#but they release the entire interview for free in english if they translate them which they usually do

[thistledropkick]

I don't bother to translate stuff that NJPW is likely to post official translations of later but there's one part in the new Desperado interview that's so good I'm gonna make an exception.

Desperado, please tell us about your outlook and your goals for 2024.

Despe: In 2023, I was able to fight in many different places, and work together with many different people, and it was too fun and too stimulating, so for 2024 I want to broaden those horizons even further. I'm not saying I'll do something crazy like wrestle at Big Japan (Pro Wrestling) or anything but if you were to ask me "What show do you want to appear on the most?" I'd answer "BAKA GAIJIN" (grin)

BAKA GAIJIN?!

Despe: I wanna fight Deathworm there. Big crowds in big venues don't particularly interest me, but wrestling in a unique location is really fun. I'd really enjoy being able to do that while holding the belt. A singles match against Deathworm for the IWGP belt would be really interesting. (laughs) Chris Brooks (of DDT Pro Wrestling), I'm waiting for your offer. Well, the office will probably get pissed off and tell me "You shouldn't say such things" but look, "It's for the sake of promoting New Japan or something." I really wanna fight Deathworm...

Are you sure that's an ok goal for 2024?

Despe: My goal for 2024 is to defend the IWGP belt in a singles match against Deathworm on BAKA GAIJIN (grin)

[k0ff1n]

WHY EVERYONE IN THE TWST FANDOM IS A PUSSY AND DOESN'T WRITE ABOUT ORTHO:

First of all, sorry if there are any errors, english is not my first language and I'm still learning it.

Seeing how people reacted to this post I'll add some things first, to at least not be called a pedo:

I'm literally a minor, so please don't call me a pedo because that's not really possible I think

If you were to actually read the post, not because you agree but because you want to complain then you have two options, to not read it at all or to consider the first point and the fact that I too would prefer the people writing about him to imagine a older looking version.

As stated before, if you want to complain pls don't interact

So I suppose that everyone who plays twisted wonderland knows who Ortho is, but in case someone doesn't, here's a little description:

He was and still is Idia Shroud's little brother, he died when he was a child and his body was remade by his brother to somehow "keep him alive".

I know that reading this gives the idea of him still being a child and that, if he was one, writing fanfictions about him would be wrong, so this is why I'll try to explain why having this idea while knowing the full story is kinda stupid.

1: HIS AGE

After saying that he died as a child and was made anew it gives the idea that he's still a child, but he technically isn't.

In the birthday card form the first year of the game, which is almost three years ago at this point, Yuu asks him in the interview what was his best memory from a past birthday party. To this Ortho answers the party that was held when he was five, which was eleven years ago. If you know basic math you should understand that 5+11=16, which makes him as old as the first years. Ok I know, some of you don't understand that being sixteen isn't the same as being five years old but for the sake of this post we'll say that, yes he's still a minor and we shouldn't write romantic stuff about him because bla bla bla (Also I'd like to point out that I'm not talking about writing nsfw stuff about him, just relationship scenarios instead of only platonic ones) but if you consider the year in which the card was released then it means that this August he'll be eighteen, so yeah legal age for stuff.

In case you want to argue about what he says in the story I'll leave the screens of the translation:

2: HIS MENTAL AGE

Writing this might seem stupid but some of you don't understand it so I'll do it anyway. We said that his body is new, and this applies for his mind too, well kind of. Some of his memories as Ortho Shroud, the one who actually lived, are still inside his head, we know that because Idia somehow put some of them back inside of him to "preserve his little brother". With this said we are left with:

50% old memories

50% all that's known to mankind

We know that in his head he can search everything, you can clearly see that during history lessons and in some of his cards (if I'm not wrong it was a birthday one but I'm not sure which of the two). He talks about how much he likes playing games with other students and that since he can predict everything they'll do they decided to create a handwritten list of moves to use against him. From this we get:

He can know everything from the entire internet, from every site and from every data storage around the world

Can without much trouble go against entire groups of people at once and still win, something that I don't think someone with the mind of a kid can do

To conclude this first part about his head I'll just say that you can't have the mindset of a child if you know everything, and this applies to him too. 3: HIS PERCEPTION OF HIMSELF

This is still about his mind but with a different point of view. When we finish the sixth chapter of the story Ortho gains a real heart, a real himself we can say. He's finally free from his brother's restrains and he starts to become a real person. The school realizes this too and accepts him as a student, starting from the first year. This might seem obvious but we know that two years before, when him and Idia arrived at the school, he wasn't perceived as a person, he was just a tool, another piece of metal and cables that his brother bought with him. Now having a heart and a mind of his own he still has the knowledge he had before but he can also appreciate things from another prospective, one only a real living being can have. I feel like saying this might not mean much but to put it simply: he arrives at the school and is fourteen, he stays a total robot for another year and then we meet him when he's sixteen. After another year he gains a heart and he's almost an adult and now, one year after he's become a person, he's to become eighteen. He's almost a literal adult, this is what I wanted to say. Another thing that I'd like to point out is the fact that during chapter six he acts a different way when with or without his brother. The "childish" version of him is only visible when he's talking to Idia and that single time that he slips in an annoyed expression, one his brother has probably never seen, he gets asked if there is need for maintenance. His real self is later introduced, he's way more similar to his brother if not worse at some points. Various times he expresses amusement in seeing someone struggle, something that even Idia had never done. We can clearly see that the version of Ortho that we've always seen wasn't the real one but something that his brother remembered about him from their childhood and that he had to take as his only option regarding personality. His real personality is yes, friendly, but not childish in the slightest. The most childish character in the game is probably Kalim lol. Btw these are some screens from one of the cards where be talks about himself and stuff, even before becoming a real person:

4: HIS BODY

We know he's short, he's 148 cm. Oh wait you want to say that his face almost looks... like the one of a young looking person? Please don't. Seriously, this might mean something if he was the only character in the game with a young looking face but he isn't, we literally got Epel and Riddle a similar design. And oh look, people write about them, even nsfw stuff, but no one complains for some reason. Epel is sixteen, a minor, but no one says anything if someone decides to simply add the "every character here is aged up so everything's fine" thing. Riddle is seventeen, oh look, another minor people don't have a problem writing about. You can clearly see how stupid this is, he's the same age as them, has the same type of design as them but for some reason is treated different from the fandom. Also, to add things to this mix of reasons, his body isn't even human, he's a literal thing made of metal, wires, fans and a heart. Idia could customize him any moment, and maybe in the future he will who knows, but for now this is what we got.

There's also a "problem" with his voice if we want to call it that. Yes, in this case I'll say that he sounds like a kid, but there's a reason. When Idia created him the only voice he has ever heard his little brother speak with was the one of a five years old, we can clearly hear the similarities between Ortho's real voice when he was a kid in chapter six and the one that AI Ortho has. But during chapter six we also hear the voice that he's supposed to have now, and it's not a childlike one, he really sounds like a teenager.

5: THE FINAL (not the dir en grey song) PART

After all these paragraphs I sincerely hope that at least some of you understand how all this doesn't make sense. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this, I know other people with this same idea but at this point no one can really write anything without being called slurs or assuming random things about them. This post was just a simple explanation of how I see this "issue", if we want to call it that.

Also as stated at the start of the post I too would really prefer an older looking version of him, one with the voice we hear in chapter six from his real and current self and not the one that resembles his old one. This said I understand why some of you want to complain about me wanting fantictions about him and this is why I say that if there will ever be some I will only be imagining the "older" version and not the one that we have now in the game.

Thanks for everyone who read till this point and have a good day :)

[dustedmagazine]

Pat Thomas —كنز القلب [KANZA AL QALB] (scatterArchive)

Pat Thomas has been a strong presence on the English and European improvisational scene since the 1990s. His contributions as pianist and co-conceptualist in the quartet  أحمد  [Ahmed] have elevated his profile a bit, but that’s certainly not the sum of his work. He also plays electric keyboards and electronic devices, both solo and in ensembles, and his improvisational methods find freedom where others might perceive roadblocks; for examply, he has a long-running partnership with Orphy Robinson that honors their shared roots by pointedly incorporating Caribbean styles into free improvisations.  

القلب [KANZA AL QALB] is the fifth in a series of Thomas solo releases on Scatter Archives, a Scottish label whose pay what you wish, download-only catalog is quite a trove. This music on this album, like its predecessors, is completely electronic, initially performed on an iPad loaded with the software sampler Kontakt and subsequently warped using IRCAM’s Time Stretch application. Its title serves to underscore a point made clear in the interviews that Thomas has given on the occasion of أحمد  [Ahmed]’s two recent releases, Wood Blues and Giant Beauty;that Islam and mystic awareness are at the heart of Thomas’ creative practice. القلب [KANZA AL QALB] translates as Treasure of the Heart, foregrounding the belief that the heart holds knowledge that the intellect can’t grasp. It seems significant to apply such a statement to music made entirely by electronic means, just as it’s important to note that a lazy listener might mistake it القلب [KANZA AL QALB] for a record of inscrutably organized percussion and strings. The point, one supposes, is that what you see and what you’re told aren’t as important as what you deeply feel and what you do.

In this case, Thomas is manipulating the sounds of bells, cymbals, and other metallic objects which he has extracted from easily obtainable freeware. Hacks use this stuff to make ignorable soundtracks every day, but Thomas obtains from it something genuinely strange. Frequency-tweaked, digitally melted, temporally disrupted, and carefully collaged, the closer you listen to them, the further they retreat from familiarity. Sounds flicker and melt (“REFLECT”), dart and drip (“QALBC”), or smack messily back and forth across the stereo spectrum like deafened, caffeinated, flak-jacket-clad bats careening through HVAC vents (“REFLECT 2”). Mystery, this music demonstrates, is close at hand and completely procurable through ordinary means.

Bill Meyer

[vgperson]

What Did I Do In 2021?

Well.........

----

From around January to February, I worked on [REDACTED]. Hey, I got paid, at least!

In February, The Case Book of Arne: Teil 4 (Interlude) came out. Of course, I translated it alongside the other three last year, so it doesn't especially count. But it came out! So that counts!

In May, I translated Sen's short game GET MOUSE. It's silly.

I did literally nothing new for this release, but let me count LiEat coming to Switch anyway.

In June, we finally saw the release of Your Turn To Die: Chapter 3, Part One, Section B. It's great! Love to see the last part someday. Also in June, Kenshi Yonezu released his single Pale Blue. So as usual, I translated the songs (Pale Blue, Half-Dreaming, Shinigami) and an interview.

I neglected to post about it, but I translated the commercial release Soaring Machinariae, which came out in June. It's okay, I guess, if you want to play a short game with very basic action combat/elemental mechanics/graphics/story.

In July, OSTER project posted the sequel to Friendship (Friendship... 2!), Confession (English captions by me). Good for them! Good for them. Also, as usual, I've been translating her Twitter all year... though I've fallen behind lately and want to fix that soon.

In November, another commercial release I neglected to post about: Absented Age: Squarebound. It's a cool concept, blending action with Mystery-Dungeon-like SRPG mechanics for combat, and a lot was clearly put into it... but also, I personally found it difficult enough that I had trouble even when I cheated sometimes, so.

Lastly, I continued to work on my Petal Crash Japanese fan translation at various points in the year. I know that probably doesn't matter to most people (who knows how many Japanese players have used it, even), but it's fun, and I feel like it has been good practice for actually thinking about how to write in Japanese, since I often don't stop to internalize that when translating it to English. With just Rosalia's scenario to go now, I definitely want to finish it early next year.

----

And that's about everything I publicly did in 2021. Of course, I've been slowly working on all kinds of personal game projects and the like, the number of which may have increased. And I did a bunch of other stuff I can't talk about yet. Oh, and I also did some Spare Parts fanart, and an inexplicable celebration of Petal Crash's first anniversary -

What? Am I forgetting something?

Well, the post isn't called "What I Didn't Do In 2021," now is it?

I couldn't really give you a good explanation why, but I struggled to put aside time to even play TOWER of HANOI for the first half of the year or so. Even after I started, I had a months-long break not touching it before I picked it back up to do the last stretch of the game. To be clear, this was not at all because it was bad - not to add to people's disappointment, but I really liked it, and once I felt I had the time to do so, I was really excited to put my all into translating it - which I finally started doing in September. Over the next two months, I slowly got back into the groove of translating at a decent pace. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish before the end of the year, but it would at least be close, and I was still glad to be making progress on a translation like this again. I had literally just gotten up to a key turning point in the story the day Segawa emailed me saying not to translate the game anymore, hoping I "hadn't already started."

So that was demoralizing, to say the least. I'm still not totally sure what I want to do right now, translations-wise. I have numerous games to consider, but some of them... well, let's just say I was picturing TOWER of HANOI as a sort of "crowd-pleaser" after a long time not translating any big entirely-new free games, giving me some "leeway" afterward to do something that I didn't necessarily expect as many people to be into. Does anyone actually think in those terms but me? Maybe not, but apparently I do, so.

At any rate, there are more games in the sea, and I want to translate stuff. Look forward to whatever I decide to do. I promise nothing because promises don't help me actually do things, I hate promises. (- vghime, creator of Libretta, 2021)

Anyway let's hope kouri contacts me for the Ib remake planned for next year.

[zukadiary]

[TRANSLATION] Miya Rurika interview in CREA WEB

Hey y’all, this is a VERY COOL ARTICLE that promotes some very cool ideas, but I don’t feel comfortable sharing it without a bit of a disclaimer:

I translated this as faithfully as possible, but given the sensitive and deeply personal nature of gender identity, I am a bit afraid that in unleashing it on an English-speaking audience, much of which may be influenced by Western biases, I may be unintentionally framing it as a coming out article, which I do not believe it is. It IS a very exciting discussion of the gender-based limitations that have thus far been prevalent in the Japanese entertainment and beauty industries, and Miya’s intentions to build a career out of dismantling them.

I am FULLY aware that I am not Japanese, and despite my familiarity with the language/culture and Takarazuka, my insights are thus limited. I WELCOME corrections/discussion preferably from Japanese people, but also non-Japanese people with more immersion/study/experience than I have. You can always feel free to message me here (or LINE me if we’re already friends).

That said, I would suggest that you keep the following context in mind in reading this translation:

It is extremely rare for a Japanese entertainer to come out. A coming out announcement would most likely be treated as a press release (or tabloid scoop tbh) and covered in news outlets, not explored in a fashion/beauty/lifestyle editorial.

The Japanese entertainment industry, and Takarazuka to an even greater extent, places a lot of emphasis on manufactured personas. You will often hear Takarazuka OGs refer to their stage name as a different person entirely, even if they continue using it in their post-Takarazuka careers. In several post-retirement interviews, Nanami Hiroki described “otokoyaku Nanami Hiroki” as dead, and “artist Nanami Hiroki” as a brand new persona she was just starting to build. In the Sept. 8 2020 episode of her radio show, Ichijou Azusa, having just publicly announced her marriage, said that Ichijou Azusa is a different person, he’s a man, and he will never marry. The language used in the original text of this article is consistent with treating “Miya Rurika” as one such persona. Miya Rurika may have been labeled as “gender-free,” but we cannot take that to mean [real name redacted] has come out as trans, nonbinary, gender fluid, or otherwise.

Japan has a much longer and more diverse track record of promoting gender-nonconformity in men/AMAB people (see Visual Kei, etc) than it does in women/AFAB people. We may scoff at the idea of androgyny being a novel concept in fashion modeling, but this article is not off base in stating that Miya is blazing a trail in Japan.

The Japanese terms commonly used for discussion of nonbinary gender identities in Japan are ノンバイナリージェンダー and Xジェンダー. The terms used in the article (中性的、男性と女性の間、ジェンダーフリー) I have understood to be descriptors of external gender expression.

I am going the extra mile to provide this context both so I do not unintentionally promote something that Miya may not have intended, and so that we as foreign fans don’t lose sight of where Japan realistically is in terms of progress.

