#cultural translation accuracy

[transcriptioncity]

Back Translation Services and Using a Back Translation Company

The Art and Science of Back Translation Services Translation is the process of converting text from one language to another. This practice ensures that information is accessible and comprehensible to people who speak different languages. Among the various methods of translation, back translation stands out as a particularly rigorous and insightful technique. The Importance of…

[crsinclair]

I saw the initial tweet about proms in Japan and I decided to finally say something. This has honestly been bothering me for a long while - as a POC that has been white-washed not only by the American government but by my own family, it is legitimately painful to watch as the anime and manga fandom slowly starts to white-wash itself.

If you don't believe me, go watch a popular anime. Turn on the subtitles and listen when they call each other by name. The names don't match up. It's incredibly jarring to listen to one thing and yet read another.

Full thread here if reading the text in the images is too much.

[orcelito]

Never played a Fate game or watched any of the animes really. But I started playing Fate/Samurai Remnant bc I wanted to play a hack n slash kinda game & it got generally good reviews (unlike ffxvi, the other game I was looking at for this wish of mine, which ppl continuously said was pretty but kinda shallow writing-wise)

I've been enjoying it. I've already learned some things about 1600s Japan. It's pretty neat!

[wordsmithic]

unpopular opinion but with the new tide of Greek mythology stories and retellings, Greek Cultural Sensitivity Readings are absolutely necessary. We are in 2024, with thousands of fics and retellings out there!! How is this not a thing yet?? There's vast improvement one can achieve by working professionally on their text with a Greek. I've seen it so many times!!

Also, duh, I'm offering the service BUT I want you to know that the situation with the inaccuracies of SERIOUS works is so dire that initially I didn't even do it for money. As a writer I just wanted to... fix things, to set a new standard for writers and the industry that sells us the most heavily Americanized pop-culture material and passes it as "authentic vibes of Greek mythology". (And of course there were writers who wanted to do right by their story and they had reached out to me. So kudos to them as well!)

Okay, but why does Cultural Sensitivity Reading make a vast difference and it's not just smoke and mirrors?

As a Greek, I am tired of well-meaning writers and authors butchering very basic elements of my culture. It's not their fault exactly, since they were raised in another culture with a different perspective. And nobody clued them in on how different Greek culture is from theirs, so writers sometimes assume that their culture is the default and they project that into ancient Greece. (Even published professionals like Madeline Miller have written "UK or US in antiquity" (with a very colonialist flavor) instead of writing "Ancient Greece". (Looking at you, Circe!)

Even writers who researched a lot before coming to me still had a lot of misinformation or wrong information in their text, easily verifiable by the average Greek. Again, not their fault. They can only access certain information, which does not include Greek scholarly work and scientific articles that DO offer valuable context.

Translation, accuracy, and meaning: If you ever wondered what a word means or how to pronounce it, here's your chance! There are Greeks like me who are knowledgeable and have a keen interest in antiquity and they will be able to read and compare ancient texts, and dive deeper into the work of Greek scholars regarding those texts.

If you want to create new words, you can do that as well! (It doesn't always work, but we can try. Greek is a really rich language and has a word about everything) If you use existing words, I can help you separate reality from fantasy in the context of your story.

(Do not assume we Greeks are ignorant of our heritage, or that we don't know how to research! Our archaeology sector is huge and archaeological museums are closer to most of us than your local Target is to you)

I guarantee there are things you never thought about Greece and the Mediterranean - from the ancient to the modern era. Sprinkling elements like phrases, types of interactions, customs, songs, instruments, dances, etc , into your text will make your text absolutely rich in culture.

Names matter!!! The genders of the names matter, diminutives matter (If I see one more "Perse" for Persephone I will claw my eyes out along with a few thousand Greeks), naming traditions matter!!! In many cases you should not even use a diminutive!!

You will be able to write about a foreign culture easily! Because of the continuity of Greek culture, you can even write a few more recent Greek elements to fill in the gaps. I can make sure they are not mismatched, and they will complement your ancient setting. I have observed a few things I didn't know we had since antiquity, but they make sense because our land has certain characteristics.

Non-Greek writers often miss the whole context of Greek culture! Do you know how Greek respect towards deities and parents looks like? What tones we use when we talk to our elders? When to use honorific plural - if your setting is more modernized?

Oh, and please let's avoid caricatures when describing Greeks?? (even fantasy Greeks) There can be heavy exotisation and odd descriptions of Greeks, as if we are another species. Even in published works. For many western writers it's difficult to catch, unfortunately.

The whole process is actually way easier than you think. You send me a text, I make notes and then we have some discussion on your vision.

It's always okay to seek guidance from the locals! You are not "guilty" when you admit you don't know! How can you know if you don't ask?? You can't imagine what relief and "πάλι καλά!!!" I read/see from other Greeks when I tell them another foreigner is using me for cultural sensitivity? Greeks want you to seek help and will NOT shame you for it!

(On the contrary, you have no idea how many eye-rolls Greeks do when they see a blatantly wrong thing in a story... Which has happened pretty often for many years now. Can we do better as an industry?? Please???)

You can send me a personal message to share your story, or ask what this whole cultural sensitivity thing is all about, or ask about what I have done so far and how I can help. But for the love of all that's good, don't let your story be another "generic greek myth retelling"! And don't let others sell you their generic greek myth retellings!!

[fumifooms]

The Nakamoto household - facts & theories masterpost

Table of contents:

the hierarchy & general situation

The parents

The Maizuru situation

The siblings

The other retainers

Izutsumi

Toshiro

Conclusion

I also made tldr summary charts here. This post is about collecting facts about the setting and characters, but it’s gonna be a lot of analysis on what it means through the lens of Toshiro as well, his relationship and place in everything etc etc. They have entangled drama the scale of Daltian Clan. Things are so interwoven it’s hard to keep topics neatly in their own section, because of this pictures may be relevant at several point of this but I mostly won’t be putting them in twice, you might have to do some scrolling up while reading if you want the visual proof to accompany statements. Unlike with Chilchuck’s family there’s less ambiguousness and more intricate details and implications so it’s less theorizing & headcanoning and more stringing together all the crumbs canon gave us. I also dig into some cultural parallels, especially since characters from Wa are the most culturally coded in the series. Also disclaimer that I’ll be calling Shuro Toshiro through this whole thing because that’s his actual name & Shuro isn’t even a nickname he’s shown to like, for accuracy’s sake. The servant girls have real names but are always called by their code names so I’ll call them as such, except for Izutsumi who was named Asebi which I won’t be using.

The general situation

To start off, what’s the situation in canon? All three kids of the head of the house, the three sons (Toshiro and his two younger brothers), are sent out on a vague mission to find something interesting for his father to pick the heir. Each son is thus on their own journey, out with their own group of retainers for an unsure length of time, during canon it’s been 2 years that Toshiro left the house for this mission, and they seemingly all drifted towards dungeons. It’s important to remember that this state of things is the exception and not the rule, and before this the sons lived at home and had different uses of their time, and the retainers had other jobs than care after them. See the next paragraph.

The household offers ninja services, no exaggeration or misuse of the term, mostly spyint but also "covert maneuvers" which could include anything including assassination of people high up. That’s the job of their servants/retainers at least, the heads themselves are more like managers probably, possibly samurais themselves though especially since as we see with the heirs (besides the samurai armor) they also got trained in fighting as their skills showcase. I need to dig into the history of samurais more before I can draw the parallel confidently though. The Nakamoto household is noble/wealthy, distinguished as the Adventurer’s Bible puts it, but it works for and puts its service at use for "their local lord". It buys servants, but also has families who have served it for generations like with Hien. The comic shows that there aren’t only women servants, it’s just the ones we see all happen to be because Toshiro’s retainers are only a small team of all of Nakamoto’s servants.

Above, in a page showcasing characters’ relationships with their party leader: 父親の部下を借りている状態なので、 距離がある。Doubtlessly there must be a translation of this already somewhere but I’m lazy and impatient so I turned to machine translation instead, this translates into: "Since he is borrowing his father's subordinates, there is a distance between him and them". Calling the servants retainers is what most of the fandom does and it’s accurate so I’ll be calling them this.

Hien and Toshiro were childhood friends which means the servants do have some degree of contact not even just together but with the heirs too, or maybe just specifically Hien, since both their parents were ninjas for the Nakamotos she ended up getting raised there and they let her play with him as an exception? They did end up drifting away as adults as their relationship got more professional, so it’s possible. The servants eat and sleep in shared spaces, separate from the masters, though Maizuru has her own bedroom, if the room configuration at the in is to be believed + it’d make sense since she’s governess/head servant. I’m hesitant wether to say it’s implied that this group of 4 retainers was always a bit of a team or it wasn’t and got formed for Toshiro specifically. We know that Benichidori had little contact with Toshiro before they were sent out together for example, but we do see all three girls with Izutsumi in Inutade’s extra when they were younger, and them eating in the same japanese styled room etc. The inn they stay at on The Island is western styled though they do have futons rather than beds (there’s only one bed in their shared room and Hien has it because of her rank).

From Izutsumi’s Adventurer’s Bible profile: "Maizuru, who was also Shuro's governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. After Izutsumi was taken in by the Nakamoto family, Maizuru forced her through a harsh training regimen of speech, common sense, and fighting skills. Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn't touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." "

Maizuru, called a governess, is the one training the girls, at least some of them, we know for a fact she was the one to train Izutsumi for example, and in general she’s the one in charge of the ninja girls we see. She was a ninja herself but retired from frontline missions, but has a central role managing the servants instead. Inutade for example is strong but not stealthy, and it’s said that it’s Maizuru’s job to choose how to train her and what role to give her in consequence. Her training includes manners but fighting as well, notably kunais and martial arts. Hien is shown to use bombs and Benichidori is implied to be good at disguises, Inutade uses a bold weapon like a club but it’s implied with "ogres and clubs just go together" and Maizuru not knowing where to put her to use that it’s uncommon for Nakamoto servants to use those. Their board game artworks also show their specialties neatly. When brought into the household, the servants are given new names and their whole lives become devotion to the house and their duties. The names might be intended to act as code names due to them being ninjas? It’s implied that they never use their non-code names anymore once they start serving the household. Maizuru’s training also contains language and "common sense"… Critical thinking? As well as implied etiquette. This isn’t surprising, as she was the one put in charge of raising not only Toshiro but his brothers as well.

