#one of the reasons I will never be against fan-scanlations

[lupizora]

Since I finished my yearly re-read of the Tantei Gakuen Q/Detective Academy Q manga, I guess it's time I finally started reading the Kindaichi series after all this time 🤔

[meimi-haneoka]

(the asker from before) Thank you for the notes. that is really weird though, what is so wrong with "wakarazuya", unless its a bad word there shouldnt be any reason it can't be translated close enough in ENG? yeah, before too i meant, there are fan commentaries with small translations and people post them to different groups (+Facebook?). i can't translate good but i've never heard of something like this happening before with CLAMP? I dont agree on every view on Kaito too but, yeah it's weird...

"there are fan commentaries with small translations"

Can you make a clear example of that? Like, what exactly they translate?

Are they in English or other languages?

I avoid by now all fandom spaces, so I've never seen these kind of posts, but I remember that (when I used to stroll around more) I had seen an FB group making their own scanlations in Latin American Spanish (not Spanish from Spain, basically, which is the official translation CLAMP is uploading on their Youtube channel).

It wasn't exactly great, that's not legal and all, but someone explained to me that the two Spanish languages are different, so....I guess it made sense that the group was doing that.

There was just a tiny problem...that group used the English translation as a base, therefore passing all the mistakes into their own scanlation 🙈That was...so frustrating to see. Because fans were doing this to feel more comfortable reading the chapters in their own language, but inherited all the translation mistakes from a version they thought was legit and official, but actually was very flawed. I remember I was so frustrated to see that happening.

Anyway, back to us.

what is so wrong with "wakarazuya", unless its a bad word there shouldnt be any reason it can't be translated close enough in ENG?

Hmmm, "wakarazuya" isn't a bad word, indeed.

If your question is "why did the ENG translation mess that up?", unfortunately I cannot give a definite answer, but I can try to infer it from what I've seen in the past....3 years? Yeah, ever since I started paying attention to the English translation.

First of all, some mistakes are purely for carelessness.

Some of the mistakes they make are so basic level (they misunderstand one word for another, or make typos, etc) that I really believe a simple check would already fix many of those.

Then, this translation seems to have a bias against the new characters.

I don't know why, but they seem to believe that if they make these new characters sound more arrogant (or bearing more negative feelings than necessary), they'll be more interesting.

Kaito in particular, as you well know, is quite an arrogant character in the ENG translation (all that unnecessary use of "kid", "child" in a dismissive tone when he's talking with Syaoran is really unsufferable to see...none of that is present in the JP version and he actually seems to hold lots of respect for Syaoran from the way he talks about him). I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this biased translation might have contributed to make him be hated more than necessary by the international fandom. I don't mean that he's an angel in the original JP, japanese fans are quite irritated with him as well, but there's also a component of benevolence in that irritation, it's more like "why are you acting this way? Instead of trying to reach happiness for yourself too?". It's like they're scolding a mischievous child, literally. Lately they have started to call him 赤ちゃん, "baby", because he's totally immature.

I can't count how many JP fans I've seen along the years getting angry at Kaito, but also wishing him to be happy.

This, instead, very rarely happened with international fans. I see more pure, genuine hate towards him.

But I digress.

Momo, in some scenes, suffers from the same bias too.

She sounds more nasty towards Kaito than necessary. Once (chapter 43) they've put a "You fool!" in her mouth, while she was talking to Kaito, that she absolutely didn't say in the original. It might be a small irrelevant thing, but added to all the rest, it contributed to paint a picture that simply isn't corresponding to the truth. That's why for long, long time, many fans abroad didn't even realize that Momo truly cared about Kaito in her own way.

Now, onto our wakarazuya, this is a word that indicates someone who, no matter how much you try to convince them, won't listen to reason. They're impossibly fixated over their views. Not because of ignorance, but because of stubborness.

Those words they used to translate that term ("blockhead", and even more "dolt" from Lilie) have a connotation of telling someone they're stupid, along with "stubborn", and CLAMP didn't like that. Momo knows Kaito is not stupid and he isn't acting like he's acting because of stupidity.

I admit I didn't even think much of this particular translation when chapter 70 came out (my tears were busy somewhere else...) but apparently CLAMP didn't miss the subtlety and had a bad feeling about it, so they pointed it out. Though they seem to be aware that it's apparently very difficult to translate this word in an exact way in English.

[littleeyesofpallas]

So a(nother) weird thing I noticed with Hachi...

ここの周りに施した「八爻双崖」はワタシが仮面化してから独自に創り出した術...

The "Hachigyou Sougai*" that was applieds around here is a technique that I created independently after I became a Visored

死神の鬼道で解くことは不可能デス...

It's impossible to solve with Shinigami's Kidou

I was going over some of Hacchi's kidou stuff and I noticed this weird phrase that wasn't translated properly:

「八爻双崖」(はちぎょうそうがい)

Most of this isn't anything special. The Sougai[双崖]: "Twin Cliff(s)" this is super simple to translate, and is consistently handled across the board.

But you'll notice that that means the real focus here is the kanji gyou[爻]... You can see on the right most panel there, that Viz's translator just didn't bother with the Hachigyou bit at all. But in the fan scanlation they went with "joined" which does seem to have some precedent...

...Except that I couldn't actually find any corroborating information on that. Jisho is the one you see above, but Google translate, Wiktionary, and Weblio all fail to list those readings, apart from the mention of "radical no.89" which is less a translation and more a description of how it fits into the organizational structure of the Japanese kanji system;

that is to say, it is itself a "radical" which is a series of strokes used as the basis for a whole subset of related words. And i think... think... this discrepancy is that it etymologically lends the meaning of "mixing/joining/twining" to the kanji that use it, but it can't actually be used in a sentence, as its own word, to mean "mixing/joining/twining."

I don't really know how to explain that in a less technical way... It's almost like how -ton as a suffix is just a contracted form of "town" and we all just kind of understand that, but you'd never refer to "a ton" or "the next ton over" or "my hometon" as if it were its own word. Right? It's not quite the same, but that's the best I can think of...

Anyway, the point is I had to keep digging, and the alternative reading I found was this...

and against all odds... despite this being kind of an obscure term, I actually know exactly what this means! To start, I'm sure you're actually all familiar in one way or another with some variation of this image/motif,

Bagua is often translated into English as something like "8 trigrams" and it's a part of taoist philosophy/cosmology. Taoism, I think I've mentioned on this blog before, is the broad system of Chinese philosophy and lore and mysticism revolving around the concept of yin and yang; in Japan the adopted form of taoism was called onmyoudou[陰陽道], meaning literally "yin yang way." It's a very broad set of ideas ranging from cosmology and geomancy and divination to the basis of a lot of traditional Chinese medicines and a kind of proto-psychology and spiritualism, etc.... It's also where the concept of chi in Chinese(ki in Japanese) comes from. But getting back to the point...

"8 Trigrams" is actually kind of a vague way to translate it, even if it's pretty literal. The "trigrams" in question are each of the sets of three bars, either broken or unbroken. Each unique sequence of bars is its own trigram. And the eight trigrams are ☰, ☱, ☲, ☳, ☴, ☵, ☶, and ☷. They have a whole series of different systems of meaning that map over them, as is just kind of the way taoism in general tends to work. It's all really cool, but also just not something I can summarize neatly in any short amount of time.

BUT even though the Bagua tends to be the most familiar, there's actually both a much more complicated system involving the trigrams* as well as an underlying concept as well. Because at it's most basic all the more complicated symbols stemming from the trigrams are made up of just two foundational symbols: ⚋, the "broken" bar representing yin, and ⚊, the "unbroken" bar representing yang. And THESE singular units are what 爻 refers to.

The weird part of that is that this whole system of symbols tends to work off of units of 3 digits at a time; you wouldn't normally have an octagram, you'd have a trigram or a hexagram. It's also not super clear if it means to refer to "8 things" where the thing is "yao", and also "two cliffs." ...or if it means "8 things", where the thing is "a yao pair" and then... "cliff" is in there for some reason? The trigram ☶ is actually a symbol for Mountain, but I feel like that's not what Kubo meant? Or else he'd have just used the kanji [山]mountain, not [崖]cliff. And either way it's a trigram, not a pair of two.

But then there's the i ching's use of hexagrams instead of trigrams... And ䷳ is made up of two ☶, so literally a pair of cliffs. There's more context to the I Ching that I can really explain here but that hexagram is called gen[艮] and can be interpreted to mean things like "Bound" or "keeping still, mountain" and "stilling." But again.... that's not "8 Yao..."

I guess a big snag in all this, is that I'm not sure how much Kubo knew about i ching or bagua when he wrote this, so there's always the chance he meant one thing but said something different by mistake...

*do go check out the wiki on I Ching if you have the time, because it's super cool in its own right, but like I said there's a LOT there to read up on

Any way, what's really interesting about this is that it's actually always been a distinct feature of Hachi's that he stacks or layers his barriers, AND later, after the long MIA period for the Visored as a whole, his kidou tends to show up in the form of long bars. So, once you've made the connection to yao, his layering of bars/barriers is like building up to the more complex concepts in the various trigrams and hexgrams of bagua and i ching as you add yao.

AND I've actually stumbled into that subject before, because the emphasis on the bars seems to lean into foodbased themes with him as well...

Incidentally when I went looking for the bar images to clip out I noticed this panel of Hachi summoning up some barriers to slap Barregan with and wouldn't you know it, they're the same shape as 爻, although perhaps more similar to some of its archaic glyph forms.

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #24: GJ Club - how a spinon became a spinoff featuring Kyōya and Kasumi Shinomiya

(Art by 結城辰也)

The Kisekae Insights series has allowed me to bring the spotlight back on Waifu Network animes that I haven’t posted much about in the past due to lack of fanart or lack of interest. Like Hidamari Sketch in the last instalment, GJ Club will be no exception until I continue posting the usual content in my anime posts. Honestly, it was good while it lasted.

While Hidamari Sketch is a fairly popular and notable anime, GJ Club, sadly, isn’t. The anime was adapted from the light novel series written by Shin Araki and it only received one 12-episode season in 2013 and an OVA in 2014. Since it is a slice-of-life series, not much is known about the characters’ histories, which made it very easy to adapt into my personal project. All these factors coinciding with it being the 50th anniversary year of Doctor Who made GJ Club the perfect anime to adapt and expand on.

Background information

For some reason, the light novel has been a bit hard to find. In short, while you are able to read it online, the sources are unfortunately scarce.

