りたる惡しき者、

媒介者を沁み透り、唾に溶くる喰ひ捲りの素、

内向きの停止裝置惰性、外向きの單純象徵反轉、

内なる淡紫の靈氣によりて呼び出だされし暴れ癖、

許しは讓られ、果てし無き永久の醉ひに迷ひ込み、

彩やかなる氖の通ひ路を通り拔くる天圖り、

幽くなりたる靈氣ぞ、心に傷を負ふ夢幻を通して碎け散りたる。

切り裂かれて朱に塗られたる手首、黃泉に沈み込む總ての亡き魂。

[Classic transliteration]

Nare yo, kutabare. Fantekii syugi nado mo kutabare. Yosi nakereba nari. Uti naru tuki-kage no naka wo sinobi-yoru kageritaru asiki mono, Baikai-sya wo simi-tofori, tuba ni tokuru kufi-makuri no moto, Uti-muki no teisi saũti daseĩ, soto-muki no tanjun syaũtyoũ hanten, Uti naru afa-murasaki no reĩki ni yorite yobi-idasaresi abare-kuse, Yurusi wa yudurare, fate si naki tofa no yofi ni mayofi-komi, Azayaka naru newon no kayofi-di wo tofori-nukuru ama-fakari, Kuraku naritaru reĩki zo, kokoro ni kizu wo ofu yume-maborosi wo tofosite kudake-tiritaru. Kirisakarete ake ni nuraretaru te-kubi, yomi ni sidumi-komu subete no naki tama.

[Modern transliteration]

Nare yo, kutabare. Hantekii shugi nado mo kutabare. Yoshi nakereba nari. Uchi naru tsuki-kage no naka wo shinobi-yoru kageritaru ashiki mono, Baikai-sha wo shimi-tōri, tsuba ni tokuru kui-makuri no moto, Uchi-muki no teishi sōchi dasei, soto-muki no tanjun shōchō hanten, Uchi naru awa-murasaki no reiki ni yorite yobi-idasareshi abare-kuse, Yurushi wa yuzurare, hate shi naki towa no yoi ni mayoi-komi, Azayaka naru neon no kayoi-ji wo tōri-nukuru ama-hakari, Kuraku naritaru reiki zo, kokoro ni kizu wo ou yume-maboroshi wo tōshite kudake-chiritaru. Kirisakarete ake ni nuraretaru te-kubi, yomi ni shizumi-komu subete no naki tama.

fuck you & fuck your anti-hostility principle, ain't mean nothing:

shaded demonic entity creeping through the inner moonlight,

seeping through vectors & dissolving in saliva, binge material,

inward killswitch inertia & outward simple symbol inversions,

violent minded tendencies summoned by inner violet auras,

permission delegated, lost in endless perpetual intoxication,

celestial mapping through the vivid neon shaded hallways,

darkened aura, shattered through these traumatic visions;

wrists slit & slick with vermilion, all lost souls sink below.

[agender-witchery]

I am not an expert in Japanese language or culture, but seeing people still being weird about Vivian's gender, even with the Thousand Year Door Remake out is infuriating, so I'm going to drop everything I've got here in case someone feels inclined to argue with some asshole still calling her a femboy or something.

To start: the original, 2004 Gamecube script.

Before I even get into whether Vivian is really being referred to using a crossdressing term (spoilers: she's not), let's address two other words that she herself uses in the original text.

Vivian uses "atai" (アタイ) as a first person pronoun in both the 2004 and 2024 scripts. atai is, put simply, extremely effeminate. I've had many people argue "Japanese pronouns aren't strict about gender like English pronouns!" and while this is technically correct, a female idol using "boku" to refer to herself and a theoretical femboy using "atai" to refer to himself are two very different situations. I am not well versed in the Japanese equivalent to femboy culture, but I would expect them to use "atashi" if anything.

Another word Vivian uses is "shimai" (姉妹) which means sister. This is in reference to herself and her sisters, where the three of them each say a part of the sentence introducing themselves. The full sentence (gonna ignore Beldam and Marilyn for now) is "We are... the three... Shadow Sisters!!" (われらは・・・　カゲ・・・　三姉妹っ！！). There just isn't a way to interpret this as anything other than her calling herself a woman, so most transphobes ignore it if you point it out, or insist that other characters are the authority on her identity rather than herself. I suppose this makes sense for them, as they are quite accustomed to telling trans women "You'll always be a man".

Vivian doesn't refer to herself using gendered language anywhere else, but to be honest, this should be enough. But whatever, let's keep going, let's actually look at the ways in which Vivian is called a boy. This is done by Beldam, Goombella, and the game systems for both TTYD and SPM.

On the topic of Beldam, she refers to Vivian as a "man" (オトコ) to put her down. In the English release, this was changed to Beldam calling her "plug-ugly" and so many people who deny Vivian's trans identity will point to this and say that Beldam calling Vivian a man isn't a denial of her being a woman, but rather an insult being directed at her since it's very offensive to call a woman a man. Yes, misgendering people is offensive, astute observation made by the transphobes. Worth noting that this is entirely inconsistent with the argument that Vivian is a femboy, but that has not stopped some people from arguing both. I've seen it with my own two eyes. This line comes immediately after Vivian including herself within the group of sisters, but sure, maybe Beldam specifically insulted Vivian by calling her a man instead of the much easier ugly insult that we got in the English release. I don't think that's true, but maybe that's what happened. Let's move on, because this is largely addressed in the remake.

On to Goombella. Her Tattle for Vivian states that she's "The youngest sister [of the trio]... no, wait, brother" (いちばん下の妹・・・　じゃなくて　弟ね). This is just misgendering, I don't have much to say, Goombella is not the authority on Vivian's identity.

Now for game systems. Specifically, the partner menu in TTYD and the catch card in SPM. Both of these refer to Vivian as a "boy" (オトコのコ). These are universally written in katakana, and in fact, other than Goombella's Tattle, all dialogue referring to Vivian's identity is written in katakana. I'll get to that in a bit. This reference to Vivian as オトコのコ is the basis for basically every claim that she's a femboy coming from Westerners. The thing here is that オトコのコ is pronounced "otokonoko" and is highly popular as a term within Japanese crossdressing communities... kinda.

See, the term that's used for crossdressing is 男の娘 while the term that simply means boy is 男の子. These are pronounced identically, but use different characters, the former uses the characters for "male" and "daughter" while the latter is "male" and "child". The crossdressing term is a pun and it is slang. It's a play on words, it effectively means "male daughter" but is pronounced "boy". The kanji is crucial to conveying this meaning in Japanese, because otherwise if you write オトコのコ people will just assume you mean the common, every day usage of boy without any crossdressing implications rather than the slang terminology. Additionally, katakana is often used for emphasis, like bold or italics or ALL CAPS. Since all words referring to Vivian's gender identity are written in katakana for both the original and the remake, this puts emphasis on her identity, as if it were very important to Vivian's character and her personal story.

But wait! There's more. 男の娘 would not even enter popular usage until 2006. TTYD came out in 2004. That's two years too early for the game to be referring to her in this way. The simple, not obtuse way of interpreting this is that it's just misgendering and not Nintendo inventing a time machine, grabbing slang from 2 years in the future, embedding it in their game, and then inconsistently referring to Vivian as a cis woman, a cis man, and a femboy across two games. This sort of misgendering where a character will be presented with "They look like a girl, but they're actually a boy!" is very common for early 2000's characters who would be updated to be unambiguously transgender in later media. You know, like Bridget? The 2002 character who would be updated to be trans in 2022? Turns out it was difficult to put trans people in media without backlash at the time! Daisuke Ishiwatari said as much when clarifying Bridget's gender.

But this is a post about Vivian, so let's get back on topic...

The 2024 Switch remake script

The Japanese text for the Switch remake includes changes that are... very front and center. You may have seen the English screenshots concerning Vivian's gender. If anything, these are downplaying it. The Japanese is much more blatant concerning Vivian being transgender. And these are changes coming from the Japanese writers who read the original script for the 2004 release and decided to write her this way in 2024. While the original writers credited from the 2004 release seem to be missing from the credits in the 2024 release (Hironobu Suzuki and Misao Fukuda), the director of the 2004 release is present in a supervisor role (Ryota Kawade).

I do not have the Japanese text of the Boggly Woods scene, as I am relying on other people's posting of text from the game since I'd like to finish the game in English first and I'm not even through Hooktail's Castle yet. I do have the text from Goombella, the partner menu, and the new dialogue in Twilight Town.