Oh yes I want to mention that all the retainers’ "first deaths" are in the dungeon during canon, considering our main cast we’re used to death being permissible because dungeons make resurrections possible, but it’s relevant to remember that these people never died before. Never. These girls are professionals, ninjas with a sometimes very dangerous job. Messing up means death, permanently.

From what we see and with who we see, the hierarchy is:

Father (head of house, his word goes)

Mother (has status which puts her wishes above others’ and give her some control over the house, it’s unsure how much though, but hierarchy wise she’s very much above the rest but below the father)

Maizuru (governess, in charge of (at least some) servants and raising Toshiro. Two dots)

Hien (leader of their squad, trained servant from a family devoted to the Nakamotos. Two dots)

Benichidori (trained bought servant. Two dots)

Inutade and Izutsumi (bought servants. Power wise from their rank it’s unsure just how much the difference between Inutade (who has one dot), Izutsumi (who has none) and Benichidori (who has two) is, since Hien is team leader between the four servants at least that’s measurable. Inutade gets some janitor duties, and Izutsumi has a curse put on her so she doesn’t run away I suppose. Power wise it’s unsure, but socially/role wise Inutade and especially Asebi are treated worse.)

I didn’t add the sons because I’m talking more generally about the power structure and it’d depend on each sibling, like Toshiro’s wants and directives during canon trump Maizuru’s, but Maizuru is also his nanny and manages the girls so she has a lot of importance and sway even on the final decisions.

The parents

I am so pissed I forgot that we know Toshiro’s father’s name, Toshitsugu, from these panels showing the progression of the family tree. I am so pissed I’m adding this halfway into writing this whole thing, I am not gonna go back and replace every "the father" by his name atm.

The father is the part of this puzzle most important yet most shrouded in mystery, or rather a lack of details. What we do know paints a pretty full and vivid portrait: impulsive and cares mainly about his own entertainment. Maizuru calls him a fool, his sons are exasperated and go "This again?" when he summons them saying that they’re boring/dull, everyone knows he’s having an affair and he often has undignified demeanor, but what he says goes so yes Maizuru will take Izutsumi under her wing, yes the sons will be going out right away into the world to find you the 8th world wonder, yes whatever you want lord. He seems to have little care for how his action affects others, like crashing into Maizuru’s room at night and asking she take care of a catgirl, or sending out his sons suddenly with kicks to the butts. He does what he wants hen he wants and others have to comply.

Like we see with Izutsumi and Inutade, he tends to take a liking to slaves here and there and buy them on the spot, usually at entertainment places, like sumo wrestling matches for Inutade and a freakshow for Izutsumi. The Adventurer’s Bible states him acquiring Inutade as "By coincidence, Shuro's father came to see her first match; he liked her and bought her for the Nakamoto family." and Izutsumi as "She was on display as a "cat-girl" in a sideshow when Shuro's father took an interest in her and bought her." In Maizuru’s extra, he calls Izutsumi a "souvenir" he got for her, and he’s drunk so it could well be assumed that buying Izutsumi was a drunken whim, and that he mitht be alcoholic. You can’t really say that he picks them out because he sees potential in them to be a ninja or would be useful, since with Izutsumi she had no fighting training and Inutade doesn’t fit the skills they seek like stealth and she has trouble fitting in. You could assign noble goals to him like maybe wanting to help or relating to the misfits, but I think with what we see of him it’s more likely that he likes to pick up "oddities", like a catgirl at a freakshow or an ogre, especially since one of the only things we know of him is he wants his sons to bring back interesting trophies from their travels. Toshiro, about his father buying Inutade, says: "People in power desire ogre as servants, and ogres are chosen as opponents in tests of strengths or military exploits. My father bought her for similar reasons."

Also from this we can infer that he goes out to events often, like circus and sumo wrestling, again mostly for entertainment from what we see. I like to think it’s implied that he used to travell maybe still does, due to his own liking for it as a test and because he visits various places like the sideshow, plus his forearm scars in Toshiro’s extra… But him being a samurai in service of a lord could definitely explain that.

This all paints an interesting picture doesn’t it… The Nakamoto’s lifestyle is super encased in rules and social propriety, duty and hierarchy. Old noble man who’s been surrounded by propriety all his life and just wants some spark of interesting stuff happening amongst the humdrum of his lavish cushioned life at home, and is shitty to people around him in consequence and due to his privilege allowing him to. He’s despicable, but from his 3 appearances he becomes an interesting well-fleshed character, at least proportionally to the screentime he gets…

We also know that the affair with Maizuru is well known at least inside the household, so there’s no genuine secrecy around the topic. Makes sense that the wife would hate her guts.

Ahh yes the mother. Little is known about the mother, except that from Maizuru’s profile "Shuro’s mother can’t stand the sight of her, to the point where there are areas on the property Maizuru is forbidden to enter. Maizuru, however, is impressed by his wife’s strength of character." From this I glean that she does have enough power/respect in the house that she can make rules like where Maizuru is allowed to go. Also the implication that otherwise Mazuru would have access to EVERYWHERE in the house despite being only a (high-ranking) servant is a bit interesting. Wether the mother’s "strength of character" is overt and hot-headed or understated and cool-headed is unsure, but I imagine the latter more. I could see Maizuru’s angle in many ways, from being able to tolerate "that fool" aka the father both just in general and with knowing that he’s cheating on her, to knowing how hard it is to be respected as a woman and admiring her putting up with it all and still being able to have sway in the household. This is I think the only mention of the mother anywhere. Doesn’t seem like she is an important figure to Toshiro at all: in fact we hear about her on Maizuru’s profile, and seeing all of this we can see the importance of her in Maizuru’s backstory and life, moreso than Toshiro’s. I imagine she’s a bit of a recluse, which is part of why Maizuru not being allowed to roam the full house is important, because them running into each other at the house is high.

It’s unsure how much contact the parents have with their kids. What we know is that they left the principal tasks of raising the kids, or at least Toshiro, to servants. Toshiro’s profile says that he’s more attached to Maizuru than his parents, and that’s the phrasing. From the comic where their father summons the sons, it does seem like they’re more or less used to interacting, with the sons’ "This again?". So it’s not that they’ve only interacted with them few times enough to count on fingers, but how meaningful were those interactions? From Toshiro’s profile we know he has a complex where he thinks he’ll never get recognition from his father or be able to measure up to him… But is that more born out of secondhand gossip and expectations, or from direct interactions with him that made him feel that way? Likely a mix of both, especially since the father does seem to be very dismissive, uncaring and insulting with his sons. Oh, but it’s definitely notable that in the Hag monster tidbit (below in Maizuru’s section) six years old Toshiro runs to his father scared shitless for help against the shikigami, and his father casually helps him without batting an eye. Toshitsugu knows how to deal with Maizuru’s shikigamis, and he does so efficiently and without any sense of worry or urgency. Although the event traumatized Toshiro and he was very scared, it doesn’t seem like his father offered any comfort, beyond just helping getting rid of it and letting him cower behind him without comment. Toshitsugu gives hungover vibes in that one imo haha. It’s shown he was already training as a ninja, perhaps this event only reinforced Toshiro’s complex, seeing his father, the samurai the achieved man who has expectations for him, so unfazed and uncaring like that.

The Maizuru situation

Let’s establish a timeline first. It’s left vague how much time she’s served the Nakamoto family for, or how she came to be in their service. The central point is that "She was put in charge of raising their children at a young age". If straight from his birth, Maizuru started taking care of Toshiro when she was 15 years old. If from toddler age, then 16. It’s uncertain if when she stopped getting front-line espionage missions, but we know it’s late rather than early despite having kid raising duties. But well, since she’s also in charge of the ninjas she’s definitely has a multitasking role even now.

The dad prob has around 5-10 years more than Maizuru, I’d say. We only see half of his face and only a good few years in the past, around ~3 years ago probably with the shuro quest and a good 7 years with Izutsumi as a kid, but visually those are the vibes I’m getting. From Toshiro’s birth, it’s possible that the father was 15 when the baby was born too? But conception would have been closer to 14 years old then, and yeah I don’t think they marry and have kids that young. Toshiro is 26 years old in canon and is unmarried, and the heir hasn’t been officially picked, so marriage and kids don’t seem to be in the family’s priorities. Even if Maizuru do say that the father would love if Toshiro brought back a wife.

Now the elephant in the room: she has an on-and-off affair with the father and it has been si for many many years, at LEAST 7 years since that’s when we see that comic of him going into her chambers about Izutsumi, and in the comic above, Hien in that panel has an ambiguous age. Regardless it’s definitely implied that it’s a long, long-standing thing. Hien’s phrasing above makes it sound as if it’s not purely physical, as if feelings are involved, "he’s head over heels for his confidante", and who knows if this relationship is part of why Maizuru was chosen to be the governess, or even hired at all.

It’s in the feud with his father that we learn about maizuru’s affair and how after learning it he started shutting her out emotionally. It’s left vague when Toshiro learned about it, Hien made it sound as if everybody always more or less knew but I don’t think Toshiro started shutting her out when he was still pretty young. Regardless, the two are implied to be linked, his dislike of his father/complex and how he stopped getting along well with Maizuru/being emotionally open with her. Is it that he now feels as though Maizuru is actually on his father’s side and not his own, that after all if she had to choose she’d pick him over Toshiro too? Or is it that, because his father’s known to be a self-centered frivolous jerk, that knowing she lets it happen, "can’t seem to shake it", he respects her less? He has an irresponsible reputation and she does give off the vibe of needing to clean up his messes, so that wouldn’t be unplausible either.

On the flipside from her perspective, since he learned she was his dad’s mistress he emotionally shut her out, which can partly explain why she’s SO fussy with him and happy at the slightest hint of happiness or compliance, like when he listens to her and eats, or maybe even being happy that he lets her help him dress and keep tidy (imo this is supported by how they interact in the page showing him interacting with all his party members). She wants to regain that closeness they once had and for her baby chick to be alright as he’s slipping through her fingers. Man so sad to think about him rejecting her when he’s the only thing in her life. She’s raised him for 26 years, no wonder she’s so attached to him, the only thing in her life she feels true unconditional attachment for. Maizuru says that she thinks Toshiro’ll be a better head of the house than the father, too. The respect and care is somewhat onesided, given freely from her side but repressed from his end. When she cares for Toshiro is when her demeanor immediately and drastically softens. She gets easily carried away when it comes to him, rambling enthusiastically or smiling widely or tearing up. Her tendency to ramble or tell anecdotes about Toshiro is shown making Hien and Benichidori go "Here she goes again…" twice through canon.