From 2013 to 2015, NanoDesu Translations posted translations of the light novel. They published a PDF and EPUB of the first volume (which is available on archive.org) and translated up to Chapter 17 of the second volume. It was then abandoned for two years before Haraguro Scanlations picked it up. As of September 2018, they only finished up to Chapter 3 of the third volume (with the first chapter being translated by Shadowys on Baka-Tsuki) and there are no further updates after that, with the exception of a one-off chapter released in November 2020.

As of August 2021, however, all the original translations by NanoDesu seem to have been deleted from their site. All the translations are available on AsiaNovel, but there are no illustrations because the reader doesn’t seem to support images. If the images weren’t discarded in the code of the novels, then all they would need to do is add support for them and then they would appear.

There are 9 volumes and two special volumes for GJ Club along with 8 volumes and a special volume for its middle school spinoff. It’s honestly telling how popular the series was when the translators have all but abandoned it.

Shin Araki also wrote an additional spinoff to GJ Club, namely GE: Good Eater, and a sequel, namely KB Club. GE is set in a fantasy world with the characters being based off the characters of GJ Club, while KB Club turns everything meta by having both series be the creations of a high school light novel club, with the characters of GJ Club being based off the members of said club, right down to their names. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of that approach given how I’ve adapted GJ Club into my personal project. In the end, I guess we’ll never really know what happens in the novels, but at least we have this.

Watching the anime and listening to the character music was how I first realised that anime was sexist to males because of the female-centric focus in most animes. Kyōya only gets one character song in the series, and even then it’s a duet with Megumi. If that isn’t sexist to you, then I don’t know how I can convince you that a lot of animes are sexist.

In January 2015, I published two posts outlining my idea for an English dub of the series that also fits with GJ Club’s depiction in my personal project. The setting would be changed to London, England, specifically the areas of Chiswick, Ealing and Acton (where their school is located) and the characters would speak with British accents. The images in the original post are dead because I idiotically copied the images from the site instead of saving and reuploading them to the post, but since I’m grubbing for content anyway, I’m going to repost my character details as follows:

Kyōya: The protagonist of the series. When he started Year 10, he was kidnapped by the girls when he walked into an old school building, hoping to find the Culture Club. He moved to London from Manchester just before he started Year 7. His best friend outside the club is someone named Tesshin Yokomizo (横溝徹心) who is a local and not seen in the anime. In the GJ Club, he is nicknamed “Kyoro” and despite his spinelessness, he seems to have talent in dealing with the girls around him. His birthday is December 18. Due to a crisis involving his family during his childhood, he and his sister Kasumi were left in the care of a family guardian just before they moved to London, but she left when Kyōya started Year 10. It might have been that childhood incident that emotionally scarred him and left him spineless…

Mao: The Year 11 president of the GJ Club. Her family is rich and they live in a mansion in Ealing. She has a habit of biting and picking on Kyōya when she is bored or angry. She always reads books and watches shows without kissing scenes.

Shion: The only daughter in her family, Shion is an expert chess player with many brothers, all experts in some kind of activity. She speaks in a Birmingham (Brummie) accent because her mother and a few of her brothers were born in Birmingham. It is unknown if Shion was born in Birmingham herself.

Megumi: The calm and nice middle sister of the Amatsuka family. She likes knitting and she is always seen making tea and cakes in the club room. In the same year level as Kyōya.

Kirara: Born in Swansea, Wales, Kirara is the tallest and strongest member of the club. She speaks English in simple, monotone sentences. Welsh is her first language. Kirara can be seen eating meat, sometimes sharing it with Kyōya, but not with anyone else. She is afraid of spiders and has little tolerance to alcohol.

Tamaki: (voiced by Karen Gillan!) The newest member of the GJ Club when Kyōya becomes a Year 11 student. Like Kyōya, she is kidnapped and forced to join the club. Her nickname is “Tama”. Her family is from Glasgow and they run a Shinto shrine in Acton. She has several younger siblings.

Kasumi: Kyōya’s younger sister, who was born in Manchester. After a visit to the GJ Club, she becomes inspired to start a middle school division when she starts Year 7. She has a brother complex and she mistook Mao for being a primary school student when she met her. Her proficiency in Welsh is better than her brother’s, who can probably speak at a beginner level.

Geraldine: Shortened to “Jill”. She moved to Chiswick from Swansea to be with her sister, Kirara. She first met Kyōya at Ealing Broadway Station when she had difficulty buying a Tube ticket. She didn’t really understand how to use the ticket machine, so Kyōya went to help her. After this, Jill considered Kyōya her “samurai master”. Jill doesn’t speak English fluently, so she relies on her whiteboard to communicate with the others. She is as strong as her sister and she joins Kasumi’s GJ Club when she starts Year 7 in Chiswick.

Seira: The youngest sister of the Amatsuka family. Though she speaks in a typical London accent, she sometimes talks through her cat clip in Received Pronunciation (the Queen’s English/RP) using ventriloquism to state her true feelings to Kyōya, who she has a grudge against.

Mori: The maid of the Amatsuka family. She likes to ride a motorcycle.  A running gag is her twirling before Kyōya much to his pleasure and annoyance to the rest of the club members. Sometimes, her mother takes her place without the family even noticing due to their identical appearance.

Kyōya, Kasumi and Momoka: The Brother, the Child and the Yandere

Normally in previous instalments, I would have described each character separately, but because their backstories are heavily intertwined, I will introduce them all at once in this section. Most of the backstory takes place around the Battle of Koshi Castle in December 2013 and during the Manchester Campaign of 2005-2013, which I have already covered in #15.

When Hiroki Ichigo’s twelfth incarnation was killed at Koshi Castle, he managed to escape in his TARDIS, where he regenerated into his new prototype, namely a four-year-old Kyōya. The TARDIS crashes outside North Manchester General Hospital on 11 December 2005.

Earlier, Hiroki and Akari’s gametes (along with those of Hiroki’s brothers and their families) were taken by Reona Yukawa and placed in the Progenitor so that they could breed super-soldiers out of them. When Takumi Kamijō and Kyōko Sakura manage to escape from their cells (saving Nodoka Manabe and Azusa Nakano in the process), he changes the destination of the baby about to be released into the Progenitor’s time portal. That baby was Kasumi, one of the super-soldiers grown from Hiroki and Akari’s DNA. She ended up at the same hospital as well and was about to be taken home by a couple when Girl Power killed them, resulting in Kasumi being taken by Akari and Shaun.

What remained of Hiroki was contacted by the spirit of Walpurgisnacht. Making a deal with her, Hiroki regenerated into his thirteenth incarnation, the female Momoka Mizutani. No, Momoka is not an OC for GJ Club, but she is based on the character of Apple Lam Chung-yan from the TVB drama A Great Way to Care II, played by Tavia Yeung. Momoka takes Hiroki’s TARDIS and heads to Salford, where with the help of Walpurgisnacht, she establishes a cha chaan teng café in the middle of a trading estate and hires a group of red drone Daleks as her workers, hiding their identities by having them disguise themselves as humans.

Over the next eight years, Momoka gets close to the new Shinomiya family by influencing them through Kyōya’s dreams to come to her café. Eight years later, on 11 December 2013, the Fourth and Fifth Doctors come in with their companions. When the Shinomiya family come in, a confrontation with Ayaka Kikuchi and her army ensues before Momoka transmats the Shinomiya family to a Dalek spaceship, where she prepares to execute them using the Yashio’ori. However, the Yashio’ori is sabotaged by the enemy army so that the laser beam would not charge.

As Ayaka and her army attack the Dalek ship, Momoka uses the Dalek-enhanced machine guns to fend them off. While two Doctors confront the Master, Momoka is killed by Girl Power officers, resulting in Walpurgisnacht taking over her body as she regenerates, maintaining her current appearance. Read #15 to find out what happens after this.

Once the Battle of Koshi Castle and the Manchester Campaign conclude, the Fourth Doctor helps Kyōya and Kasumi move to Chiswick in 2008. Five years later, the events of the GJ Club anime take place. During his time in Chiswick, Kyōya gets a job at the post office there and later, studies a double degree in Japanese Studies and Politics at SOAS in the University of London while also learning Cantonese, Mandarin and Welsh in weekend and evening courses (apparently he also wanted to learn Taiwanese but they weren’t running any courses, but that’s alright, he can always learn it somewhere else, which he presumably did).

On a side note, I volunteered myself to be Kyōya’s English voice actor, so I’ve practiced my Mancunian accent by watching actors like Christopher Eccleston, Stephen Tompkinson, Karl Pilkington and maybe a bit of Peter Kay as well. The only problem was that I’m not even sure that my accent is even Manc because I can’t tell if I’m getting it wrong and sounding like someone from Liverpool, Yorkshire, Newcastle or even Scotland. Oh well, that’s what happens when you really get into things.

I don’t buy expansion packs, I make my own (budget allowing)

So as I said, GJ Club only got one season and an OVA to go with it. Do Kyōya and the GJ Club make further appearances in the series? You bet your ass they do.

After being absent for much of the Next Gen Series in 2014, Kyōya and Kasumi receive a letter from their aunt, Narutaki, asking to meet in Hong Kong after their mother, Akari, went missing following the Siege of Ōsaka, only to be followed by Mao and the rest of the GJ Club, who learnt where he was going and managed to get on the same flight as them.

Narutaki, who had taken her Girl Power friends and established a rogue faction separate from the main group, takes the GJ Club to Nijō Castle, where she explains the background behind the Manchester Campaign and the events of Series 8 and 9. Soon after, Girl Power’s commander, Daniel, sends his brother, Nathan, out to find Narutaki. Kyōya tries to contact Hiroki, but he is unable to get through to him. Luckily, the TARDIS arrives and the Doctor and Hiroki help Angela and the others repel the attacking Girl Power forces. Some more things happen and by the end of the story, we learn that Kyōya and Mao are dating.

That Christmas, Kyōya and Kasumi head up to Manchester, but the Doctor briefly takes them and their friends back to Hong Kong for a picnic with Hiroki and the rest of the Zhuge family.

A few years later in 2018, the GJ Club and Momoka get a cameo at the start and end of the Gokaiger TV movie special. By this point in time, Momoka’s café in Manchester has expanded to many other branches around the UK and in Hong Kong.

The next year in 2019, Kyōya, Kasumi, Mao and Megumi are featured in a four-part adventure in Soulbound Series 3, helping the cast solve the mystery of Parker’s past and Shinbu’s origins. Two years after in 2021, Kyōya and Kasumi move to Hong Kong (along with the GJ Club) and join the Superhero Project as the new ShinkenRed and ZyuohTiger. You’d think Kyōya would be against violence given his harmless tendencies, but I suppose his character has developed over the years despite having abandonment issues.