Read the translation »

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games). 

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3? 

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones. 

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki. 

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry. 

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).  

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops. 

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it. 

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either. 

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience. 

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me. 

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games. 

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this. 

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series. 

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with. 

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already. 

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun. 

[kazarinn]

Roundup of all the things I’ve translated within the last month

Those who have been following me for a while might know that the last month saw me be very unusually prolific with translation (especially Digimon-related ones), to unprecedented extents. I'll be very honest about the fact that it's because of the current quarantine, which has left me with not a lot to do and a sense of boredom that translation somehow happens to satiate a bit ^^;; That said, the very large number of translations I'd been posting has caused things to get a bit buried, and has made things easily missable, so I've decided to make a bit of a roundup post summarizing everything I've done in the last month.

Of course, there's probably still more to come in the near future -- I have two books (the Digimon Official Super Encyclopedia and the Gakken Digimon Adventure tri. Memorial Book) hopefully coming in the mail soon, and I still have some stuff lying around I might take up if my mood warms up to it, but since I've finally cleared up a ton of the backlog I felt I should take a breather to summarize stuff. (Although, every time I say I've cleared the backlog, suddenly more interesting things pop up...^^;;)

Digimon Adventure, Adventure 02, Tamers, Frontier

Digimon Adventure 02 Drama CD "Armor Evolution to the Unknown" I will be honest in that this is actually my favorite thing to have translated in this past month. Actually, fiction translation has a higher level of difficulty for me than things like interviews -- because I want to be careful with what real people have said, I tend to be less stringent about rewording things, whereas with fiction I hold myself to a higher standard to make things flow well. But that's actually what makes it so much fun, because I can challenge myself to play with wording and broaden my horizons, and moreover Adventure 02 has a ton of characters, and it's really fun to try and make unique "voices" for all of them. That said, translating this was a bit of a wake-up call, because the sheer amount of pop culture references (to things made before I was even born, at that) and wordplay everywhere led me to the very harsh realization of why so few people have attempted to translate this drama CD into so few languages over the past two decades ^^;; I give my thanks to the anonymous Japanese commenters on Nico Nico Douga who pointed out many of the really old and obscure pop culture references, and I ended up spending several hours on Japanese Wikipedia looking up things like said old anime and British punk rock artists. I might not have gotten everything, and I'm sure there are people out there who probably would have been able to pull it off better than I did, but it ultimately became a test of my abilities as a translator, and if it's fun and entertaining and enjoyable, then that alone makes me satisfied. But I think this will be the last time (at least for a while) that I try translating something audio-only with no transcript -- my hearing is not that great, not even in English ^^;;

The Mystery of the American Box Bug A story from Adventure and Adventure 02 director Hiroyuki Kakudou that has some very tangential (at best) relation to Digimon, but is amusing nevertheless.

Digimon Adventure Character Complete File -- Future Encyclopedia Little "dialogue" snippets from an Adventure/Adventure 02-related book, checking in on the kids-turned-adults during the time of Adventure 02's epilogue. I actually translated this a long time ago, but I lost the transcript for it and I'm pretty sure (given how long ago it was) it was probably pretty embarrassing by my current standards, so I went ahead and did this over again. There are some other things in this book that are interesting and/or amusing, like further background info on the kids' family lives and room layouts, so if I have some spare time I might do some of those in the future, although naturally doing the entire book would probably be practically impossible.

Digimon Series Memorial Book: Digimon Animation Chronicle — Special interview with Hiromi Seki, Hiroyuki Kakudou, and Yukio Kaizawa An interview with some perennial Digimon staff members about Adventure through Frontier (and a bit of X-Evolution). We've had no shortage of these kinds of interviews over the years, but this one happens to summarize a lot of things that used to be considered "obscure" in the Digimon fanbase outside Japan, even though this book (and thus this interview) is one of the most prominent resources for diehard Digimon fans out there. Also, Frontier-related development info tends to be somewhat rare, so it's nice to hear about it. The Digimon Official Super Encyclopedia that I'm hoping to get my hands on soon allegedly has a similar interview with the same three people. I don't know specifics about it yet, but I'm informed that it mostly covers similar territory to this one, but also allegedly has some very fascinating details that weren't in this, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

Message from Digimon Adventure producer Hiromi Seki, to Toshiko Fujita Posted by Adventure producer Hiromi Seki to the LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna Twitter on February 8, 2019, right before the 49th day (last day of mourning, in Japanese tradition) after Taichi Yagami voice actress Toshiko Fujita's passing.

Mimi Tachikawa and Lilimon Posted by Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou on his blog, talking about the intent behind Mimi Tachikawa's character and her corresponding track in the drama CD Digimon Adventure: Two-and-a-Half Year Break.

Digimon Adventure tri.

On Creation and Production for “Super Evolution Stage: Digimon Adventure tri.” A post by Director Kenichi Tani about his work on the Adventure tri. stage play. Despite technically being under Adventure tri. branding, the stage play actually has surprisingly little in common with the Adventure tri. anime in terms of both content and production background, and moreover Digimon hasn't had a lot of contact with the stage medium all that much, so I thought it'd be interesting to translate something about its production, especially since this tends to be a lesser talked-about part of the franchise.

October/November 2018 Gashapon Blog interviews with Kenji Watanabe This is actually two interviews, one where Digimon franchise creator and character designer Kenji Watanabe talks about design for a Digimon gachapon set, and one where he talks about Adventure tri.'s Omegamon Merciful Mode, but I'm categorizing it under the Adventure tri. section because I figure the vast majority of readers will be reading the interview for the latter.

Digimon Adventure tri. voice actor comments (Part 1: Reunion | Part 2: Determination | Part 3: Confession | Part 4: Loss | Part 5: Coexistence | Part 6: Our Future) A series of voice actor comments that were posted to the official website prior to each Adventure tri. movie being released. I'd actually had it on the brain to try my hand at these when they were first posted, but various circumstances happened and I never got around to it, until now. In retrospect, though, I think it turned out for the better that I didn't attempt them on the spot. Adventure tri.-related interviews tend to be much more difficult to translate than most Digimon-related ones, and although there are a few reasons why, the biggest one is that, during its run, it had a very tight spoiler embargo, resulting in a lot of vague language being used, and so when you translate from a language like Japanese -- where having proper context can be life or death -- not knowing the original context behind what was being said can throw the end result into completely incorrect and misleading interpretations. While I was working on these, I did actually end up having to pull up the movies again and reference what scenes were being referred to multiple times just so I could phrase the sentence correctly, so yeah, I think it did ultimately work out. Incidentally, this is also the first direct Adventure tri. production-related thing I've translated since 2016 (mainly due to the expenses incurred by importing magazines and my difficulty with translating print media at the time). Looking back at it, I'm honestly kind of ashamed at my own inexperience from back then, but sadly, I don't have the original magazines anymore, so I can't do much to fix it, and so I'm kind of glad to have these as my sort of attempt at "redeeming myself".

Digimon Adventure tri. — Yoshimasa Hosoya interview on “To Me” Also from the official website, discussing voice actor Yoshimasa Hosoya's involvement with the ending theme song from part 3 (Confession), "To Me".

Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna

Anime! Anime! interview series (Director Tomohisa Taguchi interview | Natsuki Hanae and Chika Sakamoto interview | 02 human cast voice actor interview | 02 Digimon cast voice actor interview | Producer Yousuke Kinoshita and supervisor Hiromi Seki interview) I didn't actually know this was a series until very recently, so you'll have to forgive me for translating these out of order. Technically, all of these were posted in February to March 2020, after the movie was released in Japan, but it's pretty much spoiler-free. It's got a huge amount of development and background info behind LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna, so I recommend them as reading for anyone interested in seeing the movie.

"In regards to the new Digimon project" Otherwise known as "what happened when Hiroyuki Kakudou accidentally revealed that they were making another Digimon Adventure-related movie". Since the news that original Adventure director was recusing from LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna due to some kind of creative difference over lore ended up naturally being a hot topic, I felt like having a proper translation of his statement on the matter would be a useful thing to have. Despite technically being LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna-related, it also has a transcription of his tweets regarding Adventure/Adventure 02 background lore along with some surprising production details, so it may interest fans of the original series as well.

Digimon Continues to be Loved Thanks to its Creator’s Commitment — With Digimon Character Designer Kenji Watanabe An Asahi &M article (sort of a half-interview) with Kenji Watanabe over his involvement in LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna, which, unusually for a Digimon anime work, actually had him directly involved in production from beginning to end. I put this on the post already, but this article gets a lot dangerously closer to outright spoilers than you'd expect for this kind of material, so if you're particularly keen on going into the movie "completely clean", best to maybe avoid this one until you've seen the movie.

Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna — Website messages from Hiromi Seki and Yousuke Kinoshita It's just a short greeting message on the official website. I wanted to translate it mainly because it's not on the official English site.

Animage Plus interviews with Yousuke Kinoshita Also something I'd wanted to translate for a while but never got around to (until now). A triple set of interviews with LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna producer Yousuke Kinoshita, who also talks about Adventure's 20th anniversary and the "Memorial Story" short story collection crowdfund.

Digimon Adventure:

Interviews with Yabuno Tenya and Atsuhiro Tomioka (Part 1: V-Jump Web | Part 2: Digimon Web) A two-part interview (each part on different websites) with Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 artist Yabuno Tenya and Digimon Adventure: lead writer Atsuhiro Tomioka, discussing their respective works and Adventure:'s surprising relation to V-Tamer.

Digimon Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou’s initial comments on the Digimon Adventure: reboot A triple set of blog posts from original Digimon Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou about the Adventure: reboot and what relation it has to him and the original Adventure (along with some fun trivia about the latter). I figured some people out there might be curious about what the original Adventure director thought about Toei rebooting his series.

Digimon games

Explore the Secrets of Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode’s Evolution! Interview with Habu and Tomono Decode is rather inaccessible to the West right now (being unlocalized, and on the region-locked 3DS at that), so the idea of translating too many things relevant to it is pretty low-priority to me at the moment, but it's still a game of significant interest to the Digimon fanbase outside Japan, and is also notable as one of the first major titles spearheaded by Digimon game producer Kazumasa Habu, so I felt that there'd be quite a few people interested in this one.

Interview with Producer Habu of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory: Highlights and Future Prospects A 4Gamer interview that I'd wanted to translate since I'd first read it, but never got around to. Incidentally, I decided to go back and make some revisions to the wording for the Famitsu interviews I translated for the original game. They were some of the first things I ever translated, and it...kind of shows. ^^;; Normally I don't like to lock myself into a habit of constantly going back and revising old work, as doing so tends to be a bit of a black hole, but since the original Cyber Sleuth is still quite the hot topic among the fanbase right now (and especially with Complete Edition being recently released), I thought it might be worth it this time.

Famitsu.com interview with Kazumasa Habu on Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory Another Hacker's Memory interview, a bit less detailed than the above but still fairly informative.

Other

Iwata Asks #14: Hatsune Miku and Future Stars: Project mirai Somehow this ended up the only non-Digimon thing on the list ^^;; The version of this game that eventually did make it to the West (Project Mirai DX) is so different from the original game that it meant this Iwata Asks was never officially translated, so I thought it'd be worth taking a shot at this one. I don't have any plans to translate any other Iwata Asks at the moment, mainly because it requires me to have more than a passing knowledge of how each game works for proper context, but I hope you can at least enjoy this one.

[putschki1969]

Hikaru Real Sound Interview ~ English Translation

Note: Here we have another great long-ass interview. I feel like I have spent way too much time translating interviews the past two days. I am dead. But it was worth it. Reading those interviews is so much fun so I want more people to be able to experience that. Once again Hikaru talks a lot about Kalafina and we get some more insight regarding the two songs of her single. The interviewer is an avid Kala-fan and he asks some interesting questions. As always, take everything you read with a grain of salt. My Japanese is by no means perfect and English is not my first language. CREDIT me if you share this interview or parts of it.

Hikaru// reveals behind-the-scenes information of her solo project activities ~ "If it hadn’t been for my 10 years as part of Kalafina, there would be no H-el-ical//"

Hikaru//’s (ex. Kalafina) Solo Project H-el-ical// ・Major Debut Single "Altern-ate-" released on May 20

Hikaru// has regularly posted songs under the name stage-name H-el-ical// on YouTube since May 2019. In the blink of an eye the solo project of “Kalafina’s Hikaru” attracted a lot of attention and at the end of last year, she held a one-man live at Kanagawa Prefectural Hall. At her sold-out concert she announced her major debut with a song that would be adopted as the opening theme for the TV anime "Gleipnir" which is currently airing.

Kalafina was known as a masterpiece in the anime song world, at the peak of their success they held a 2 Day Live at Tokyo Budokan. After the group had stopped their activities in the spring of 2018, what were Hikaru//’s thoughts and how did she start her solo project? She shared a wide range of stories, from her past activities right up until her feelings regarding her major debut as a solo artist.

H-el-ical// is a project of “elevation” shared with everyone

ーー Kalafina’s activities came to a halt in March 2018, you started to publish songs on YouTube under the name of H-el-ical// in May 2019. What did you do during this 1 year break?

Hikaru//: I was working in a nursery school as a childcare assistant, something I had always felt connected with.

ーー So you lived a life separated from music?

Hikaru//: Working at a nursery school felt very therapeutic and it once again made me aware of the preciousness of life. In the meantime I was searching for the music I wanted to do. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to make a proper comeback and create music without someone supporting me. During that time someone who I had known from my Kalafina days reached out to me, I was able to meet up with him. I remember we talked about various things, “what should I do?” “Right now I am thinking about this kind of thing” “I would like to try doing this sort of music.” 

ーー What IS the kind of music you want to do?

Hikaru//: Since I have learned so much as a member of Kalafina that will always be a part of me, I would not want to let go of that aspect entirely. I also want to pursue all the music I am capable of making now that I am a solo artist. I want to create music that incorporates various elements without being bound by a single genre. I also really wanted to try and write my own lyrics.

ーー Gushimiyagi Hideyuki-san has been in charge of composing all the songs you have released on YouTube under your name H-el-ical//, right? He seems like a perfect fit for you. In the past he has been active as guitar player in bands such as “MUKASHIBANASHI” and “creature falls umbrella”.

Hikaru//: That's right. I met Gushimiyagi-san when he was introduced to me by Tomita (Akihiro)-san, my producer. During our first meeting he gave me a demo tape and told me, “I wrote these two songs for you with your image in mind!” Those songs were “pulsation” which was the first song I released on YouTube, and “Avaricia”, the second song that got released. 

ーー So this specific Gushimiyagi-Sound was something you wanted for yourself? 

Hikaru//: Yes! I'm sorry, I can't really explain why but I really like Gushimiyagi-san's music (laughs).

ーー H-el-ical//’s music has a signature guitar sound but it’s not plain guitar rock. It sounds more like Post-Rock music. At any rate, it really fits you, it’s very Hikaru//-like.

Hikaru//: ...Hmm, I wonder why? I guess these songs are also very Hikaru//-like because I am writing the lyrics myself and I am in full control during the recording...I am listening to the demo tapes by Gushimiyagi-san and then I will come up with all kinds of ideas, “I want to sing it like this” or “I want to use this kind of voice”. This way I am adopting a specific style for each song. 

ーー By the way, I wonder why you chose the name “H-el-ical//”? Why not use a big brand name like "Kalafina's Hikaru" that everyone would have recognised? I was honestly surprised that you didn’t put that name up-front.

Hikaru//: I think that might be due to everything I learned as part of Kalafina. From the get-go I had wanted to become a solo singer and I did countless auditions but then I found out that I would get the opportunity to join Kalafina. During the following ten years of activity I learned that there are many things in life that you cannot do on your own. There is only so much a single person can do. There have always been Wakana-san and Keiko-san, the musicians, staff members and of course everyone who supported us, the fans. If it hadn’t been for all of them our music would not have been possible. With these experiences in mind I felt very forlorn and disheartened when I thought about starting a solo career (laughs). You can’t do something like that without the help and support from others.

