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agirlinjapan · 8 years ago

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Red Data Girl: World Heritage Girl (Week 24)

Red Data Girl: World Heritage Girl By Noriko Ogiwara A Translation

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It’s funny how I can get so much translation done one week and then nothing done the next. As spring draws closer, all of my final work as a grad student and a student teacher is beginning to start. It feels like I was just talking about school applications a month or two ago but in reality that was a year ago! Now I’m starting to think about job applications (something I’m terrified about btw).

Earlier this week, I saw that a reader had some questions about when I use last names versus first names for the characters in RDG. As you probably know, I try to make this translation as accessible to an English speaking audience as possible. For the most part, this just means I have characters address each other by their first names even though they use last names in the original text. (Japanese and English cultures differ on how to respectfully/politely address people.) With this said though, you may notice that there are some exceptions to my rule, specifically Hayakawa, Ryougoku, Wamiya, and Takayanagi.

Why do I use Yoshiki Hayakawa’s last name?

He was originally introduced with just his last name. We learned his first name about a page later but for some reason, his last name kind of just stuck with me. Seeing as Izumiko and co don’t know him very well, I think it’s okay for them to call him by his last name. Still, if I were to revise this translation in the future, I might use his first name instead. For now though, he will remain Hayakawa.

*Side note, I’d say Hoshino and Okouchi also fall into this category but their first names are never actually mentioned in the text so I don’t even have the option of using them.--That’s why they��re not getting their own question/answer here.

Why do I use Mizuhiko Ryougoku’s last name?

I don’t really have an explanation for Ryougoku. Earlier in the translation I think I was a bit more wishy-washy with first and last name use when it came to secondary characters so I’ll admit Ryougoku’s a bit of an inconsistency. Like with Hayakawa, I might change the name I use for him to Mizuhiko if I were to revise the translation in the future.

Why do I use Satoru Wamiya’s last name?

Wamiya’s always been a little... unusual, don’t you think? Using his last name seemed appropriate to me, especially with how he appeared out of no where in Izumiko’s middle school class and then disappeared just as quickly. Calling him by his last name adds to that air of mysteriousness.

Why do I use Ichijo Takayanagi’s last name?

There’s just something about calling an antagonist by their last name. It gives you that delicious tingle down your spine when used dramatically. Think Malfoy in Harry Potter. It almost gives off an iconic sort of feel like you don’t even have to use his name to know who you’re talking about.

In general, please remember that I’m just an amateur translator who’s doing her best. Translation is hard and there’s always more than one “right” way to translate something, especially when culture gets thrown into the mix. Feel free to ask questions about my translation choices. I’m happy to explain my thinking.

Red Data Girl: World Heritage Girl By Noriko Ogiwara Chapter 4: Boundary Part 1 (2 of 3)

Izumiko didn’t have a chance to talk to Mayura in Class 1-A until long after school had ended. But when Mayura came to find Izumiko at sunset, the expression on her face was especially serious.

“Can I pull you aside for a minute? Before you go off to student government?”

Izumiko, who had been working on Class C’s festival preparations, nodded. She quickly wiped her hands off and followed Mayura. The girl led them up the central stairs all the way to the third floor where she brought them into the social studies material room.

The Japanese history club was gathered there.

Izumiko had been invited to the club’s gatherings before summer break but she had never attended. Although she had joined the club of her own free will, she didn’t have a regular place in the group.

As the only female member (besides Mayura), there was clearly a large wall between her and the others. She really didn’t know if it was truly okay for her to be working in the Japanese history club, which secretly ran as the MSF, the Mayura Souda Fan Club. Besides Mayura and Miyuki who were partial members like herself, the only person in the group she had really talked to was Mizuhiko Ryougoku, the president of the group.

“Why are we here?”

“I bet you’ve heard the stories about the ghost pictures too,” Mayura answered tightly at Izumiko’s question. “Photography is Ryougoku’s specialty so I asked him to give me a detailed analysis of a few ghost shots he’s taken. He’s also going to give us a look at the pictures he took the other day.”