So this has been the involvement of GJ Club in my personal project. It’s a shame the series wasn’t more popular or it could have gotten a second season, a manga, more (and frequent) translations of the light novel or hell, even a licenced release. This series is just like Sea Princesses in how popular it was, but despite the number of episodes the anime got, at least Shin Araki hasn’t abandoned the series (by putting it in a spinoff no less) unlike Fabio Yabu, who hasn’t made anything new for Sea Princesses since 2010 after getting more animated episodes than GJ Club did. On the other hand though, neglected series with little material has been good development fodder for my personal project as it allowed me to bring awareness to the existence of those series while also developing backstories and afterstories for them.

[domeyashiro]

Hello, I have some question for you today, it might not be seazuru related, can be say it’s just my curiosity. Since your blog is quite big for an foreign saezuru’s fan i assumed that a lots of people have reach this blog more than others which mean you may get Lots of saezuru related Q. Have you ever sometime skip the Q and not answering them? If yes why? Is it because the informations are still not show up yet or there is others reason for you? Forgive me if you’re uncomfortable to ans. this.

Yes, all the time. Unfortunately there’s no way for me to reply to all the messages I get, usually because I simply don’t have enough time. So when I do find some time, I tend to pick questions that would be of interest to more people than just the person who’s asking, or questions that I personally find interesting and would like to think/ write about. Sometimes I simply choose questions that I can quickly reply to. It really depends on how much time I have in that moment. I also tend to keep encouraging messages in my inbox because it’s nice to see them again and again. So thank you to everyone who sent one in the past! I appreciate them all!

There’s only one type of message I don’t reply to on principle, which is stuff like “Where can I read the new chapter / watch the movie for free? / When will the new chapter be uploaded?“ and so on, because a) I don’t know and b) I don’t want to know. I’m here to offer info and whatever I can share without working against Yoneda-sensei’s interests. I don’t mind putting my own work like summaries, or translations of tweets / older interviews online, but I will not help anyone pirate Yoneda-sensei’s works, even if every single one of you bought a copy afterwards. First of all, as a professional translator I feel it would be unethical of me to ignore the author’s will. But above all, artists are human beings like you and me. They have every right to decide what happens with their work. Like I have the right to decide what goes on this blog. So unless a mangaka explicitely states “Go ahead and share my work for free” (which I’ve never seen btw), I will assume that they are not happy with me uploading their stuff, or me telling people where to download their works for free (because I have seen plenty of mangaka and publishers speak up against scanlations). So I will not do it. Please respect that this is where I draw the line.

Don’t get me wrong. I know exactly what it’s like to want to know how your favorite series continues as quickly as possible. I’ve started learning Chinese for that reason this year. And I won’t pretend I’ve never read a scanlation either. I might have even translated a manga or two as a student for the local website of a friend. (Luckily, back then aggregator sites weren’t a thing yet, so I can only hope that barely anyone saw my translations.) But the more I learned and the more I saw of the industry, the more I understood that I was treating the artists like I knew better than them what was best for them (aka ”Spread the love!!!”). But I did not. I knew nothing, not about their working conditions, or about their financial situation, or the details of their contracts. There was literally no way for me to tell if or how what I was doing was affecting them. Which is why I stopped and never looked back.

Over the years I’ve seen a lot and learned as much as I could, and in the process I’ve come to firmly believe that the artist has to be the first priority of any fandom. Because without artists there would be no fandom! Manga should be fun for everyone. But if we sacrifice the creators for the sake of keeping the fandom happy, we’ll only end up with less creators in the long run. They deserve to have fun too. And I’m not here to take it from them.

Sorry if this has gotten a little off topic. I’ve never really talked about this before, because I was hoping that my blog would speak for itself. But since people keep asking me where to download stuff, I felt that I had to make it clear once and for all where I stand on this issue.

[noragami-ru-manga]

Soul summoning and Father’s return from Yomi

For someone who supposedly hates Father, I sure talk a lot about him, huh

While I was flipping through the pages of the manga, I once again came to a stop at the soul summoning scene in chapter 37. Specifically at Nora’s tale about Father escaping from Yomi, which I, apparently, did not pay due attention to.

I’ve never had a single opinion on how Father got in and out of Yomi, so I toyed with a few.

1. When Father was still human, he was already interested in researching ayakashi (like Ebisu, for example), somehow learned about the kotonoha (the Word of Yomi) and decided to get one for himself. He voluntarily ventured into Yomi but asked the pock-marked girl to soul call him beforehand, and she did just that.  

2. The pock-marked girl died, and Father got mad at the gods for being directly or indirectly involved. He went to Yomi to get her back, stumbled upon Izanami, saw the brushes in action, and either stole or wheedled out one of them.

3. Father was the one who died while the pock-marked girl lived. While in Yomi, Father encountered Izanami, learned about the brushes, and got his hands on one of them.

In this post I want to examine the last option – the one in which Father died and was resurrected by that girl of his through soul summoning.

First of all, let me remind you that soul summoning isn’t something Adachitoka came up with specifically for Noragami, but an actual Japanese tradition.

I think it’s reasonable to assume that whatever exists in our world is also a thing in Noragami universe. All the locations that we see in the series, specifically shrines, are real places (with the exception of the characters’ houses, Takamagahara and Yomi, obviously).  This means that the tradition of soul summoning can easily exist in-universe.

Maybe it’s just me (or the translation), but the way Kofuku talks about soul summoning seems to imply that she knows what it is and expects others to know about it, too. Apparently, they just never thought of using it on a god because it’s a human tradition.

And it goes against everything both Father and Amaterasu say.

Amaterasu says humans can’t (mustn’t) come back to life at all, Father implies he is the only one who’s managed to return from Yomi/come back to life. How do we reconcile these statements with people climbing on roofs and staring down wells trying to revive their loved ones? The answer is – people did all that, they just weren’t successful. Except for the pock-marked girl.

I’m absolutely sure she was the one who called Father back from Yomi, thanks to a discussion I stumbled upon here on Tumblr.

@sayaka19fan​ gave an alternate translation of this scene that differs from both the official transalation and the fan scanlation: “Even if he said I was a girl with pock marks I wonder if she was his loved one”. Aka “he was cold to me, even if I had her appearance”. So Father being distant made Izanami question her choice of appearance and wonder if she impersonated the wrong person.

If the girl was alive, then Father not being swayed by Izanami is easily explained, he simply knew that whoever was in front of him couldn’t have been that girl. This rules out her dying first and Father coming to Yomi to retrieve her the way Izanagi came after Izanami (not to mention that this particular scenario would require some other person to call Father’s name). So between the two of them, Father was the only one who got into Yomi.

The thing about Yomi is that it’s unclear whether it’s really a place where people go after their deaths. On the one hand, you have this word “yomigaeru”  - to come back to life = to return from Yomi. On the other hand, there are opinions like this one:

In no ancient Shinto textual source is it explained who exactly goes to Yomi and why. Some historians suggest that the concept of a life after death was not a familiar one to the ancient Japanese and it only took form with the introduction of Buddhism from China in the 6th century CE. Yomi certainly has a very limited place in Shinto thought where a life after death is only vaguely alluded to and where there is an absence of a general concept of punishment and reward for souls in the next life as found in many other religions. The only suffering of souls in Yomi, if indeed there is any at all, is their separation from their living loved ones. The noted Shinto scholar and theologian Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843 CE) explains Yomi and its limited significance thus,

“The old legends that dead souls go to Yomi cannot be proven. Then it may be asked, where do the souls of the Japanese go when they die? It may be clearly seen from the purport of ancient legends and from modern examples that they remain eternally in Japan and serve in the realm of the dead governed by Okuninushi-no-kami. This realm of the dead is not in any one particular place in the visible world, but being a realm of the darkness and separated from the present world, it cannot be seen…

The darkness, however, is only comparative. It should not mistakenly be imagined that this realm is devoid of light. It has food, clothing, and houses of various kinds, similar to those of the visible world. Proof of this may be found in accounts…in which a person has occasionally returned to tell of the realm of the dead.

After death the soul leaves the body and resides in the area of the grave, a fact attested by countless accounts…of both ancient and modern times of miraculous occurrences by spirits in the vicinity of graves…Some say that the soul goes to the filthy realm of Yomi, but there is not a shred of evidence that this is the case”. (Scott Littleton, 94)

Even in the manga itself Yato and Ebisu didn’t encounter a single soul when they were in Yomi, only ayakashi and Izanami’s maidens. Then again, we learned in chapter 86 that where souls go in their afterlife depends on what they believed in when they were alive. So technically, if Father believed that dead souls end up in Yomi, that’s where he could have gone after he died.

Why do I now think that he died and didn’t venture into Yomi as a living person specifically to get the kotonoha? Again, it all comes down to the pock-marked girl. I think that her death could have been, in FMA terms, an “equivalent exchange” for Father’s return from Yomi.

See, gods in Noragami are pretty powerful, I give them that. They can, for example, turn into giant spiders (Ookuninushi) and lightning (Takemikazuchi). And while the series never really explains how exactly Tenjin goes about helping students get better marks, or how Ebisu helps businesses, I’m pretty sure that gods can alter reality to some extent. However, they aren’t all-powerful, and there’s one thing they can do nothing about – death.

Of course, we should take into account that Yato isn’t exactly a god of healing to at least theoretically be able to postpone someone’s death (he can totally do the opposite though). I do think, however, that any other god would have said the same, because this is the one thing the gods cannot change. They can’t postpone death because the circle of life is the nature of things and shouldn’t be meddled with. Not because “Amaterasu said so”, but because that’s how the world is. Who made the world like this is a tricky question to answer, since to extent to which the Japanese cosmogoniс myth is applicable to Noragami, aka what came first, the egg or the hen, is a topic for a discussion of its own.

Bottom line is, if Father came back from the dead, something had to balance that out, and that something was the pock-marked girl’s death. It wasn’t a punishment from the Heavens for his breaking out of Yomi, which the Heavens, apparently, don’t even know about. It wasn’t an injustice that some god committed, ‘cause gods had nothing to do with it all. Father became bitter at the world for taking the pock-marked girl away from him, at the gods who didn’t help him when he needed them, and at humans who created and support those useless gods. The clothes Father was wearing when he was escaping from Izanami are the same ones he was in when he was hugging the girl in chapter 60. If this is how things went, then the effect of his return was immediate – as soon as he came back, the girl died.