ーー So “H-el-ical//” is the name of your solo project but you are not "H-el-ical//"? The name includes everyone who is working with you, the music production team, recording staff and composer.

Hikaru//: And the audience too. "Helical" means "spiral". When I looked up the word "spiral" in a dictionary, I found the following description, "a line with a basic repeating structure that rises infinitely without ever remaining in the same position". I feel the same way about my singing and continuing to make music, I chose the word “Helical” because I have the desire to make progress, to reach higher and to create music together with everyone. In the end I also felt like adding some hyphens (laughs).

ーー The hyphens ...Yes, I want to know more about the hyphens (laughs). When you first see the name "H-el-ical//", I wondered whether I should separate the word into different syllables? But you put the hyphens into positions that have nothing to do with syllables so you can’t really separate the name into different parts.

Hikaru//: Well, to start with, I would like you to read the name omitting the "-el-" in the middle.

ーー Ah, it is read as 「ヒカル」"Hi Ka Ru"!

Hikaru//: That's right (laughs). Also, the "el" in the middle is "elevation", which means "going higher or ascending", something is increasing by adding an outside force or element. In other words, it means that you can make progress not only by using your own power but also through  the power of the people around you.

ーー As you said earlier, this project is about reaching higher together with everyone, right? Now let’s talk about the two slashes, you are using them in your stage name "H-el-ical//" but also for your name "Hikaru//", why did you add them at the end?

Hikaru//: It is supposed to mean that I have proven what I wanted to prove, a sort of proof of my existence, Q.E.D. “thus it has been demonstrated”. “This is H-el-ical//’s music”, “this is Hikaru//’s music”. That's why my name is Hikaru// when I work for my project “H-el-ical//” but this summer when I am performing as a guest vocalist at Kajiura-san’s live ("Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol. #16 ~ Sing a Song Tour 2020 ~") I am called "Hikaru".

ーー There is another big question people have regarding your “H-el-ical//” activities, why did you decide to release music for free on YouTube back in May 2019? To be honest, with a big name like "Kalafina's Hikaru" I assume you could have gotten many offers from a variety of major labels, even if you had just released a CD independently or focussed on doing a few lives, I think you could have generated some nice sales and mobilised a considerable amount of fans...

Hikaru//: No, no, no. Life is not that easy (laughs).

ーー Oh really, I thought in your case it would have been easy ...

Hikaru//: I think this break was necessary, everyone needed some time to heal, after all, I had no idea how long it would take for people to accept me as a solo artist without any attachment to Kalafina. That’s why I started by posting videos on YouTube, I was very excited about that (laughs).

The story of "Kalafina’s Hikaru" and "H-el-ical//’s Hikaru//"

ーー However, contrary to what you may have expected, your MV "pulsation" which was released in May 2019 has currently more than 70,000 views. And of course at the time of its publication it caused quite some turmoil online. 

Hikaru//: I didn’t include my name “Hikaru//” when I posted "pulsation" and the songs released afterwards, they were all released under the name “H-el-ical//” but right away there were people in the comment section of YouTube wondering if this was “Kalafina’s Hikaru” (laughs).

ーー It’s no surprise, ”Kalafina’s Hikaru” had a great influence so your secret was leaked (laughs).

Hikaru//: I wanted to start by assembling some songs as an unidentified artist called H-el-ical//, then when it was decided that I would join my current agency Hifumi it was finally revealed that “H-el-ical//” was my solo project. At that time I got many messages saying, “I knew it was you!” 

ーー With more than 70,000 views I guess it’s safe to say that not everyone watching knew who was behind H-el-ical//, I think there must have been many people who had no idea of the existence of Kalafina. 

Hikaru//: That made me very happy. Of course, Kalafina's Hikaru is forever linked to H-el-ical// because it is in fact me but I started releasing music under my solo project “H-el-ical//” so it really boosted my confidence that there were actually people who said they liked H-el-ical// as an independent artist without any association to Kalafina.

ーー After the release of "pulsation" and after revealing the identity of H-el-ical// you were busy releasing songs on YouTube, how do you make music together with Gushimiyagi-san who is in charge of the composition and arrangement?

Hikaru//: As I mentioned, the first two songs were written based on the image he had of me, with the other songs I made vague suggestions, asking for all kinds of things such as “Southeast-Asian” vibes, something with a “earthy” feel or songs that would get the audience super hyped during a live.

ーー Now that you mention it I am amazed because H-el-ical//’s discography is indeed filled with songs that have a "Southeast-Asian” or “earth-like” sound. In other words, I think Gushimiyagi-san really tried his best to do your orders justice. 

Hikaru//: They were more like rough requests (laughs).

ーー Yes (laughs). So why do you think Gushimiyagi-san was able to fulfil your "rough requests" so perfectly?

Hikaru//: Who knows why? Gushimiyagi-san always says, "the variety of songs I can write for H-el-ical// increases steadily”. He often comes across as confused but then he will suddenly pull all these amazing “Southeast-Asian” and “earth-like” songs out of his hat. After recording a song I would always talk with Gushimiyagi-san and Tomita-san about what kind of songs to do next. Whenever I suggested something abstract like a "Southeast-Asian song" Tomita-san would name a handful of specific artists and songs for reference asking if I meant something like that. I guess it’s due to those follow-up discussions that Gushimiyagi-san was able to fulfil my requests so perfectly.

ーー You are releasing your single "Altern-ate-" this month, pretty much one year after you started your activities as H-el-ical//. How does this solo debut feel for you? Despite your great achievements as part of Kalafina - such as holding a 2-Day Live at Nippon Budokan - does this somehow feel different to your past experiences?

Hikaru//: It feels completely different. Precisely because this is not Kalafina (laughs). Until now, Kajiura-san wrote the songs and lyrics, I was singing together with Wakana-san and Keiko-san to bring someone else’s music to life. that music was loved by many people but this time around it’s just me, it’s only Hikaru//. So I was incredibly worried.

ーー Did you feel uneasy even after your YouTube videos had gained a lot of attention and your live at Kanagawa Prefectural Hall last year had been a huge success?

Hikaru//: I had a wonderful time at that concert thanks to everyone who attended it that day but now that I am releasing my single "Altern-ate-", I am filled with anxiety and nervousness (laughs).

ーー At that live you announced your major debut as a solo artist and that your debut song would be the opening theme for the TV anime "Gleipnir" which is currently airing.

Hikaru//: Yes.

ーー H-el-ical// is credited as lyricist for the opening song "Altern-ate-" of the anime "Gleipnir", as is the case with all your previous songs, you have written the lyrics yourself, right? Did you have any experience writing lyrics before your activities as a solo artist?

Hikaru//: No. I has always wanted to write the lyrics but as Kalafina we were dedicated to singing Kajiura-san's songs.

ーー So it’s been about one year since you have started writing lyrics?

Hikaru//: Yes, my lyrics are still 1st grade level (laughs).

ーー It doesn’t feel like that. You come across as very articulate, your lyrics are incredibly complex.

Hikaru//: Oh !? Really? Thank you!

ーー I guess the line〈二人で一つ | two people in one〉that appears repeatedly in your lyrics reflects the relationship between Shuichi Kagaya, the protagonist of the anime who has the ability to transform into a giant mascot plushie, and the heroine Clair Aoki. Additionally, you have included a lot of key elements from the Norse mythology in your lyrics, the original “Gleipnir” work was heavily influenced by these elements. Some examples are 〈猫の足音 | the noise a cat makes in foot-fall〉〈岩の根 | the roots of a rock〉〈鳥たちは生唾飲む | the spittle of birds〉〈魚さえ息潜めて | the breath of a fish〉〈髭が棘みたいにいたい（彼女はもういない）| the beard of a woman〉〈熊の腱 | the sinews of a bear〉.

Hikaru//: Yes. I'm so happy you got a those references (laughs).

ーー Yes, I'm very familiar with the anime and the original work. So when I read through your lyrics I thought, "oh, this person is very talented."

Hikaru//: I am a big reader and I love to read all kinds of stuff into something (laughs). I have always loved anime and manga .... Basically I am just a big otaku...

ーー It's quite obvious when you look at your Instagram (laughs). You are posting pictures of all the manga you have read in a day or a cover photo of a "Princess Principal" CD.

Hikaru//: I guess I am a little obsessed (laughs). But that's why when it was decided I would write the lyrics for an anime song, I wanted something that really sounded like an anime song. By the time I wrote the lyrics, 6 volumes of the original manga had already been released so while reading through those 6 volumes over and over again, I assembled all words that reminded me of my favorite lines and the most impressive scenes. The original manga is a wonderful work so I didn’t have much trouble writing the lyrics. My love for anime and manga makes it possible that I can write such lyrics so I really wanted to write something special. 

ーー In addition, 〈二人で一つ | two people in one〉can also be interpreted as a reflection of the “H-el-ical//” project, it showcases your determination to work together as a team consisting of Hikaru//, your composer, the staff members and all the fans. In the story of "Gleipnir", were there any scenes that resonated strongly with you?

Hikaru//: Yes. One of the goals of watching anime and reading manga is to immerse yourself in a fantasy world and to escape reality but actually it has the opposite effect for me. After returning from the fantasy worlds of anime and manga, I always feel like I have learned a lot and I gain the courage to face reality. “This part of the story applies to my current situation”, “Should I act like this when I am faces with these kinds of challenges?” It’s things like that which you learn while reading manga and watching anime. When it comes to “Gleipnir” I strongly sympathise with the characters who are facing hardships and who are struggling to overcome the obstacles that are put in their way. That’s because I as Hikaru// am trying to pursue an ideal image of myself as a singer. In the pursuit of this image I often come across hurdles or I hit a wall. In moments like this I needed the help of my friends to overcome those obstacles.

ーー One part of the lyrics strikes me as particularly strange, it’s a line that appears multiple times in your lyrics as well as in the manga and anime,〈この物語の主役じゃない | I am not the protagonist of this story〉. I felt like that line didn’t really suit you?

Hikaru//: Oh really?

ーー Because you are always front and center on the stage, aren’t you? That was the case back in your Kalafina days and it was the same during your H-el-ical// live last year at Kanagawa Prefectural Hall.

Hikaru//: Well, that's something I learned during my time as a member of Kalafina, most of the time the parts I was singing were not the main melody. When Wakana-san and Keiko-san were taking the lead, I was providing the harmonies, during those moments I often thought about my position. It's important to create a good balance with the lead but I also wanted the audience to know that I was singing, I wanted my vocals to be heard. I was constantly wondering about my role when standing on stage so actually, I can very much relate to the words “I am not the protagonist of this story”.

ーー At first glance the line has a negative ring to it but actually it's a positive message. Even if you're not the protagonist your presence on stage is meaningful and you will get your chance to shine there.

Hikaru//: Not only the protagonist but all the characters around him are indispensable to the story.

"Altern-ate-" is connecting "Gleipnir" and H-el-ical//

ーー How did you come up with the title ...

Hikaru//: Oh, actually my manager came up with the idea (laughs).

ーー But it was you who made the final decision, right?

Hikaru//: It was quite similar to the title I was originally thinking of. The word "Alternate" as in “alternating”/”mutual” is an important keyword in the work "Gleipnir".

ーー It's a story of "two in one” where Shuichi and Clair are becoming one to fight off enemies and grow to adulthood.

Hikaru//: I also like that there is are hyphens surrounding "ate". After all, "ate" is the past tense of "eat"? For me this word conveys an image of "fighting for your survival." There are various difficulties in life, you have to race ahead, there is always this underlying feeling of having to fight. So I think the title "Altern-ate-" is really fitting.

ーー This is just my impression as a long-time Kalafina fan but I was surprised to see you reveal such a raw fighting spirit.

Hikaru//: Oh really? When I was singing back then I guess I was mostly in charge of the dramatic and emotional parts (laughs).

ーー Of course your singing was very cool during the Kalafina era but during the MCs you always seemed so cute and reserved. For example, when you were introducing the live goods you always tried your best to appeal to the fans by saying things like, "please don’t forget to walk past the merch booth before you go home". From these moments I always got the impression you were a very cheerful and lively person...

Hikaru//: Hahahaha (laughs). Certainly there may be such an image. But basically, I am super stubborn and not very flexible. When I had just joined I was incredibly shy so I never talked to the other members. But then Wakana-san and Keiko-san would tell me, "You have to talk to us or otherwise we don’t know what you are thinking, please try to talk a little more?" That’s when I knew I had to start getting involved with people little by little. I realised that I can make better music by communicating with the others and relying on them.

ーー So did you choose the title “Altern-ate-” because it emphasises “mutuality”?

Hikaru//: Yes, the “H-el-ical//” project is something I decided I wanted to make together with everyone, I will continue to make music with the help of various people.

ーー What kind of request did you have for Gushimiyagi-san in regard to this song?

Hikaru//: This time I didn’t have a particular request for him, Gushimiyagi-san was entrusted with the requests from the people responsible for the anime production.

ーー But it feels very much in line with all the other  H-el-ical// songs that have been released on YouTube so far. It all comes together nicely, there’s no distortion.

Hikaru//: I think that’s because Gushimiyagi-san always makes "Music for H-el-ical//" and I am writing the lyrics. Another reason may be that the H-el-ical// team is in control of the final sound by participating in the mix work.

ーー Do you record what appeals to you or rather what you think appeals to the listener?

Hikaru//: I'm not all too familiar with the technical aspects of music but during mixdown and trackdown I always share my first impression and other opinions. But of course I have no choice but to leave all the stuff I am clueless about to the experts. I always have to remind myself of that (laughs).

ーー I guess that’s where your stubbornness comes through a little ...

Hikaru//: With 10 years worth of experience as part of Kalafina I now know that the best things in life are born out of group efforts, of willingly entrusting certain duties to others.

ーー The name and sound design may be different but it seems like your story as Kalafina’s Hikaru is beautifully connected to your story as H-el-ical//’s Hikaru//.  

Hikaru//: If it hadn't been for my 10 years as part of Kalafina, there would be no H-el-ical//.

ーー Now let’s talk about the B-Side "clea-rly-". This is a non-tie-up song.

Hikaru//: I wrote the lyrics having the image of a strong spirited girl in mind.

ーー Did you put part of yourself in the lyrics?

Hikaru//: This ties back to what I said earlier, there is a fantasy element in the music but in addition, it plays a role in being able to face reality. The song "clea-rly-", is about a pure but slightly arrogant girl... In a sense, you could say she is a Tsundere. Singing about a girl like that feels like a fantasy coming true so I really wanted to sing it (laughs)...

ーー Is that a motif that inspired by Gushimiyagi-san's melody and arrangement? Or is it your favourite girl image?

Hikaru//: Some of it was inspired by the melody but I also let myself be influenced by the fact that it is the B-Side of the opening theme of "Gleipnir".

ーー So because this was the B-Side of the OP for “Gleipnir” you felt the strong urge to sing a song about a Tsundere Girl?

Hikaru//: Since this is my debut single I really wanted to use the momentum and arrive with a bang. That's why the B-Side is also an up-tempo song. I did worry a lot about the lyrics though. Tomita-san said, "why don't you pay tribute to "Gleipnir "and let yourself be inspired by another character?" "Altern-ate- "is basically from Shuichi’s point of view so he suggested I should focus on another character for the B-Side. That’s how I came up with the idea of ​​singing about a girl like Clair.

ーー Clair definitely gives off Tsundere vibes. The lyrics of this song are once again really good. In the first chorus you sang 〈どんな非情な手だって全て〉 and in the second chorus you sang 〈どんな非常な日だって全て〉. Instead of the words rhyming, you are playing with words by using homonyms.