With Izutsumi’s timeline we see Izutsumi was taken into the Nakamoto household at 10 yo, and since in the comic with Maizuru and the dad she’s shown as stinky and all I imagine she arrived there the same day, so Maizuru was in charge of her since she was first here. In fact if we assumed that it’s the same day as when he bought her at the circus show, then we could assume that buying her was a drunken whim like mentioned.

Since Izutsumi was taken in at 10 and she’s 17, this would mean that Maizuru is 34 years old here. She looks younger without makeup, but lower than that is mathematically impossible besides maybe 33 if Maizuru and Izutsumi’s birthdays line up just right.

Time for the second elephant in the room!!

Maizuru’s magic

Maizuru is the only person in the Nakamoto household, anyone from Wa really, who we see using magic, I doubt she’d be the only one who can use magic in the household but as the governess it wouldn’t be unplausible I suppose. From what we see, the magic is estimated by Marcille to be an "appropriation of gnomic magic" with an eastern script. For my analysis of written magic (though with only a brief glance over Maizuru’s magic), see this post.

If you scroll up and read the little section on Maizuru’s profile, Ninja art: babysitter: "One of the curses put on Izutsumi is Ninja Art: Babysitter, which manifests as a terrifying hag shikigami. Unless Maizuru touches the victim within a set time frame, this terrible curse makes a hag appear and chase them around with a carving knife. Maizuru originally created it in an attempt to keep Shuro from getting lost, but it ended up traumatizing him…"

From Izutsumi’s profile: "Maizuru, who was Shuro’s governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. […] Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn’t touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." It was put on her when she was 12. Since Toshiro had it as a kid, presumably the curse can be lifted off rather easily, Marcille was confident on reverse engineering it as well. It’s unsaid what the time frame is, it’s kept vague everywhere and Izutsumi herself says "who knows" how long it is. Izutsumi ran away despite the very real risk of it killing her. Essentially, Maizuru can put people in a timebomb collar

… MAIZURU WHAT THE HELL

As we might have expected, Maizuru being given the task of rasing a child at 15 did not go perfectly. This, a babysitting technique??! This comic happens when Toshiro was 6 and so Maizuru was 21. Interesting to note that Toshiro didn’t even know it was Maizuru’s doing before this conversation during canon, and he doesn’t know how to bring it up or deal with it how it affected him. Maizuru seems surprisingly uncaring of Toshiro’s feelings on the matter here, oblivious to his conflict her and fondly recalling it all.

This curse is a shikigami. From her profile: "A shikigami user, Maizuru has a variety of shikigami that have been sealed in paper as her servants. Her favorite seems to be Gyuki, a bull ogre." Now don’t ask me when Gyuki appears, I do not remember it. But before we go into the cultural/historical basis for this practice, let’s take a second to recognize the parallel that Maizuru has servants she keeps sealed unless useful in the moment, even despite having enough "attachment" to have a favorite. She’s the governess in charge of the other servants, and she has shikigamis, which she has used on the heir and the runt at the bottom of the hierarchy alike.

Shikigami, in traditional japanese folklore, are conjured to exercise risky orders for their masters, such as spying, stealing and enemy tracking. Shikigami are said to be invisible most of the time, but they can be made visible by binding them into small, folded and artfully cut paper manikins.

Shikigamis are from onmyodo, onmyoji is a profession-legal title historically but it’s what you call a practitioner of onmyodo, and so I feel content in saying that Maizuru is an onmyoji, or based on it. Her outfit reminds me of a shinto priest. It’s interestingly closer to a shinto priest outfit than a miko/shrine maiden’s (in picture below, 2 instead of 5), and I feel like red being chosen for the inner sleeve is a very charged decision since the white & red color combo is the shinto clothes color combo. Especially white clothes with red inner sleeve. Shinto priests can be women nowadays but they’re rare, and onmyojis can be considered shinto priests though it’s a more complex than that. Image below as example, source. Now I don’t think Maizuru has the role or prestige of a priest at all- But the association with onmyodo and spirituality is definitely meant to be made I think. Onmyojis are usually clothed similarly to this.

The babysitter ninja art seems to be based off of the hannya yokai. "They were once human women who were consumed by jealousy and transformed into demonesses", twisted by anger and resentment. Interesting considering her being a mistress to a man whose wife hates her. Hannyas are associated with wisdom because of its name, but there is nothing positive about them. At its highest level of "demonic corruption" if I can call it that, their body tend to become serpentine, fun link to make with her name being from the snakeberry plant.

Other cultural ties or symbolism on Maizuru’s character could be found in the motif of cranes due to her sleeves, in the tales of the crane wife, origami cranes (called orizuru, from deformation of 鶴 "tsuru" aka "crane". All names are written in katakanas in Dungeon Meshi, but thus if we had had the kanjis it’s possible her name would have been written with the kanji for crane), tennyos, and japanese crane symbolism in general. I thought cranes might have been associated with motherhood, but seemingly not in japanese culture at least, I was thinking of storks haha.

Ok speaking of her name. Maizuru is the name of an existing japanese city (舞鶴), meaning "dancing crane". From @room-surprise’s work in progress research paper on Dungeon Meshi characters’ names: "Maizuru is her ninja code name, and comes from “maizurusou”, which is maianthemum dilatatum, the snakeberry plant/two-leaved Solomon's seal/false lily of the valley. Lily of the Valley is a plant associated with motherhood and virtue… So Maizuru being a false Lily of the Valley implies that she is a false, replacement mother, and also hints at the way that Toshiro became cold towards her when he realized she was his father’s mistress, and not a pure, virtuous mother-like figure that he thought she was. Also, lilies are toxic to cats, which makes sense since Maizuru and Izutsumi have an extremely bad relationship." For more details I’ll leave it up to Room when the paper is ready to be released. Edit: It’s out!! Click here! Incredible meta that goes into a ton of details not only about Maizuru.

So some big themes of her character are: (false) motherhood, spirituality/magic, control, cranes, woman’s jealousy.

The siblings

Alriight so besides Toshiro the eldest at 26 years old, there is Toshiyuki (Toshitsuge in one fantranslation) the middle son and Toshizane the youngest (Toshikage in one fantranslation). They were all said to be raised by Maizuru. "A strange level of distance" is interesting. Why strange? I feel like this implies they do interact regularly, and that they’re all rather civil wirh each other, but they still have little bond to speak of. That wouldn’t surprise me, especially since even inside the family etiquette and propriety and rules are enforced, the summoning by his father feels very formal and they all listen to him standing in silence despite having snappy inner thoughts. It’s unsure if they were largely raised together or apart, but since Maizuru was their (at least main) caretaker/governess it implies that they were imo. They were put in competition with each other for the title of heir to the house, though it’s unsure to what degree. It’s examplified by their family all having names that start with "Toshi" that the legacy is very important and thrust upon them, cogs in a machine almost. They all think the same thing when their father summons them and has a spiel, so they’re used to the same sort of treatment and they are indeed brothers for being on similar wavelengths haha.

Toshiyuki, as seen in the comic about his retainers, the poor soul sent into Darkest Dungeon, is brattish. Rude, selfish and rather lecherous, does not hesitate to be mean to his retainers and complain he wasn’t given women retainers. Visually he looks what, 14 years old top. I wonder if Maizuru stopped using her babysitter ninja art on the heirs after it traumatized Toshiro, and if so maybe that explains why Toshiyuki Knows No Fear In His Heart™️ and that’s why he can spout off stuff like that.

The retainers for the youngest brother, Toshizane, don’t seem to be as clad in ninja gear as the other two, seems like the priority is to take care of the very young young master there? Rather than truly go adventuring and dungeoneering, perhaps. Not that it’s ever said by anyone that their quest is to go into dungeons specifically, only to find something "interesting" to bring back, but both Toshiro and Toshiyuki are shown to have ended up drifting into dungeons. Toshizane looks young, I’d clock him 8 years old personally. He’s drawn looking rather innocent, especially the headshot doodle above and in the Toshitsuge complaining about his retainers comic. ALTHOUGH on the latter, interestingly as we see with Toshiro having a smug smirk in that same panel (or alternatively a smug indifferent/uncomfortable "i don’t care about this, even though you want it so much" look which at the very least is very exaggerated from how he emotes in reality), it’s Toshiyuki’s unreliable/exaggerated vision of his brothers and it doesn’t necessaeily reflect reality, though it’s still interesting to note that that’s the vision Toshiyuki has of his brothers/the impression Toshizane gives off. That can imply juicy dynamics for the brothers, for example if Toshiyuki feels as though he’s in competition with his brothers, feels superior to them, that instead of pushing the shitty family dynamic angst onto his father he puts the blame for it all onto Toshiro. Toshizane seems maybe too young to notice the tensions and seriousness around him, maybe more coddled… IS WHAT I WOULD SAY BUT in the comic where their father send them away he’s as well-behaved and serious as the others, so clearly he has a grasp on his role.

When talking about which retainers go with who, it’s said it was the father’s choice. I’d like to assume it wasn’t an airheaded/random choice. Maybe he knew that Toshiyuki would be weird about having women in his team of retainers? And wants to forge their character or protect them in the way they need. Though how Toshiro’s party only has women isn’t only pointed out and commented on by the comic with Toshitsuge but also in the main Dungeon Meshi story, both Marcille and Chilchuck going "his party is fully made up of women", one more loudly than the other haha. So it does feel like a somewhat pointed/purposeful decision, if not that the 4 girls were already a team like I mentioned.

The other retainers

Already made an analysis of Hien and Benichidori’s relationship (+ moment compilation) here. Honestly my juices are exhausted so quick rundown:

Hien’s parents both serve the Nakamotos, so she grew up with the family and was even a childhood friend of Toshiro. She assumed he and her might end up in a Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation ‘just because that’s how things are’/‘it’d be a natural development’ if we’re to believe Hien, ahh what growing up at the Nakamotos’ with those role models will make you believe is normal hah, and was surprised when it ended up not in that way at all. They grew more distant with time, in good part because of the professional nature of their roles in relation to each other (truly a reversal of the Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation). She’s the leader of their lil squad, under Maizuru, she’s very confident and she gets the perks, like getting the bedframe in the shared inn room. For all the details just read her page. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja. I made a more in depth more speculative reading of her in this post.