There’s one more thing that bothers me about Father – how he’s survived after his return from Yomi, specifically how he changes bodies. It’s hard to tell if he had a body in the scenes from Yato and Nora’s childhood, since Far shore beings can interact with the real-life objects (food, clothes) just fine. All we know is that he’s had the same appearance in Yomi, in Yato and Nora’s childhood, and even now; and also that he doesn’t just possess bodies, but their souls as well. His current “host” Fujisaki is a third year high-school senior, meaning he’s roughly two years older than Hiyori. If Father is reborn in a new body each time, then Yato hasn’t seen him for 17-18 years now. And that Yato has never seen Fujisaki before his father made himself known when he and Yukine were walking down the street is apparent not just from their exchange in Fujisaki’s house

but also from the very first scene Father was in. Yato saw how Fujisaki caught Hiyori, and if he knew that the guy was his father, he definitely would have warned her to stay away. Granted, Yato probably didn’t see the guy’s face, but it doesn’t change the fact that Yato first saw what Father now looks like in the year the events of the manga currently take place – after 2010.

Except we see in the Volume 8 omake that Father collected articles about the “Yatogami miracle” from 2000′s, too – when Fujisaki was barely in primary school. (I don’t know if I need to explain this, but just in case it confuses you. I’m not talking about who and when was collecting the papers. What I mean is that Yato worked as a magatsukami in 2000′’s when Fujisaki was only a child).

Could Nora have been the one to make Yato go back to his work as a magatsukami all on her own on those occasions when Father couldn’t command him, being a grown man in the body of an infant or a child with all the restrictions that come with it (also, gross)?  She was able to deliver him to Father using the masks, but for the most part she was just following his orders. So I’m really curious what Father meant when he said that he “didn’t get to chose”. Does it mean he has to be reborn as a baby each time he dies?  Or maybe two souls are just too much for one body to handle, thus he has to switch them quite often and at the most inconvenient times, so he just uses whoever is available? He had to change schools to spy after Yato and Hiyori because Kouto didn’t live in Tokyo, and he seems to somewhat care about his “sister” and “nieces”. But his being out of Yato’s life for a solid decade after each rebirth (before he at least has some freedom of movement, being a child and all) is too good to be true.

And even though I’ve said we don’t know for sure if he had a body after his return from Yomi, I’ll just go out and say that he had – his own body, no less, the one we saw in Yato and Nora’s memories. He had to be human to have wished Yato into existence in the first place, and since his appearance back then matches his current looks, he could have initially returned into his own body.

After all, time flows differently on the Near shore and on the Far shore. Although so far we’ve only seen that the passage of time is slower both in Yomi and Takamagahara.

Is the opposite possible? Could it be that while Father was in Yomi, very little time has passed in Nakatsukuni, so instead of burying Father the girl tried calling him back and succeeded? It’s a wild guess, but if day and night don’t have a set length on the Far shore, then it means that one day in Yomi can also be shorter than one day on Earth.

In any case, if Father did come back to his own body, it lasted for a while – at least until Yato was a teen.

Another thing that bothers me is how come Yato didn’t know what Father looked like after an entire month of staying in that cottage. Did Yato never look at him during that whole time? Or would Father come to the cottage as himself? We know that his soul can separate itself from Fujisaki’s, but is it accidental or intentional?

Look at his latest encounter with Hiyori.

Father showed himself for a split second, distracting Hiyori and letting the ayakashi bite her. Did he accidentally “slip out” because of his strong emotions, or did he do it deliberately to make Hiyori lose focus and be an easy target for his doggies? The second one is a very Father thing to do, and if he can separate himself from Fujisaki from time to time, it explains why Yato didn’t know he looks like a student now. However, he was Fujisaki when he came to collect Nora after the whole ordeal with Ebisu.

Maybe Yato only saw Father that one time during his entire stay at the cottage – when Father ordered him to go to Yomi. This way it’s possible that Yato indeed never looked at his face. Except chapter 29 seemingly disproves that.

The background to Yato’s thoughts is Father putting down the bucket with purifying water in it. If this is just to remind us that this person is Father, I’m fine with it. But if this is Yato’s memory, something he saw with his own eyes, then it can only mean that Father did not look like Fujisaki then.

TLDR: I think that Father came back from Yomi because the pock-marked girl resurrected him via soul summoning and died in exchange, accidentally or voluntarily. I’m not overly attached to this theory and I won’t be surprised or disappointed if it’s never confirmed. It was just fun to dig into Father’s possible past once more.

P.S. while I was reading the soul summoning scene, the inconsistencies in Amaterasu’s actions and words (“call him like in a soul summoning” – “people can’t come back from Yomi”, “call him by his real name” – “are you the one called Yatogami?”) made me entertain the idea that the girl who helped the gang wasn’t Amaterasu, rather her lookalike. Like her twin sister Tsukuyomi? They weren’t twins according to the Japanese mythology as far as I know, but in other mythologies the sun and the moon are twins *cough  Greek cough*, and we’ve already seen that Adachitoka don’t exactly retell mythology but adapt it however they like. I did cast away the thought since there was too much focus on the sun during the scene, but it’s still a fun little idea.

[floofiestboy]

Senyuu AU Masterpost

I asked if I should do this on Twitter but Twitter is trash for big posts like this so I’m posting it on Tumblr. 

I’m calling this an AU masterpost but I’m including canon alternate versions of characters too. I’m writing this assuming you don’t know anything past S4, but it will contain spoilers for F5 and the Haruhara Robinson Channel content.

Since the majority of these AUs are entirely fan-based with only the slightest bit of official content, I’ll also discuss common fanwork concepts, including things like special ship names for particular AUs.

Table of Contents

Common AUs

Web

SQ

High School

Magical Girl Alfo-chan

Visual kei

2P

Less Common AUs

High School Detectives/Police

Himura + Yami

Rosicks + Hialba

Sheepba

Wild West

Obscure AUs/Outfit Changes

Feral Ros + Adventurer Alba

Formal Wear

Karaoke

Kindergarten

Saeki-san

Scientist Ros

University

Urashima Tarou

Vampire Ros

Wedding

Canon-Adjacent AUs/Canon Alternate Characters

Albatross 

Boss + Sleepiez

Creasion + Maoruba

Elf’s Universe (”0verse”)

Meta Ros

This got super-long so I highly suggest using CTRL/CMD+F to jump to just the ones you’re interested in!

Common AUs

All the AUs in this category are universes you see everywhere in fan content, regardless of how much official content there is for it. 

Web

Alright, this isn't an "AU", but including it for completion's sake. This is the main canon, the original Alba and Ros from the original webcomic. The anime and the Main Quest manga can be considered to be equivalent to the web-verse.

Official Japanese | English Scanlations 

SQ

(Image from Jump SQ’s website.)

SQ is an “official” Senyuu AU - it’s basically Senyuu if Alba and Ros kept their Season 1 dynamic forever and nothing really bad ever happened. Haruhara has said a number of times that an important thing about SQ is that everything sad has gone poof, which is why he decides against giving a sad dramatic reason why Ros’ name went from Sion to Ros in SQ-verse. Other notable changes in SQ include Januar being human, Elf being a demon, and Foyfoy being cute and shy.

Senyuu SQ originally ran in the Jump SQ magazine for thirty chapters (Official Japanese | English Scanlations), named as such because of the magazine it ran in. More recently, Haruhara began releasing SQ Senyuu! on his channel, where the SQ stands for Super Quality and definitely not anything copyrighted (Official Japanese | English Scanlations.) The chapters released on his channel were sometimes in draft form, so he additionally inked some and released it in doujinshi form (Official Japanese | English Scanlations), along with a doujinshi-exclusive chapter.

Senyuu SQ Alba (seen above) looks identical to Web S1 Alba. SQ Senyuu! Alba (seen below) looks like Web S2 Alba but short and without the Red Fox scarf. SQ Ros doesn’t change appearances between Senyuu SQ and SQ Senyuu! He has the Web S1 Ros hairstyle, but lacks his armour and sword - his bat is his most defining feature.

High School

There’s actually two different high school AUs:

SQ Academy: There’s three omake chapters in SQ Senyuu where everyone is in high school - see here and here, in volumes 1 and 2 respectively. In the SQ High School AU, Ros, Alba, Hime-chan, Foyfoy, Januar, and Rudolf are students, while Rchi is a teacher. Alba is the president of an unnamed club with Ros as a club member. 

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Soccer Club Drama CD: This drama CD was released with one of the MQ volumes. You can only buy the original Japanese on auction sites now, but you can listen to the audio and read a translated transcript here! This AU features only Ros, Alba, and Crea, who are all part of the same soccer club. Alba is the club president.

In both AUs, Ros calls Alba “Prez”. The canon content for both AUs is rather sparse, so the Prez thing is usually the only thing that’s retained in most fanworks. Reincarnation stories are pretty popular in fanworks, but there’s no hints or implications in either official High School AU that it’s connected to SQ or Web canons. Usually people use the Drama CD designs (probably because they don’t want to draw Ros with S1 hair.) Sometimes they use the SQ Academy designs at the start, then change to the Drama CD designs in second-year or something.

There’s also the Senyuu Light Music Club from one of the web omakes, which features Crea and Elf. I haven’t seen any works incorporate it though.

Japanese terminology glossary

High School AU: 学パロ - Gakuparo

Prez:  部長 - Buchou

---

Magical Girl Alfo-chan

This is the mahou shoujo parody of Senyuu, featuring Alba as a girl - Alfo-chan - and Ros as a cat - Roll.

(Image no longer available online.)

Roll is usually made into a cute catboy that can transform into a cat, because I mean, why wouldn’t you. And also presumably people want a Roll they can ship with Alfo-chan. For some reason there’s also a lot of works that ship Alfo-chan with Creasion, though I’m not sure where it came from.

The “official title” of this parody is actually Magical Princess Alfo-chan, not Magic Girl Alfo-chan, and most fanworks on pixiv are found under this name.

Japanese terminology glossary

Magical Princess Alfo-chan: マジカルプルンセスアルフォちゃん

Alfo: アルフォちゃん

Roll: ロール

Alfo/Creasion: アシルフォ - Ashirufo

Alfo/Roll: ロルアル - Roruaru

---

Visual kei 

Visual kei is a music genre - you can read about it here. This AU started because Haruhara drew a pic of Alba and Ros in visual-kei-like outfits, and then it all spiraled from there. There’s three images that fuel this entire AU:

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter. Note that you can find a higher quality scan of this art if you download this artbook scan here.)

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

(Image no longer available online.)

The Alba and Ros in the first image were dubbed Visual-ba and Visual-ros, the Ros in the second image “Roppongi” (because his t-shirt says “Roppongi Hills”, and the Alba in the last image “Kuroba” (because Kuro means black and he’s black-haired.) Why were the bottom two images lumped in with the first? That’s a mystery that may never be solved.