Hikaru//: Hahahaha(laughs). I have always loved reading books and back in the day when I was blogging for Kalafina I would always start my blog posts with a word game. I enjoy doing tricky stuff like that.

ーー The title of the song, "clea-rly-", is also separated by hyphens ...

Hikaru//: Please try to read the first 4 letters (laughs).

ーー Ah! It's "clea" (KuReA = Clair)!

Hikaru//: That's right (laughs).

ーー I think with your great vocals - popular ever since your Kalafina days -, the great music, the fascinating lyrics and the intriguing rhetoric in the titles your single is more than worthy of H-el-ical//’s major debut. But what are your plans for the future?

Hikaru//: Of course it’s very difficult to talk about wanting to hold lives in the current situation, But of course I'm going to continue to make music, I enjoy being together with you through the "H-el-ical//" project, I hope I can create good music and perform it live someday soon. I had my debut with an anime tie-up but I will do non-tie-ups too so I would like to continue releasing  H-el-ical// songs on my official YouTube channel.

ーー Actually, you released three songs in a row shortly before “Gleipnir” was airing and during the broadcast period. You released 「水 – Find your answer」,「風 – Struggle to admit」and「地 – Side by side」just before and immediately after your major debut song was distributed on TV. I was taken aback by your seemingly endless desire to create (laughs).

Hikaru//: I had planned to do an acoustic live on April 5, I was meant to perform 5 new songs for that. I decided to release those 5 songs independently on a CD titled "elements" which was available for purchase in my online shop. Three of those songs I already released on YouTube. In situations like this, I would like to explore what I can do as H-el-ical// and find new ways to enjoy music with you.

[marshmallowgoop]

Brand New Animal...

So, the last few episodes of BNA: Brand New Animal dropped on Netflix Japan last week. I was initially really hyped for this anime—I devoted several hours of my life to translating and summarizing the Winter 2020 Otomedia interview concerning it—so I intended to write a lot more about the series, especially upon a wider release.

But having now seen every episode, this is another Kiznaiver and Darling in the Franxx for me. There’s a lot of potential, and I was incredibly invested at the start, but the narrative quickly goes directions and makes decisions that don’t sit well with me at all.

For those interested in BNA, my (mostly?) spoiler-free opinion is that it’s visually beautiful (especially in regards to its colors), but the story feels scattered, and there’s so little time devoted to positive interactions among the leads that their friendships fall flat. Further, speaking as a very character-oriented person, I finished this anime annoyed at the entire main cast. Their growth comes across as dissatisfying and undeserved.

Of course, it is more than worth noting that my understanding of Brand New Animal is indeed limited at this point; I don’t have much of a grasp on Japanese, there are no official English translations yet, and I watched with Japanese subtitles. (At least until episode 12. While there are thankfully subtitles available now, there weren’t when I watched, which is a huge disappointment in terms of accessibility.)

I recognize that my feelings may very well change if I have a better sense of everything that’s being said. But given what I do know, I—at least at the moment—have no desire to rewatch this series. I’m always open to requests to talk about BNA, but I don’t think I’ll be blogging much about it otherwise.

All that said, I do want to share some spoiler thoughts under the cut. As my sister noted, I am “very upset about this furry anime.”

First things first: I cannot stand Nazuna. I’m sorry. I think it’d probably be too much to say that she soured the whole show for me, but she definitely comes close.

Now, I got a (minor) degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, so, yes, I can’t help but wonder if my strong negative feelings are related to sexism. Would I feel so strongly if there were a man in Nazuna’s place? There’s been a lot of investigating myself these last few days, let me tell you.

Still, I can’t say I know the answers. But I do have some Thoughts that are maybe best illustrated with another anime I’ve started watching lately: My Hero Academia.

Do note that I’m only on Season 2, but there are also characters I strongly dislike so far in My Hero—characters who are arguably much worse than Nazuna, as far as their actions and behavior go. Bakugo is an angry, abusive bully, while Mineta sexually harasses women. I hate both of them, but—especially regarding Bakugo—it’s a different kind of hate than what I feel for Nazuna.

Why? Well, I won’t deny the possibility that sexism plays a role, but there’s also a profound difference in how these characters are treated by their stories. Bakugo initially gets away with his bad attitude, but upon coming to high school, he’s a pariah. He’s called out for being a jerk, time and time again. Mineta, similarly, is not adored for his actions. These aren’t nice dudes, and the narrative makes this point clear. Regarding Bakugo, I hate him, but it’s not exactly a bad kind of hate. Because I hate him, I’m rooting even harder for Deku to prove him wrong.

But what about Nazuna? She pretends to be another culture’s god, but much of BNA seems dedicated to treating her as a poor victim who was manipulated into manipulating others and needs to be rescued. While Nazuna’s situation is indeed a frightening one that I don’t at all intend to make light of, episode 6 makes abundantly clear that this girl adores masquerading as a goddess and fails to see any moral problem in tricking thousands of people into believing that she’s their savior.

And that, to me, is absolutely horrendous. Nazuna is not in kindergarten. She is not a small child still in the preoperational stage of development. She is an older teenager. I find it disconcerting to paint her as someone in a rough place who was simply desperate for love when she pointedly relishes her false godhood because it makes her feel like an idol. That is so unbelievably gross and disrespectful.

Of course, Nazuna truly doesn’t see what she’s doing as wrong, and I recognize that she is young. In the end, as I hope the Bakugo example highlights, my issues are really less about Nazuna herself and more about how she’s written and depicted. Just as there’s nothing inherently despicable about portraying a smug, selfish teenage boy in a cartoon, there’s nothing inherently despicable about portraying a smug, selfish teenage girl in another cartoon. But while Deku and Bakugo were also past friends just as Michiru and Nazuna, Deku never defends Bakugo’s awful behavior as Michiru does for Nazuna.

And that bothers me. Michiru—our protagonist and so the person viewers are pushed to empathize most with—never really seems to grasp just how disgusting Nazuna’s actions are. More importantly, neither does Nazuna herself. She’s instantly forgiven, and her dream comes true seemingly without any apology or understanding of wrong whatsoever.

Brand New Animal is filled to the brim with social commentary, but one message that stood out to me actually has nothing to do with the human/animal-human conflict. It’s instead that this cute girl never has to face the consequences of her actions because she’s cute.

I know, I know. This is some pretty over-the-top negativity. But I was so excited for this series. Especially considering the ending conflict around being “mixed” and “purebred,” I felt like BNA was an opportunity for writer Kazuki Nakashima to more thoroughly explore concepts he wanted to examine in Kill la Kill but didn’t because a talking outfit just ain’t gonna garner the same amount of sympathy as cute animal-humans. With my recent(ish) Wolf Children posting in mind, I also love that Brand New Animal ultimately pushes for diversity instead of away from it as I feel that film does, even if there are some... unfortunate implications along the way (that I don’t know if I’m personally capable of analyzing).

But 12 episodes simply couldn’t do this show justice. I’m supposed to care for a girl who calls being an animal-human a “disease” and never seems to really reconcile with how messed up that is? I’m supposed to care for a man who dismembers others in the name of “honor” and never seems to really reconcile with how messed up that is? I’m supposed to hope that two friends/lovers get back together when one is rude and dismissive towards the other for the majority of the show, and the other idolizes her and overlooks her truly terrible misdeeds?

Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe I missed something (or a lot of things). But there is so much here that gets resolved too quickly or never receives the full exploration it deserves. As I said in the start, characters fall flat, their friendships fall flatter, and any good themes or messages that I do recognize in the series hardly impact me because the rushed development of the players soured my positive feelings for them.

I would have loved to see Michiru acknowledge that she’s in love with someone who does bad things. I would have loved a heart-to-heart where she admits this to Shirou, where he then admits that in his long life, there have been times when he’s been in the same boat. I would have loved to see Nazuna truly question her actions, where her declaration that she’s Nazuna instead of a cult leader actually means something because she’s recognized that she’s been wrong and is ready to be loved for herself, not someone she’s not. I would have loved to see a moment where Michiru expresses to Shirou that he shouldn’t control his violent tendencies for her approval but because it’s simply the right thing to do. The list goes on and on.

At the end of the day, I can admit my own garbage tastes. Bakugo is apparently the most popular My Hero character, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else express such a harsh opinion regarding Nazuna’s portrayal in BNA. Episode 5 of the show (with the baseball) seems to be its most adored entry, but I thought little of it. My favorite things in anime—and what I’m specifically looking forward to in Studio Trigger anime—are maybe anomalies.

But, gosh. I really wanted to love this.

[letterboxd]

Drawing Closer.

Animation lovers: watchlists at the ready. From action capers to Irish folk tales, in 3DCG or the humble pencil, by manga legends and raucous newcomers, Letterboxd’s animation correspondent Kambole Campbell picks ten new feature films we’re excited to see.

When the gears of the live-action film industry ground to a near-halt earlier this year, animators were still at work. As a medium that, at its most fundamental level, is controlled fully by the imaginations of its creators, this might be the one element of the screen industry that has some kind of ability to operate throughout the pandemic.

Based on previews from this year’s online edition of the annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival, there’s a lot to look forward to that’s still in the works, even now. With everything from blockbuster capers and fantastical alternate histories, explorations of folklore and real human stories alike, we can expect a spoil of boundless and endlessly creative films limited only by the imaginations of those drawing them.

Here are ten animated features I’m specifically excited for, in no particular order (except for the first—fight me if you like, Masaaki Yuasa will always win).

Inu-Oh Directed by Masaaki Yuasa / Due to release in 2021

If there’s one new animated film to watch in the next year, make it Inu-Oh (but also, don’t limit yourself to one). Masaaki Yuasa has proven himself time and again to be one of the most exciting and versatile animation directors alive, as well as potentially the busiest. With his studio, Science Saru, this year alone he directed two television series—the fantastic ode to animators, Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!!, and the intense Netflix disaster series Japan Sinks: 2020—as well as the melancholy, romantic feature film Ride Your Wave.

Inu-Oh looks to be just as imaginative and wild as anything else Yuasa-san has made, based on the work-in-progress glimpse at Annecy. Set in fourteenth-century Japan, the film is based on Hideo Furukama’s novel about the legendary masked Noh theater performer Inu-Oh, born with “unique characteristics”, which lead them to cover their entire body. Both novel and film focus on their close friendship with the blind biwa hōshi (lute priest) Tomona, and the success they find together.

“We often think of history as moving in one straight line, but it actually branches off, and people and events in those branches have been forgotten or disappeared,” Yuasa-san said during the Annecy preview. Inu-Oh explores those hidden branches through an anachronistic reimagining of the roots of traditional Japanese entertainment. The main idea: what if the performers of Noh theater were treated like Japan’s pop idols of today? Yuasa-san described the main characters as “kind of like The Beatles” of 1300s Japan.

On credits alone there’s a lot of promise, with the legendary Taiyō Matsumoto— the mangaka who created Tekkonkinkreet and Ping Pong (and collaborated with Yuasa-san on the latter’s fantastic anime adaptation)—lending his eccentric yet elegant designs to the film. The preview opened with minute movements comprised of rough, wide almost painterly brushstrokes, an art style almost completely unlike anything Yuasa-san has done previously.

As it turns out, this is but one way of representing the world of Inu-Oh, through the perspective of Tomona, a Notes on Blindness-esque way of representing how Tomona perceives things. From those small glimpses, Inu-Oh looks to be a beautiful, anthropological piece built with both the same free-form style that characterizes the rest of his work, and perhaps something more classical as well.

Wolfwalkers Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart / Coming to theaters and Apple TV+ in late 2020 after a September 12 premiere at TIFF

Made and set in Kilkenny, home to the acclaimed animation studio Cartoon Saloon, the much-anticipated Wolfwalkers is inspired by animation’s past, Celtic legend, and the local area’s history. Set in 1650, Wolfwalkers takes place amidst attempts by the English (Cromwell, specifically) to pacify and tame Ireland. Representative of those wild elements the English are seeking to eradicate are the ‘wolfwalkers’—people blessed by Saint Patrick with the power to leave their bodies at night and become wolves during their sleep (Irish werewolves, essentially). The story follows an English girl, Robyn Goodfellowe (Honor Kneafsey), who moves to Ireland with her father Bill (Sean Bean), to help carry out Cromwell’s plan to kill the wolves.

Like his previous film, Song of the Sea (2014), co-director Tomm Moore says this new film is based upon a childhood story common amongst those living in Kilkenny. And like his previous films (including 2009’s The Secret of Kells), it looks to be a visual feast, with a mixture of dynamic camera styles, pre-viz work and hand-drawn animation for moments like its ‘wolf-vision’. Moore draws the ideological divide between the English and the Irish into every scratch of pencil, the occupied cities comprised of rigid lines and angular designs, while the forest and its inhabitants are more free-flowing and unkempt.

Moore cited the rough charcoal lines of Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya as one influence on the Cartoon Saloon animators’ approach; the way that Robin is drawn gradually changing along with her worldview. Cartoon Saloon is yet to make a bad film, and Wolfwalkers looks like it might be the company’s most beautiful myth yet.

Stay tuned to The Letterboxd Show for an interview with Tomm Moore.

Over The Moon Directed by Glen Keane / Due on Netflix, late 2020

The feature directorial debut of animation legend Glen Keane, early glimpses of Over The Moon look utterly bonkers. A long-time character animator for Disney, having worked on almost all of the studio’s animation output since Pete’s Dragon in 1977, Keane looks to be bringing his vast array of talents to his first feature film. The trailer alone shows off a vast blend of styles, from the 3DCG (three-dimensional computer graphics) and more realistic lighting that we’ve come to expect from Disney animation, as well as the more textured, hand-drawn work the director cut his teeth on.

The story itself sounds wild, though it starts out simple enough: Fei Fei (Cathy Ang) is enraptured by her parents’ stories of a goddess living on the moon. After her mother passes away, Fei Fei begins to believe the story is true, and decides to build a rocket to get there. There’s also a hint of something living there. Whatever the answer is, I’m curious to see it, and with a star-studded cast that includes the likes of John Cho and Sandra Oh, how could I turn it down?

Lupin III: The First Directed by Takashi Yamazaki / Released in select territories; wider release due late 2020

Takashi Yamazaki’s Lupin III: The First, the first 3DCG-animated Lupin III feature film, looks rather incredible. It’s the latest in a vast, 50-year history of anime based on the manga from the late Kazuhiko Katō (known by the pen name Monkey Punch). Despite that long history, the Lupin III franchise has always managed to resist being made obsolete; part of its ongoing appeal is its ability to continuously adapt to new contexts and styles while retaining its simple charms, and The First is no different.

The film announces itself in the same way as ever, the iconic ‘Lupin III’ theme blaring over a flashy title sequence that builds off familiar iconography, as well as moments from the franchise’s history. It revels in the style of old-school caper the show continues to embrace, taking delight in the exploits of a modern-day gentleman thief who announces his robberies with calling cards.

Even with the new and unfamiliar animation style, Lupin III: The First feels like a classic Lupin III tale, taking the story back to the 1960s (the decade during which the character was created), and even putting its main character back in his classic red suit. Each character design translates surprisingly well to this mode of animation—Lupin’s gangly frame, as well as the unique appearances of his compatriots Goemon, Fujiko, Zenigata and Jigen (who looks bizarrely attractive in this—although, to be fair, “everyone in this movie is f—king sexy” according to Letterboxd member London. Accurate).

Yamazaki does well to avoid the often sterile feeling of 3DCG animation by having these characters all move like the cartoons they’re based on (for starters, a long-running visual gag of Lupin leaping straight out of his clothes). It might take some adjustment (which for me, only really lasted up to the opening credits) before it becomes fully dazzling. Lupin III: The First might be the most exciting action caper of 2020, in any medium.