Izumiko was instantly impressed. If she could think on the same level as Mayura, she was sure she would never make a mistake. She had been thinking about the ghost photos all day. Her anticipation rose.

“Oh, right. That’s a good idea. I wanted to see them, too.”

“It’s understandable to be skeptical of ghost pictures taken with low resolution cellphone cameras,” Mayura said as she moved away from the door. “But on the other hand, the more ghost pictures that are taken on high quality cameras, the more you have to wonder about the digital processing…”

The material room looked like a dim storehouse. Not only were there steel shelves piled high with all sorts of things up against the walls but there were more in the middle of the room, obstructing the lights on the ceiling. It wasn’t a particularly inviting place. Still, there was a long, narrow space in the room where a number of male students were standing with their backs to Mayura and Izumiko. They were enthusiastically gazing at a large, flat screen TV which had been mounted to the wall. It looked like it was connected to a laptop which was being used to display pictures on the larger screen. While it was hard to make out with all the people in the picture, it appeared that the photo had been shot near the high school building.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Izumiko came with me too.”

Hearing Mayura’s announcement, Ryougoku and the other boys who had been looking at the screen turned to look at them all at once. Regardless the fact that Izumiko was part of their club, the business like greeting that the boys gave them made her bow her head in an apology for interrupting them. Her response was also a result of not coming to their meetings.

Miyuki was standing in the group.

As one of the club members, it was technically unsurprising that he would be there. It seemed like he was examining the picture as well. Izumiko quickly steadied herself so that no one saw her instant reaction. She hadn’t been prepared to see him. Miyuki looked content to be at the edge of the group, not bothering to move any closer to the two girls.

Mayura did not react much to seeing Miyuki there. It was almost as if the conversation between them had never taken place. Miyuki was not high up in the MSF’s hierarchy and as a result, she could not show more familiarism to him than to the rest of the club with the other boys here. Even Izumiko understood that rule. The fact made her feel better about not wanting to talk to him in the clubroom.

Miyuki didn’t do anything to draw attention to himself either. It was clear to see that he held a less important role here than he did in the student government but he didn’t look particularly upset about that. He compartmentalized the behaviors he used in the two different clubs.

Ryougoku licked his lips and said, “I’ve been looking into your request. I ran into a bunch of unexplainable things. They’re enough to worry me a little.”

“What worried you?” Mayura asked.

“Too many things to count. I have to wonder why I’ve taken so many pictures with ghost-like aspects in them all of a sudden.”

“I had the same thought. Where are the ghost pictures?” Mayura questioned, gazing at the flat screen. It showed a picture of Hayakawa in his tall, golden samurai helmet, surrounded by students. Mayura nor Izumiko was anywhere to be seen in the shot. Izumiko was secretly relieved.

“Once a person has seen one picture of a ghost, they tend to start finding more and more everywhere they look, I guess…”

Shrugging, Ryougoku brought a finger up to the screen. Seeing as the image was not being projected, the shadow of his finger did not obstruct what was being shown beneath it. Izumiko was glad of this.

“…This student standing in the back. Look. Isn’t he weird? The colors in the photo probably got messed up when I took it thanks to that gaudy golden helmet but the student has both his hands in his pockets, right? There’s no way he could be holding onto the shoulder of the student next to him…”

The hand on the shoulder in question looked like the real thing. However, the angle in which it was positioned made it impossible that it could have belonged to any of the students behind the one with the hand on his shoulder.

“Could it be an optical illusion?”

“I considered that as well.”

Ryougoku showed them the other photos he had looked at. One at a time, they appeared on the screen. Many of them contained unearthly white lights and humanoid shadows. There were also a number of instances where human faces appeared in unexpected places around the assembly hall such as on the walls and the floor.

There were also some pictures that contained Izumiko and Mayura but they were only in the background and they didn’t show up that often. The strange thing was that the anomalies seemed to appear much more frequently around the students that had gathered around the models than near the models themselves.

Until now, Izumiko had never once seen a photo of a ghost in her life.

She acknowledged that the photos in front of her now were indeed those of ghosts but she still hadn’t heard an explanation for why they were even there for her to see. The lights and shadows in the pictures were strange and she got a bad feeling when she looked at the warped faces and other ghostly forms. It still wasn’t enough to make her heart freeze up in fear though.