There’s two common variations of the AU in fanworks. 

The first is where Kuroba + Visual-ba and Roppongi + Visual-ros are two pairs of brothers, and typically the pairings go Kuroba/Visual-ros and Roppongi/Visual-ba. In this variation, Visual-ba basically always gets to be Alba, while Roppongi and Visual-ros often take the names Ros and Sion respectively. 

The second common variation is where Kuroba and Roppongi are just the civilian identities of Visual-ba and Visual-ros, which doesn’t have a pithy shipname in Japanese.

With regards to their visual kei identities, I’ve also usually seen two main variations - either Alba and Ros are currently in a singing group together, or Ros used to be a famous singer and Alba is currently trying to get famous under his tutelage. 

Haruhara has also recently posted a glow-up pic of Visual-ba, bringing the grand total of official art in this AU to... four.

Japanese terminology glossary

Visual kei: ビジュアル系 - vijyuaru kei  (Note that while technically ヴィジュアル is the correct term in Japanese, in the Senyuu fandom, ビジュアル is used for everything, probably because it’s easier to type and say.)

Visual-ba: ビジュアル - bijyuaru

Visual-ros: ビジュロス - bijyurosu

Roppongi: 六本木 

Kuroba: 黒髪アルバ - Kurokami Alba (lit. Black-Haired Alba) --> クロバ

Kuroba/Visual-ros: ジュロ黒 - jyurokuro or 黒ジュロ - kurojyuro

Roppongi/Visual-ba: 六ビジュ - rokubijyu or ビジュ六 - bijyuroku

Visual-ros/Visual-ba:  ビジュロスアル - bijyurosuaru, 派生ロスアル - haseirosuaru

---

2P

“2P” is used in many fandoms to refer to alternate character designs that are often associated with different personalities as well. In Senyuu, the official 2P designs are all alternate colourings:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

(Image from one of Haruhara’s artbooks which doesn’t seem to have an online scan, sorry for the bad quality.)

Likely because the bottom two are only available in an artbook, I haven’t seen many fanworks with them. 2P AUs tend to be only 2P Alba and Ros, with some occasional 2P Rchimedes or 2P Crea (who’s typically drawn as 2P Rchimedes with short hair.) 2P Ros is usually drawn with blue eyes, presumably to match with his red Mana Maker. 2P Rchi is also common enough - she tends to be drawn with a blue and black scheme, to contrast with her canon pink and white scheme (example). 

2P Alba and Ros have varying personalities in fanworks, but the one consistency seems to be that their personalities are nothing like canon. 2P Ros tends to be the silent serious type or a yandere. 2P Alba tends to be an innocent happy boy or a yandere. You may be seeing a pattern here.

Note also that 2P Ros is usually referred to as 2P Creasion, for obvious reasons.

Japanese terminology glossary

2P Alba/2P Ros: 2Pアシアル - 2P ashiaru or 2Pアルアシ - 2P aruashi. Both are sometimes shortened by removing the “2P”.

Less Common AUs

These AUs aren’t seen quite as much as the juggernauts above, but you’ve probably still seen them around occasionally.

High School Detectives/Police

There’s a few different detective-related fanworks floating out there, based on one of the three official chapters: Detective Ros in Senyuu SQ, Senyuu Police from the webcomic, and High School Detective Teufel in Main Quest Vol. 6, which hasn’t been scanlated yet (runs):

I haven’t seen too much art of High School Detective Teufel, but I’ve seen a couple fics and art out there for both Senyuu Police and Detective Ros, mostly Senyuu Police.

Himura + Yami

(Image from Haruhara’s Skeb.)

This isn’t really a Senyuu AU, but it shows up enough to include it here. Himura and Yami are two characters that Haruhara drew - you can see this original picture of them on page 12 of the artbook here. Himura is the redhead - at first, he meant to draw Alba, but he decided in the end it wasn’t Alba anymore and renamed the file to “Himura,psd.” Yami is just a fan-name - he’s only referred to as “the boy that shouldn’t be seen” in the artbook. Himura and Yami eventually appear in Gakumon! with the names Rahimu and Damia respectively.

Senyuu fanworks that include them usually have Himura being an Alba that fell into despair after Ros’ disappearance, while Yami is a physical manifestation of his despair.

Japanese terminology glossary

Himura-kun: 火村くん

Himura-kun/Yami: やみひむ

---

Rosicks + Hialba

This is yet another AU that was born from a mere two pieces of official art:

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

(Image from Haruhara Robinson channel.)

The first picture is entitled “Soldier Rosicks” - Haruhara posted it saying it was a Ros beta design. The second picture is an scrapped Alba design for web season 2. Hialba was originally revealed on the NicoNico channel Hiaruron that Haruhara shares with a couple other artists, and so he got the name “Hiaruba” --> Hialba from the channel name.

Fanworks typically have Hialba as dead inside and sad because of Ros’ disappearance, and Rosicks as a gruff irritable guy who isn’t Ros and doesn’t like being compared to him. Cue angst because Hialba sees Rosicks as just Ros, etc.

Japanese terminology glossary

Hialba: ひあるば

Rosicks/Hialba: ロシひあ - Roshihia

---

Sheepba

Sheepba originates from a New Year’s illustration Haruhara made for the year of the sheep:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

While Haruhara has done this for multiple years - there’s illustrations of Alba as a dog, a rat, etc. - Sheepba in particular became particularly popular. Why? Is it the floofy body? The innocent expression? Nay. I say there’s but one reason for Sheepba’s popularity in comparison to other Chinese Zodiac/Alba hybrids-

Haruhara has produced a crapton of Sheepba merch over the years.

I believe he’s made coloured sheep versions of other characters too for merch, but I unfortunately wasn’t able to find any of them. I was, however, able to find outlined drawings of them:

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Enjoy this flock of Senyuu sheep. And be prepared to see some uh... questionable things if you choose to browse the ひつじるば - Hitsujiba tag.

Wild West

This AU comes from the Wild West parody in this chapter. The fanworks I’ve seen tend to have Ros be some dangerous outlaw with a huge bounty.

Obscure AUs/Outfit Changes

These AUs tend to be only used as outfit changes, or aren’t seen often at all.

Feral Ros + Adventurer Alba

Basically a Tarzan AU. Based on this Haruhara Channel comic: Official Japanese | English Scanlation.

Formal Wear

You may sometimes see Alba and Ros wearing suits. There’s two pieces of art this originates from:

(Image from Haruahara’s twitter.)

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

There’s also a corresponding Ros-in-suit-with-striped-shirt photo that you can see in the artbook here.

Karaoke

You may have seen characters dressed up as what seemed like waiter outfits. That may have come from the Senyuu Karaoke collaboration that happened around when the anime aired:

(Image from collaboration website.)

Kindergarten

This comes from the recent Haruhara Robinson channel comics - Senyuu Kindergarten Story #1 and Story #2.

It features Alba and Rchi as kindergarten teachers to the rest of the Senyuu cast.

Saeki-san

Haruhara was the writer for a manga called Dignified Asleep Saeki-san (Official Japanese | English Scanlations), which was a romcom that featured a girl called Saeki determined to sleep in class, and a boy called Tokimiya who sits next to her. 

When the manga began serialization, Haruhara drew a parody sketch of the manga where Ros is Tokimiya and Alba is Saeki.

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Scientist Ros

You may have seen art of Ros wearing the glasses + lab coat combo from when he made the Mana Maker in season 3:

Or from when Alba had his... questionable body measurement exam in Senyuu+:

Or when they both wore glasses in the Haruhara Robinson Channel doujinshi Crea-kun Has Cheerfully Fallen to the Dark Side:

University

A while back, Haruhara drew a picture of Alba and Ros in the winter wearing coats:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

A little more recently, he was commission to redraw the image:

(Image from Haruhara’s pixiv.)

Fanworks that use Alba and Ros in these outfits often treat them as university AUs (and usually have them on a date.)

Urashima Tarou

Urashima Tarou is an old Japanese fairytale which Haruhara used as the setting for one of his omake segments. If you’ve seen turtle Alba:

Or Ros in old-timey fishing clothes:

That’s where it’s from.

Vampire Ros

The typical Vampire Ros design comes from an SQ chapter where Alba and Ros disguise themselves as demons after chasing Elf into the demon world.

Alba is usually either a werewolf (presumably because werewolves and vampires are a common pair) or some hapless human that Ros sucks blood from. 

Wedding

(Image from Haruhara’s twitter.)

Haruhara drew this when he was getting married(?) because it apparently felt less embarrassing to draw his protagonist getting married than to draw him and his wife. 

Fans promptly used the outfit to marry Alba off to Ros, likely galvanized by the Mana Maker + Hero Symbol combo on Alba’s head.

Canon Adjacent AUs/Canon Alternate Characters

Moved to an overflow post here because this one got big enough that Tumblr stopped saving my post.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 257: New Year’s Party and All Might Feels

Previously on BnHA: The kids ate some yummy cotton candy and got to demolish a bunch of robots in flashy and expensive ways, because U.A. is every child’s dream school and All Might is getting closer to finally achieving his goal of being The Cool, Fun Teacher. There was also some cute Kirimina and Izuocha stuff, and also some panels of All Might watching Deku with a wistful dad smile which was both heartwarming and also makes me slightly terrified for his chances of surviving to the end of this series, but what else is new. Anyway so after class we cut to Aizawa and Mic who were all “we’re still sad fyi” until the Big Three interrupted them to get Aizawa to come help with Eri’s quirk. Meanwhile, All Might sat down with Deku and Kacchan and gave Deku a notebook all about THE PAST SUCCESSORS AND THE SIXQUIRKS. And we’d better be covering that pronto in this chapter because holy shit I had to wait two weeks after that cliffhanger and that was not fucking fair.