The Legend of Hei Directed by Mtjj / Released in China late 2019; international release TBA

Rivalling Lupin III: The First for most flamboyant animation on show at Annecy was The Legend of Hei, a feature-length prequel to the Flash web cartoon The Legend of Luo Xiaohei by Chinese artist Mtjj (real name Zhang Ping).

The series tells the story of the spirit Luo Xiaohei, who takes the appearance of a small black cat before being adopted by a young girl. The film’s story focuses more squarely on the cat, Xiaohei, who transforms into a man and goes on to live in the forest, his carefree existence soon interrupted by the discovery that humans are beginning to encroach on that territory as their cities expand, and technological progress puts the two worlds increasingly at odds.

As the film explores more of Xiaohei’s origins, the thick, clean line-work and cute art style disguises a much grander, epic conflict at play, realized in some wildly animated fight scenes. (“Starts off small and adorable, then expands into an epic conflict on an Akira scale,” writes Tasha Robinson.) The 2D-animated film allegedly took five years to produce, Mtjj saying in an interview that the complete film, at 100 minutes, required more than 70,000 drawings—or around twelve per second.

With its gentle score and clash of the spiritual world with the modern, the environmentally conscious work of Studio Ghibli comes to mind, as does the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender (perhaps the most popular consideration of East Asian spirituality in the West, especially with its resurgence of popularity thanks to Netflix). The Legend of Hei enjoyed an extremely lucrative run in China in late 2019 thanks to the original cartoon’s sizeable fanbase at home. No news yet on who will pick the film up in the West.

ON-GAKU: Our Sound Directed by Kenji Iwaisawa / Expected to release late 2020

Rotoscoped by hand over a period of seven years, the independently produced anime ON-GAKU: Our Sound has a rather appropriate match of creator and subject: a film about amateur musicians made by amateur animators.

Director Kenji Iwaisawa adapted the film from Hiroyuki Ohashi’s cult manga, and there’s a charm to the rudimentary style of its art, the plain faces of its characters resembling the designs of something like ONE’s Mob Psycho 100, while also matching that show’s deadpan, oddball sense of humor. The laid-back voice acting only adds to that effect, as main character Kenji and his cohort’s obvious excitement flattened into a consistently amusing monotone.

It’s not quite a classic tale of underdog artistry, as the group never really gets better, but the film embraces the primordial noise that emerges whenever they pick up an instrument. Iwaisawa takes the characters seriously, showing their raucous and unconventional performances with complete sincerity. “Loved the deadpan humor and appreciated the message about how art can act as an impetus for positive change in our lives,” writes Dan.

Passion, companionship and collaboration is what’s most important to Our Sound. It’s a deeply weird film, but one filled with great ambition and visual wonder, increasing in boldness as it goes. The different styles of coloring and expression that emerge beyond its initial palettes are radical enough to catch anyone off guard.

Connected Directed by Michael Rianda / Releasing in most territories in October 2020 (October 23 in the US)

Connected is the next step for Sony Animation as it moves in an exciting new direction (the studio recently stated that it would be green-lighting more animation aimed at adults). Produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, off the back of their immensely popular film Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Connected is imbued with the same kind of idiosyncrasy and innovation that made Spider-Verse a mega-hit.

From first-time feature director Michael Rianda, best known for his work on TV’s Gravity Falls, Connected is a family-road-trip-AI-apocalypse movie, based on the bizarre chemistry of Rianda’s own family. Formerly known as The Mitchells vs The Machines, the film looks at the push and pull between technology and human relationships, and how different generations respond to the ongoing changes in how we interact online and personally.

While this isn’t animated “on twos” (where each frame of character animation holds for two frames of background movement) as Spider-Verse often was, Connected also attempts to maintain a ‘drawn’ quality in its art. Characters move fluidly, but with clear outlines drawn from simple shapes. There’s also a strong contrast between the lived-in detail of human habitats versus the stark minimalism of the domain of the robots.

Thankfully the clips from the film don’t look nearly as finger-wavy and luddite as the trailers might suggest. (They appear to take the Boomer point of view that technology unequivocally ruins everything, but we know it’s more complicated than “screens bad”). In any case, it looks like the beginning of an interesting run for Sony Animation, and I’m keen to see how it turns out.

The Summit of the Gods (Le Sommet des Dieux) Directed by Patrick Imbert / Due to release 2021

Le Sommet des Dieux distinguishes itself in this list by being the one most firmly grounded in reality, but it’s by no means less wondrous. Based on Jirô Taniguchi’s five-volume manga Le Sommet des Dieux—itself based on the 1998 novel by Baku Yumemakura—the story starts with the question of whether George Mallory died going up or coming down the summit of Mount Everest on June 8, 1924. 70 years later, Fukamachi, a young Japanese reporter, stumbles across a camera potentially belonging to Mallory, and embarks on an adventure of his own with his friend Hasu Joji.

In close collaboration with the mangaka Taniguchi-san, who passed away during development, director Patrick Imbert seeks to replicate his art style, which was more aligned with that of European comics than traditional manga, with less exaggerated and highly detailed line-work. The team also looked outward from Taniguchi-san’s art, to the character designs of works such as Hiroyuki Okiura’s Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, as well as his 2011 film A Letter To Momo, and the films of the late, great Satoshi Kon.

From what I saw at Annecy, there’s something of a mix between what Imbert calls the “documented detail” of Taniguchi-san’s work and simpler design for the larger urban spaces. To accomplish this, the studio draws its traditional 2D using modern techniques, such as “movie-style” framing—locations and interiors created in 3D software and then overpainted for detail, identity and authenticity.

The Summit of the Gods also seeks to recapture the detailed and subtle realism of Yumemakura-san’s depiction of George Mallory, with low-key voice performances conducted in shared sessions; recording movements and hiring a boom operator to make the sound more akin to live action, perhaps even more natural. Though production has already been long, the studio had thankfully pre-empted the long delays of Covid-19, so let’s hope we get to see the film with our own eyes, soon.

Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds Directed by Benoît Chieux / Scheduled for 2022

An original fable from animation director Benoît Chieux, Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds is still very much in the midst of production, with an expected release in 2022. It looks captivating; a surreal tale set in an imaginary kingdom with delicate and clearly defined artwork, about a being named Sirocco, a despised figure with the power to control the wind, who is forced into solitude by the denizens of this world.

The dream kingdom resembles a Spirited Away-esque land, with its own hierarchy and bizarre set of rules, mundanity mixed in with visual wonder. Flying crocodiles, living houses and strange humanoids populate it, and the main characters, a pair of girls named Carmen and Juliette, turn into cats themselves. All are drawn with wavy lines, soft colours and fluid movement, the surreal presented with an inviting rather than foreboding air.

Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 Directed by Hideaki Anno and others / 2020 release delayed; keep an eye on the official Twitter account for a new date

Hideaki Anno is set to bring his earth-shaking Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise to a close, again, with the fourth instalment of his ‘Rebuild’ series of films, Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0. Delayed for almost a decade now (the previous instalment came out in 2012!), and delayed again by Covid-19, the film looks to close out a grand rewriting of the original series that shot Anno-san and former studio Gainax to fame—“Bye Bye, All of Evangelion” the tagline reads. But we’re gonna have to wait a while longer to bid this final farewell.

Made with co-director Kazuya Tsurumaki (who has served as director with Anno-san since the original series), the first ‘Rebuild’ film, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, seemed to be a fairly conventional remake, updating the visuals and score with more modern techniques. The story starts the same: the isolated, depressed and self-loathing teenager Shinji Ikari is forced by his absentee father to help fight the mysterious, giant, alien ‘Angels’ by getting in an equally mysterious big robot called an Evangelion (“Eva” for short). He finds no self-fulfilment in this, and if anything, the close contact with other people only seems to push him further into himself. So far, so familiar.

However, the second film, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, veered completely off the rails in the best way possible, destroying audience preconceptions. The line between sequel and remake was fascinatingly blurred, and only continued to get weirder with Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, as the story landed in completely unfamiliar territory, altering its characters beyond recognition while adding entirely new characters in the process. It’s now almost impossible to predict what 3.0 + 1.0 will be. The only footage available so far was a wild ten-minute clip in which the Eiffel Tower is wielded as a weapon by an Eva. We were this close.

Ayumu Watanabe’s ‘Children of the Sea’ (2019).

There are almost too many gifts, even just from Annecy alone, to describe at length. A couple more worth mentioning: Anja Daiman’s musical comedy The Island looks fascinating for its reclamation of the colonialist story of Robinson Crusoe; and Yuta Murano’s first anime feature Our Seven-Day War promises plenty of plot twists amidst the actions of rebellious youth. A range of beguiling short films were also on display—a selection helpfully compiled here by Letterboxd member Iknow.

Outside of Annecy, other films are finally arriving, virtually or otherwise—such as Gints Zilbalodis’s peculiar and quiet Away, and Ayumu Watanabe’s beautiful and surreal Children of the Sea (with music from none other than Joe Hisaishi!). Though not all animation is comfort food by default—it is simply a medium, after all—it’s reassuring knowing that animated films are able to continue, in some form, through the pandemic.

Related content

Maxine the Movie Person’s excellent animation list

The 100 Highest Rated Animated Films of the 2010s according to our members

Revchu’s lists of the Top 100 Japanese Animated Films on Letterboxd, and the Top 100 Best-Rated Japanese Animated Films from the Anime News Network

Kambole’s selections in a Letterboxd list

Follow Kambole on Letterboxd

[lazuliblade]

“Figure Skating Fan” Magazine 2018-2019「羽 から生まれる」Translation

This is the interview with costume designer Satomi Ito on the construction of Yuzuru Hanyu’s Origin (and a little on Otoñal) costume featured on pages 42-43 of the February issue of フィギュアスケートファン (Figure Skating Fan) magazine released Dec. 22, 2018. 

I’m formatting this to resemble the original formatting in the magazine.

Words after a long dash ------ are the interviewer talking/asking questions.

Words in「Japanese quotation marks」are Satomi’s responses.

Where text color changes for emphasis, I’ve used bold italics.

The interviewer tends to put technical terms, concepts, and key words in “quotations”. Which means: 

When they bring up titles of literature, program names, and quoted phrases, those are in 『blocky quotes』instead. 

Anything within (parenthesis) was originally in parenthesis within the article.

[words between brackets are my translator’s notes] 

Following English conventions, I’m writing her name as Satomi Ito. For reference in Japanese: 伊藤聡美 いとうさとみ Itou Satomi The interviewer/writer is いとうやまね (Itouyamane) - a writer unit composed of Itou Miho and Yamane Seiji.

I’ve left the honorifics. They refer to Yuzuru as “Hanyu-senshu” (athlete Hanyu) throughout the entire article. -senshu is the respectful term for athletes. -san is the general honorific (Mr./Ms./Mrs.).

---------------------------------------- I agonized over capturing the ways they said certain phrases, but even so, I’m just an amateur translator, which means there are some turns of phrase I probably could have translated better. I originally wrote this all by hand, so there’s no Japanese transcription typed up, but if you’d like a specific section to see what exactly they said, send me an ask or a message and I’ll be happy to type that up. For more learning, sewing/fabric/technical terms will have a glossary at the bottom, along with various notes. 

INTERVIEW[<---the original text is actually in English, but misspelled as INTERVEW]

Costume Designer・Satomi Ito

「羽 から生まれる」Born from feathers

Here is Origin’s “temporary-stitched”[baste-stitched] costume. Black lace on a flesh-toned base, and velour pants. In costume designer Satomi Ito-san’s atelier, she let’s us see the “idea’s prototype.” Interview/text: Itou Yamane

100 feathers

-----Black and white feathers are being attached to the lace on the upper body, aren’t they! Although it’s surprising that the feathers are all handmade.

「I made all of them here. First, I cut leaf shapes with a rotary cutter, then I cut into the sides with scissors. The black is [made of] PowerNet, the white is a 2-way with a bit of thickness. Both are fabrics with elasticity. One by one, I would sew this by hand.」

-----It must be a large number of feathers isn’t it?

「I wasn’t counting, but it’s probably around 100. I don’t know the exact number of feathers that I’ve cut each and every time. I’ll feel like “it’s not quite enough, huh” so they increase. The entire weight is light, though.」

-----When I first saw what Hanyu-senshu was to wear, a structure, or should I call it a construction?, I thought “it’s like an architectural structure.” By way of intricate three dimensionality, there’s a sense of great depth.

「I’m doing that quite consciously. If you just simply put the feathers down it won’t feel very 3D, so I kind of group creases to make it feel like the feathers float. When it’s just right, I pin it.」

-----As for the white feathers, there’s also a gradation on the front side, huh.

「The appearance would be too jarring if white abruptly appears on the black fabric, so I put in a bit of airbrushing. Filling just the center part with black. Furthermore, there’s factoring in the sketch too. Whatever pattern there is. I’d try and put it on the [mannequin] torso and it’s like let’s place this feather on this area.」

-----You do the airbrushing on the styrene boards by the wall, right?

「I’ll fasten with pins. Lining up a large quantity.」

-----On these boards, numerous......starting from Hanyu-senshu, [Shoma] Uno-senshu, [Marin] Honda-senshu, [Wakaba] Higuchi-senshu, [Mai] Mihara-senshu, and others. Thinking about the airbrushing for the various costumes, I’m deeply moved. I thought “is this fine art”?

「It’s not. (laughs)」

-----The inlet-like form of the chest is wonderful isn’t it. I was impacted by the inlet being composed of black feathers.

「To start, I cut the lace on the chest area roughly, then apply the feathers there. In the middle of that process, I also cut hole shapes here and there in the lace. It’s a sense of torn holes.」

-----Also on the lace itself there’s an intricate pattern of light-and-dark, furthermore, you make light skin-tone portions. This is the secret of “depth” isn’t it.

「And I put feathers on top of that. I’m pretty interested in this technique. Of all the costumes I’ve made for Hanyu-senshu so far, this one is my favorite.」

-----The curves on the back are also technical. The detailed flow of gold is beautiful. It’s a little terrifying.

「I kind of thought it’d be nice if it looks a bit bone-y. I could do lines which run along the shoulder blades. Then in addition the crawling-like gold stones and bugle beads, and putting in purple rhinestones too.」

-----At the sketch stage, did you have an image for the white feathers? 「At first I was thinking of just black feathers. But because that didn’t really stand out, I kind of thought maybe adding in white feathers would better bring out the “sense of feathers being attached.” I’m glad I did put them in.」

-----It’s effective. The amount and arrangement are also nice.

「As for the design image, the [costume’s] flow changed a little. The result: I was correct that the feeling of ascending/rising would come out more than before. Entering production, I mostly don’t look at the design image. I won’t know the full picture not putting it on the [mannequin] torso and making it. Although because there is the initial image, there are times where I do more-or-less stick to it. That’s why the completed piece isn’t faithful to the sketch.」

The concept is from the “surname”

-----As for these costumes, for stuff like attaching feathers, or setting rhinestones, to give some examples, was there an assistant?

「For 『Origin』, the craftsmanship is brutal, so I did it all myself. For the Short [Program] 『Otoñal』 I received help.」

-----This is about the part most essential to a designer. Can we say that the design’s concept comes from Hanyu-senshu’s “surname”?

「『The nonhuman born of feathers』. All along I’ve thought I want to make a costume with that theme. This time it came true.」

-----Hanyu-senshu feels superhuman doesn’t he. He’s not an ordinary human. Shae-Lynn Bourne also said as much.

「The Hanyu name, isn’t that by itself cool? The song’s starting pose too, it has the air of spreading one’s wings. Although I knew absolutely nothing of the choreography, so having the image link pretty well was surprising.」

-----I thought you must have heard the concept for the choreography beforehand. It seems Shae-Lynn conceived it from the 『Kojiki』. Without establishing some [sort of] story and image with the choreography, the world won’t unfold, I heard.