Let's start with Goombella and the partner menu, since those are straightforward. All references from Goombella to Vivian's gender are removed, and the partner menu now says "Has a boy's body, but a girl in their heart." in Japanese. I'll talk about that phrasing in a bit.

But the new dialogue! You've probably already seen it if you're reading this, but the English reads "Truth is, it took me a while to realize I'm their sister... not their brother. Now their usual bullying feels heavier." which, to me, is fairly unambiguous in what it means. I've seen people try to imply that it doesn't mean she's trans, but like, I'm not gonna humor that. I have seen earnest questions on why the last sentence is worded like that though, so I'll talk a bit about it at the end.

The Japanese text for this line, which again, is entirely new is "それに　じつは　アタイ・・・ 体は　オトコのコだけど ココロは　カワイイ　オンナのコなの" or in English "The thing is... I... I have a boy's body, but my heart is a cute girl's!". Now, "I have the body of X but my heart/soul is that of Y!" is, to my understanding, a very common way for trans people to express themselves in Japan, so this reads as a point blank Vivian turning to the camera and saying "I am transgender". And again, these are the Japanese writers from the company that wrote the original 2004 script who are familiar with and interpreted that script for their job that paid them actual money. If someone wants to insist exclusively on authorial intent and refuses to recognize localizers as authors (they are), then this is the authorial intent. Vivian is trans and the Japanese script went out of its way to make this as clear as possible. The line after this also has Vivian talking about having "girl’s feelings" (乙女心).

That all should be the end of the discussion. If people argue against this, I can't really say they're doing anything other than being deliberately obtuse to serve a transphobic agenda.

As for the wording in the English translation, about how the usual bullying Vivian had experienced felt heavier, that really just reinforces the trans narrative, but in a way that is mostly gonna be picked up by trans people, which is why I say the translation is downplaying it. I probably don't need to explain this here on the gay website, half of you are probably trans, but fuck it, maybe you haven't thought about it too hard. Transphobia isn't just being misgendered and receiving systemic discrimination, it's also just receiving more hate in general. This is true of all bigotry, whether you're a cis woman, trans, black, disabled, people will just focus on you and be more critical in general. For a trans audience, this is something that can be picked up on relatively easily, but for non-trans audiences, it might just seem like a non sequitur. I generally really like the changes, but I do wish this one specific sentence actually referenced transphobia in the most direct way possible, have her state with precisely zero uncertainty that her sisters called her a man to bully her.

Sources:

https://x.com/OatmealDome/status/1793081375005827084?t=_8mWED-nN4DFHIrXam7vJw&s=19

https://x.com/OatmealDome/status/1793116357384339692?t=qBbgfKuNT1hS51WFovTEDQ&s=19

https://tcrf.net/Paper_Mario:_The_Thousand-Year_Door/Regional_Differences#Vivian

[yuurei20]

hello! first of all I love all that you do, its so helpful having something I can come back and refrence when needed. secondly I would like to ask for your help, I swear in the prologue book with Crowley in the library they used the same sound effect as Divuss whip/pointer and I swear the model of Crowley even in that moment was holding a whip but going back and trying to find it has been fruitless for me, am I going insane or was this something that maybe they took out in an update or was it not in the english verson? many thanks.

Hello hello!! Thank you so much, you are too kind! ♡

I am not sure if he was ever physically holding a whip (he does not seem to have one in his sprites), but you are very right that there is a whip sound effect in that moment!

Grim is bound and gagged by something in the game that the novel explains in more detail (below).

While the situation is vague on both EN and JP in the game, it is possibly moreso on EN because of untranslatable wordplay:

After the whip-crack sound, Grim reacts as though he is in pain and Crowley says, "Consider it tough love."

And in Japanese the kanji used to express "tough love" is love (愛) and whip (鞭) (literally, "whip of love"), but it is just a form of expression and (usually) doesn't mean literal whipping is taking place.

We've never had an official, visual representation of Crowley with a whip (not in the game guide, manga or the game itself, though the novel may have solved the mystery), but this is not the only time "tough love" comes up:

Later on in the prologue Grim refers to Crowley's "whip of love" binding him, using the katakana for "whip of love" rather than the kanji for "tough love," possibly because he only knows the attack by the name that Crowley used for it.

Crowley repeats his, "It's tough love!" line again on JP, possibly for the wordplay.

While sometimes things happen in the novel that don't happen in the game at all (and vice verse), it can be useful as a reference, and the violence of the "tough love" scene is described as follows:

"A long, black cloth wraps around Grim, binding his limbs and torso in an instant. The fabric stretches and contracts, moving as if alive.

'What the…! What is this rope?'

'It's not a rope. It's my tough love.'

The masked man points the end of the staff he holds at Grim.

'You tried to use magic just now, didn't you? We cannot have you thrashing around in a cramped place like this.'

'If you're gonna take it this far--grr.'

'Tried to use magic again, did you? You may not.'

Now with his mouth covered as well as his body, Grim bounces around at their feet.

Every time the man waves his key-shaped staff, the wriggling cloth he refers to as 'tough love' tightens around Grim. It is not unlike a large snake devouring a frog." -Twisted Wonderland the First Novel

And something similar might be happening in the game! While "lashings of love" is great localization, it means that EN loses Grim's actual line of, "He's gonna bind us up," as if something similar happened to Grim in the game as what happened in the novel--he was tied up--but due to the limitations of the visual novel medium, we weren't able to see it.

And right after Grim gives this warning there are two whip-crack sounds, and Grim and Ace are suddenly closer together on screen:

This might be to represent that they were tied together by Crowley's cloth! While it might also just be Grim hiding behind Ace--visual novels tend to leave a lot to the imagination--Ace and Grim getting tied up by Crowley's cloth is exactly what happens in the novel:

"Though he, too, tries to flee, Ace finds himself magically bound along with Grim, perhaps for being seen with his pen in his hand.” - “Still bound, Ace desperately shakes his head.” - “The laughing Grim is bound even tighter by the cord.” - “Crowley nods as he unties the cord from around the shocked-looking Ace.” - “Looking exhausted, Ace stands up and brushes the dirt from his uniform.” - Twisted Wonderland the First Novel

If you've ever seen fan art of Crowley with a whip, this is why! But I am not sure that the weapon he is using has ever been portrayed on-screen, in the form of a whip, magic cloth or otherwise :>

[judesmoonbeauty]

Jude's side is complete. Taking a break for tomorrow and will begin Nica's end.

The number of lines for the verses events are significantly lower it seems, roughly 80-90 screenshots. Which makes it easier to kick out more easily. Normal SEs are more than that, I think it's about 120-130 screenshots iirc.

Nica's tl will probably make me cry because he uses both hiragana and katakana within his dialogue.......I know like zero katakana.....I know "ore," that's it.

Why must I love tling for men with dialects and who wish to speak in a super youthful tone???? Because I'm an M. That's why.

[clownwave-mp3]

80s Manga Jojo I mean Joseph/Jacktor mock cover by me. I’m not super well-versed in Katakana so hopefully the Japanese text here is correct.

[1nm8translations]

S∀G∀ Lyrics Translation & Song and MV Analysis

I’ve translated the lyrics and made an in-depth analysis of S∀G∀ by 1Nm8, including the song lyrics, the imagery used in the MV, and how they’re connected. 

The analysis will contain heavy, unmarked spoilers for the 1Nm8 “SHOWDOWN” drama track, which I translated in full here. 

The following analysis is fully subjective. You’re free to interpret any parts of the song and MV differently. I share it in the hope that my musings will prove interesting, and because the depth and effort put into this song and MV blew my mind.

I made my own translation of the lyrics based on the original Japanese text to use in the analysis.

Imagery:

The motifs and symbols repeating through the MV are: the color green, plants and flowers, and crystals. 

The color green is most associated with Itsuki, and a lot of the symbolism seems to be connected to him and his experiences this time. This goes in line with Itsuki’s verse kicking off the song and him playing an important role in the drama track.

I believe that green in the MV may symbolize one’s real, “natural” self, most generally speaking. For Itsuki, it’d be his emotions, for Rokuta, his memories.

1Nm8 causing flowers to bloom over lab floors and sitting in a flower field would represent them healing themselves and others.

During Itsuki’s verse, the imagery alludes to the Alter Trigger labs and experiments performed on him. During the verses “Something I lost / A feeling I can’t explain” we see a green crystal shattering into pieces.

Next, we see near transparent crystals with little bits of green at the bottom locked in test tubes, as if the aim of the experiment was to drain the “green” from the “crystals”. The crystals would be the experiment subjects’ hearts/minds, losing themselves and becoming broken if they resist.