Today on BnHA: Kacchan and Deku read about the one quirk user WE ALREADY FUCKING KNEW ABOUT before they get bored and decide that WE DON’T NEED TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT ANY OF THOSE OTHER LAME QUIRKS APPARENTLY. In an effort to console me, All Might reveals that Shimura Nana’s quirk was THE POWER OF FUCKING FLYING YEAH BITCHES, which does admittedly warm my heart. Also Deku and Kacchan have an entire page of going back and forth at each other like the squabbling siblings they are and that helps too. Also we then cut to all of the 1-A kids having a New Year’s party, and yeah, Horikoshi admittedly knows how to play me like a goddamn fiddle I guess. The chapter then takes a sudden swerve for the nostalgic, with Deku and pals reminiscing about how much they’ve grown and how lucky they are, before we cut to All Might who’s sitting on a bench having Winter Night Angst until he’s comforted by Aizawa of all people, because this chapter is actually fucking great. And then we cut to THREE FUCKING MONTHS LATER LMAOOOO [blows noisemaker] SHIGARACALYPSE 2020 COMING ATCHA KIDS. WOOP WOOP.

okay so I have been persuaded to try out the fan scanlation this week! for several reasons: (1) the new scanlators have had a few weeks now to improve their game and I’m curious to see what the quality is like, (2) there are already spoilers all over my dashboard lol and I’m tired of trying to dodge them, and finally (3) I have nothing else to do this afternoon and I wanna read it. SO IMMA READ IT. BRING ON THE SIXQUIRKS OF DEKU THE NINTH

-- GOD DAMMIT ALL MIGHT

I assume that those are the two shadowy ones, then? Bakushadow and PonytailShadow? goddammit. meanwhile even if we didn’t have that whole mystery, the second user would still be the one I’m most curious about, because (s)he was the first one to actually get OFA handed down to them, and to say that I’m curious about how exactly that went down would be putting it mildly. like how the hell did Lil Bro figure out that he could pass his fucking quirk down to people. and what exactly was the trial and error process involved, if any. was he just like. “dude, come here, I want to try something okay? this is gonna sound really fucking weird but hear me out... I want you to eat my hair” 

sob, honestly a time-traveling Bakugou who already knows how The Whole Deal Works might honestly be the least bizarre explanation. I have so many questions ughh

btw I do also want to call attention to the fact that this chapter is titled “make it your own”, a.k.a. the mantra that Kacchan has been trying to get Deku to adopt since the provisional license exam. so this I do like. that is very promising

hmmMMMMMMMM

motherfuckin time travel is starting to sound more and more likely you guys. oh my god. but how?? someone’s quirk?? or maybe they can just get Mei to build them a machine. fuck it, she’s already upgraded Deku’s costume ten thousand times with random crap, what’s one more. you read it here first, Deku’s next upgrade will be gloves that carry him back and forth in time

lmao Katsuki

on the one hand that is very rude, but on the other hand I too would like him to get to talking about the ones whose quirks he actually did learn about. so yeah. [taps watch] we gonna do this All Might, or

lmao Deku’s asking about Blackwhip and meanwhile Katsuki’s just PICKING UP THE NOTEBOOK, WITHOUT EVEN ASKING, YOINK

(ETA: Kacchan with a normal face is such a rare Charizard of a panel that I just have to stop for a moment to appreciate it. take a good look everyone, we probably won’t get this again for another 50 chapters.)

fucking thank you Kacchan. holy shit. I mean All Might worked hard on it, might as well make use of it. and never mind the explicit “FOR YOUNG MIDORIYA” plastered on the cover I guess lol

also!! BALDY FINALLY GOT HIMSELF A NAME OMGGGGG. “LARIAT.” we’ll see how Caleb translates that tomorrow, I guess. I have no idea what it means but I’m excited!!! yay naaaames

OH THAT’S JUST HIS ALIAS HE’S GOT A REAL NAME TOO OH SNAP

(ETA: also there’s the expected “go” since he’s #5. so that’s apparently still a thing, meaning the mystery behind nos. 2 and 3 is still as perplexing as ever. maybe a bit of a stretch, but does anyone suppose that the “己” at the end of Katsuki’s given name could be interpreted as kind of looking like the Arabic numeral for two? eh? eh??)

seems to be causing a whole lot of collateral damage, but hey, price you pay for being a badass

oh my god my sons are bickering

(ETA: but lmao though at Katsuki being all “YOU THINK EVERY FUCKING QUIRK IS AMAZING” because sob it’s true.)

Katsuki please. first of all WHY WOULD YOU ONLY GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT THE ONE FUCKING QUIRK WE ALREADY KNEW, and two, I kinda need at least one of those quirks to be at least a little bit badass, because fucking shit you guys, uhhhh. [gestures frantically to the last page of chapter 255]  nyghhnghh. and also!! [gestures to the last two pages of chapter 245] ...

hmm so All Might says that Kacchan is right, and that it makes sense that most of the quirks would be weak ones because AFO made it his business to stomp out any strong quirk users on account of the whole “he’s fucking evil” thing and all of that world domination biz

look how evil

oh wow

goddamn that’s one hell of an image. all these fallen heroes desperately trying to make sure that their power, the world’s only hope, doesn’t die out with them

so then from the way All Might makes it sound, it seems like some of the successors maybe weren’t carefully selected at all, but instead they were just the ones who happened to be in the right (wrong??) place at the right time. maybe some of them were fellow soldiers in the war against AFO, and when their comrades fell they were there to pick up the gauntlet. that actually makes a hell of a lot of sense

and also the way they seem to be passing on the quirk appears to be the blood-on-blood method rather than the hair-eating method, so that also potentially addresses my snarky rambling earlier in this very recap lol. Lil Bro may not have meant to pass it on at all; he might have just been gripping some spiky-haired passerby’s hand while mortally wounded, and knowing that his time was up, and hoping against hope that this MYSTERIOUS KACCHAN-LOOKING STRANGER would somehow be able to take up the fight and continue what he started. and then lo and behold

-- motherFUCKER HE REALLY JUST PUT IT BACK DOWN ON THE TABLE LIKE

SO, I GUESS WE JUST DON’T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THE OTHER QUIRKS THEN! WELL FINE. let’s just never talk about anything I’m dying to know about again ever!!

“seems they’ve all died young” WELL ISN’T THAT JUST FINE AND FUCKING DANDY. what a wonderful legacy All Might has bequeathed unto our sprightly green protagonist. what a barrel of laughs this has turned out to be

sob my son literally doesn’t know how to take his foot off the gas

but I guess it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have someone there who only relentlessly knows how to go forward, forward, forward

SDFLKSHDOGIHSOGISHLGKSDLFJ

EXCUSE ME, MCFUCKING WHAT DID YOU SAY?! SO YOU’RE TELLING ME MY BEST GIRL COULD FUCKING FLY, IS THAT IT?? AM I READING THIS RIGHT?? WAIT -- HOW DO YOU BREATHE, AGAIN?? OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD, I

LOL WHAT THE FUCK

(ETA: I left the edges of his speech bubble in while cropping this so everyone can appreciate just how spiky it is.)

me too kid!! you were playing quirk bingo, right? it was only a matter of time before someone came along with flying powers and we all knew it. I’ve been saying it and saying it, Deku was born to touch the sky

lulz he’s screaming at Deku that he can already fly with his explosions, so now while Deku works on mastering his own flying quirk, Katsuki will pull ahead of him SO THAT MAKES HIM THE WINNER I GUESS. lol honestly this speech is one of the nerdiest things he’s ever done and I almost wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d ended it with “OWNED!!!” watch him look around for a mic to drop

oh my god

this isn’t even rival energy, this is sibling energy. like, this one panel is some of the rawest fucking sibling energy I’ve ever seen. the relentless shittalking, the competition over absolutely nothing, the ridiculous faces... just, wow

anyway so I have a ton of thoughts about Katsuki’s current feelings toward Deku ever since the Endeavor and Natsuo “you don’t have to forgive me” thing, but the short version is that I think Katsuki lately has actually been really worried about upsetting the status quo with Deku, and, well... “losing” Deku, so to speak. I think during the internship he finally clued in to the fact that he actually had been a real certified jerkweiner to Deku, but more importantly he woke up to the realization that he doesn’t know for sure if Deku actually has forgiven him. like, he’s been going around thinking that it’s in the past, that it doesn’t matter, and then along come the Todorokis with all their drama, and he sees that and he realizes oh shit, sometimes people secretly have tons of resentment that’s just burning away at them underneath and shit!

and so the thought is kind of eating at him now that Deku might not have actually forgiven him, and he’s actually really scared of that, and so he’s reacting in two different ways: one, by being irrationally annoyed/angry with Deku for having that power over him (the power to either forgive him or not), even though that’s his own fault; and two, by trying in his own way to aggressively push things toward being the way they were back when they were little kids before their whole falling out. which, in his mind, means them being rivals. like, in the second character book, there’s a section that’s all about the characters’ relationships with each other, and in for Deku it says he views his and Kacchan’s relationship as “childhood friends”, but from Katsuki’s perspective, their relationship is listed as “childhood rivals.” so yeah

anyway so I guess I lied about this being “the short version” (I’m gonna have to essay about this more in a separate post I think), but basically I think that in Katsuki’s mind this kind of juvenile making-faces-and-egging-each-other-on thing is how he interprets their friendship, and he’s very awkwardly trying to get back to that

anyway! I got hella sidetracked there so let’s get back to the plot shall we. there’s a sweet panel of All Might smiling at the two of them because I think he also sees that this scene is somehow heartwarming in its own bizarre way lol

and then WE’RE CUTTING BACK TO THE DORMS YESSSSSS

(ETA: stray thought -- it’s an absolute fucking delight to see all of the male characters cooking for once while the girls, as far as I can see, are just sitting around chilling in the living area. like I’m sure they are helping as well, but you have no idea how fucking refreshing it is to not have the girl characters be all “WE’LL COOK FOR YOU BOYS SINCE YOU’RE SO HOPELESS AND/OR YOU’RE WORKING SO HARD TEEHEE.” holy shit. it’s great.)

to answer your question, Sero, they’ve been having secret powwows with All Might and discussing things like how Kacchan is objectively better than Deku it’s science, and how to make Deku fly. what have you all been doing

OH I SEE YOU ARE HAVING DINNER

is that Tokoyami running like a Hanna-Barbera character in the background. every time I think I have a handle on his character Horikoshi has a new twist ready to keep me on my toes. also lol at Kirishima remembering how Kacchan did jackall to help during the Christmas party, and making sure he does his part this time IF HE WANTS TO EAT

(ETA: lol so after rereading this that’s clearly Deku in the background. I still think it looks more like Tokoyami though! but obviously the two of them are the only ones still in their uniforms, so.)