「Design is like that too, isn’t it. With nothing, you can’t create. That is the same. Hanyu-senshu is Hanyu-senshu, so he likely has yet other different ideas.」

Each Individual 『Origin』

-----From this one piece various worlds unfold, it’s wonderful isn’t it. I as well, from the concept 『born from feathers』and the 『Kojiki』information, researched various things on birds coming from Japan’s creation myths. I also more-or-less tried reading the English version『KOJIKI』. Because I was interested in how it’s conveyed to foreigners.

「Was there something?」

-----Quite a lot of birds appear. Within those, the black Yatagarasu and the golden kite, after that I came across the egret that Yamato Takeru, on the cusp of death, metamorphosed into and flew away. I thought “this is nice,” and I wrote it in the [article] column.

「There’s a story nature to it, right? Exactly. Although, I didn’t consider it to that extent when I designed [it] (laughs).」

-----Hanyu-senshu himself likely wasn’t thinking of the『Kojiki』either. I think it’s good that the performer, creator, narrator, and fans each have their own 『Origin』. As for the design check-in, did you send the image to the person himself [Yuzuru]?

「This time, because I was able to take the time to meet personally with Hanyu-senshu, the design image and fabric were shown at the place to him himself. As for baste-stitching, it’s done when he’s in Japan at ice shows and such.」

-----What about the final fitting?

「That’s also just before he flies to the actual competition. The product delivery itself is passed on through the manager.」

-----About how long did it take to design and construct the costumes this time around?

「The ornamentation alone takes 1-2 weeks. From design to product delivery it takes about 2 months. For 『Origin』 the image solidified relatively quickly, but the Short kinda ended up taking a lot more time.」

-----The blue of the Short is pretty too, isn’t it. Rather than fall, [it’s] winter-like. The crackling line of rhinestones is characteristic.

「It’s the image of ice crystallization. And you can also see it as the tracings left by blades on the rink. He’s the champion of the ice, so I thought it would be nice if [the costume] could have that symbolization. Because he’s the young noble of the ice.」

-----We can say the fundamental [costume]order was the blue and black-gold of the tributes’ original designs from Johnny Weir-san and Plushenko-san, but could you also be making alternate versions?

「The Short and Free each have two [costumes]. The B version too is a similar feel.」

-----I’m looking forward to the day we can see those too. First off, wishing for Hanyu-senshu’s return from his injury.

(Itou Satomi) Costume designer. [After high school] enrolled in the Esmod Japon school of fashion and design. The ‘08 Kobe Fashion Contest special choice award winner, studied abroad at England’s Nottingham Trent University School of Art & Design. After her return, [while] at Chacott she came to be engaged in figure skating costumes; [has been] independent for 15 years. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Glossary/Notes:

Baste-stitching - a temporary loose stitching to hold the pieces of fabric together while the initial form and alterations are being made.

PowerNet fabric/PowerNet mesh fabric - a type of high compression 4-way stretch fabric

2-way fabric - fabric that stretches in 2 directions, meaning it has some elasticity (4-way fabric stretches in all four directions)

bugle beads - the thin tube-like beads often associated with embroidery

the title of the article 羽から生まれる“Born from feathers” or “Born of feathers” is a pun on Yuzuru’s last name: 羽生 

In a previous interview, Satomi talked to Itou Yamane about her past work focusing on fashion as architectural structures, and deciding which kind of architectural design to use as a motif. Which is why the interviewer brings up “structure, or should I say construction?, architectural structure”

I translated this 王者 as “champion,” because it’s slightly different from the court title “king”王様. Satomi is giving reasoning behind her expression of ice crystallization - saying that he’s a champion (“ouja”) of the ice, then adding further: “because he’s the young noble of the ice”- which would sound a bit odd and redundant if she had just called him a “king.” 

Yamato Takeru and the egret - "isn’t it a swan?” The Japanese text is 白鳥 which normally would mean “swan”(hakuchou), but in parenthesis the interviewer clarifies the reading as “しらとり” (shiratori). It seems the white bird that’s referred to as 白鳥 in the Kojiki and Nihonshoki is considered to be referring to the bird 白鷺 (shirasagi) in modern Japanese. Here’s a site (JP only) about the myth, with pics of the shrine.

the interviewer tweeted pics too

The column that the interviewer mentions, I think they’re talking about how they wrote down the birds to mention in this interview column itself. They’ve written various pieces before for magazines and online articles, and they published a book last year called   氷上秘話―フィギュアスケート　楽曲・プログラムの知られざる世界 (secrets on the ice - knowing the world behind figure skating songs and programs). They dig up information on the music, art, design, history, and legends (basically, an entire meta book on theories and relevant links), and shed light on the actual choreography and program’s concept. So it’s possible they could be writing something else too.

I want to include photos of the full two pages, but I feel that’s probably something I shouldn’t do... so I’ll wait a while longer and then edit this post. 

[fivecentimeterspersecond]

Interview with Sui Wenjing with Xu Lijia (English Translation)

Chinese Pairs skater Sui Wenjing sat down for a discussion/interview with Olympic Gold Medalist in sailing, Xu Lijia. I did a loose translation of the 10 minute rapid-fire q&a in the beginning segment, so this is a detailed translation of the long discussion starting at 11:10. 

If you’d like to listen, there’s a dropbox link someone sent me of it (since you need to download an app to listen) and someone also uploaded on bilibili.  

The “free skate”/discussion portion of the interview starting at 11:10:

After winning the silver medal at the Olympics, Wenjing underwent surgery in her foot and entered a lengthy recovery period. In March prior to the World Championships, she had another accidental fell and hurt her lower back, but finally with persevering will and spirit, she and her partner gave another perfect performance on the World Championships stage. To stand on the highest step of the podium, what kind of pain did she have to endure? Xu Lijia continues her conversation with Sui Wenjing.

Xu: I want to turn this discussion back onto winning the World Championships, this is already your second time becoming World Champions. I saw your performance at Worlds and I was completely blown away - I believe no matter whether you were watching live in-person or watching at home on tv, you have the same feeling. Before the competition did you think you would be able to execute so well?

Sui: No, I didn’t dare think that. Before the competition, we had a lot of mishaps like when I’d fallen while practicing the twist, Cong completely missed catching me and I fell directly onto the ice. At the time, I had to rest 3-4 days just laying there, then slowly resumed training. But even right before I left I was unable to successfully complete all 13 elements which made me pretty anxious. In addition after the fall, I was doubting myself like, “Can I really do this? Can I even compete?” If we didn’t skate well then what do we do? But I felt like there were so many people helping us so I felt a bit guilty. But at the same time I was afraid that, 1) another injury or mishap might occur while competing, and 2) if we didn’t compete well, we would leave a negative impression on the judges and would affect our scores for next year.

Xu: So you didn’t really expect that you would perform so well. Then if you couldn’t even perform all the elements right before leaving, then what mysterious force do you think propelled you to skate so perfectly? Or what other skills?

Sui: Some kind of mystical force from the universe [laughs] kidding, kidding! Honestly just the accumulation of several years of training and learning how to control ourselves during competition. Once we get to the competition, we know what we need to do, how we need to skate because when we were younger, we didn’t have a good feeling on how to compete. In addition our coaches were always encouraging me, saying not to give up, we have to fight. Whatever happens, happens. It’s not like you don’t have a chance. Think about it: even though this is what your preparation looks like, no matter how you skate, at least you did your best and you’re happy.  But look at your competitors, they also have a tough battle - they probably think their competition’s condition isn’t that good, and because they see they have a big opportunity, they’re going to be more nervous. This is how everyone’s mindset shifts. But now you have no burdens, you may be injured and everyone knows you’re injured, so you just fight against yourself. However you skate, it is what it is. Our team leader Lu told us “you must show us your status as a top athlete. You don’t necessarily have to skate well, but you need to show your best self to the judges and the audiences and that you still deserve to stand at the top of the world.” That released a lot of our burdens, and allowed us to put forward our best effort in competition.

Xu: It seems that in all aspects you received so much support and coordination from your entire team, they were constantly encouraging you. Because you encountered so many hardships, it sounds like that was able to release your burdens as well. Once you take that pressure off yourself, you’re able to put your best face forward and perform for everyone.

Sui: Right, of course there’s still some nervousness, but comparatively significantly less. Also after seeing our competitors’ condition, I felt like once we got to the competition, I thought, “no, I have to fight. Why are you ahead of me when you usually don’t skate as well as us!” I really thought that! I thought, I have to do my best. I didn’t think, oh I need to surpass them, I just need to be my best self, and if I surpass myself then I’ll win. Also before the competition I had constant support from fans, medical staff, always working hard and helping me with detailed preparation, how to adjust my condition, etc. I’m so thankful to everyone. This medal is due to our entire team.

Xu: I believe that this year’s world championship will be one of your most treasured experiences. Usually after the season is done, the summer is when you choreograph new programs. This year do you have any plans of where you’ll go for choreography?

Sui: We already finished choreographing. Once we finished competing, the week after we got new choreography, and then two weeks later we went to Japan to perform.

Xu: I can imagine you must have a lot of Japanese fans.

Sui: Yes, the fans from Japan are quite adorable. (laugh)

Xu: (laughs) How long does it usually take you to learn and remember a set of new choreography?

Sui: It doesn’t take long to completely memorize the choreography, maybe about one week. But if you want to be able to perform the program in competition, then it’ll take at least 3 months, roughly.

Xu: Three months? This is because it takes that long to perfect and be comfortable?

Sui: Right, you need to be familiar with it. Also, pairs skating is hard because of the coordination needed between partners - the rhythm, timing, in addition to the connection to the music. These are pretty difficult. Like, if you think about ice dance, they do have a lot of elements that require the two partners’ coordination but they don’t need to prepare for hard elements like jumps or throws, so they don’t need to leave time to prepare for these types of elements. In pairs skating, each element takes a lot of time, so once you complete an element you have to continue to perform. So when we’re choreographing we have to be very aware of the timing between the skaters and the music. This aspect requires a significant amount of time to perfect.

Xu: When you are choreographing do you listen entirely to the choreographer or do you guys add your own ideas or movements?

Sui: When we were very young, maybe the first two years we left the country to do choreography with Lori [Nichol], we pretty much listened entirely to her; we did whatever she said. But these past few years, Lori is someone with really good eyes: she is able to recognize our good ideas and pull them out of us. So these last 2 years we’ve used a lot of our own movements. In our programs this year, around 70% of the choreography was from stuff that Han Cong and I thought up. She would be like, oh hey, this way is good. A lot of our friends would ask us, “then why don’t you just choreograph your programs yourselves?” I’d say, no we can’t, because Lori has really good eyes. She’s able to easily see the big picture construction of the program. It’s like building a house: you start from the ground up then seal the roof. But we can’t see that. Also, we can’t see what a certain movement will look like from now until 4-5 months later. Whenever I watch videos of our programs the past few years from the first week after we choreographed, my god, it’s terrifying! They were just so ugly! But one year later, it looks like the way that she envisioned, really good. But at the time we couldn’t see it at all. This is Lori’s greatest strength.

Xu: It seems just like how an actor, after acting for so long can also become a director. Once you’ve done enough choreography you can come up with your own ideas and opinions.

Skating fans like to call Sui Wenjing and Han Cong “Onion Bucket” (cong （葱）= onion, sounds like his name; tong（桶）= bucket, a joke from when she was young and had a “bucket”-like figure). Even though they’ve been partners for 10 years, there’s no actual chemistry between them. Wenjing on Weibo would call him “Second Dad.” How did these two build up such an intimate understanding between each other? Xu Lijia continues her conversation with Sui Wenjing.

Xu: Let’s continue to discuss your figure skating career. Do you remember the first time you partnered with Cong?

Sui: 2007. I remember this clearly because my mom helped me remember.

Xu: Before you previously mentioned because Cong didn’t have a partner anymore, so you got pulled over to try it out, right?

Sui: Right, right.

Xu: At the time, what was your first reaction?

Sui: I just thought why not try it? (laughs)  Right, at the time I thought, this guy looks so scary.

Xu: (laughs) You don’t think he looks cool? I think he’s very cool/handsome!

Sui: He does look cool, but when he’s being scary it doesn’t show.

Xu: Ahh. So you just didn’t like that he has a bad attitude.

Sui: Right! Well, it’s not that he “seems” to, he DOES have a bad attitude! (laugh)

Xu: (laugh) So it’s like this! Then as soon as you paired up did you have good chemistry or was it due to many years together practicing?  

Sui: Not at the start, because first I never learned pairs before, and second, when I was younger I just immediately started skating with him after establishing some fundamentals in skating and jumps. I was like a blank piece of paper. My individual abilities were quite strong, and I was the type of person who could basically withstand anything during practice, falling a few times, a few bruises here and there didn’t bother me. I was pretty coordinated, which probably had to do with taking dance and martial arts lessons before, I grasped it pretty quickly. After pairing for 4 months — no, more like 20 days after pairing up, we entered our first competition. [T/N: some stuff muffled here, they were interrupting each other] We barely made the qualification round at the National Games, I remember.

Xu: Wow, very impressive that you were able to compete so shortly after partnering up. When you were younger and had less strength, did you fall a lot learning lifts and throws?

Sui: Yeah, I fell a lot. It’s not that I didn’t have enough strength, just that I wasn’t used to the “feeling” of being in the air or “feeling” of pairs skating, because pairs is actually quite different from singles.  You have to rotate horizontally and vertically, you have to rotate so high in the air during throws, and low to the ice during spins. It’s important for pairs women have to get to the feeling of rotating in the air so many ways, it takes a while to get used to. But I felt like I got used to it pretty quickly, including throws - my teacher said “do a throw double” and I don’t know how, but I just closed my eyes and did a triple. (Xu: Ohh…) Yeah, and I landed it, but thought, wait, this doesn’t seem right, and fell to the ground.

Xu: You seem to have a lot of natural talent.

Sui: Yeah. Then my teacher said, tomorrow don’t do doubles, just go straight to triples. From then on I never did doubles.

Xu: Wow. You increased the difficulty so quickly. In your impression, what do you think was your worst fall?

Sui: Worst fall I think was probably this year’s [fall before worlds].

Xu: Ah, the one where you said when you fell it felt like you lost half a life?

Sui: Yeah, because this time was during a twist, your entire body is horizontal in the air.

Xu: Ah yes, it’s so high, falling from a height even higher than your body height.

Sui: Right, it’s like my body height plus an arms length, so that would be over 2 meters tall. I went down head first, and watching the video, my reaction was pretty quick and I used my hand to lift my head a bit, then I rolled over. Otherwise my organs, head, spine may have been impacted. My self-protection instinct was pretty good.

Xu: I think this another kind of innate talent, because I heard before from Li Zijun that pairs ladies need to be very tough.

Sui: Right, because during throw and solo jumps, your body is vertical, so if you fall its usually on your butt, knees, arms. It’s actually easier to protect yourself then. But when you’re completely horizontal, you’re already feeling confused while you’re flying in the air, you don’t know where to grab onto and falling straight onto the ice horizontally is pretty dangerous.

Xu: The fact that so shortly after a fall like that you were able to win the world championships is really so admirable. When you learn quad throws, from when you first start learning, how long does it take to have a high success rate? How long does that process take?

Sui: Quad throws? Actually internationally very few attempt quad throws, and right now we don’t do them often either. Once you get to a certain age, the burdens these elements take on your health increase compared to when you were younger. So now we don’t do them often. When I used to do them competitively a few years ago, I actually didn’t do them that often either, only when my condition was good I would do 4-5 of them. But at that time my success rate was higher than 50%, I was able to grasp them pretty quickly. But it depends on the athlete, some could do them for years and never accomplish it. Some will do it a few times and get used to the feeling, and be able to do them. It depends on the person’s feeling. I remember when I was young I did quad throws, and I did them for a pretty long time but I wasn’t able to complete them perfectly. But once I got older, before my surgery, I was able to do both quad throws and quad twists in a program. But these elements require a lot of physical strength and the process took 10 years, almost 20 years of training. This doesn’t necessarily mean you can complete them in a single program, and you have to train with high caution to be able to complete them. Because our height difference isn’t that big, I have to use more strength to make the throws as high or higher than others, and therefore the impact on my ankles, knees, spine, etc. is much greater than other female partners.