However, the three large floating crystals that appear repeatedly and are connected by some sort of a ring would represent 1Nm8 and their healing connection (they’re all green!). I do notice there’s four crystals in the picture, but I don’t have a definite explanation: it might be a symbol for Rokuta not identifying with his past self, Minori, because of his memory loss or foreshadowing for something we don’t know yet.

Itsuki’s verse:

未だ手に残る感触

It hit me like a gunshot

焼き付いた記憶は単色

塗りつぶしたみたいさ

The sensation that remains in my hand

It hit me like a gunshot

The memories burned in me are monochrome

As if they’ve been painted over

The imagery going with the verses “The sensation that remains in my hand / It hit me like a gunshot” shows Itsuki’s phantometal, the Geometric Square Tattoo, which means they describe how the metal was implanted in him and its effects.

The word “塗りつぶす”, paint over, can have another negative connotation, meaning “cover up the truth”, like the emotions associated with Itsuki’s memories being blocked out and the way he perceives the world with his senses changing.

失ったsomething

説明がつかない感情

干渉する必要はないunknown

見ろ ここじゃ俺たちはweirdo

理論通りにやる Let’s get on

Something I lost

A feeling I can’t explain

Unneeded interference from the unknown

Look, here we’re the weirdos

We’ll proceed logically, Let’s get on

The tree might be a special symbol relating to Itsuki. We do not know if “Itsuki” is his real name or if it’s the name he received (or picked, based on his test subject number) at the facility; the way it is written in canon, using katakana, doesn’t reveal the intended meaning.

However, the name Itsuki can be written with the character 樹, meaning trees, wood. 

In the MV, we see the tree behind Itsuki, obscured; then Itsuki separated from the tree with a transparent cylinder, then finally, Itsuki sitting at the foot of the tree, among flowers.

Itsuki being shut off from the tree while the verse “As if it’s been painted over” plays - he’s separated from his emotions, and how he used to see the world.

足踏み入れた世界は

歪みだらけさ Nah mean

ワンシーン切り取るたび

見える理不尽なことばかり

The world we stepped into

Is nothing but distorted Nah mean

Each time you take a snapshot

You see nothing but senseless acts

Here, I believe that Itsuki is no longer rapping about the facility - but the world outside it. That’s what the line “The world we stepped into” implies. The outside world he and Rokuta chose wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows; it’s overwhelming and twisted.

If plants in the MV represent the real selves of the experiment victims, then the saplings here would be the released victims taking part in the government program - small, because they’re just “growing”, learning how to be themselves again. However, they’re doing it in a locked up, controlled environment, like an incubator machine. To Itsuki, that’s not much better than what they’ve just escaped. Like he said in the drama track, “To be controlled again by anyone else would be intolerable.” 

The imagery of the incubator machine appears again in the chorus, as the line “In the tainted soil”, sung by Itsuki, plays - Itsuki sees the outside world who does things like locking up the victims again as tainted.

奇妙な感覚

感じたことない温度

We can do it non-stop uh

奇跡かもな I don’t know

A peculiar sensation

The temperature I’ve never felt before

We can do it non-stop uh

It may be a miracle, I don’t know

I think these verses refer to 1Nm8 and their relationship. The “peculiar sensation” is expressed with a word that can mean something strange, difficult to understand in a logical or scientific way, but also something rare and excellent. 

“Temperature” makes you think about physical contact and warmth, like from holding hands, which 1Nm8 have done on more than one occasion. 

A “miracle” is an unusual thing for Itsuki to talk about, as he tries to approach everything logically. A sign of his outlook changing shows the impact of 1Nm8 on him.

Chorus:

Yeah 集中したら It’s going down

It’s true, true いつも通りさ

少しづつ I can see clearly now

Yeah

Yeah as long as we focus, It’s going down

It’s true, true, just as always

Little by little, I can see clearly now

Yeah

The line “Little by little, I can see clearly now” by Rokuta might reference his memories returning bit by bit.

すり抜けた砂で描いた

儚い愛の詩

何度もbreak down and 創り上げた

それを証明するため

Written in sand slipping away

A poem of fleeting love

Broken down and remade countless times

In order to prove that

The imagery of sand, together with the word "fleeting" makes me think of a hourglass, and time running out. It may be the limited time they have to change things before phantometal claims more victims, or the limited time they have in general...

"Uta" sounds like the word for "song", but the kanji used actually means poem. There's a pattern of referring to written word instead of music in the song - the word SAGA, 書き足す later in the chorus, using the kanji for write, "drama", a written work.

The beautiful flower いつかは枯れ

芽が出るまた 汚れた地で

We must have the power 勝ち取るゲーム

書き足すSAGA 幸せなdramaになるまで

The beautiful flower will wither one day

To sprout once again in the tainted soil

We must have the power to win the game

Keep writing the saga

Until it becomes a joyful drama

Before the Drama Track came out, I thought the withering flower was a part of the imagery of fleeting things relating to Itsuki’s and Rokuta’s health, but after listening to it, I believe the “beautiful flower” is actually Kei.

In the hospital scene, when Kei falls asleep on his shoulder, Itsuki says that “Things that are too beautiful are also fragile” and that he’s terrified of Kei breaking one day. There’s also the symbolism of plants - they’re what’s true and pure in the world, the opposite of people in the labs.

Also, if you look closely, the flower is pink, a similar shade to Kei’s hair. It's shape is even a bit similar to Kei's hairstyle!

Kei’s verse:

It’s sky high 見渡す

誘う聖なる場所まで

We fly high

Y’all never shoot me down

It’s sky high, the place in our sights

Towards the holy land that’s calling us

We fly high

Y’all never shoot me down

This verse contains references to religious imagery that Kei often uses - he compares the changes they want to carry out to entering  paradise and leading people there.

Birds are a common symbol for freedom, too, like freedom from the influence of phantometal on their lives that 1Nm8 is seeking. 

深い傷と疼くpain

ただの数字がhis name

降りかかるdirt 振り払う

ウンザリさどれもsame

Deep wounds and aching pain

With mere numbers as his name

Warding off the dirt falling as rain

What a pain, it’s all the same

I think just as the tree may be a special symbol connected to Itsuki, the others also have a plant or arrangement of plants associated with them. For Rokuta, it’d be the vertical garden with ferns, which often appears in the background behind him. However, as the line “Warding off the dirt” plays, Kei is shown in front of it while something like a scanner device is running, a wall of light passing through.

If we assume the vertical garden is a symbol for Rokuta’s real self, this scene looks like someone is looking for traces of Kei in his lost memory. The “dirt” falling down is the corruption affecting them or Rokuta specifically.

This verse (together with the Drama track) shows that Kei’s feelings about Rokuta’s name are complicated. It’s not like he doesn’t care that his little brother’s name and identity was taken away from him. We see Rokuta blurred and far away, and looking closely, the circle of light at his feet is covered by a shadow much closer to the screen, like someone’s shoulder. I think that might be Kei’s shadow, watching his little brother fade out of view, far away from him. He found Rokuta, but in a way, not Minori. 

In the story, Kei chooses to call Rokuta by his new name, but I see it as a sign of respect and love towards him, not that Kei doesn’t care one way or the other. During the piano scene in the drama track, Kei almost calls him Minori when overcome with emotion, but corrects himself. He makes a conscious choice for Rokuta’s sake.

It could also symbolize how the scientists were dehumanizing Rokuta by referring to him with a number. Faces and eyes are connected to perceiving another person’s humanity, so they get blurred as Rokuta is treated like an object. The word choices by Kei in this verse, different than his usual beautiful language - annoyance/ a pain, dirt - verse show his hidden anger about the issue.

Yeah, we did it again

物語る信念はいつもbrand new

Yeah yeah yeah

Yeah, we did it again

The conviction we speak of is always brand new

Yeah yeah yeah

I am not sure here, but I think “brand new” might possibly reference the concept of “original intention” or “initial resolution” in Japanese (初心,初一念, 本意).  It’s the feeling when you’ve just started on something and you’re full of enthusiasm and belief in what you’re doing, the opposite of being jaded and discouraged. 

Rokuta’s verse:

シャボン玉のように浮かんでる you & me

どんなに遊んでもdon’t worry 遊園地

F R E E D O M

ギリギリシーソーゲーム

You & me, floating like soap bubbles

No matter how much we play, don’t worry, it’s an amusement park

FREEDOM

Seesaw game on the edge

This verse seems to refer to Rokuta and Itsuki (“you & me”), their precarious situation as former test subjects and their choices from there on. Soap bubbles are something short-lasting and incredibly fragile.