OH BOY OH BOY NOW THIS CHAPTER IS CRACKIN’

TODOROKI SHOUTO!! YOU HAVE BROUGHT SHAME UNTO YOUR FAMILY! lmao he’s so quick to answer “IT WAS ME I DID IT” with his two fucking exclamation points too lol. I don’t know why that’s so amusing to me but it is and I love it

meanwhile Horikoshi got a little too playful when drawing that Momochako page there huh. drew the back of her head but was then like “BUT THEN YOU CAN’T SEE HER ADORABLE SMILE” but he couldn’t be assed to redraw it so he improvised. IT’S CALLED ART

ahhhhhhh class B is joining them yesssss!! and Kodai’s bringing a couch oh my god such an excellent and practical application of her Ant-Man quirk to make sure everyone has someplace to sit these children are so cooperative and wise

YAY WHOLESOME NEW YEAR’S PARTY ANTICS

KATSUKI HAS UPGRADED FROM SANTA GRUMP TO SITTING NICELY WITH HIS SQUAD!! SHOUJI IS WEARING ANOTHER OF HIS LEGENDARY PONCHOS!! TSUYU JUST SAVED MINA’S LIFE!! KOUDA BROUGHT HIS BUNNY BECAUSE BUNNY DESERVES TO PARTY TOO!! AND AOYAMA IS PROBABLY WEARING A ROBE, BUT I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THAT IT’S A DRESS AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME!! NEW YEAR NEW HIM YES CHEERS

oh my god they’re starting to reminisce, no my emotions were not ready for this please chill out kids

look at them talking like they’re all grown up now

you do realize you all are still just babies right. “it was a crazy ride... back then we were so young...” is that Joe Cocker’s version of With a Little Help from My Friends I hear playing in the background. why has the film quality gone all grainy. what is this what’s happening

THANK YOU IIDA

as expected from the resident 40-year-old. please tell these children to get a grip. they’re out here talking about which Roth IRAs they’re going to get and how much their lower backs hurt

also, this scanlation hasn’t been too bad so far, but I feel like knowing it’s “Iida” and not “Lida” is like the bare minimum of translating a chapter of BnHA. like at least get the names right. but anyway I cropped that part of the panel out regardless because Mineta’s face was ruining the atmosphere so it’s all good

oh no. oh shit wait. what’s going on here

do not tell me this is one of those “calm before the storm/AND THAT WAS THE LAST TIME EVERYONE WAS ALL TOGETHER AND HAPPY EVER AGAIN” things. please no. please tell me I’m overreacting and grossly misinterpreting the general vibe here. fuck

also though, you see that bit in the Kacchan panel though lol. so yeah their relationship is just like that. it’s weird but they like it

jesus christ now Deku is sitting there saying “I’m very fortunate” with this face like he’s just DARING fate to come on over and punch him in the balls. DEKU!!

no!!!! [swipes at the air in an attempt to ward off the oncoming plot] go away! shoo!

and interestingly, Tokoyami is watching him!

do you want in on this plot too buddy. is that it. well your mentor has gotten himself all wound up in this spider’s web by this point, so why not. if we’re gonna have angst I guess the more the merrier

LMAO NEVER MIND, THE VERY NEXT PANEL HE’S ASKING DEKU TO PASS THE FUCKING PONZU AGAIN. DEKU COULD YOU FUCKING SNAP TO IT ALREADY HOW MANY GODDAMN TIMES DOES HE HAVE TO ASK

NOW ALL MIGHT IS SITTING ALONE ON A BENCH OUTSIDE THE TEACHER’S DORMS AND AIZAWA IS THERE SUDDENLY

is he going to talk to him about Eri. or the whole Noumu thing. ahhhhhhh

someone please tell All Might he needs to stop acting like he’s about to die. holy shit. this is reaching unacceptable levels. the fond smile while watching Deku’s progress. another fond smile while seeing him and Bakugou going back and forth, perhaps feeling reassured that someone else will be there to look out for Deku once he’s gone. giving Deku a notebook with everything he knows about OFA. and now SITTING ON A BENCH ALONE IN THE DARK IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER WITH HIS HANDS FOLDED IN HIS LAP JUST THINKING THOUGHTS!! AND AIZAWA’S ALL “WHAT ARE YOU DOING” AND HE’S ALL “NOTHING... JUST...” HOLY FUCKING SHIT ALL MIGHT COULD YOU PLEASE NOT

but anyways so what’s this you say about training Eri now

fffFFFFFS HE’S DOING IT AGAIN

he doesn’t know if he’ll be here come springtime, that’s what’s up. the clock is ticking on Nighteye’s prophecy, and even though he swore he’d live and punch fate in the mouth, you never know though and shit but this is depressing. anyway if my guess is right he may be about to share the secret of OFA with Aizawa though, because that’s what I’d do if I thought I was possibly gonna die and my student might need someone to continue mentoring him once I was gone. so, you know, still a bummer but also YES ALL MIGHT DO ITTTTT

oh nope nevermind he’s just rambling and Aizawa doesn’t have a clue wtf he’s on about

fffff this is some prime grade A All Might angst right here, the gods have blessed us after so long oh snap oh dang

so then maybe he doesn’t think he’s dying lol. well whatever. I think it’s probably a little of column A, a little of column B, that sort of thing but hey

yo you guys, Aizawa bonding with All Might is just. [chef’s kiss] it’s been so long. I don’t think we’ve had a long scene between them since the parent teacher meetings oh my god. Aizawa definitely respects him so much more now and it’s great

totally off subject btw, but the third light novel has a chapter where the teachers all meet up at a local bar and get trashed and talk about all kinds of crap, and Aizawa drunkenly tells All Might he respects the hell out of him, and it’s an absolute delight and everyone should read it. here’s the link to the Viz edition. it’s easily the best of the light novels (though I haven’t read the fourth one which is coming out in March), and an enjoyable read from start to finish. anyways thus ends my unsponsored plug, now back to our regularly scheduled programming

yep. safe to say the days when he thought All Might was an attention-loving media whore are long gone. fuck I love this

oh my god oh my fucking god

wow. just. ...shit. this is a message that I think everyone should hear, first of all, and this is easily one of the most gorgeous and profound panels this manga has ever had. like holy shit I almost cried

and second of all, tell me something, how is Aizawa the most comforting, gentle, supportive, encouraging man in the universe, and how did we get so lucky, and can you believe this man wasn’t even planning to become a teacher holy shit. we can’t afford to lose him, ever

OH FUCK ALL MIGHT, I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU START CRYING HERE --

let me tell you I did not need that flashback panel of Nighteye TODAY OF ALL DAYS, HOLY SHIT. THE HELL KIND OF TIMING IS THAT. HE KNEW WHAT EPISODE WAS AIRING THIS WEEKEND, HE DOES SKETCHES FOR THEM EVERY WEEK, THIS WAS FULLY INTENTIONAL AND I FEEL AGGRIEVED

my god All Might is pinching the corners of his eyes and apologizing I can’t. STOP OFFLOADING ALL OF THESE ALL MIGHT FEELS ON ME. even now, after everything he’s given, he still feels like it’s not enough. it’s in his nature to feel restless, to want to do more. he’s earned the right to rest -- earned it more than anyone in the world -- but he can’t, and he feels guilty and helpless because the burden he shouldered for so long has been passed on to everyone else now, and he knows how heavy it is, and he was so willing to carry it even if it destroyed him, but he can’t anymore! and then to have someone come along and say “it’s okay, you’ve done enough, you’re doing enough, you are enough,” just. shit shit shit shit shit. I can hear Horikoshi’s truck beeping as it backs up to dump YET MORE FEELS all over my goddamn house. there are feels being tossed out of an airplane door overhead with little parachutes. fucking paperboys are riding by on their bicycles and whipping them at my face screaming “EXTRA! EXTRA!” fucking...

-- HOLY SHIT!?!?

well my jaw just dropped. um. [peeks at calendar] do you mean to tell me that we’re just CUTTING STRAIGHT TO THE PARTY NOW, JUST LIKE THAT

WELL FUCK, LMAO. BEEN NICE KNOWING Y’ALL

sDFLKSHGLKH

Horikoshi: [poking his head in the door] hey what’s up guys just thought I’d toss in this panel of Ujiko here to remind you all that Spring is when --

everyone: JESUS CHRIST WE KNOW

-- WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK LOL, WHAT

well I guess it’s nice to know that those feelings of impending doom were apparently RIGHT ON THE MONEY sob. NOTHING TO SEE HERE, JUST THE END OF ALL HEROES!! JUST UJIKO ROAMING THE HALLS OF HIS LOCAL HOSPITAL BEING ALL “HO HO” BECAUSE HE’S FINISHED HIS WINTER PROJECT OF TURNING TOMURA INTO ONE OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN AND HE’S FEELING REALLY FUCKING GREAT ABOUT LIFE. JUST THE MANGA JUMPING AHEAD THREE FUCKING MONTHS JUST LIKE THAT, AND DROPPING US BACK IN BARELY A WEEK BEFORE THE START OF THE KIDS’ SECOND YEAR, A.K.A. “YEAR OF THE SHINSOU”, A.K.A. “YEAR THAT KACCHAN FINALLY REVEALS HIS HERO NAME BECAUSE HOLY SHIT SON YOU REALLY FUCKING SAT ON THAT FOR THREE MORE FUCKING MONTHS!?”, A.K.A. “THE YEAR ALL MIGHT BETTER NOT FUCKING DIE”, AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, A.K.A. “[GESTURES FRANTICALLY TO CHAPTER 245 AGAIN]”

lol. here I was hoping we had at least a little more time before the whole “we’re fucked” thing kicked in, but I guess the apocalypse waits for no one. gentlemen it has been a privilege playing with you tonight

[archtroop]

So for you. What other fandoms are you in? When, how and why wincest?😁😍😎

Oh my, gird your loins, this is gonna be a long confession. 

LIFE:

I little background (This is all very relevant, because it had direct affect on whatever choices I would make, stuff I might like and my own personal evolution as a human, leading me to where I am today - including my on-the-side fandom life, which are a huge part of me).

Female, only child - I was born in 1990 in Soviet Russia/Russia (it’s a murky year for definitions) in the farthest eastern piece of land on the globe that still constitutes as Asia, a place where they learn Japanese as a second language instead of English. I’m Jewish on my mother’s side, my father is not. Our small family migrated to Israel in 1996. I was enrolled in a religious school, for the first two years of my education. Religious orthodox little girls are bitches. I suffered. I was 6, and a 100% language barrier. Then I was enrolled in a state-religious school for 4 years. Made my first 2-3 friends. One of them is my forever best like-a-sister-to-me friend since then. Still, it screwed with my head just enough - having a secular background and family and religious preaching at school fucks you up real good. By this time I had an actual artificially ensued phobia of males. Boy, man, horse. If it had a dick I was opting out in the opposite direction. It was also a very violent time, hits and punches, teeth and nails. Got suspended once, this other girl in my class broke a guy’s teeth, ended in a juvenile institute for girls.  