Xu: Like you just said, your partner Han Cong isn’t as tall as Zhang Hao or other international athletes who are so much bigger and stronger, his figure seems to be more similar to singles skaters? (Sui: Yes) Even though your height difference isn’t so remarkable, you’re still able to get such amazing results - how were you able to overcome this aside from what you said before, like gaining more physical strength. How did he overcome the deficit due to his physique?

Sui: He just did strength training and “practiced me”. (Laughs)

Xu: So he has a greater strength requirement due to his height and figure.  

Sui: Well usually if you’re big then you’ll have more strength, but at the same time, we have our own strengths that others can’t achieve. For example, when we do solo elements like jumps, we’re very in sync because our height and weight are roughly the same, the difference in appearance doesn’t look like much.

Xu: Ahh, just like our synchronized divers, you both are very similar [in shape].

Sui: Correct. Also, for side-by-side spins we look a lot more in sync because we have a similar [body] radius, so we spin similarly.

Xu: Once you explain it, it makes sense!

Sui: Right, and during skating, our legs have similar length so our lines and rhythm is the same too. Plus when we perform we look very coordinated. It’s not like some of the pairs with one tall and one short skater, it’s like, hey why don’t these two seem to have a very “couple” feeling? (laugh)

Xu: I heard that before the World Championships, you specifically lost 6 kg. If you gain even a little weight, does it impacts him a lot?

Sui: It does affect him. As for myself, it doesn’t really affect my ability to do solo elements individually, like I can do them one by one with no problem. But during program, all 13 elements, once I get to the 5th or 6th element, I don’t have energy after. I get very exhausted. In addition, once I lose weight of course it helps my partner but even more-so it helps myself complete the performance better.

Xu: So are you the type who doesn’t gain weight easily no matter what you eat or gains weight easily?

Sui: Well, now I’m over 20, even though I’m past puberty I’m still okay, I don’t gain weight that easily.

Xu: But do you find it painful when you have to lose weight?

Sui: I just eat vegetables. Once I eat vegetables for a few days I’ll lose the weight. But what I find most annoying, is really everyone, including fans, when they meet me are like, “Wow you’re so skinny! I never realized you were so skinny!” But when they watch me skate on TV are like, “Huh, I think you look pretty chubby.” I’m so tired. I really can’t help it! (T/N: i just want to note that she says this all with a very light hearted, humorous tone, not as offended as she comes off in the translation)

Xu: (laughs) But actually, the TV does actually seem to add weight, it pulls you horizontally.

Sui: Yes, but there’s another thing you might not have thought of. There may be pairs ladies that are larger and taller than me, but when they stand next to a super tall and big male partner, they seem much smaller.

Xu: Ahh, you’re right, so that’s Han Cong’s fault.

Sui: (laugh) No problem, no problem at all! But one of his best features is that he’s got a really small face. I also really have a small face, it’s like a melon seed - when you see me in person you’ll notice my face is super small. But Cong has SUCH a tiny face, it’s like a small knife! Ah, it pisses me off!  I have such a small face but I have to stand in front of him, so my face seems so much larger and rounder. It’s so unbearable!

Xu: Sui is giving our audience some weight loss tips, just eat vegetables a few days and you’ll get skinnier, right!

Sui: Well, because I usually do a lot of training, aerobics, anaerobic exercise - figure skating is a very physically demanding sport so once you cut calories you’ll naturally lose weight. And drink lots of water!

Xu: When you’re learning pairs skating, are there times you and Han Cong have difference of opinions? Do you guys fight often?

Sui: We fight all the time, it happens often. In pairs skating, or any team sport, these kinds of problems arise all the time. After many years, we’ve learned how to compromise.

Xu: How do you guys make it work and stick together?

Sui: Before when we really couldn’t agree or come up with a solution, we would immediately find our coach, I think like this, he thinks like that, what do we do? And we would just go with whatever the coach said was better. Now we compromise or if our ideas are completely opposite, we do rock paper scissors and let god decide.

Xu: Wow, so you use this kind of method? (laughs)

Sui: Yeah and now we’re much more rational during training and we don’t try to assert dominance over one another.  We have to work to maintain each other’s conditions.

Xu: You two seem to have different conditions on and off the ice. Are your personalities similar or different?

Sui: We are two completely different people.

Xu: (laugh) I see that you really like to hassle him (T/N: dragging is probably a better term encapsulation of her sentiment though, kind of like jokingly criticize? it just sounded weird to put it in translation LOL), while I feel like he tries to appear serious.

Sui: No, I just really like hassling/dragging people! Nothing I can do about it, I’m just so used to it, I do it with everyone I talk to. I’m even like this about myself, very self-deprecating.

Xu: You must have lots of fun in your life. When you’re training with the team, do you usually eat with him [in the dorm cafeterias]?

Sui: We usually do eat together. I guess the good thing is that the two of us “look good” together? (laugh) [T/N: she uses the term “赏心悦目” which literally means pleasing to the eyes and heart…so she’s basically say they’re well matched HAHA]

Xu: When you don’t discuss figure skating or training, what other topics do you talk about? Are there any conversation topics you have in common?

Sui: He would tell me about books he recently read, movies he watched, any movies he’d like to see. I usually tell him, man I have things to do…(Xu: laughs) I really do have things to do! I usually have class on Sundays, I don’t really like wasting my free time. But usually most of my free time I’m doing nothing, playing around on my phone, but occasionally I’ll read a book, etc.

Xu: I see. Let’s discuss your coach Zhao Hongbo. Would you consider him a more easy-going or strict/serious coach?

Sui: I would say both. When we encounter hardships, he becomes a lot more easy-going but when we have problems during training then he becomes more strict. Everyone has different sides to them, and he will often try to help us from many angles.

Xu: What has he passed on to you that has helped you the most?

Sui: Because I’m a very fast-paced person, as you can probably tell-

Xu: You’re pretty self-aware!

Sui: Yes yes! And often during competitions, I may get really stressed and unable to control myself.  

Xu: So he helps calm you down.

Sui: He would say, don’t rush, take it step by step, like this past competition. He said just do what you need to do, however you skate we’ll be happy. But sometimes when we’re training and not so rushed, he would tell us, “you see what your competitors are like?” to apply a bit of pressure on us.

Xu: I feel like no matter what situation you’re in, he never seems to get too stressed, he seems very calm. You need a coach like this to keep you level-headed, especially when you’re frazzled, lost, nervous, or when you encounter difficulties. As Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo are Olympic champions, do you see any points of similarity and difference between you and them?

Sui: Hmm…points of similarity and difference…for differences, the two of us started competing internationally and earned medals much earlier. In addition, the two of us grasped a lot more performance styles.

Xu: So you two perform with more music genre and dance genre.

Sui: Right. We have a lot more variety because a lot of athletes can’t develop a lot of versatility in performance styles.

Xu:  Right now, Shen Xue is the [Chinese skating federation] president, she probably isn’t like Hongbo meeting you in the training center daily. So under what circumstances do you meet up with her, and what do you discuss?

Sui: Sometimes when my condition isn’t so good and I’m in a bad mood, when I’m stressed to a certain limit, she’ll talk with me, give me some small encouragement, step by step work through some problems during training. She would also tell me, “there’s a lot of new kids on the team, you’re all role models, when you have some time help me manage them.” Right now kids are adorable, but then when they’re teenagers/adolescents, then…you know.

Xu: They can be very rebellious.

Sui: They’re okay. Every age there’s something going on.

Xu: President Shen acts as an authority figure, does she give you any advice or guidance with anything?

Sui: Yes, for example during competitions she might give her ideas on hair style, or help with treating my competition tights because sometimes the color isn’t great, so it doesn’t look as bright so she tells me how to treat them so they look a bit better.

Xu: Ah she has many small tips. Finally, a lot of fans may want to know if you have any hobbies/interests?

Sui: Right now I like to read books and do calligraphy. But recently I’ve been pretty busy, I haven’t really been attending my calligraphy class.

Xu: Calligraphy? How did you start? Is it because it helps you calm down or did you like it since you were young?

Sui: Since I was young, I was the kind that wanted to learn everything. I told my mom, I want to learn to sing, dance, draw, play piano, I want to learn everything. My mom said, “who has time for all of that?!” But I still learned a lot of things, I ended up learning dance and martial arts, and of course skating. But outside of school I learned a lot. And english, I learned as well.

Xu: Speaking of english, I saw that you were using Ted talks for english lessons online. How’s that going?

Sui: Eh I don’t think it’s going that great. Sometimes I’ll just try to complete the lesson no matter how sloppily I do. But every day I try to do a few questions and look at them, it’s better than nothing. For english you have to speak and read it often.

Xu: Right, when I see you doing interviews you do speak quite well!

Sui: Well, for those once you do a lot of them you’re used to it.

Xu: That’s true. Last year when I saw you both at the Winter Olympics, I thought wow, seeing so many more Chinese athletes doing interviews in english, I was so happy.

Sui: I actually really like learning things, and I wanted to learn some instruments too. Before I even learned violin but my neck isn’t good for it. (laughs)

Xu: I get the feeling that you’re an extremely versatile person.

Sui: More like I can’t focus on one thing/get distracted easily. (laughs) I can’t ever persist with anything.

Xu: But I feel you already so dedicated to figure skating, you don’t really need any other hobbies, they just make your life more fulfilling (“colorful”). Finally, I want to give you the opportunity to give your loving fans some words/comments.

Sui: Firstly, I really want to thank these numerous fans for their support. I think that they’re all very dear to me, because they don’t have any personal or blood relations, they probably just saw us on TV or in competition one time and grew to love us and support us. Some even travel to follow us across the world. Some of them give us little gifts or throw plushies at every competition. It’s really touching and heart warming. In addition, the cheers and applause we receive at the end of competitions, I believe as an athlete that’s been able to make it this far, I’m so proud and happy. Thank you so much to our friends that are like family to us quietly supporting me and Han Cong. We will continue to work hard to show you our best selves. Thank you everyone.

Xu: Just like you just said, we hope you can maintain your health and have less injuries and fewer dangerous situations, hopefully in future competitions you can continue to surpass yourselves. We also look forward to more surprises from the “onion bucket” team. Thank you, Sui Wenjing!

Sui: Okay thank you thank you thank you!

[amphitritie]

MYTHOLOGY MASTERPOST

In response to an ask, I’ve compiled this masterpost of mythology resources. It’s by no means comprehensive, as myth is an extremely broad subject, and I’ve mainly focused on Greco-Roman mythology. I’ve tried to include a range of websites alongside books and original sources, so you can get by without spending anything. The upside to Classics being a kinda dusty subject is you can find so many texts online for free!

THE ESSENTIALS

If you’re just starting to get interested in mythology then it can be pretty daunting & it’s hard to know where to start. So, to help, here’s some recommendations for websites/texts that lay out the information without assuming any previous knowledge

theoi.com is an absolutely brilliant resource for anyone interested in mythology. It is stunningly comprehensive, with information on every god, goddess, nymph, monster and hero appearing in Greek mythology! Every entry has so much well researched information about the god and stories they appear in, and even includes excerpts from the original sources.

There are, of course, countless books dedicated to telling, or retelling, myths, and everyone seems to have their favourite. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton is a popular one, and is really good at telling the stories without dumbing them down, and I really like the way Hamilton writes too. It also has some bonus Norse mythology at the end! 

Alternatively, Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths is also really good, and very comprehensive, although fairly hefty at about 800 pages. 

Stephen Fry recently released his own retelling of the myths, entitled Mythos, which I really need to get around to reading. It’s a bit of a random selection of myths, but includes quite a few of the LGBT ones from what I’ve seen. You can also pick up an audiobook of him reading it – if you grew up listening to him narrate the Harry Potter books, I would definitely recommend this.

INTERMEDIATE

If you enjoyed those, and want to learn more about ancient mythology, I would really recommend then starting to delve into the original source material.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a pretty good place to start. It’s a collection of over 250 stories from creation to Julius Caesar, all linked by the theme of transformation, but it’s fairly easy to dip in and out of – think of it kind of like a short story anthology. Here is the entire work online for free, and I also found another site here which is Dryden’s translation - a little more old fashioned but closer to the poetic style, so it just depends what you prefer. If you wanted to buy

Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca is another great ancient compendium of myths. It covers the gods taking over from the titans, Hercules’ labours, and finishes at the Trojan War. Which brings me to…

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. With 24 books each, Homer’s epic poems can look pretty intimidating. But I would really, really recommend reading them. There are a myriad of different translations, which I will get into later, but to start off I would suggest either Fagles or Lattimore. I found full texts of both online, here and here although I'm not sure what translations they are.

EXTRA RECOMMENDATIONS

At this point I got a bit carried away. If you’re scrolling through this thinking you’ve already read a lot of these, here’s some extras.

I love the Homeric Hymns. Anddd I found a website here which has all the hymns – and displays with the original Ancient Greek and English translation side by side, which is really handy if you, like me, are attempting to learn Ancient Greece.

If you feel like you’re used to all the weirdness of Greek myths, boy have I got news for you. Ancient Egyptian myths make Pasiphae look tame. Try reading a very serious story about a god jizzing into a rival god’s salad in order to become king. If that sounds interesting: get help! Just kidding, read this book: The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by Richard Wilkinson. It’s very comprehensive, and also has lots of fantastic illustrations.

If you want an original source to read for the Egyptian myths, I’d suggest The Egyptian Book of the Dead, translated by Raymond Faulkner and Ogden Goelet

Kevin Crossley-Holland’s The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings is another good introductory book to another set of myths, this time Norse. He’s a novelist in his own right (anyone else read The Seeing Stone?) and this comes across clearly in the ways he tells the stories.

TRANSLATIONS

Please bear in mind that there are lots of different translations of ancient texts. I am not an authority in which one is best, and there isn’t a simple answer in any case, but I made my above suggestions based on either what I’ve personally read, or a translation I’ve heard good things about. That said, if you are interested in translation theory pls send me a message and we can yell about it together then here’s a few more recommendations.

Above, I recommended Lattimore or Fagles as a good starting point for Homer. If you don’t know which to pick, as a very broad generalisation Lattimore’s is more like poetry, and Fagles’ reads more like prose. (I may get people who disagree. Everyone has an opinion on translations.) Lattimore stuck to the original daxylyctic hexameter of the Ancient Greek text and, perhaps most impressively, stuck to the same line count as Homer. Fagles is more readable, but perhaps loses something in this. I honestly haven’t decided which I prefer yet. But for a first read of Homer, I would definitelty recommend one of these two – it just depends whether you are reading more for the poetry or for the story.* Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of the Iliad is also very popular, although it’s far looser a translation than the above two. This makes it kind of easier to read, but I personally think it’s a bit too loose to be perfectly honest.

Alexander Pope’s translation is a much earlier translation, published in 1720, and the language shows. However his translation is brilliant at conveying the drama and grandeur of Homer’s work.

There was a lot of excitement on Tumblr at announcement of Emily Wilson becoming the first woman to translate Homer’s Odyssey into English. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet (and I want to so badd) but from the excerpts I’ve seen and all the interviews and articles I’ve read it looks absolutely stunning. Please read this.

There is a super handy Wikipedia page which shows the first few lines of the Iliad/Odyssey as translated by every English translator ever. It makes for super interesting reading, but can also help you choose one to read that appeals to you!