We see a scene that parallels one from Itsuki’s verse. Rokuta gets locked in a cylinder in the lab while a computer on the wall is obtaining data. What’s more, if you look closely, in the background there’s something like a semi-transparent window and a blurry outline of a tree (seen in the background of Itsuki’s lab cylinder scene) can be seen. This possibly shows Rokuta and Itsuki being a part of different experiments at the same time. 

In the SHOWDOWN drama CD, Rokuta says he and Itsuki “chose freedom” over living at another facility for the victims with government support. 

ギリギリ in Japanese describes a situation where you just barely make it, and there’s a danger of failing. 

 A seesaw goes back and forth, just like how performing in Paradox live can either cause the phantometal influence to hurt Rokuta and Itsuki (and by extension, Kei, who deeply cares about both), or it might ease the adverse effects of the metal through the healing properties of Kei’s music. 

それナイス 楽しいなら

繰り返すのさ １回よりもtwice

edNって名のparadise 集合みんなで

That's nice, if it's fun fun

We should do it again, twice is better than once

Everyone, gather in the paradise called edN

悪いけど��� 手放す気はないんだ

この音が 止まるまでずっと踊りたい

I’m sorry, but I have no intention of letting go

I want to keep dancing until this sound stops

This part always sounds ominous to me. What sound, Rokuta? What sound? Surely, you wouldn’t mean something like your heartbeat?

Interpreting “this sound” as Kei’s music isn’t much better, because Kei has previously tried to quit music under the weight of guilt for using phantometal when it hurt Rokuta and Itsuki this much. It might just mean the end of a particular song, but Rokuta’s verse has so many concerning flags for their future I can’t help but worry about this one, too.

Before the chorus repeats again, we're shown flying birds again, more symbolism for freedom, but also a blooming white flower.

I believe showing these motifs one after the other isn't accidental, but is meant to create a connection between them. If birds flying mean freedom and positive continuation of their "saga", then flowers blooming mean the same.

It matches up with the interpretation that plants growing and flowers blooming in the MV represent healing and breaking free from the past.

This analysis was very fun to do, but it still took a lot of effort to research for and compile, so if you liked it I appreciate it if you showed it some love! I plan to analyze other 1Nm8 songs in the future, so stay tuned.

[mundmutter]

Vocals + Language learning.

Her japanese VA has always been  Sayako Ohara  in her roles as Beatrice of Umineko and Mercy from Overwatch! For english I had Doris Day but the more I listen to Susan Egan ( Hercules and S.U.  Here / Here )

Tone however says a lot about her. I describe her voice as something slow and steady but direct.  Magisterial  and a bit haughty sometimes, Her voice carries a distinct feeling of being ‘told  what  to  do’,  As if she’s always in  ‘BOSS’  mode, you know? When writing her dialogue I always picture it as someone speaking from those  OLD  school movies of the 20′s-50′s. She can be a cold woman but her voice nearly fools you with its warmth at times. And when it’s truly warm, it’s inviting.  Soothing.  You just want to hear her talk and get excited and - it’s like her voice is a hug. It can becoming so comforting, but just as quickly become constricting. 

Japanese Learning.

you’ll spot her practicing her Japanese and handwriting. HINT: it is very meticulously written, in fact, it looks more like typing than handwriting. She frets whether or not her kanji/katakana/hiragana is legible. At the moment, she’s at a N3.

N3 is the INTERMEDIATE LEVEL: The ability to understand Japanese used in everyday situations to a certain degree. Reading. One is able to read and understand written materials with specific contents concerning everyday topics. One is also able to grasp summary information such as newspaper headlines.

I’d say she really beats herself up over not knowing kanji, despite even native-born Japanese people constantly learning Kanji in schools all throughout their life. However, though her Hiragana and Katakana are perfectly memorized and never mistaken, she’ll do the same thing if she forgets even the simplest of words or phrases.

Everything she does must be perfect, just like in all her verses. Her note-taking is something you’d see in some pinterest board ; highlights, straight lines, descriptions, lots of pretty writing, sometimes even diagrams, etc.

Her speech is incredibly polite and highly formal, even using identifying terms such as 'warawa' rather than 'atashi'. but sometimes she’ll slip into the same dialect depending on who she speaks to. Picking up certain shortened phrases and really sounding like a native speaker... buuuut you’ll still hear that incredibly over-polite speech.

[dnangelic]

CHARACTER INFO SHEET

Name: daisuke niwa / dark mousy Name meaning:

丹羽大助 (niwa daisuke) 丹: red 羽: plumes, feathers, wings 大: big or 'great' 助: help/assistance

dark's name is usually rendered in katakana as ダーク (マウジ). dark: the absence of light in a place. mousy: of or like a mouse/shy or timid. lol Alias: generally speaking, they are each other's aliases. Ethnicity: jp!

THREE HEADCANONS YOU’VE NEVER TOLD ANYONE:

💜 dark has a very good singing voice, (here's onosaka's travelog for an example,) but he doesn't use it often because he doesn't really have a reason to or much interest in singing for himself. somebody has to pull him in for a duet sometime i think 💜 he says he 'has no choice' when it comes to wearing emiko (daisuke's mom's) outfits for him and daisuke, but that's a lie. he absolutely hates looking shabby and is the only reason why daisuke looks slightly above boring and presentable in verses like genshin sometimes 💜 he's really not used to eating. you'd assume he didn't even need to eat since he never brings up human necessities + usually leaves it all to daisuke to handle. but the body still needs calories, even if eating is still really weird for him to do, like, personally. 💗 painting is basically daisuke's 'thing,' but he has and will try a lot of other artistic endeavors! this includes things like flower arrangements, sculpting, pottery... it's okay if he isn't any good, he just wants to enjoy everything that he can. inviting him out to a workshop or something similar is an experience and memory he'd really treasure. 💗 he wants to be taller..... without having to transform into dark. he's a late bloomer, and is generally one of the shorter people in his class. it's not for the sake of height alone that he wants to be taller, though. he just wants people to stop making fun of him and to come off as manlier, even if just by a little. 💗 his thoughts are packed full of all of the artworks he's ever met. when he isn't thinking about dark, then he's thinking about freedert and the second hand of time, or rokuto/insomnia. he sincerely wishes he could have had even just a little more time with freedert, or a better, genuine conversation with rokuto, especially since rokuto was his 'best friend', (even if the memories/idea had been planted into his head by rokuto in the first place.) it's complicated- it doesn't help there isn't really anyone daisuke can usually talk about these sorts of things with aside from dark himself, either.

THREE THINGS YOUR CHARACTER LIKES DOING IN THEIR FREE TIME:

💜 sleeping. 💜 flirting. 💜 stealing. look he technically doesn't get a lot of free time okay

💗 painting. this remains number one for daisuke! 💗 calling/talking to or outright visiting any of his friends. daisuke's the sort to run over just to check up on anybody if he's worried about them at all, but he really does enjoy being with others since he has some unsettled feelings of loneliness and isolation himself sometimes. 💗 general loafing around. napping in the sun, watching tv, petting and feeding wiz, his life is pretty busy (and plagued with crazy amounts of anxiety,) so the rare moments when he can just kind of relax and do nothing are valued by him.