Benichidori was bought, by "the Nakamotos" so we don’t know who made the final decision. She’s perceptive and submissive, her specialty is implied to be disguise. She never had much contact with Toshiro before she became part of his party. She has facial dysmorphia where she fears the judgement of others if she doesn’t wear makeup and highly values beauty, in her extra her anxiety really shows and she ends up angrily snapping at Hien. Benichidori ends up taking a big liking to Hien and from there on they’re implied to be inseparable. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja.

Inutade is said to worship Toshitsugu because he "saved her" from her horrible life conditions, buying her personally from the sumo matches, she’s extremely grateful to the family and is happy to do any work they give her and is highly satisfied with her current living conditions. She seems to find Toshiro intimidating, though. She was separated from her parents from before she can remember and raised as a sumo wrestler in inhumane betting matches, where her front tooth broke. It seems she has very littke ambitions and dreams besides obeying orders day to day, but after Izutsumi fled away she was happy for her and mused that she’d love to go out and find her one day. They’re so besties Izutsumi gave her a dream of her own I’m sobbing… </3 She has one dot, showing she still has to be attributed her role and earn her stripes.

Their approval rating of their leader. The highest total score from all the parties.

Izutsumi

Sighh where to even begin. Her timeline was put in Maizuru’s section of this post but the rundown is "taken away from parents and turned into a beastkin" at 6 yo (the human half of her soul), "sent to a sideshow on the island of Wa" at 7 yo and bought by Toshitsugu at 10 yo when he took an interest in her when he visited the sideshow. Maizuru put the curse on Izutsumi at age 12, so from then on she always had to not stray much far from Maizuru or risk death, it’s unsure if Inutade’s extra is from before that time, before she was 12, so she could still attempt many many tries to run away. If that’s the case, then Maizuru’s curse was very much treated as a last resort, honestly beyond everything else I can see it being a pain that Maizuru would need to touch her every so often on Maizuru’s schedule as well. The alternative is that, not unlike Kabru who had no regrets dying in a dungeon rather than staying with Milsiril, she’d risk her life to get a taste of freedom. Besides, you know, being a slave and having a timebomb collar with Maizuru’s curse, her frustrations with her life with the Nakamotos is most concisely put in the comic just up above, Inutade’s extra.

She has no dot tattoo, meaning she’s at rock bottom of the hierarchy. It makes sense, since unlike Inutade she’s rebellious and needs threats to obey orders, and even then might try shifty business.

This last part where Izutsumi tries sleeping with Toshiro is most interesting to me. So she’s sought out contact with Toshiro before, she considers him "the stuck-up guy" but she doesn’t exactly hate him. I wonder if this comic is set in the inn on The Island or back at the Nakamoto household, because if that’s the latter it implies that she could get access to his room if she’s sneaky.

Oh oh also, this is fanon but since Toshiro’s weapon is one used usually on horseback, and with the steadfast and upright character of horses I associate Toshiro with horses a bit, though this is wild fanon. What’s interesting is that the plant Asebi was named after is a plant infamous for being toxic to horses. Hehe hehehe he wears a ponytail… Hm now that I think of it hairdos have importance for samurais, should look into that.

Toshiro

God. Ok. Everything was leading up to this guy. Need to split open his head like a geode and vibecheck his brain crystals. Let’s get some interesting details out of the way first.

His weapon is a tachi, not a katana. The wikipedia on tachis is more in depth if you want, but I consider the article I linked to be in deoth and digestible. Tachis are heavier and longer blades than katanas, and make for better horseback weapons than close combat. The way Toshiro uses one instead of a katakana shows that he’s extra strong… And does make sense, since most monsters won’t fight in as close quarters as human fighters. If katanas aren’t a thing in the world yet could make a difference, since tachis were invented first, and once the katana was invented and spread tachis became something more common in higher-ranking samurais. In the monster tidbit of the Hag, it’s shown that even at 6 years old Toshiro was training and learning ninja skills, his first instinct to the shikigami besides running being to fight.

Toshiro knew that Izutsumi wanted to leave, for sure. He may have been sympathetic, if his cryptic look back at her in the ‘Toshiro interacting with his party members’ page means anything. As seen below though, him being sympathetic doesn’t necessarily mean that much. Also, Toshiro had to have known about the curse on Izutsumi, where if Maizuru doesn’t touch her once in a while she’d die. "Asebi must have ran away, leave her" can be seen as subtle support for her to gain her freedom, but it could just as easily be seen as him leaving her behind to die. Because the outcome options are 1) she gets killed by Maizuru's curse, 2) she finds a way to break the spell, 3) she finds a way back to them.

He’s very conflict averse. Wether it be in relationships like with Laios or the status quo. Will not stand up for 99% things including himself. He obeys his father quietly despite his anger and dislike. This is the same guy who can't even get himself to speak up to correct the butchering of his name, the slippery slope that got him tangled in the Laios party seemingly without resistance. It’s very japanese etiquette from even nowadays, never saying a direct no to not be rude. ALSO THAT PANEL, has Toshiro beaten an ogre before?? Is that a brother of his?? Does seem in character for Toshiyuki the most, unless Toshiro was desperate to earn his father’s attention with feats. On the right I’d say the ones in the foreground are two of the brothers, maybe the third being the one to gesture to the ogre. It’s worth noting that inheritance laws during the Edo period often made the heir the son with "the most merit".

When with a goal that’s important to him he’s fine with even starving for it. Although what we see him be like that about in canon is Falin, aka self-admittedly in the post-canon proposal comic "the first person he has liked this much", which for him I feel is like admitting she’s one of the first things he has truly wanted for himself and fought for, soo… It’s more like an exceptional freaking out moment than something that would be recurring, most likely. How disheveled he got is a testament to how much he would forego propriety and rules for people of his status for the person he cares about most. Maizuru says the first personal request he’s (ever?) made was for them to help him rescue Falin.

Which ahh yes, his crush on Falin. I do think idealization plays into it, he doesn’t know Falin that well for sure, but it’s more complex than that too. Falin is pretty and can have an ethereal energy to her, she’s caring and gentle kinda motherly which Toshiro would find soothing I imagine, BUT MOST OF ALL. She’s weird!! She’s just weird enough to allow and be charmed by!! Shuro was fully shaped by his upbringing and environment of nobility, social etiquette and whatnot. Yeah she’s weird and quirky, but still quiet and sweet-mannered enough that he’s like "Yes, she wouldn’t bring shame on my family name". And why would he be charmed by her weirdness? Because all he’s ever known is rules!! Conformity, fitting in!! Unlike the others he knows, she is weird without being overbearing as well. "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" She’s like his comfort character. MOREOVERRR I had totally forgotten about it, but Toshiro was shown watching a snail behind a bush and losing sight of everything else (like Maizuru calling him) as a kid in the Hag monster tidbit, the moment he fell in love with Falin it was when she looked enthralled at a caterpillar and he mentions how "most girls would have screamed or recoiled in disgust", and in the beach chibis page he’s crouching and collecting shells thinking about Falin… He likes bugs and crawly critters guys, he wishes he could be cottagecore too… It’s a genuine shared interest… . Someone pointed out that Toshiro & Falin’s relationship probaboy references this japanese folk tale, and I think that’s very interesting to note.

And Maizuru is like his mom but it’s a Thistle situation where they can’t just be a normal family and normal affectionate either- and when he learns about his father having a thing with her he feels weirded out. And like. Who knows how much he even got out of the mansion. He got homeschooled. He’s distant with his brothers. The family is in shambles

Shuro’s issue is that he was taught to be perfect and have the upmost respectable behavior, so if something annoys him he has to be righteous about it and that it’s the annoying thing’s fault or moral failing. Bro just let yourself be petty sometimes it’s healthier. With the feud with his father it’s explicitly stated that the pressure and expectations of the family name weigh on him a lot.

But then, that makes his beef with Laios so understandable doesn’t it. Not justified, but explained certainly.

Laios & Shuro and the whole mess coming to a head

I’ve made an analysis of the Laios-Shuro fight from Laios’ pov before, here. This is the Shuro pov analysis. Yes yes in The Fight, Shuro is dehydrated sleep-deprived and underate, he’s majorly off his rocker, BUT his frustration and the underlying issues are still things he felt on any day and it’s interesting to note.

Toshiro has been raised from his birth with the priority of propriety, nobility, etiquette, rules, conforming elegantly, appareances and reputation are everything. He’s modest, humble, quiet, stays in his lane and bottles all his feelings up. Wait who is this loud guy coming up to me being inconsiderate and loud af?? Does he not see me blinking in morse code that I’m not enjoying this and want him to leave?? Was he raised in a barn?? He’s overbearing and rude and way too friendly- He’s weird wtf! Not conforming to basic etiquette is illegal??! And people just… Let him do whateve he wants?? He lives well, no one stops him or kills him?? What the fuck, I’ve followed rules and etiquette thoroughly all my life, and it’s thankless work I get no recognition for, meanwhile he gets to be oblivious af and do whatever he wants without getting clapped?? Resentment, frustration, dislike, anger anger anger, jealousy.

Laios might even remind Toshuro of his dad in a way, because he SEEMS impulsive and like he does whatever he wants without a care to people around him, without thinking of how it might affect them. Doing things without thinking through the Implications. And interestingly this is a bit paralleled to to how Shuro is serious, strict, and big on the duties that come with having a leader role and the family dynamic it brings, like Laios’ own father, who Laios also dislikes… Dealing with his anger towards Laios, especially knowing that Laios doesn’t mean anything bad by it like Toshiro admits, is probably very healing to him. He stops repressing and thinks through his issues a bit, realizes what parts of his life he’s unhappy with and where all the negative feelings come from. I do think he bottles up his dislike for his father a bit, he has to at least for appearances. His beef with Laios is repackaged internalized anger for his father, but it’s ALSO repackaged frustration from his etiquette-bound lifestyle. He says it himself, when Laios is like "You never told Falin how you feel…? Alright, when I can I’ll tell her for you buddy!!", "that’s the part of you that I envy". Laios’ ability to just come out and say what he wants to, what he means. He wishes he could be free of all the rules more, that he had te courage to speak out, like with Inutade, or talking things out with Maizuru, or nit having to act like he’s not angry with his father. This narrative point of Toshiro envying Laios’ ability to say things freely and being frustrated by not being able to himself is ESPECIALLY examplified by their first interactions, the basis of their relationship: Laios enthusiastically befriending him, giving him a bad nickname and roping him into joining his party, with Toshiro never turning it all down despite wanting to, too hesitant to act possibly rude.