For other texts: I’m currently studying The Aeneid using David West’s translation, Medea and Hippolytus as translated by Edith Hall, and Bernard Knox’s translation of Oedipus the King and Antigone. I’ve been enjoying all of these. If you’ve been following me a while, you’ll know I’m a big fan of Anne Carson. She translated Sappho, and some tragedies as well. Her translations focus more on conveying the poetry or feelings behind the words rather than an exact translation of the words themselves, which makes for electrifying reading if you’re used to perhaps more staid translations. Antigonick was a particular favourite of mine, probably because I knew the play so well so I was able to really appreciate the changes and decisions she made, although it was more an intepretation than a translation. This difference, as brilliant as it is, is why I would, however, suggest you read other translations first before attempting Carson.

I hope this was helpful! A second masterpost focusing on more general Classics resources will be coming soon.

[paladinsheadcanons]

feed us the kpop au Ash we know you're holding out on us

I love K-pop so much, i am so sorry, so not only do you get K-pop Ash, you get the entire group. YEAH. With a not-Kpop Tyra because…. why not? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have been actually writing a compilation thing for VVGG/Kpop AU before you sent this, hahaha! I’ve loved Kpop for a long time and I decided to pour in things I know to make an elaborate AU. I hope it’s okay owo

(There’s a short glossary under a readmore in the end of this, in case you’re not into K-pop and you have no clue what I’m talking about)

- mod ash

VVGG is as traditional asany K-Pop group, they were formed by a company consisting of several talents inthe industry after a good amount of training. The group started off with just Ash, Ying, and Skye, and theirdebut album consists of just the three of them, but they released a full albumwhen Evie and Maeve joined.

For their fandom – official name “VERse”, unofficial name “Saltshakers” – theyhave a weekly reality series called VERTV on Youtube and Korean SNS where mediafollows them around on their spare time, doing things like going out to relaxor playing video games with other members. Some of the members are very social-media savvy and also vlog on their own free time, while some of them also had their own fanbases before they got into the group. 

Ash. Leader, Lead Vocals,Lead Rapper

Sheis new to being an idol, but not in the entertainment industry.

Afterleaving her overly uptight military home, she explores other things to dobefore being an entertainer. She’s been a solo singer and rapper for a fewyears before deciding that her vision in music can not be satisfied alone.

Beingthe leader figure of the group she is no-nonsense, confident, anduncompromising, and always wants to “do something different”. However,she’s pretty much just the leader because she’s the oldest and had the mostexperience and training.

She’snot that social media savvy - many of her social media content barely has anyof her in it and mostly just consists of places she went to and things shedoes. It doesn’t help that she usually hides from the cameras when VERTV is onor when someone else is vlogging. Many of her fans are desperate for anycontent for her outside performances.

Shespeaks Korean fluently, and knows basic Russian and English. (read: Russian cursing and elementary-level English) She improves her English as time goes on. 

Ying. Visual, Main Dancer

Sheis trained in theater, and was aiming to become an actress as she was trainingas a dancer but then decided against it and became an idol instead.

She’sconsidered very cute and adorable, and has modeled in several fashion lines asa result, usually wearing the final dresses in fashion shows and being inseveral designers’ lookbooks. The only downside to this is that she goes alittle against the gritty dark concept of the group, being known for her ownbubbly aesthetic, but she learns to adapt to a more elegant, darker look.

Sheloves being the Visual as she gets to explore other activities outside being anidol! Sometimes she still goes back to theater acting when not busy with thebusiness.

Shemostly sticks to Instagram with her social media, and usually the one takingthe most pictures in an event. She also takes very good, aesthetic-y pictures,and always offers to take pictures for the other members.

Primarilyspeaks Korean. She can’t be bothered to learn any other language.

Skye. Face of the Group,Lead Dancer

Aformer child actress, who later became a teenage sensation and began dancingalongside other K-Pop idols. She took a break to train to become a K-Pop idol,and debuted with Ying and Ash as her comeback.

Asthe Face of the Group, she plays along with what her fans like, being veryfanservice-y and being touchy-feely with the other members (when allowed). Sheknows her fans enjoy it, and she also knows that it confuses the hell out ofthem on who she likes. Also vlogs often and participates a lot on VERTVactivities, usually the one suggesting what to do on episode activities.

Herfans have almost literally seen her grow up, especially since she started offas a child actress, and so also have the more critical fans amongst the five ofthem.

SpeaksKorean, and knows a little English.

Evie. Main Vocalist, LeadDancer

Originallya youtube-based performer and singer, she later gotdiscovered by a K-pop idol and was able to perform alongside them in a musicvideo. This catapulted her in the industry, having several gigs to perform withstars, and was later offered to train to be a K-pop idol.

She has little clue about how Korean pop works when coming in, and later discovers that she will have next to noprivate life since almost everything will be recorded for fan consumption. Shejust decides to apply her time as a Youtuber and vlog for her fans often, doingthings like pranking them or doing challenge-style content just to make theexperience a little more pleasant for herself. Also is very active on VERTV episodes. 

Knownto be very cheerful and playful, and many fans still consider her to be thetrue maknae even with Maeve around.

SpeaksKorean and intermediate English, but vastly prefers Korean.

Maeve. Main Rapper,Sub-Vocals, Maknae

Coming from the streets, Maeve came from poverty, being formerly involved in gangs and street crime. Being given a chance to correct her act, she took up rapping instead, which got her discovered to become VVGG’s newest member, and the industry’s best rapper.

Asthe maknae, she doesn’t really fulfill that role very well – she’s wayoutside what you would call cute and bubbly and young. She’s very spunky and rebellious, and even challenged Ash to a rap battle the second she joined. Despite this,many would find it hard to deny she’s one of the best rappers around, hence herbeing the new member of VVGG despite only knowing Korean basics.

Mostlyjust memes on Twitter. She doesn’t check social media much because she gets agood amount of hatemail. She still participates a lot in VERTV activities, though. 

SpeaksFrench and English, and can barely speak Korean when she joined the group,which caused a lot of VVGG fans to dislike her. Eventually, she improves, andusually is designated translator on interviews. She has many fans outside Koreaas a result.

BONUS BECAUSE I CAN’T STOP MYSELF: 

Tyra. She’s not in VVGG, butI wrote her anyway.

AFaroese folk singer, Tyra is popular in many Norse regions for beingexperimental, mostly performing in folk festivals and collaboration concertsexploring genre mixups. Her iconic vocals are somehow both lullaby-like andaggressive, depending on what she’s singing; this is a part of her Faroeseupbringing.

She’salso known as Untamed Music - expressed by her genre-mixing tendenciesand going for more experimental folk. Because she often collabs with other artistsand doesn’t really have a fixed team since she’s very indie, she uses the nameto refer to her work in general.

Outsidethe Nordic regions, most of her fans are either young history/fantasyenthusiasts or old people who likes folk music. She has tours sometimes whileperforming in small stages when she’s not busy with gigs, and often collabswith other artists on Nordic music fests.

Ashreally really likes Tyra’s work. In several episodes of VERTV, Ash has beencaught listening to her music several times. Tyra and Ash met when Skye plotteda meetup in a VERTV episode, when Tyra visited Korea as part of a short Asia tour.

SpeaksFaroese, Norwegian, Swedish and English. Ever since meeting Ash, she startslearning Korean.

BONUS GLOSSARY OF TERMS IN CASE YOU’RE NOT INTO KPOP:

Leader- Usually the oldest in the group, but not always.The title is given to the member who is the most trained or the one with themost experience, and is responsible for speaking for the group and making surethat the group is in order.

Faceof the Group - The most famous/recognisable member. The most iconic member of thegroup that you immediately associate with the group and their concept. Usuallycentered if the leader/visual is not on the center.

Visual- The prettiest or most attractive, at least in K-Pop standards. They’re theone who always go for other acting/commercial gigs outside the group, and is usually centered when the leader/face of the group isn’t. 

Maknae- the youngest, usually the newest member of the group. Most groups have thembe the happy cute, bubbly type.

Main Dancer/Rapper/Vocals - the main dancer/rapper/vocals is the best in the group in that talent.Usually front and center when the song calls for it, e.g. main vocalists havingmore lines, main dancer being center in choreo, main rapper handling most ofthe rap lines.

Lead Dancer/Rapper/Vocals - Good at said talent but not on the Main’s level. They get numerous parts that aren’t difficult to execute like lines that doesn’t have high notes or raps that aren’t that fast. 

Sub-Vocals - isn’t your first pick at singing. Usually have catchy, simpler lines that are usually in English. 

[vgperson]

What Did I Do In 2019?

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: Zack Davisson on Cosmic Horror and the Reality of Translating Manga

  Dark Horse recently released Gou Tanabe's excellent H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness manga, which features translation work by Zack Davisson. We had the fortunate opportunity to fire some questions in Zack's direction, so read on for some insight into the world of manga translation, supernatural scares, and more!

  *** 

  With Gou Tanabe adaptations like this, you're working from an English source as viewed through a Japanese author's lens. How did this affect your approach to translating At the Mountains of Madness? 

  Its been interesting. I work on the book with Lovecraft’s text right next to Tanabe’s. I use both an English and a Japanese version so I can see what specific phrases Tanabe intended to preserve, and what he changed. If he used Lovecraft’s language, I try to replicate that. If he wrote something entirely new, then I work to make it fit in and look seamless.

  It’s a somewhat time-intensive method that I haven’t done for any other project, but I think it is worth it to get it right.

  Were you already a fan of the source material? 

  Oh, absolutely. Looking at my shelves right now I have five complete collections of Lovecraft’s stories. I have the Arkham House editions, the S.T. Joshi annotations, and then fancy shelf decoration leather-bound volumes by Easton Press, Folio Society, and Gollancz. 

  I’ve been reading Lovecraft most of my life. I saw Michael Whelan’s amazing painted covers and convinced my mom to buy me the Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre paperback when I was probably far too young. Or maybe just the right age. 

  The sense of dread in Lovecraft's work can be difficult to get across in adapted form. What do you think makes Gou Tanabe's take on the material so special? 

  I think it is the fact that Tanabe takes the source material absolutely seriously. He approaches it with gravitas, free from modern “takes” or “spins.” In modern times Lovecraft often descends to parody or “Lovecraftian” where they do the August Derleth thing of taking his characters and writing new stories void of the original intent or nuances.

  Tanabe is the visionary director who says, “Hey! I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we stage Hamlet as Hamlet? Exactly as written? Not as a clever spin on corporate culture or boy bands or something like that? Just, as intended. Even in period costume?”

  Tanabe also has a grasp of mood, which is essential to Lovecraft. And pacing. And his art is simply phenomenal. 

  Beyond Tanabe, do you have a favorite take on Lovecraft? Are there any films or other forms of media you think have come close to capturing the essence of his horror? 

  Before Tanabe I would have said my favorite was Richard Corben’s comics. Although he very much made “Richard Corben comics,” his vision of Lovecraft was truly frightening on the page. No one does that grin of madness like Corben.

  For films, I can’t think of a single one that does it right. I love radio plays, however, and the Dark Adventure Radio Theater does excellent adaptations. I buy everything they make.

  Can you talk about your own encounters with the supernatural? How have they informed your work on titles like At the Mountains of Madness?

  I hold that it is perfectly acceptable to believe in weird things so long as they are of no consequence.  I have had a Loch Ness Monster sighting and gone hunting for mysterious ghost spots in Japan… Including my own house. I lived in one of Japan’s notorious jiko bukken haunted apartments.

  I like the idea of there being mysteries still in the world. I think it helps to believe in the supernatural at least a little bit in order to work in the genre effectively. When I am working on things like At the Mountains of Madness, I buy into them completely and allow myself to be amazed. 

  What scares you more, ghosts or the notion of greater cosmic horrors?  

  Definitely ghosts! I love Lovecraft, but I find cosmic horror to be too grand to be truly terrifying. Horror is personal. Sitting home alone in my own house, in the dark, working away and feeling that tingling feeling on the back of my neck that someone is standing behind me will always be more frightening than mythological scale frightmares.

  You've worked on plenty of titles I think it's safe to say many would consider dream projects, from the works of Go Nagai to Shigeru Mizuki, Satoshi Kon, and beyond. Do you have any favorites, and are there any specific authors or series you're still dying to tackle in the future? 

  It’s true. I’m fully aware I’ve been blessed in my career. I started out with a very specific agenda, of artists I wanted to work on and works I wanted to translate. When I finished Leiji Matsumoto’s Space Battleship Yamato I realized that I had accomplished them all. I had a bit of a crisis of purpose because… what then? Do I just start translating stuff I have no passion for just to cash a paycheck? That didn’t seem very fun.

  Fortunately, with artists like Gou Tanabe I was able to find new passions. I’d never seen Tanabe’s work before Dark Horse hired me for The Hound and Other Stories, but now I want to work on everything he does.  Discovering new favorites is the best feeling. And there are still piles of Shigeru Mizuki comics for me to tackle! 

  What is the most misunderstood aspect of translation? 

  That we are technicians instead of artists. Translating is writing. Plain and simple. I translate, and I write my own books, and they come from the same part of my brain. 

  Translation is like performing a cover song. My voice is never going to be the same as the original. There will be personal nuances and variations, turns of phrases that I will never be able to entirely mask. So, it’s a matter of making my cover version as good in its own right as I possibly can.

  It seems it's only been in recent years that translators have been more thoroughly and visibly credited for their work. Do you think the manga industry in particular is in a good place now as far as this is concerned, or is there more to be done to convey just how much influence a translator has over the final product? 

  Strangely enough, the opposite is true. If you look at the early days of manga the emphasis was on the translator. People like Rachel Thorn and Toren Smith were getting cover credit. My own idea on this is that manga was still strange, so companies wanted to put “English names” on the cover to dilute some of the “foreignness.” They also were having well-known comic writers like Lein Wen and Marv Wolfman doing adaptations.

  Then, when manga took off and TokyoPop boomed, things flipped. Manga artists themselves became the superstars and translators were hidden to prevent any perceived barrier between reader and artist. Readers didn’t like the idea that they were reading a translator’s dialog, not the author’s.

  I think things are settling into a better equilibrium now. Manga artists SHOULD be the superstars—they absolutely are; but readers should be aware of how much the individual translator affects the experience. There still is a way to go before we get there. One of my proudest accomplishments was getting translators listed on the Eisner Awards as part of the creative team.  

  Now we need to get manga letterers credit.

    I won't ask you to break down your personal process—you did a fantastic job of that in your TCJ article a few years back—but has it changed at all since then? 

  Thanks! And now, my process hasn’t changed much. Translation for me is intuitive. I absorb the original, process it emotionally, then think about how to portray those emotions in English. It's not a logical process.

  Is there any advice on the industry or translation work you wish you could go back in time and tell your younger self? 

  Hmmm…. Start earlier. I wish I had been brave enough to have been an exchange student in high school. Knowing my interests, some of my teachers encouraged that but I was too scared to step away from friends and family and everything I knew.  

  It took until my 30s to say, “fuck it” and throw away everything I knew to jump on a plane to Japan. And then I didn’t get into translation until I was almost 40.

  Working in comics was always a dream of mine, and it took me quite a while to find my niche. Things have worked out well, so I can’t complain too much.

  Are there any manga out right now (besides your own) that you're particular excited about? 

  Like many who work in creative industries I find I have less and less time to just be a reader. But I always try to keep up on a few things. Recently I finally tackled the mountain that is Lone Wolf and Cub, and I am hooked. One of the best things I have ever read. Classics like that are classics for a reason.

  I also wait hungrily for any new volume of Delicious in Dungeon. 

  Thanks for taking the time to do this, your work on At the Mountains of Madness is fantastic. Do you have any parting words for aspiring translators out there?

  Thanks! My main advice is to move to Japan. I don’t think I could have the life and career now if I hadn’t taking that plunge. I spent seven years in Japan, and that gave me the skills I needed to translate professionally. Jump into the deep end! You never know what is waiting for you! 

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  If you want to see a sample of Gou Tanabe's work, check out our preview pages for a peek into At the Mountains of Madness. 

    By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com