SIX PEOPLE YOUR CHARACTER LIKES/LOVES:

💜 manisumea. dnangel's lilith figure + the artwork that had freed dark from imprisonment once upon a time. they share a sort of relationship that dark will most likely never have with anyone else; that of an extremely old and familiar friend who was there for him. she's a part of baku/defective now, and dark is relieved that she didn't have to break and perish in front of his eyes like so many other artworks. 💜 yuu. the first girl who had ever 'saw' and 'heard' him, as 'dark' and his own self, rather than the niwa he was a part of. 💜 emiko. daisuke's mother. he knows how much she wanted to become a phantom thief and has already helplessly witnessed her tears, but he still thinks she's best as just a good mother taking care of daisuke and helping him to properly develop and grow into an adult. 💜 menou. daiki's original love interest and the girl who became a ghost, bound to the earth for as long as she wore the unbroken agate links. dark hopes that she's found peace somewhere, especially after her wish of seeing the phantom thief again was fulfilled just as she disappeared. 💜 towa. she's funny and cute, and while he's been (admittedly, now,) kind of a jerk to her before, he has to admit that she does a really good job at what she does, and has helped him and daisuke out of a lot of pinches before. 💜 wiz. obligatory wiz appreciation. that rabbit does so much all the time for dark and daisuke both, but wiz's history with dark goes on for much longer than daisuke's. the magical phantom thieves are nothing without their funky little magical rabbit mascot. 💗 risa. he still likes her as a friend even after his own rejection, and she's been an enormous influence on him from the start; first someone he worked up the entirety of his courage to confess to, then the trigger for his very first transformation into dark. for the most part, they're on good terms. 💗 riku. the other harada twin with a completely different personality from risa. sometimes he's a little chagrined over her stubborn and independent attitude, but he sincerely likes her for the strength of her personality and is grateful that she doesn't seem to think he's a loser. 💗 satoshi. the curse's 'other half,' his destined rival that he was intent on befriending, the person who was supposed to capture him and dark but who had helped him time after time again instead. as his total opposite, daisuke genuinely admires a number of hiwatari's aspects, but he's also deeply frustrated by the fact that he can't help or save satoshi from the short-lived fate of the hikari lineage. 💗 kosuke. that's his dad! in a family of active thieves kosuke still serves as the informant and the researcher, the level head who can maintain a detached perspective from those directly involved with dark or dark's presence. while i hc that daisuke didn't see him very much and likewise doesn't have very many memories of them together as a child, (at least, definitely not as much as he spent time with daiki or emiko,) daisuke still deeply respects and appreciates his father for every word of advice and assistance he's ever given. 💗 argentine! yeah, he kinda hated argentine at first and even got so turbo-pissed that he forced dark to manifest and knocked out for two days, but argentine's already become an important person (artwork?) to him as 'someone that was saved.' dark was entirely intent on breaking argentine at first, but daisuke's relieved that another artwork's corpse and husk didn't have to be added onto the pile. as an artwork serving the family as a butler and artwork repairman now, daisuke tries to keep argentine as a reminder that others can not only change, but some are just trying to find answers to questions that they're looking for. 💗 freedert. daisuke's first experience with loss and grief and his own human helplessness. he wanted nothing more than to save freedert and the second hand of time but couldn't; it especially hurts since freedert had also merged with the second hand of time, just like himself and dark. he'll always remember her last words to him, though.

TWO THINGS YOUR CHARACTER REGRETS:

💜 being born. this one is no joke, because dark's birth wasn't actually his fault as opposed to the hikari and niwa ancestors'. canonically it's implied that dark has the capacity to hate his birth + humanity as a whole for creating him, but since hating anything is too tiring (all-consuming) and just all around 'no fun,' he resigns to simply holding dead-silent regrets over his creation instead. the cultural reformation refers to what's basically an art-pocalypse that happened due to the kokuyoku (that's dark and krad themselves) as being decided 'too dangerous.' the body count of countless artworks being burned, shattered, and destroyed is one he blames himself and takes a personal responsibility for, thus partially motivating his actions as a phantom thief, though he's also guilty of being an obstacle (self proclaimed 'meddler') that gets in the way of the niwa's mundane lives as well.

💜 attempting to merge with daisuke. he truly did want to take advantage of, manipulate and ultimately take in the boy at first so he could finally obtain his own body, but over time dark has learned that not only was there not any need for it, but daisuke had 'already been his' from the start. this is a new development compared to dark's relationship with the rest of the niwa, who dark had continuously tried to manipulate into merging with him, but overall failed until they found their loves reciprocated, and he disappeared from them.

💗 moping around on the birthday that he had first transformed into dark on. he reaaaally should have listened to what his grandpa and mom had to say instead of getting were-bishonened with absolutely no warning. he's also moped around during a lot of other crucial moments, mostly ones wherein he was separated from dark. without dark's extra goading pushes or encouragements, he tends to struggle and sulk. he's trying to, or at least wants to, be able to get over that part of himself, and be capable of standing up and taking steps forward without thinking to himself that he's 'absolutely no good' (and hopeless/useless) without dark.

💗 lying. always and always to everyone, lying. daisuke really doesn't want to around those he wants to trust and cares about, but due to dark's presence, he feels as if he has no real choice. he's actually gotten better at lying lately, (that is, being able to tell some without breaking into a cold sweat or stuttering,) but he's still pretty much awful at it. it's not only the act of lying itself that he regrets, but the fact that it makes him appear weird and potentially could hurt or devastate others' feelings that really torments him.

TWO PHOBIAS YOUR CHARACTER HAS:

💜 fear of being forgotten. 💜 fear of being alone. 💗 fear of being hated/rejected. 💗 fear of not being able to help or save others.

[feekins]

fell a little behind, so today imma cover the extras in Trigun vol 2 - "Day In Day Out" and "Trigun Pilot" 😁

(NOTE: I'm reading the Dark Horse [physical] and the Overhaul [online] translations side-by-side)

after all the heaviness of ch8, depending on how you look at them, these extras are either a palate cleanser or they give you a bit of whiplash 😅 personally, I enjoy them. they're good fun, and it's interesting to compare these earlier Vashs with him at the end of vol 2. now, without further ado...

DAY IN DAY OUT

(Dark Horse on left, Overhaul on right)

just an interesting little translation discrepancy here - there aren't too many context-changing ones in these extras.

oh but I do love that both translations describe how early Vash wakes up (which, judging by the clock, is 4-5am so about the time Charlie gets me up for First Breakfast) the same way - "Earlier than the rooster's crow, children on Sunday, and the morning paper."

...ah yes, the Noman's Land rooster...

[[insert Trigun character recreating the "look at all those chickens!" vine but with toma here]]

Overhaul at it again, providing more context and clarity =u= although I do think both translations, while different, give off a similar vibe, pointing out little contradictions or things that seem counter-intuitive here.

(Dark Horse on top, Overhaul on bottom)

again, similar enough imo - but I enjoy the Overhaul's translation more bc it's sillier 💕

speaking of which...

...minor translation discrepancies here, but "All Days" VS "Oldies" is cracking me up bc I think I know how Dark Horse got what they did - it's a mistake/some confusion in what foreign (to Japan) word Nightow meant!

in Japanese, "imported" words tend to be written in katakana rather than hiragana. it's kind of like how, in American English, you might see "imported" words printed in italics in some books. anyway, I looked up the Japanese word for "Oldies" and it brought up オールディーズ (literally "oorudeiizu"). and here's the thing: there's no "dee" (like in "deer") sound in Japanese. to denote that in katakana for an "imported" word, then, you'd use the character デ ("de" like in "den") + the modifier ィ ("i" like in "eerie") + symbol to indicate an elongated vowel sound. hence, "oorudeiizu" - which I guess Dark Horse then mistook, thinking it meant "All Days"

(...but if that were the case, wouldn't it originally have to be "aarudeiizu"...? dgixgujgx I'm getting sidetracked, sorry - I am ① an anthropologist who ② took some Japanese classes way back when, so I got excited 😵‍💫)

ANYWAY.

......"Sonic Sodom" eh? I mean, alright! 😆

notable translation discrepancies, but either one does its job: makes this creep seem like more of an ass

now, the second extra...

TRIGUN PILOT

first page, first translation discrepancy. it's minor, but again, the Overhaul gives us more info. second panel, first block of text. Dark Horse has "Even if we're sheltered beneath a giant umbrella, we don't know what tomorrow may hold." meanwhile, the Overhaul has "Even if we're sheltered underneath an umbrella of our old technology, we don't know what the future holds."

there's another discrepancy on the second page, second block of text. more significant difference here. Dark Horse has:

Vash the Stampede is now known as a "localized disaster."

meanwhile, the Overhaul has:

Having caused massive amounts of destruction, he is now under suspicion of being the world's first "localized disaster."

lmao what an ass

and it's interesting how we see the kind of person Count Bostalk is right from the start...

and then we have Vash dancing in listening to his transistor radio. classic. 🤣

🤨

blegh. translation discrepancy that changes the context. I already liked this bandit guy, but the Overhaul makes me like him more. less "macho" more "I HAVE to take revenge for the heinous things Bostalk did"

the pilot does such a good job setting up the complexity of the conflicts in the Trigun 'verse 💕

and I don't like this one 😑 Dark Horse's translation here is...kinda jerk-like. condescending, kinda? anyway. let me sing another love song to you, Overhaul~

finally, I had to put these panels together. the translations are close enough, so no complaints there - the sass of this exchange just didn't hit me until now. Vash is such a lil shit and I love it 💕

[wist-eri]

okok questions.

why are there multiple ways to read kanji?

I heard that when the english invaded japan, they forced them to have different words for blue and green because it used to be the same. ao and midori sound nothing like an english word, so how did they come up with it? did they take it from a language or from a preexisting japanese word?