And now is time for the laishuro addendum… Because of personal experiences it’s a bit of a sensitive spot to me so while I see timelines in which I enjoy it I’m very picky… This is all further theorizing from me btw I’m not pushing my view here onto ppl as facts, but I think there’s more interesting bits and scenarios to bite into here. Laishuro has very cute and sweet potential. I personally don’t see the "Oh wait Laios is just girl Falin… 😳" angle because to me if anything that’d just make Shuro disillusioned with Falin lol, but like yes make Shuro learn that it’s ok to be weird with Laios 🥺 They DO have differences first of all, important ones, especially from Toshiro’s perspective. Laios is overwhelming, whereas Falin is soothing. Laios is loud and asks things of him where Falin is a calm, quiet presence. Laios pushes himself onto Toshiro, whereas Falin is content on just doing her own thing in her corner alone.

Hot take but the ultimate laishuro timeline is the one where he DOESN’T bring Laios back home, because he knows he’ll be seen as an oddity and clown by his father, and he doesn’t want Laios to be treated like the tapdancing monkey there to please and entertain his father the way he himself has always kind of been. Wouldn’t inflict that onto someone he loves. He can recognize when people are taken advantage of (mostly) like Inutade, and it doesn’t settle right with him. He might be especially sensitive to it in Inutade’s case because it’s about seeing his dad in a better light than he deserves, though. His father is his weak spot, THE weak spot.

It gets me so emotional thinking about it actually because seeing Laios played like a fiddle by his father, Laios so happy to find someone who’s enthusiastically listening to him ramble and engaging, would destroy Shuro emotionally I think. Like. On one hand being like "Oh of course my dad would find Laios fun, unlike me his boring son", super angry as coping mechanism for his intense sadness of not having positive parental attention, and then on the other he’d see Laios being treated as a clown and identify with it and that would remind him of how he gets treated similarly which he’s in denial about (more or less, but since he puts up with the family rules and follows along he hasn’t given up on getting recognition. He wants his father’s approval, and he couldn’t blame Laios for being happy with it despite how hurtful that attention truly is without Laios’ knowledge), which would be such an overwhelming conflicted mess of emotions and his worldview would shatter a bit because he has to repress it all even now, and he’d have a breakdown.

And similar deal but if he brought Falin home… Bc ok yes he idealizes her and doesn’t even know her all that well, but like I said imo what he sees in her is that "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" So meanwhile with Laios he’d have mixed feelings on him getting treated like a clown and identify with it, bringing Falin home and having her be demeaned would be like having his perfect comfort character dunked on and he gets reminded that the world can’t have anything good actually. With both Toudens it’d make his resentment towards his father even worse, he might snap. I’m not the biggest on gendered analysis tbh but Kui evidently does like to do it to some degree, with the genderbending changing their life considerably and different fantasy cultures having different gender roles and all, but Shuro idealizing the Touden sister as something perfect he cannot attain while being jealous and frustrated at Laios for being something he cannot attain is like. So compelling actually. With Maizuru’s hannya of female rage weaponized there could be a theme of pushing the blame and responsibilities of things onto women too, the responsibility to raise and to manage and to dish out the work and to clean after mens’ reckless decisions. Anyways just a tangent.

Shuro on a bad family angst day is everything I love in a blorbo… He can be a lil shitty as a treat to make his healing arc more fulfilling. Toshiro snapping after he sees how they treat Laios/Falin and he gives up the family headship to LEAVE. Maizuru arc where she has to choose between loyalty to the clan and loyalty to Toshiro, will she stay with the boy she raised or go home… To me Maizuru is much less sympathetic than Shuro, but she is pretty tragic and her selfless love for Shuro is her one redeeming quality. Babygirl take no shit no more, but also better yourself and turn your life around please and thank you… She is so evidently taken advantage of but like. What else does she have? So she just takes care of and loves the boy she raised like her own kid and goes about her daily life in servitude and doesn’t think too much about it all.

Shuro is awful a nickname but also, I think Shiro would be a good nickname for Toshiro, because it gets rid of that ‘Toshi’ first part of his name that all the male members of his family share. It severes the link to his father and the tied pressure from his family.

Laishuro brotp turning slow burn romance would be so lovely. I think college au for laishuro would be peak actually… Shuro so is the repressed "I am so normal" guy who has a furry liberation identity crisis arc… I also quite like the potential he’d have with Namari, as both work-oriented misfit foreigners cast out of their homes, and she’s also bolder so it’d be good for him, and he could bring her stability… That’s a topic for another day tho. Even he and falin are sweet tbh, they could have traveled around together even if just as friends… Bc yeah she does value him as a friend at least somewhat, she says she’ll visit him~! Mostly I want Izutsumi-Toshiro brotp fancontent.

Conclusion

The household is very hierarchy oriented, and honestly the system doesn’t seem to make anyone happy, or at least not healthily so. Sighh feudalism.

Obviously their situation are very different, but still Toshiro and Izutsumi react to the same conflict in opposite ways: when a hierarchy and lifestyle of rules and duty is thrust upon them, Toshiro obeys and believes that it’s how things simply are, always having it been drilled into him since being a baby and being privileged enough to live ok with things as they are, meanwhile Izutsumi rages and eventually breaks free and never wants to submit herself to rules or hierarchy ever again, even if that perceived hierarchy is a mutually beneficial professional party dynamic or having a role inside a well-meaning team, like Laios’ party. WHICH IS WHY THEY SHOULD HANG OUT AND HAVE AN ARC TOGETHER. LET HER INFLUENCE HIM TO GET WILDER AND THINK OF HIMSELF MORE. FUCK INHERITING THE HEADSHIP. THE SIBLINGS NARRATIVE.

As always if I find more stuff to add i’ll edit it in. Rn I’m thinking that I’ll look into ninja & samurai feudal history and try to find specific terms that might fit their roles and situations more. I should reread try to cover Izutsumi’s end of the Toshiro-Izu dynamic as well.

I greatly recommend this paper for more excellent meta on all named Dunmeshi characters and their culture!

Ah yes yes, I forgot to talk about it but we don’t know what Toshiro’s retainers have been doing with their time on The Island, especially while he was dungeon diving with Laios and co. Although in the anime’s ed in this shot we see them "stealthily" follow him around, so presumably when he’s not in dungeons they’re tailing his moves.

Afterword here, it has summary charts about the power structure & relationships and complementary pages and artworks, couldn’t put them in here because SIGH 30 pictures per post limit.

[dearmyloveleys]

*pained screeching* YES i have finally completed the CN -> EN translation for MDZS Chapter 1 based on the latest unlocked version available on jjwxc! Chapter is as linked.

psa:

I am planning to translate all of MDZS based on the unlocked version (fervently wishing myself luck; let's hope mxtx doesn't release her 4th book midway, I will probably have an itch to start translating that). My focus will be narrative flow and cohesion, as many cultural references as possible while maintaining textual accuracy.

Ch1 has a lengthy asf translation note section; Do have a look at it, you may or may not be enlightened

If you see @lovelies-translations posting about the same thing, that's me. It's my dedicated blog for translation works

Which reminds me, please read this blog post of mine as well before starting to read

I've been working on Ch1 for quite some time now. It so happened that mxtx recently unlocked the og on jjwxc, and I've been tweaking my translations to match the updated ver (minor grammar and adjective changes were made from what I can tell)

This is the first time I'm truly sitting down to scrutinise the chinese text. In a sense, I am doing a re-read as I translate. Go on a journey with me (??)

多谢 (many thanks ♡)

[hallowpen]

My lovelies,

If there is ever anything you are unsure about regarding Thai culture (beliefs, customs, values, etc.), interviews/posts in Thai that have not been translated to your language, checking the accuracy of certain things that have been subbed or translated by a source whose native language is not Thai (or even if the native speaker is Thai but does not have a firm grasp on the English language. You'd be surprised -or not- that a lot of the subtitles you read in a series are actually not what's being said at all hehe), or any other general questions about Thailand... Please do not hesitate to ask me for clarification. If it is something that I have knowledge of and can help with, I genuinely don't mind AND if it's something I am unsure about, I'll be very clear about that and do my best to point you in the direction of a source that might have a better understanding.

Obviously, there are limits... and I do ask you to be respectful of my time. I'm not going to translate super long interviews or passages word for word (even more so if it is something I would otherwise not have an interest in), but I can give you a general idea of what's being said if I have seen/read them. In terms of dramas, I don't follow a lot of Thai series or actors... but if you've been following me or are aware of my interests then you probably know what it is I will sit through hehe (i.e. anything GL related, everything FreenBecky or BounPrem, The Sign and/or IDOLFactory news)

I'd just really like to avoid the spreading of misinformation as fact, which has been happening pretty frequently. Even something as simple as tone in language can lead to a big misunderstanding, so it's important to know the difference.

That is all! Please feel free to reach out ❤️❤️❤️

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

In the manga version of Twisted Wonderland, it seems odd that the characters speak in Japanese but can't pronounce Enma Yuuken's name correctly. For instance, when Yuuken first met Ace and Deuce, they had trouble pronouncing his name even though they were speaking Japanese. I also wonder whether English exists in Twisted Wonderland. I am quite sure that English exists, but I don't know for sure. What do you think?

Well, remember: just because the characters’ dialogue is written in Japanese or English for us, the viewers, does not mean that the characters in-universe are communicating in Japanese or English. The language is most likely written this way for ease of understanding outside the meta of the story. Writing dialogue and speaking in a made-up language for accuracy’s sake would mean no audience member can understand what is going on.

How do we know this? Well, Enma-kun’s name is very obviously Japanese but the Twisted Wonderland characters have very non-Japanese names and do not seem familiar with his culture. Yet somehow they know perfect Japanese and speak to him in it without any issues??? But simultaneously Japanese food (Floyd’s favorite food is takoyaki) exists in Twisted Wonderland and no one has issues with knowing what it is or how it is said? And then in the light novel, Yuuya wonders if he is actually speaking Japanese, because even though he appears to be speaking and hearing his native language, he notices that the mouths of those he speaks with do not “match up” with Japanese. That just doesn’t make sense.

The light novel tries to alleviate this discrepancy by telling us that there is a “translation spell” placed over the school, so that is probably the magic that is letting them communicate in spite of a potential language barrier in-universe. However, there are also instances when Yuu travels off campus (which has yet to be officially depicted in the manga or light novel), such as hometown events or even book 6. In these cases, there are still no communication issues noted despite NRC’s translation spell no longer being present. I think this continuity error exists because there’s just a certain level of suspension of disbelief the audience has to have without thinking about the complexities of how novel language in another world works; very few isekai go to the trouble of completely developing a new fantasy language.