It’s much scarier when something that should be in a picture doesn't show up than when something that shouldn’t be there does, Izumiko thought. She considered the case of the cellphone picture Miyuki had taken of the exchange student, Ricardo.

Compared to the memory of that terrifying time, the uproar around these ghost pictures felt like a game or even a stretch of the imagination.

The rest of the boys in the room were also calm. They were testing students’ claims of having taken ghost pictures and considering whether or not they were the real thing. However, just like Karin, they were not one hundred percent convinced of the whole situation.

“Out of all the supposed ghost pictures, I can’t say at this moment what percentage are real,” Ryougoku said seriously, sounding like an analyst. “It’s clear that some of them are authentic though. But with that said, there’s a good chance that more photos will show up for a while. Plenty of photos were taken that day at the lecture.”

Mayura asked an important question.

“Are there any ghosts in the pictures you took, Ryougoku?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied, his expression sour. “However, lots of people have shown them to me. Some people will find ghosts in anything. You could say they have ‘ghost vision.’ Once they see a ghost just one time, anything even slightly out of the ordinary becomes connected to ghosts.”

The vast majority of Ryougoku’s photos were candid, close-up shots of Mayura and Izumiko. Despite the way they had been taken, they were all, as expected from Ryougoku, beautifully shot. He had used the elegant screen that had been brought into the hall for the occasion as a backdrop. Because of the screen, the other high school girls that had been surrounding them were not visible. The results were probably also to do with the quality of the camera and Ryougoku’s handy work.

While the photos were being projected onto the TV screen, the other members of the club pointed out possible ghostly images, saying things like, “there’s a face here.” However, everything they said was in quiet jest. Ryougoku alone glared at them in indignation.

Izumiko didn’t find her close up particularly embarrassing. Strangely enough, she felt comfortable looking at it. The person in the photo looked so other to her that it didn’t even feel like it was cosplay. The girl in the princess outfit didn’t look like her mother, Yukariko either. She looked like someone she had never seen until now.

Izumiko might not have liked pictures of herself being shown to people, but Mayura was fine with it. That was the way she had always been. Even when the candid shots of her had been sold throughout the school like pictures of an idol, she hadn’t really cared.

Mayura was not modest. That much was true. But at the same time, unlike most girls, her attractiveness never seemed to be the most important thing on her mind even though anyone could take her picture and she would never have to worry about it how it came out.

After looking at her close up picture for a moment, Mayura said plainly, “I second your opinion, Ryougogku. I don’t think there are any ghosts in your pictures. Everyone, don’t joke about this. Ryougoku’s photos are the best shots from the lecture.”

“Do you think so?”

Ryougoku’s expression dissolved into a smile. His round face looked happy.

“If that’s the case, you’ll be okay with me printing this picture out, right?”

“If you tell me how you’re planning to use it, that’s fine.”

As Mayura answered Ryougoku’s question, someone mumbled, “I bet he’s going to use it as a good luck charm.”

Everyone laughed. As Izumiko laughed though, she felt impressed. Being able to draw reassurance from Mayura’s photo was a good way of expressing how much strength the other girl had.

Mayura ignored the chatter and continued on briskly.

“Are these all the photos we should look at? What does everyone think about ghost pictures being so popular right now?”

A few opinions were voiced. In the end, everyone seemed to agree that someone had probably started a rumor and then everyone else had gone along with it. Ryougoku had the most thought out opinion in the group.

“I feel it’s more likely that most of the students here at our school think they’re seeing ghosts in the pictures they take, not that there’s actual ghosts in those pictures. If you think about it that way, isn’t this more of a question of human psychology? The atmosphere of our school has completely changed because of all this. Everyone’s more than ready to accept any suggestion of a ghost they find. I think that’s the real problem here.”

Mayura nodded quickly.

“You’re right. Thanks so much. You’ve helped a lot.”

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#red data girl #rdg #rdg 4 #rdg world heritage girl #rdg 4 week 24 #translation

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