ツ シ who decided that these should be entirely different symbols that have entirely different sounds. i just wanna talk. what the fuck.

how would you write your tumblr url in hiragana/katakana/kanji?

hm okay, after some research (unfortunately i’m not a japanese teacher or anything so tbh i’m not very well-versed in the history or anything lmao)

the different ways to read kanji mostly come from a BUNCH of cultural influences. some are derived from chinese, some were originally words in japanese so they were kept that way, some were words introduced from foreign countries that they adapted to their own language, etc. some of my favorites are the ones they just changed so it was easier to pronounce 💀

i think what happened is that “ao” was a separate color that was recognized pretty early on in japan, and green (midori) was recognized as a shade of ao. both were pretty old words from the original japanese language i think, + midori developed around the heian period before the whole cultural influencing part. but since foreign countries saw green and blue as two entirely different colors, japan was forced to / chose to separate them as such. however that means there are still some words and objects that are considered green as in “ao” rather than green as in “midori” (i.e. stoplights and some vegetables)

bro same 😭

uhhh i think it’s フジ=イリ (katakana), i just kinda chose fuji because pronouncing “wist” in japanese (probably “ウィスト”) sounds very different than what it is in english

[frenchmonkeyslut]

BASICS

FULL NAME: TANAKA HIROTO [ たなかひろと / 田中大翔 ]

» MEANING: Tanaka [Tanaka (たなか) is the fourth most common Japanese surname. It is typically written with the kanji for ricefield & middle (田中). Less common variants include many & middle (多中), many & relationship (多仲), another & middle (他中), shelf & low (棚下), shelf & summer (棚夏) and many & name & congratulation (多名賀).]; Hiroto [The name Hiroto is boy's name of Japanese origin meaning "great flying". A very popular Japanese boys' name whose characters refer to the constellation Ursa Major. Hiroto (written: 浩人, 博人, 博土, 弘人, 洋人, 紘人, 裕人, 寛人, 大仁 or ヒロト in katakana) is a masculine Japanese given name. 飛 means "fly, jump, leap." From Japanese 大 (hiro) meaning "big, great" or 博 (hiro) meaning "command, esteem" combined with 人 (to) meaning "person", 翔 (to) meaning "soar, glide" or 斗 (to), which refers to a Chinese constellation. Other kanji combinations can also form this name.]

VERSES: City of Gods, The Game, Le Château.

NICKNAME(S): Hiro.

AGE: 26-years old.

DATE OF BIRTH: 1996 November 13th, Wednesday.

PLACE OF BIRTH: Tokyo, Japan.

OCCUPATION: Unemployed; heir to telecom company in Japan.

RELIGION: None.

ORIENTATION: Bisexual; Biromantic.

GENDER: Cisgender male.

PERSONALITY

STRENGTHS: Resourceful, Powerful, Brave, Passionate, Loyal.

WEAKNESSES: Jealous, Manipulative, Violent, Distrusting, Obsessive.

APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: Mackenyu Maeda.

HEIGHT: 6"0 [182 cm.]

WEIGHT: 163 lbs. [74 kg.]

BUILD: Athletic, mascular.

GAIT: Relaxed.

HAIR COLOR: Black.

EYE COLOR: Dark brown.

BIRTHMARK: TBA.

OVERVIEW: » SCARS: Some. » TATTOOS: Yes. TBA.

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: Tokyo, Japan.

RESIDENCES: Tokyo, Stockholm, New York, Los Angeles, London.

NATIONALITY: Japanese.

ETHNICITY: Asian.

FINANCIAL STATUS: Filthy rich.

EDUCATION LEVEL: Uni graduate.

DEGREES: Computer-related and business.

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: Japanese is his first language. He speaks Korean and he is fluent in English. He knows some French and Swedish. His grandfather loves Sweden and had a childhood friend from there because the old Tanaka went to school there. They have a house in Stockholm as well. His Danish is rusty but he gets by. Traveling to middle east and Africa, he picked up a lot of Arabic and can converse in it lightly.

RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS: Both his parents are alive but he was raised by his grandparents because apparently, his parents cannot be trusted. He doesn't agree. He has a good relationship with his mother

SIBLINGS: Yes, two younger ones from the same parents.

CHILDREN: None.

PETS: None.

SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIPS: » Im Eon, friend from France. University friend, Red Sangchareon.

HISTORY: 

Hiro was born in Tokyo to young parents. His mother's parents' didn't think his parents were ready to become parents themselves so they adopted Hiro and raised them like he is their own son. Hiro's parents' relationship didn’t last long simply because the old Tanaka did not approve of it.

His parents didn't marry and stopped communicating until later on. They rekindled their relationship and married in secret against Hiro's mother's will.

Hiro, in secret, formed a relationship with his parents but eventually, his grandfather found out about it and threatened to disown him. Hiro was worried at first because he didn't have his own money and experience. But after learning how the real world works at a very young age - saving money, earning money, investing separately from his grandparents' wealth - he's able to build up his own future however, it cannot be compared to what his grandparents could provide.

In reality, his grandparents cannot disown him as he is the only heir they recognize. His mother, their biological child, is the only child.

Hiro compromised with his grandparents; he will run the business in the future but that he is not going to stop seeing his parents and his siblings. Little by little he works on chipping away the frozen ice that surrounds his grandfather in hopes that in the future, he'd be able to unite his family together.

Despite being a hard worker and for the most part, an obedient grandchild, Hiro can be a rebel and continuously questioned his grandparents. He's sent to France a few times but he doesn't take it as a punishment and instead, he network with everyone he meets.

ROMANTIC HISTORY: Hiro has many flings in the past but he doesn't settle or doesn't have a lasting relationship because he's easily swayed.

PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS: He is friends with Saam Akesson and will be good friends with Eon. Hiro is also good friends with Red Sangchareon, a Thai photographer whom he met in France during his college days. Hiro often met Red when they are in the same city. He once housed Red during the photographer's training in Japan. Hiro and Red often traveled together. A few times, they traveled all throughout Asia for a photobook project. Their big goal is to travel the middle east for a similar project.

THOUGHTS ON LOVE: “Sharing is caring.”

HEALTH

PHOBIA(S): None.

HANDICAP(S): None.

MENTAL DISEASE(S): Alcoholism, depression.

PHYSICAL DISEASE(S): None.

PREDISPOSITION(S): None.

[fatummortem]

DOSSIER CHEAT SHEET

LEGAL NAME: Kinney Ryouta (for Krokoa inspired verses~ Legally changed) Akihiro (it's Unknown unless you work for S.H.I.E.L.D. or have S.H.I.E.L.D. Contacts) NICKNAME[S]: mongrel (Daken, Japanese Slur), Ry, Kid-Wolverine (Past), Aki (Past), Boy Wonder (Past), Sexy Asian Biker Guy (Past) DATE OF BIRTH: September 3rd SEX: cis male PLACE OF BIRTH: jasmine falls, japan CURRENTLY LIVING: Mainly in random Penthouses, never under his name. Krokoa's Council, Laura, Gabby will always know which. SPOKEN LANGUAGES: japanese, english, asl, french, italian, german, russian, spanish, greek, chinese, kanji, hiragana, katakana, kana ~ Currently learning Romanian EDUCATION: limited education, Japanese school up until pre-teens, Canadian Armed Forces, otherwise self taught HAIR COLOR: black EYE COLOR: blue HEIGHT: 5′9″ (1.75 m) WEIGHT: 167 lbs (75.75 kg)

FAMILY INFORMATION

SIBLING[S]: Erista, Cannon Foot, Saw Fist, William Downing., Fire Knives, Shadow S. (half brother's all deceased), Junichiro (Adoptive Brother || Deceased?), Laura Kinney, Gabby Kinney, Raze Darkhölme, Jimmy Hudson (there's more, just got lazy. All paternal.) PARENT[S]: Itsu (Birth Mother || Deceased) / Logan Howlett (Birth Father) / Akihira (Adoptive Father || Deceased), Natsumi (Adoptive Mother || Deceased) RELATIVE[S]: John Howlett, Sr. (Step-Paternal-Grandfather || Deceased), Thomas Logan (Paternal Grandfather || Deceased), Elizabeth Howlett (Paternal Grandmother || Deceased) CHILDREN: None (Most verses), Gabby (@huneibadger || For my Deb/Pietro verses or interactions with Ollvr's Gabby. He shares fatherly rights with Remy LeBeau & she got him to stop from freaking out about it by mentioning it'll get under Logan's skin.) PET[S]: Chinchillas (Poncho & Boots ~ Only in verses with @deborahmorgna because they're hers), Jonathan (Only around when Gabby is at his place as Jonathan's more of Gabby's partner in crime)

RELATIONSHIP INFORMATION

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Equal Opportunist RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Ry is single with most of his ships, has a tendancy to make it all about fun. He does have confirmed committed relationships with Julio (@earthtrembled) & Deb/Pietro (@deborahmorgna & @thefastestaround) SINCE WHEN: Julio I've had a ship with pretty close the time I moved Ry onto this blog. Deb they were close friends for about as long as Ry has been on this blog as well. She made him care before dating, probably been together for over a year. Pietro they've known each other for a very long time & is new.)

tagged by: stole it from @overclocks tagging: if ya wanna do it, go for it, just tag me so i can take a gander c:

[infintasmal]

Kochō Shinobu / Demon verse

A verse in which Shinobu becomes a demon rather than a slayer.