I’ve mentioned this before a number of times but I will reiterate here: I’m sure that Twisted Wonderland must have its equivalents to our languages in some capacity . For example, Rook speaks bursts of French and the citizens of the City of Flowers/Fleur City also speak French. The language, however, is never referred to as “French” (since “France” does not exist in Twisted Wonderland); in fact, it is given no name at all. There are many other borrowed words which would imply the existence of TWST language equivalents. Takoyaki exists so there must be a twisted Japanese language. Based on this logic, there must be a twisted English too. The Queendom of Roses is often equated to Britain, so perhaps that’s where “English” is spoken—though it could also be a more common tongue too.

TWST also has its own languages that don’t exist in our world. These are mostly different kinds of fae languages, such as the tinkering bell sounds of pixies or the animalistic snarls and grunts of nocturnal fae. There’s quite a spread here!

[pikahlua]

I hope this will be short.

I guess this line is the fandom drama of the chapter?

I understand a lot of you are really passionate about the accuracy of the English translation. I just want to encourage you to try to engage with the official translation in good faith.

Ojama shimasu literally means "I am disturbing you/I will get in your way." It's often spoken as a greeting where the "apology" is implied (hence the brackets in my translation), but as usual context is everything in Japanese. Izuku is saying this line in defiance of Tomura's wishes. It basically comes across as Izuku plugging his fingers in his ears.

Me personally? If I were the official translator, I'd have strongly considered translating the line as "I'm coming in whether you like it or not."

The purpose in my pointing out the "common greeting" nature of this line was to demonstrate Izuku's sassiness. This is Izuku doing his "meddling where you don't technically have to" thing. The level of formality in Izuku's speech doesn't necessarily translate to actual politeness (check out @bakuhatsufallinlove's excellent post on that here).

Does "You will let me in," mean the exact same thing? Technically no, but it's the sentiment that counts. From an official translator's point of view, "You will let me in," is shorter, punchier, fits in the speech bubble a lot easier, and still conveys the general idea of what's happening in the scene.

I don't know. I wanted to talk about this because I guess a lot of people are concerned about Izuku's characterization and how it reflects on Japanese culture and how the official translation may be misrepresenting Japanese culture to the English-reading audience, and I just...can I ask that everyone take a step back a minute? Horikoshi isn't writing his story for an English-reading audience. He's not considering at all how any of this sounds to English speakers. That's the translator's job, not just to translate what is said but to translate that into the context of who is reading it. Localization is not a dirty word--it's an important aspect of translation. And the notion that Izuku is being polite and respectful here as a Japanese person is just such a...take. Izuku is being hella rude here lol. Japan itself, not just the MHA Japan but REAL WORLD Japan, notoriously has a bystander problem where people will ignore others who are being harassed because they don't wanna get involved. They won't step in to help nor will they even testify as a witness against others for fear of what it means to speak out and break from the pack. Izuku is quite obviously Horikoshi's direct answer to that phenomenon. He's meant to be an example of the morally correct thing to do, which is to be "rude" in these cases.

So I mean, sure, we can talk about what is lost in translation by the line, "You will let me in." But to me what's lost may just be grammatical and pedantic (like the passive voice that switches the onus of action onto Tomura instead of Izuku and what that may do to the focus on Izuku's rise to action here). In any case, it's not a BAD translation that changes Izuku's perceived politeness, just one that may prompt new discussion--and I don't think that's a bad thing.

[transcriptioncity]

The Importance of Chinese Transcription Services - A Gateway to Accessibility and Global Connection

Chinese transcription services play a crucial role in modern communication. These services bridge communication gaps and foster international connections. By converting spoken Mandarin or Cantonese into written text, they make information accessible to a wider audience. Transcription services facilitate understanding between diverse linguistic communities. In business, this means smoother…

[lovelies-translations]

MDZS Chapter 1 EN Translation ✨by me✨

This has been a long time coming! I aim to translate all of MDZS from the latest unlocked 2024 version on JJWXC. My focus will be narrative flow and cohesion, as many cultural references as possible while maintaining textual accuracy.

Do also have a scan through my lengthy translation notes (that killed me to write more than translating): You may find new and interesting information about the text! (Or not)

Thank you to @uhcasual for beta reading and giving feedback~

Chapter 1: Rebirth | 重生 (Part 1):

translation disclaimer | MDZS chapter masterlist | blog intro | danmei yapping blog @dearmyloveleys

[dark-frosted-heart]

Roger Barel Main Route - Chapter 13 His POV

As usual, can’t guarantee 100% accuracy on this. I’m doing this for archiving purposes and you can probably find a better translation out there.

(He wanted to eat the person he liked…?)

In this case it wasn’t a euphemism for love, but literally that dead man’s intent.

Roger: —Could it be that…

His cursed sin is…cannibalism?

(I’ve never Cursed One with cannibalistic urges. There’s no past data. But…)

But when you think about everything that happened—It all made sense.

(That guy…was really Cursed)

He didn’t know he was Cursed and didn’t know that his urges were from his cursed fate. He died blaming himself.

(Ah, it happened “again”. I…led another innocent “Cursed One” to their death…”again”.

Roger: “‘Cursed One’s’ tragic fate can’t be altered. In the past, there have been no exceptions.”

That’s so true, it makes me laugh.

Kate: Um, Roger…

???: Hey, hey. A man dressed in all white with a nice smile and parted bangs just told me something.

You were talking about the murder from last night.

(...?)

I turned around and saw a stranger leaning against the counter with a smile.

Kate: And you are…

Nicholas the novelist: Just some insignificant novelist called Nicholas. And these are…

Michael the playwright: Michael, a playwright.

Joanna the caricaturist: Joanna, a caricaturist.

Barkeep: Ah, these three are people of culture who are regulars here. They like to stick their noses in other people’s business.

Nicholas the novelist: We have to! We’re always looking for inspiration for our works.

Man tries to eat a girl with red hair. It’s like the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood.

Joanna the caricaturist: Don’t lump this together with a childish fairytale like Little Red Riding Hood. It’s an insult to a sensational incident.

Michael the playwright: A bloodstained girl and a man standing over her in shock. Aha, I have an idea!

(...Ah, I see…these guys…)

The reason why they came to be known as “Fairytale Curses” is because of novelists, playwrights, and the like who created works based on existing “Cursed Ones”.

But nowadays, the relationship’s been reversed and they’re referred to as “Fairytale Curse”.

My curse is the Double-Crossing Hunter.

Elbert’s the Greedy Queen, Alfons the Mirror.

The reason for these names must have come from Cursed Ones that lived before us.

Tonight, another fairytale would be born from a Cursed One.

(I know people are free to create what they want and no one can fault them for that)

(—However)

Michael the playwright: I hope more tragic incidents happen. That way I can create the best stage performances!

Nicholas the novelist: More material for our works! Haha, just kidding!

Next thing I knew I was slamming my mug down on the table as if to cut their laughter off.

Roger: They didn’t die to be a spectacle for you lot.

Michael the playwright: Ah, erm…

Nicholas the novelist: Um…We didn’t mean to make fun of people’s deaths.

Joanna the caricaturist: That’s right. Just having jokes at a bar.

I heard voices repeatedly try to defend themselves within my distant consciousness.

I was already well aware that the “sinfulness” of “Cursed Ones” couldn’t be understood.

That’s why they’re “curses”.

Roger: —Just kidding.

Michael the playwright: …Huh?

Roger: You were starving for stimulation, so I thought I’d surprise you.

Michael the playwright: …Wha

What the heck! You scared me!

Roger: Ahaha, sorry.

Michael the playwright: That performance was so real. Want to join my troupe?

Nicholas the novelist: You can scout later. Let’s have a drink as thanks for surprising us!

Roger: Yeah, sure.

They’ll never know what we “Cursed Ones” mourn over or what’s fated ends are.

So I just pretended that nothing happened. This “acceptance” was a technique I took up to get by in this world.

—However, there was one person beside me that didn’t agree with this acceptance.

Kate: Roger…

There was a hint of anger in Kate’s voice and disapproval in her eyes. 

(...Kate, you’re too nice. You’re the only one willing to stand with the Cursed)

Kate was a kind person and now held feelings for the Cursed, Crown included.

That’s why there wasn’t a need to feel worried or hurt anymore.

Roger: Hmm?

I downed my beer and ruffled her hair like usual.

Kate: Stop…

Roger: We heard what happened. The investigations’s over so there’s no point in digging any deeper.

Kate: I don’t think that’s how you truly feel.

(—Yeah, you’re right, Kate. It’s not…how I truly feel)

When Kate wasn’t looking, I went outside. The rain poured down relentlessly, but I didn’t care.

Alone, pitch-black despair that I’d been holding back starts creeping up from beneath my feet.

(If we told Lance “you’re a Cursed One” back then, would things have changed?)

I could imagine all the what-ifs I wanted, but the dead never return.

~~

My dear little friend, you will no doubt encounter despair in the future. However, don’t let yourself be defeated.

~~

I remembered the words of a dead friend, words that I’ve repeated over and over.

(...I’ll be fine. I won’t let despair consume me)

(I’m strong, I won’t be defeated, I won’t be lonely, I won’t let my soul rot, and…I’ll fulfill my ambition)

(That’s why I’ll be fine. …I’ll get back up and continue like nothing’s happened)

(I still don’t know if there’s a shadow watching over me)

And that its existence will save me.

Next

[queer-ragnelle]

hi I was wondering what your opinion is on how to deal with anachronisms in arthurian legend. so many stories include jousting—which didn't exist in early medieval wales. which historic kingdoms do you chose to include, and from which period, and what if two kingdoms sound really cool and you really want to mention them both but one existed in england circa 500ad and one existed around the norman conquest? thank you!

Hey!

I could've sworn I answered this before but I must've been thinking of a conversation in my writing group. Anyway the short answer is:

Do whatever you want! Anachronism is a feature not a bug! Harness it!

The fact is, all of Arthurian Legend is anachronistic and it's great. We don't even have concrete proof that Arthur, as we understand him, existed. We don't have written sources from the era Arthur supposedly lived in, only artifacts. There are some sporadic texts throughout the early Medieval period which mention Arthur, then the majority of what we understand as part of the Legend began with the work of 12th century authors. When Chrétien de Troyes was writing his stories, he depicted the world he lived in. The same goes for Marie of France and Wirnt von Grafenburg and Sir Thomas Malory and of course the many many Anonymous authors throughout the entire Middle Ages. They wrote about knights as they, personally, perceived them, as if the Saxon conflict took place in the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, etc centuries. After that, modern authors did similarly, while keeping the setting Medieval.