History. WIP Shinobu has posed a unique threat to the demon's cause. While she's unable to decapitate a demon, she has developed a way to kill them regardless of her physical strength. The poisons she has created and the research she has done had given her a unique insight into the few weaknesses all demons possess. And if she were to streamline these toxins, there's a chance of more slayers being created without needing to be able to decapitate a demon. But this threat could potentially become a boon to the demon's cause. If she were to become a demon, perhaps she would able to find a way around their weakness, both to wisteria and to the sun itself.

And so she was turned. And while all memories of her human life, and thus the breadth of her research have been lost, she's able to recover her medical knowledge with time.

Current. Shinobu, now reborn as Maika is a moth demon. She occupies a small building deep in the forest that she had taken over. She spends much of her time studying and conducting research on humans and demons alike. All of her equipment was stolen from the human scientists she has killed. The building itself was once dedicated to farming silkworms. The area surrounding the farm is now overgrown with poisonous vegetation and flowers that only bloom at night. Among the flora lives a myriad of demonically enhanced insects. At first glance, it's a beautiful scene. However there's a sinister aura and none who enter return alive.

Name. The name given to the newly reborn demon is Maika ( katakana - マイカ. kanji - 舞翔 meaning 'to dance' & 'to fly' ) Insp from her breathing style 'dance of the [insect]' )

Appearance. Maika's appearance is based on a japanese silk moth. Her skin is pale with a gradient coloring extending down her extremities to a deep violet coloring on her hands and feet. Her feet are taloned and she's able to easily perch on branches. Her fingernails come to sharp points. Her hair maintains it's black to purple gradient coloring however it's much fuller and a bit longer. Her eyes are bright violet with no visible pupils and a black sclera. Her teeth have enlarged, fanged canines. She has a pair of fluffy antenna on her upper brow. Around her collar is a fluffy tuft (similar to previous reference) On her face, she has a pair of moth wings framing the outer edges (ref one, ref two). She also has a pair of wings on her back, shaped like the silk moth. These wings have a black base with violet and lavender accenting. Along the wings are bold eyespots, while in rest these eyespots appear as they would on a normal moth, however she is able to 'open' them, revealing actual eyes matching her own. With these eye spots, she is able to maintain a wider range of vision, the various eyes are also able to see in other light spectrums. She normal folds her wings down against her back, draped like a cape, when not in use. The wings on her face can sometimes indicate her mood, perking up when she's interested or drooping when she's upset. Her height and general physique remain unchanged with an emphasis on lower body strength.

Abilities. Maika has the standard repertoire of enhanced senses and physical prowess. Her skill emphasis is in her speed and agility. Whether she is flying or running, she's incredibly fast and fluid in her movements. The patterning on her wings can cause a dazed, hypnotic effect on anyone watching in the same respect that a moth uses it's patterning to help evade predators. Her movements and fighting style resembles her breathing style.

Blood Demon Art: Poison Physiology

Maika's body natural excretes a variety of toxins depending on her intention. She is able to pool her venom into her nails and teeth as well as drain it through her palms for external use. The effect of the venom ranges from paralysis, pain infliction, and eventually death depending on the intended use. The venom types she can summon are based on a variety of both poisonous and venomous insects. Her blood contains a paralytic agent that causes intensifying numbness on contact with human skin.

She is equipped with a katana fashioned in the same stinger shape and uses it to stab her victims and inject the venom directly.

Another usage of her venom grants her control over insects. Dousing the insect in her blood causes them to mutate. Affected creatures become increasingly more aggressive and adapt a more carnivorous diet. They also enter a collective hivemind with Maika as their queen. She is able to receive information from her colony and uses them for surveillance. This ability only works on insects and she is unable to control arthropods such as spiders.

Alternatives.

Possible alternate verses in which she was turned at the time of her parents death or at the time of her sister's death.

[orifumioshi]

Thank goodness it wasn't fake ;w; and we actually got a PV~

Now I just hope Crunchyroll or Netflix streams it because I don't think I can wait until 2024 to watch it.

Like, ever since Nishijima-kun and Hime-chan, I found myself being very interested in the "Original Chosen" lore of the Adventure-verse (to the point of ignoring Taichi's group, sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and now, Rui comes and claims to be the first one to be involved with a Digimon despite looking quite young [but anime people always looks younger than they actually are? XD] so, that's something I really want to dive in and we also finally got Ogata Megumi in the Digi-verse, that's another thing to look forward too.

And finally but not less important, Daisuke's group in the spotlight, which people might not know [because I let out my Ruki oshi self more often] but 02 was the thing that made me fall deep in the Digimon Franchise so, you have no idea how happy I am (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

Also, thanks to Digimon Partners we finally have a hashtag for the movie which is 「デジモン０２ビギニング」 "Digimon 02 Beginning" so, from now on I'll organize the movie content on my blogs as "02Beginning" and "02BeginningSpoilers" :3c [very tempted to leave it like "02bigi" for the "beginning" katakana tho but, no one would know what I'm talking about xD].

[cassandrasimplex]

Augh. I tried so hard not to write this, you have no idea, because it's bound to be long (oh yeah, it got long!) and it's such a minor detail/tangent anyway it's probably not worth the time it will take to read, but I am irresistibly compelled because it relates to a Motohashi-sensei story and those get a +2 nostalgia bonus to compulsivity plus another point per 5 years since I saw him last (in 1993).

About that "legibility" complaint.

I'll save the Motohashi-sensei story for the end as the least-relevant info, like a good little once-I-got-out-of-an-English-composition-course-by-doing-tech-support-for-the-journalism-students... uh. Noun.

But the thing is. Okay. Look, first off, it's perfectly fucking legible!

Google's translation here is absolute shit, and my facility with the -ou conjugation isn't enough to make up for the lack of context, but it's clearly "Nana-chan" (person's name, person being a peer and female, likely but not assuredly a fellow student or something?) "mo" (a particle that means, more or less, "also") "kayoubi ni" ( "on Tuesday", where kayoubi is Tuesday, but I had to use kanji instead of the kana the writer used, in order to make Google translate notice that and stop trying to turn "kayoubi" into particles that grammatically wrecked the translation) "asobo" (which is more properly "asobou", the verb for "play" plus the future "might happen" or "let's do" conjugation that can be used for anything from "it might rain" to "let's go to the dog park" including cases where "let's do" is actually a gentle imperative, "YOU do", like "gambarimashou" for "work hard /do your best!" Uh. )? That sentence got out of hand.

Anyway, you can see why Google kind of chokes on translating, because it might be "let's include Nana-Chan also when we play on Tuesday" or it might be "Nana-chan will be joining us for playing on Tuesday" or it might be the case that Nana-chan is the name of an animal or plushie to add to Tuesday's existing playtime plans, or. ??? It's an out-of-context snippet of an existing conversation in a language that relies on context most of the time to specify who's doing what to whom or to what (except when it gets really specific because it's changing contexts). And I'm just not experienced enough with the nuances of using that conjugation to make up for lack of context in such an extraordinarily context-dependent language. And I'm not well versed in casual Japanese. And I've never used it as a child, so I don't know the specific kind of casualness children inject. And so on.

But legible? Yes, completely so. Proper? No, not quite. But I see kana used for magazines and book covers that are warped in far less legible ways that give me trouble even determining whether I'm looking at hiragana or katakana or even kanji, let alone what they say.