I have found that reading the forewords, author's notes, and letters of modern writers tackling this same dilemma has helped me tremendously. I have a deep respect and admiration for John Steinbeck, both his The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights and his other novels captivated me, so I cherish his philosophy regarding the creative process. In letter to his editor, he wrote:

He gets it!! Everyone is writing for their audience. Themselves, too, but with special attention to the current era and what that looks like.

When it comes to the nitty gritty stuff, you'll drive yourself crazy if you focus too much on what's "possible." Now Persia Woolley and I have our creative differences, but in her author's note at the start of book 1, Child of the Northern Spring, she wrote:

This makes a lot of sense to me. She has adopted a similar method as J. R. R. Tolkien did regarding the stories "coming out of Middle Earth." No, a Hobbit may not have called the circular green thing covering the entrance/exit to his home "a door," but that is the name of the object as the reader understands it, so that is what the author or "translator" has decided to call it.

In the end, you'll just have to sit down and make decisions. If you intend to use the names as they were in the era Arthur lived, it'll be more historically accurate, but unless you also provide a map and name key as Edward Frankland did in Arthur The Bear of Britain, you risk confusing your readers who only comprehend these locations in their Modern form. On the other hand, if you use exclusively Modern names, there's a chance it could break the immersion of your readers who perceive the story as Medieval.

I personally like to have of Medieval and Modern terms as well as technologies and cultural aspects. The fact is that we simply don't know enough about history to ever be 100% accurate about anything, so breath easier and offer yourself some allowances. I haven't scanned this book yet, but in the author's note of Phyllis Ann Karr's The Follies of Sir Harald, she wrote:

This is especially funny considering I don't recall any mention of a specific year to which the "historical accuracies" could be compared, but I assume she means the 12th century, when Chrétien de Troyes lived.

It comes down to what sort of story you want to write. Is it going to be Historical Fiction as Edward Frankland, Persia Woolley, and Bernard Cornwell wrote? Or will it be more loosely "Medieval" such as Cherith Baldry, John Steinbeck, and Phyllis Ann Karr wrote?

It really comes down to your own point of interest which kingdoms you include. I generally tried to stay accurate to the 4th-6th century, a huge 2 century window, which gave me enough wiggle room to pick and choose some names that made clear what I was talking about. Most if not all ports and islands retained modern names for ease of comprehension: Beirut, Isle of Wight, Mainland Orkney, and even Drake's Island, which is named for Sir Francis Drake, who wasn't born until the 16th Century, simply because its older name, St. Michael from the 12th Century, was not only too recent to be "accurate" anyway, but may have caused confusion with the giant of Mont St. Michael, which was of more importance to me than the impossible accuracy of landmasses in the Plymouth Sound. I did away with wooden longhouses in favor of stone castles; some I "built" on top of abandoned Roman forts that can still be visited today, others I invented completely from scratch, each brick and syllable original to my work. Many aspects called for improvision, so I did the best I could to make it all appear cohesive, even if historically those names or practices or fashions or whatever weren't actually as synchronized as my writing would have you believe.

This applies to characters too.

I refer to the main character as Gawain, although he claims it derives from the older name Gwalchmai. Other Mabinogion characters retain their Welsh names, such as Owain, Morfydd, and Bedwyr. Yet others take after their French names, such as Kay, Perceval, and Mordred. I even sometimes use both names, such as with Welsh Cynon/French Calogrenant, who was named the former at birth and referred to as such by Morfydd, but then Christened as the latter, which is what the majority of the cast call him. The Vulgate gives Yvain, son of Urien and Morgan le Fay, a bastard half brother called Yvain the Bastard. Because I had already changed the first character's name to Owain, so too has his brother's name been changed to Owain, as well as introducing a moniker of his own to more clearly identify him as a separate character without constantly referring to him as a bastard. They are from Rheged, but Owain the Bastard is known as FitzEden, as he was born in his mother's house near the Eden River. If you look it up, Rheged/Cumbria are the same general area, so I've linked the character to it through a name I made up for him. Owain FitzEden he now is. Did people use the term "Fitz" in the 5th century? No, they didn't have surnames. Was the river called Eden at the time? Probably not. But I did it anyway because I'm not writing in the 5th century, I'm writing now, for you, for me! And because I like the character enough to "bend the rules." It's not like historical Owain mab Urien had a pet lion, anyway!

It doesn't matter if these characters have "era appropriate" names or come from locations which didn't exist until recently. Say Lancelot is from Brittany or Less Britain or Gaul or France or Benwick or the Lake Kingdom, who cares! I've seen them all in one book or movie or another and they all register the same to me: Across the channel. Foreign. A new guy.

I had to do all of this twice, once for Medieval Britain and again for Medieval Persia. So trust me when I say it's time consuming. You're going to take a lot of notes for your own reference that your readers will never see but will help you keep an internal consistency once you decide what kingdoms and names to keep and what to avoid. The key is to stay accurate within your own world. Even if two kingdoms didn't exist at the same time, if you want to include them, do so, but then you have to follow through with that. Your readers will figure it out so long as you avoid giving the same area too many different names or accidentally changing a location's name between scenes. Locals may call their village something the outsiders don't, that's cool for worldbuilding, but every time you do it, you're making a bid on your reader's ability to hold all that information. So do so sparingly and with good reason.

Reading helps a lot. All the books I've mentioned do a good job of this and would be useful tools for understanding what your preferences are and what the vibe of your story will be. I hope that answers your question and gives you a bunch to think about! Take care. :^)

[hikaruchen]

Reading this blog and procrastinating what I should’ve been doing at the moment, but it’s super helpful if you want to know more about the Anglo-Saxon and Viking material culture but don’t want to be bored to hell. All articles are done by an archaeologist specializing in mortuary archaeology, and he has already written several ones about burials and pagan practices during that time through the lens of The Last Kingdom. I’ve linked one of his posts before on ao3 when discussing about the historical accuracy of Alfred’s tomb effigy in the show under the pic Prayer from the Pagan, but didn’t really had the time to check others out. I just did it and find his other articles are actually super interesting to read as well.

For instance, back when I post this pic in January I said the colour palette was inspired by the Alfred jewel, but I completely forgot that it actually appeared in the show (2x04) where Alfred handed it to Æthelwold and said “Take this. It is a symbol of my kingship. Bear it with authority.”, which might be partially true but is hilarious if you give it another thought.

Because, why, in God’s name, would Alfred hand an ARTEFACT version of the piece he commissioned himself to his nephew? As Prof. Williams already stated (in this post), the Alfred jewel has long been assumed to be the handle part of a pointer stick for following words when reading a book, and if you look at the artefact itself it is quite clear that there’s a part that’s been missing as well. The reason why scholars think it has something to do with Alfred is because:

1) It’s written. The text on the frame literally says that “ÆLFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN”, which means “Alfred ordered me made”. The more detailed explanation below (with the help of beloved wikitionary since I don’t understand Old English at all)

ÆLFRED (subject) Alfred, obviously MEC (object) me; accusative of iċ (I), but in the West Saxon dialect it’s actually an uncommon version of iċ’s accusative and is more often seen in the Anglian dialect. The frequently-used version for West Saxons is mē HEHT (verb) ordered; third-singular past tense for hātan (to call; to order etc.), often followed with infinitive verbs, cognate with heißen in German GEWYRCAN (verb) to make; I honestly don’t know if “to make” and “to be made” is just the same word in OE help And since the word order in OE is random as hell thanks to the case system (much like German which I eventually gave up learning because I don’t have a brain big enough for that. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO A NATIVE MANDARIN SPEAKER THANK YOU), it is eventually translated into “Alfred ordered me to be made”.

2) It was discovered in Somerset and has been dated to the late 9th century, and we all know what Somerset meant to Alfred

3) Alfred did say he would send a copy of his translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care to every episcopal see in his kingdom in the preface to it, with the book accompanied “an æstel of 50 mancuses”. Mancus was a term to denote a gold coin or a unit for coins worth about a month’s wage for a skilled worker, such as a craftsman or a soldier. Whatever that æstel is it must be worth hell LOTS of money

But honestly while I do think this interpretation sounds very much plausible I’m thinking about other possibilities as well - how many Alfreds exactly existed during his time? We know that Æthel in OE means noble, so people bearing this prefix in their names were usually royal members or at least aristocrats, but what about Alfred? Was Alfred a popular name? Or was it unique enough that he could just go by this name without mentioning his title at all? Imagine if it were an Æthelred who made this, who the hell would know which one of these it was referring to, Æthelred the King, Æthelred the Ealdorman, Æthelred Ealhswith’s father, or even Æthelred the fucking Archbishop??? And yeah, I know Alfred was the king ™ here and there isn’t really much space left on the frame after all, but surely it wouldn’t cost a bone to add a cyning behind his name, right?

Sadly, as it was in the pre-Domesday-Book era, I can’t find the statistics of Anglo-Saxon names at that time (but keep in mind that there were at least 19 Alfreds worthy enough to be mentioned in Domesday Book even after the conquest. I don’t know if this says anything at all but I do want to mention it) What I’m trying to say is while it is highly highly highly likely (and I do believe and want to believe in this theory!), we cannot be one hundred percent certain that this jewel was really from the Alfred we’re talking about. And even if it was, it apparently wouldn’t be carried around by Alfred like THAT. Because that would be like, “Bear this with authority! Even though the symbol of my kingship is broken!”, said Alfred to a king wannabe. Lol.

The other thing I want to mention is this post about the show’s use of Fuller brooch, the one Alfred wore in S2 when he was in his war gear.

First of all, it is indeed dated to late 9th century and is assumed by scholars to be made by metalworkers of Alfred’s court. Everything is fine except I don’t think you would want to wear jewelry that luxurious to war…but then there’s this thing:

MEET GIANT FULLERS!

Well, can’t blame them since I am basically doing the same thing with my drawings (i.e. using patterns on jewelry and illustrations from manuscripts for embroidery design). But it’s worth noting that designs that are suitable for one art form doesn’t mean they can be applied to another well, and that’s why I claim my art is inspired by Anglo-Saxon art but NOT historical accurate for the Anglo-Saxon period. The reason I still do this and think it is understandable for TLK crew to do so is because we simply don’t have that many resources to reference from when it comes to this time period, and fabrics and wooden buildings are just extremely hard to preserve by nature. Instead of screwing up the design on your own, it just has more fun to add real historical elements into your work. Look at those easter eggs!