There are minor points. That first letter that's repeated, for "Nana" (なな)? The loops are way too big and they're rounded in the wrong place, flattened on top instead of on the bottom left. The "mo" (も) has fallen over on its side in an adorably clumsy way that suggests its rounded bottom is difficult to balance on (creative! cute! and written quite clearly to be unmistakably recognizable that way). The "ka" (か) of "kayoubi" has its little extra bar crossing through the right leg instead of floating to the upper right of the main structure. (Maybe that helps prop it up so it doesn't share mo's fate?) The "so" (そ) is practically a formless scribble (but I still had zero trouble knowing it could only be "so") and the top bar of the right half of "bo" (ぼ) is floating so far above the rest of the letter that it did actually give me pause wondering if there was a "-ba" (ば) conjugation usage I just don't know (as opposed to ones I do).

But like. I'm rusty on kana, at least rustier than I'd prefer to be, and the only thing that gives me real trouble is the very last word, written in parentheses, which I assume is probably a signature and which also looks like it uses a kanji often found in girls' names (子) preceded by two letters that are kind of confusing. The first letter looks like "o" except it uses a... Call it a diacritical mark? That only consonants* get. That circle to the right of it turns "h" into "p", for example. Is this a cutesy way the writer used of personalizing her name that has no effect except aesthetic, like anglophone girls who dot the "i" in their names with a heart? Maybe. I don't know. I was never a young Japanese girl. In fact, I only ever got to third semester Japanese. My Japanese is just not that good. And yet I find everything except the probable signature perfectly legible.

So legibility is a clear fig leaf for the real complaint.

(here ends all relevance to the main post)

* There aren't consonants as letters in Japanese writing.** There are syllables that are just vowels and there are syllables that are a consonant followed by a vowel, so it's really that "ha" (は) becomes "pa" (ぱ) while "hi" (ひ) becomes "pi" (ぴ) and so on.

** Except for "n", which is found in the whole typical "na ni nu ne no" (なにぬねの) series of syllables but also as just "n" (ん), which is arguably not quite the same letter/sound but I promised myself I'd stop this tangent here and most people don't make that distinction anyway, possibly because they never met Motohashi-sensei.

Anyway, here's the Motohashi-sensei story.

First week of class. First day: Sensei passes out the syllabus, reads it out loud, and warns us that Japanese is very, very hard for English speakers to learn, that he is a very strict and sometimes outright mean teacher, and that half of us will have given up and dropped the class by the end of the second week.

Second day: He passes out a handout listing sixteen basic social phrases (hello, please, thank you) in romaji (the Roman alphabet, you know, the one we can actually read, being only in our second-ever Japanese class) for us to memorize and then warns us that learning kana starts the next class period. He says that by the end of next week we will be expected to read and write solely in hiragana until we can use katakana and kanji where appropriate and we will never see nor use a single letter of the Roman alphabet in a Japanese word in his class ever again, forever, on penalty of his extreme wrath.

At the start of the second week, our third Japanese class, he tells us that the thing he hates most about teaching Japanese to English-speaking teenagers is our atrocious handwriting. (He really is actually pretty brutal about it, and a couple of students end up trying to file complaints later.) We're lazy, we're apathetic, we're uneducated, we're just generally disgraces, he says, and he doesn't feel like facing down the aspirin bill we'll drive up giving him headaches with our chicken scratches (a quotation; he later told me he learned that English phrase specifically for insulting students' handwriting in this little speech of his) so he's gone to a lot of trouble and expense and called in a huge favor to have a friend come all the way from Japan for a week to teach us to write hiragana "properly".

Then he introduces a Japanese woman who is a renowned enough calligrapher her work hangs in museums. He talks for about ten minutes on her many professional accomplishments and emphasizes to us not only that her presence in our classroom is a tremendous honor but that we categorically do not deserve it, will never understand the honor well enough to truly appreciate it, that HE doesn't deserve it, and that she is possessed of a personal generosity previously thought only to exist in the saints and saint-equivalents of various world religions to take the time and effort to grace our grubby little hands with her brushes. (She seems embarrassed by all this praise and breaks in a couple of times to argue with him.)

We didn't know enough yet to understand it, but this was in fact our first Japanese lesson. Not just the culture; this kind of thing is baked into the language. He established an in-group, his students and himself, to put down, and an out-group, the guest, to praise. She responded entirely as protocol demand by demurring. Learning to recognize and engage in that is a requisite skill to speak Japanese with any fluency, let alone navigate a conversation as a nuanced social interaction.

The students who didn't get offended by it were the ones he predicted would do well with the language. The ones it drove away were the ones he didn't think would continue past, or even finish, the first semester. And that man spent money on us. In large amounts (for appropriate purposes!), regularly, out of his own pocket, for things like guest speakers and so, so much more, including our final exam. (Which is my all-time favorite Motohashi-sensei story.) So please forgive him for wanting to winnow out early all the students he predicted would just drop the class anyway.

After the introduction, she passes out large sheets of thick paper, little cups of ink, and these giant brushes.

And teaches us to... paint?

It's an art style called sumi-e ("ink pictures"), a pretty distinctive style which you've almost certainly seen before.

(Shutterstock photo, contributed by Natali Mias)

In fact, a bamboo composition a lot like this was the first thing we learned to draw. Then we worked on drawing (very, very bad) birds.

Sumi-e is, at least in its foundations, an extremely structured style that uses only a handful of basic brushstrokes -- I think we learned four -- almost algorithmically, or like Legos, kind of like those "learn to draw" books that teach you to look at something like a cat's face as an assemblage of circles, rectangles, and triangles. The brushstrokes are really easy to learn. The art enters into it when you try to make four different kinds of brushstrokes look like breeze-tossed bamboo, or a whole entire bird. We were... Mostly not artists that day.

That was it. That was our third Japanese language class. Luckily, neither our bamboo nor our birds were graded.

For our fourth lesson, we get handouts of this gridded paper (the same kind Japanese kids use to practice kana and kanji) and plain wooden pencils. We're told that from that day forward, we will never use pen in Motohashi-sensei's class, because only pencil (and never mechanical pencil, either!) could reproduce the nuances of a brushstroke.

Then we learn how to build those four basic brushstrokes into hiragana.

All the hiragana.

In one day.

There are 46 of them. (Not counting the ones where you add extras like for turning "hi" into "pi").

Our fifth lesson opens the third week of class. From then on, we go entirely without romaji, as promised.

And also, as predicted, without about half the initial students. 😅

So look, it's true, Japanese really is hard for English speakers to learn, especially if we're used to thinking all other languages are going to basically be Romance languages like Spanish or Italian that share grammar and a lot of vocabulary with English. But sensei seemed to be intentionally making it even harder than it had to be, deliberately, for no reason we could understand then except maybe simple sadism.

I did eventually understand why he was so harsh, and at the end of about 30,000 more words I could explain exactly why he did that and why it made him the greatest teacher I've ever known, the one who had the most profound positive impact on my life that not just any teacher but any single individual outside my immediate family and intimate relationships has ever made. And if I wrote them all and you read them all, you'd understand, too.

But also you might want to hunt me down and put Legos in the dark hallway between my bedroom and bathroom every night for the rest of my life if I did that here. So instead you'll just have to take my word for it. It was masterful harshness. Also? An odd, unfamiliar sort of affection.

And the result was that I have Japanese handwriting that native speakers still compliment 30 years later, not just "Hey, that's great for a foreigner!" but "Whoa, my handwriting isn't that good! Where did you learn to write like that?" And that's 30 years of not really practicing much most of the time. And not just in hiragana, but in kanji and katakana as well, because both kinds of kana are based on kanji, and kanji are based on Chinese hanzi, and hanzi are written with a standardized set of brushstrokes that...

...Are used in sumi-e.

Motohashi-sensei's specialty was historical Japanese. It was like getting a Chaucerian scholar trying to teach ESL (English as a Second Language) courses. He had this compulsion to rewind back to the origin of everything he taught to make sure we got the foundation correct. (He would never tell us which kanji he used for his name, but I've always secretly believed the "moto" absolutely must be 元 -- not just because it's common that way, but also because he had to get to, and start from, the root of everything.) But for students willing to follow him on that whole meandering journey to the finish line, the benefits were incredible.

Anyway, the paradoxical effect is that although my handwriting benefitted incalculably from his unexpected teaching method, it also left me with certain expectations about how Japanese characters will be built, structurally, which means I have slightly more trouble reading them out in the wild than I might otherwise.

And this Japanese girl's handwriting is almost perfectly legible to me.

Uh. So there. Nyah!

[ETA: Ha ha, all that and I still got bits of it wrong. "Mo" is actually "be", so it's to Nana-chan: "Let's play on Tuesday." I was right about my limitations, though; there's a pattern of character alteration I didn't pick up on.]

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