Ok, that’s it. I hope you enjoy my long rant and have a good read from Prof. Williams’s works!

[fandomtrumpshate]

Fan labor testimonials - share your story!

Although we here at the auction are huge fan labor enthusiasts, we've realized over the years that a lot of folks in fandom aren't aware of this amazing vein of fandom culture they're missing out on. And -- once again -- we're hoping to do our part to change that!

What is fan labor?

Fan labor includes beta-reading, translation, britpicking (or medical-picking, or other kind of expert-knowledge-type reading for accuracy), and other kinds of revision guidance that help a writer to revise or improve their story. The input of fan laborers can vastly improve the fanwork you're working on -- but beyond that, it can help you clarify your goals or your style or your understanding of canon in ways that help you with future fanworks, too.

OK, but how much difference does it make, really?

Seriously? LOTS. And you don’t have to take our word for it: lots of folks in fandom have benefited hugely from working with fan laborers, and – we hope – will be happy to tell you about it!

I’ve relied on/done fan labor, and it was amazing! Can I tell you about it?

Yes, please! If you are a fan laborer who has a story about helping writers, or a creator who has benefited from the help of others, whether or not it was through FTH, please reblog this post and share your story!

[eyeodyssey]

MOON AGE 15 : DAMNATION (English Translation) Moon Age 15: Damnation is a 1988 short comic by pseudonymous author Not Osada, who openly drew influence from the Tokyo Grand Guignol's work in such a way that can arguably give a loose insight to the TGG's mysteriously anomalous works. While only a slight window into what could've existed in Ameya's vision, each contemporary rendering of his world of gore-soaked medical equipment and rusted metal is valuable in what it represents. As mentioned in my prior Litchi essay, the fragments of the Tokyo Grand Guignol we have now are descendants of a cultural phantom, standing as shrouded windows to a strange intangible stage that's positioned somewhere between post-Maruo inferno, industrial subculture and decadent poetry. While Osada’s manga featured notably grizzly and cruelly morbid scenarios, his stories were made explicitly for the shoujo market with a distinctly shoujo-influenced art style. Characters appear almost doll-like with their visual perfections, all while they’re often dismantled and reassembled in bizarre surgical practices by sadistic doctors. Much like how Zera expresses horror to seeing his own imperfect organs in contrast with his youthful appearance, our pristine victims share the same internals as any other slaughtered cadaver, all in a maddening spiral of narratives that contemporary readers often described as resembling descents to insanity. This fixation of the contrast between perceived beauty and grotesqueness is arguably traced back to the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s own works, with lines accentuating the youthful features of certain characters while audience members were known to fondly look back on the actors’ appearances. Litchi himself was described as being a “cute” robot despite the violence it was programed to carry out. It’s possible that this collision is inherent to Ameya’s conceptual destruction of the TGG. A known detractor to poetic writing, he called on a romantic author to pen the screenplays to the TGG’s first three plays so he could “destroy” them in his direction. The use of beauty could arguably be a mockery of it, taking these idealized dolls and leaving them trapped in worlds of fascism and hospital rooms that are haunted by the stinging stench of antiseptics and blood. Plastic hospital drapes were used in place of stage curtains and autopsy films were shown to the wide-eyed characters, who spoke of pure blood and dirty blood, the antithesis of blood, mercuro. What is beauty a representation of in the Grand Guignol’s works with the prominent fascist leanings of the protagonists? Considering the perspectives of our characters where the Hikari Club and the deranged teachers and Nazi doctors are treated as protagonists rather than explicit antagonists, the plays could arguably be read as the decay of a self-convinced beauty under fascist rule. Songs of the pure-blooded ubermensch fading into silence as the singers all collapse, lost in their own delirium as they pump mercurochrome into their hearts and try to rationalize their own organs that resemble the internals of the so-called ‘landraces’ they rendered into lifeless meat. It’s the natural conclusion of fascism, a collapse that occurs in demented violence to the face of a denial of death. I was originally split on publicizing my translation due to copyright-related complications, but after seeing the increasing gatekeeping of TGG materials at the hands of a rapidly growing market riddled with competitive spending and scalping, I feel obliged to share it to the public who (like myself) can’t afford to spend the now literal hundreds that are required to access angura ephemera that was meant to be openly available to the public to begin with. When originally finding this story, the book it was featured in was only 5 dollars. Now it goes for 60 to 200. That's ridiculous. With all the preamble out of the way, the story is under the cut...

While I made my best effort to maintain accuracy to the source material in translation despite my practically nonexistent understanding of Japanese (my translation method is a Frankensteining of language learning videos, a Japanese to English dictionary from the Internet Archive and Google Translate with a lot of localizing and dissection in between), there are several details I feel I should note for the sake of transparency. One smaller one was the inclusion of the term l * lita. It was in the original text, and I was honestly very unsure of including it in my translation as it’s a term I’m personally icked out by. While I was ultimately recommended to keep the line as is for accuracy, I wish to state that it's a term I'm personally very uncomfortable with in what it represents. The other note, which is the more prominent one in the final product, are the references to The Last Attempt at Paradise. In the original text the club members solely refer to their hideout as paradise and Eden, leaving a lot of excess space in the speech bubbles after translation when making the shift from Japanese text to English. The Last Attempt at Paradise was the name of S.P.K.’s 1982 live album that documents their set at the Off the Wall Hall venue in Lawrence, Kansas. Often considered one of their best concerts and a highlight of the industrial genre, the S.P.K. Appreciation Society of Sydney in their All The Way With S.P.K. / American Tour article describes the concert as being the group's “best performance to date”, further adding that they “Flattened (an) enthusiastic audience with massive P.A. amplification of FX bass regeneration”. This insertion wasn’t done at random, as the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s works were heavily engrained in the original industrial scene of the 80s. Both the 1985 and 1986 performances of Litchi began on a playback of the S.P.K. song Culturcide (from their 1983 Dekompositiones EP), and it was likely that use of the track that led to Not Osada’s early fixation on S.P.K.’s music. At the end of Blind Beast, in a sort of reader Q&A Osada is questioned about some of his favorite music. At the top of the list he features the tracklist of the Dekompositiones EP and the track Mekano from their 1979 Mekano / Contact / Slogun single. Interestingly enough he states that he only likes those four songs from the band, following the text with laughter in regards to their remaining discography. I’m unsure if this means he was unimpressed with their noisier work (which would be curious knowing his liking of Mekano with how it originated from their earliest noise-adjacent album) or if he was directed to their later Machine Age Voodoo material and was alienated by it. In the same Q&A he also mentions the band Funeral Party, who featured specially commissioned art by Suehiro Maruo on their Dream of Embryo single. It's apparent that he also had a copy of the compilation album Vision Of The Emortion, as the list also includes C·C·Mekka and Ego'n Mole, who were both featured in the album alongside Funeral Party's only two other documented tracks, Das Sunde and Gears - Night. S.P.K. references are sprinkled throughout this story along with Osada's other Litchi-adjacent entries. Aside from one of Zera's henchmen being named after the Mekano track, it's very likely that the frequent references to Eden are in homage to the lyrics of Mekano. The first lines of the track include the verses "One by one, odd to even. Break the scenes, rudely eden...".

Moon Age 15 was originally printed in 1988 as a two-part miniseries in the horror magazine Complete Collection of Horror and Occult Works - HELP, namely in volumes 5 and 6. While being an early work that derived from the TGG, it still wasn’t the first comic to adapt the Litchi stage play, with Das Blut : Blood and Eternal Girl preceding it with their 1986 publication in Osada’s debut anthology Night Reading Room, sharing the same year as the TGG’s early closure following creative conflicts between Norimizu Ameya and K Tagane (the group's author, who remains anonymous to this day). It’s to be noted however that while Das Blut and Eternal Girl were the first stories to feature the Hikari Club as antagonists, they are only tangentially related with Moon Age showing more distinct Grand Guignol archetypes (musings of the full moon, examinations of the Hikari club’s misogyny, idealization of technology, and even an early rendition of the Litchi robot itself). First kept solely as a brief serial, Moon Age was later reprinted in abridged form as a short story in the 1996 Blind Beast anthology. While copies of HELP are notably hard to find and demand high prices, I was given an in depth view of both volumes that featured Moon Age’s serialization by a collector earlier last year. While the drawings are still the same on a rudimentary level, the length of the serialized version is notably longer than the later Blind Beast variant, with the HELP serialization being over 40 pages while Blind Beast’s is only 24. This was the product of the manga being entirely revised for Blind Beast’s print, with the layouts being drastically altered along with basic revisions of the line art. Certain scenes that would usually take 2 to 3 pages in the HELP version were condensed to 1, resulting in a unique tradeoff where one version feels unusually spacious in its framing while the other is heavily condensed and almost chaotic by comparison. It’s only a thing that springs on you once you compare the two variants, I saw the revised version first and originally didn’t pay any mind to it. One thing that is certain is the polishing of the art. The brush work in the Blind Beast version is refined with a more elaborate sense of weight and flow while the HELP version is notably rough with the prominent use of rudimentary screentones. It reflects as a somewhat rougher variant of the art shown in Night Reading Room. It feels strangely digital, like it’s the product of early computer art. The line-by-line reuse of the decapitation scene from Eternal Girl being shown on the TVs further adds to the strange digital feel of the art style.

Similar to Moon Age, Osada's other stories of the Hikari Club featured the members luring girls to their brutal deaths. In Eternal Girl the members bring in a student and film her mutilation for a snuff film that acts as the story's namesake, in Das Blut they corner another student to the woods where they hang her, and in Jinta Jinta they kidnap a student who bullied one of her classmates to suicide before trepanning her with a strange device that's somewhere between an electric chair and a drill. Not Osada was very recently namedropped in the concluding essay of an English print of Kawashima Norikazu’s Her Frankenstein under the alternate Nagata Nooto anglicization of Osada’s pseudonym. Their name is a curious case as while there is a prominent written variant (長田ノオト), it’s seen numerous English iterations. In Osada’s own English signatures it is written as Not Osada (with the name apparently being derived from a German phrase), but other variants include Osada Nohto, Osada Nooto and Not Nagata. If I'm not mistaken, it could count as one of the first English acknowledgements of Osada's works in print.