The next 6 years (12-18 years old) I spent in a secular boarding school, which, in Israel, are inherently patriotic in nature. These years were my most definitive and had the greatest influence on my preferences. Had my real-life heterosexual-life partner thing going for me, and the plan wast to graduate and move together. Never panned out.  18-20 - served my two mandatory 2 years (as a phlebotomist, of all things). This was when I eventually snapped and began actually maturing. By that time I still had zero interest i the opposite sex (or the same sex for the matter). At 19.6 y/o met my future husband and the future father of our now 2.6 y/o girl, began my B.Arch (took me almost a decade to finish because of pregnancy and financials). As of now, I am an Architect in practice, I work in a small but a very affluent in work firm/office. Waiting for my diploma to be issued.

So, I am trilingual (Russian. Hebrew, English), married+1, architect, artist on a hiatus, I have zero fear of needles and blood, love to read, love to interpret, love to translate. I also failed the Kinsey Scale Test twice. Until very recently in my life I couldn’t pick up on sexual innuendo at all, couldn’t identify if I was hit on, too.  Today I like sex just fine, but it’s not a prime need of mine, which lead to me and my (very sexual in nature) significant other to agree on an open relationship. 100/100 would recommend. 

FANDOM:

TV was a friend. I was 7-8 y/o when Pokemon hit the little screen in Israel. For technical reasons, I couldn’t watch the first episode. So I refused to watch the next ones too, until I’ll catch the first one on the saturday reruns. This marks my first exhibit of obsessiveness towards a franchise/media.  But Pokemon was for cool kids, and for boys, so I can’t enjoy it (unfortunately this is going to be a recurring theme). I absorbed Hebrew quickly, and found myself spending time in the library. TV, library, pencils and paper were all I cared for. I was about 10 when girls at school, who had access (early 2000′) were giggling about something called Sailor Moon. But they were the very cool kids. Can’t have that at all. I read Interview With a Vampire when I was 11-12. I then flipped the book and realized there was apparently a movie, too. It will be years until I’ll have the chance to watch it. I switched from teen books to adults fantasy and horror at that time. I remembering giggling through R.L. Stein’s stuff. It was like candy to me. I would read whatever I could find. I didn’t listen to music. Music is for the cool kids, and I am not allowed. There was no music at home, too.

About that time, I found Flowers In The Attic and drank it up. The things that lurk in school libraries. I was engrossed in the darkness, the horror. The pain and angst and the, well, horror. It was beautiful. Then came Dragon Lance, and I fell for the Caramon & Raistlin story. Fantasy, dragons, and two brothers against ll odds, the warrior and the mage, who are forever bound, and when they die, they join each other in the river of souls. I loved it to bits.  I couldn’t survive through Tolkien. loved The Hobbit, but 30 pages into the third book and he was still describing a forest - so I ditched it. Harry Potter was huge to me, I drank it up. But Harry Potter was for cool kids, so I couldn’t really talk about it. And then when I was 13-14 y/o a friend introduced me to manga. It was 2003-04, the Internet was becoming  prominent feature of life. My first manga was Gravitation. Of all things. But manga and anime is for really cool girls, I can’t have that. But now I had Internet access. 

That’s when I encountered Angel Sanctuary, and Kaori Yuki’s work. Gothic Lolita, Visual Kei. I’v found my niche. No one of the cool kids had any idea about those pretty things, I could hold them and have them for myself. It became one of my greatest inspirations. I read tons of manga online, combing the web for scanlation groups. Anime, too. I became very good at finding stuff. Like, real good. I even have two Angel Sanctuary fanart pieces.

Did you notice a theme already? I haven’t until very recently.

In 2005-6 (I can’t recall for sure) Israeli AXN release a promo of Supernatural. I recognized that “very good actor whose character(s) I really liked from Dark Angel”. It as all true but also I was THAT aloof about physical human beauty  and attraction. But I was interrupted watching the Pilot and begrudgingly decided to follow upon it on a saturday rerun, Guess what, I got interrupted again. And it was ON, TV be damned. I hit the Google, and piracy was it. I watched Supernatural with reverence. It was entirely MINE. I opened an account on  fan-wikia Supernatural site, which I lost and forgot about that was my first ever fandom-related interaction. By that time I also had a DeviantART page, which I kinda left as a storage unit as life took its course.  Basically, in August 2020 I will hit 30, which would mean Supernatural officially was by my side half of my life. 

I had no idea what shipping was, though. Until Teen Wolf, funny enough.  Teen Wolf was my first ship experience. I didn’t read fanfic until then. Sterek somehow managed to pull me in that world. It’s that palpable on screen. So I joined tumblr. It took me time to get accustomed to all this, because even fandom is for cool kids but OH I AM ANONYMOUS.

And I gradually became more aware. Of pretty much everything. With Supernatural keeping me alive through my degree studies, prompting my sexuality to emerge (it is still a fucked up sexuality. But it’s a start.). Worked through issues with Supernatural on my back-burner all the time. 

Then Supernatural hit 10 seasons. And I had to celebrate, and it was my first and only (so far) Supernatural fanart. I began reading fanfic. But so much of it wasn’t what I was looking for. So after some contemplation, I decided to try and write my own (EasyRush). And that was it for me, I essentially drowned in it, the wincest. Now that is had a name. As of today, it has become this thing that I can dig into to find me some solace after a hard day. 

I can’t even say that there was a specific scene. Or a why. It’s just IS. Like the John-finds-out fics: A gradual dawning realization. Looking back, it’s all the elements of whatever I consumed merged and acted out by very talented and compelling actors. 

It has the setting of Flowers In The Attic, the mythology of Angel Sanctuary and the charm of Dragon Lance, turned up to eleven. It’s Gothic Urban Fantasy, gritty and beautiful (I miss classic Supernatural aesthetic BADLY) and is a survivor.

On retrospect I begin to pinpoint moments that have subconsciously lead me to it. There was never any other option.

Wincest is never for the cool kids. It’s for people like me.

P.S.: I think there might be a part two. I need to go. This was a great walk down memory lane, it’s not even half of it.

[millimim]

Hello! As most of you know, recently there have been posts regarding a translator profiting off eastern artists’ works through patreon and ko-fi. Although she was never attacked, harassed, or explicitly mentioned by the original post, user @seairu-kun (tumblr) / @seairu_ (twitter) spoke up and admitted that it was her doing. Her most recent posts showed that instead of a proper apology to the artists, she responded with a post that named several translators who were completely unrelated to the incident, for actions she believes justify her own but are not the same.

This is a direct response to @seairu-kun for her allegations against the named individuals translating Katsudeku fanart from eastern artists and to explain why her methods are harmful towards these artists. 

Before I respond to Seairu’s post, people will say “you should’ve messaged her personally” and I did (screenshots of this convo below).

the original ask message to Seairu: "Posting your translations privately is a good way to respect the artists' work, but posting them so only that people who pay you can read it is the opposite of respecting it... please create a private blog or something instead of using kofi and patreon to release privately, the artists get no revenue from what you're doing and exposure isn't a payment. having a kofi for tips or donations is perfectly fine, but translating a work doesn't make it yours, this money shouldn't be going to you."

1) “I didn’t realize providing my translations in private was a bad thing”

It isn’t, if it was a 1 unique translation to 1 unique commissioner for personal uses type of situation. She has been repeatedly charging people $3 on ko-fi for the same translated page. This means that she’s profited off the same translated page multiple times, which is different than charging 1 unique commissioner for 1 unique translation. In addition, Seairu asks for “donations” through ko-fi, but they are only donations in name. By withholding a product before a sum of money is given and charging “donors” (clients) for a “donation” (purchase), it becomes a TRANSACTION.

Translators such as shousanki, whom Seairu pointed out, minimize the damage done to artists by charging a unique commissioner once to cover the hours spent translating one unique doujinshi/comic and can scarcely be classified as a profit. This is more ethical than what Seairu has been doing, which is profiting off the same artist over the same artwork multiple times.

2) “...maybe have a talk with the other popular bakudeku translators in this fandom who post doujinshi on public sites like myreadingmanga while promoting their kofi links and zines?”

Shiku/shousanki (tumblr): “I don't know how Patreon works exactly, nor can I speak for other translators who use it, so I will only be clarifying how my own process goes. Generally when I take commissions it's for full-length doujinshi and inclusive of typesetting, cleaning, and editing services. Additionally, a large number of my commissions are private in that one client pays money for the completed product, along with exclusive rights to it, which means I won't redistribute it to anyone else. More commissions tend to be for original manga rather than doujinshi as well. In the case of public doujinshi translation, again, only one client-to-translator transaction occurs. I'd consider donations and commissions to be in entirely different leagues, too. Even if nobody donates money to my ko-fi, or nobody donates requesting a particular translation, whatever translations I have planned to post for free ends up posted eventually.”

Kat and Vivie/Revenge of the Dicku (MRM): “Hello, we’re very confused as to why we were brought up in the first place. We’ve never really interacted with seairu before; we’re not sure why she specifically named us when her argument seems to be pointing at any and all translators and we’re pretty new in the field. Not to mention, our situation is clearly very different because we give out all translations for free and never profit off of the original artist. As for our ko-fi, like most translators, we put up our link at the end of each doujin as a suggestion; it is meant to be on a purely donation-basis, aka we will NEVER withhold translations until someone gives us money. We produce translations, and if people wanna donate, it’s their choice. Moreover, these donations have and will be solely channelled to the production costs of the zine that we’re helming, so we essentially take no money out of this at all. Also, we’re not sure why our zine (AKOGARE) is implicated in this at all either. Either way, we do this so we can share with our friends so if people do not like what we do, then we will simply take everything down, it’s no loss for us. Thanks for listening.”

3) “I don’t understand how the fandom normalizes this and goes on reading scanlations of the BNHA manga every week, but turns around acting holier-than-thou while trying to ruin someone’s life in the process”

Scanlators (namely Fallen Angels and Mangastream) for BNHA offer their translations for free (you can choose to donate if you want), and do not charge readers $3 per translated page. The issue isn’t about reading things for free - the issue is about making (a lot of) money off somebody else’s hard work.

Asking for donations is completely fine as long as it’s optional. It is not okay to demand that people pay you for something that doesn’t belong to you. Yes, translation work is hard, and it is a service (many translators agree), but in the end, it is not the translator’s content. The hours they spend translating someone else’s words into another language are dwarfed in comparison to the hours of work the artist spends coming up with a plot, composing dialogue, lining, drawing and shading for a doujin; therefore, translators do not have the right to demand money from others for something that is not theirs. Translators may be approached for a commission and offered a one-time payment to compensate them for their time, but this situation is different since Seairu has been reselling the same set of translations to make a lot of money.

Below are pictures of Seairu’s ko-fi, Patreon, and posts about how she is offering to translate doujins and comics only if people become her patron or donate a ko-fi .

Note that it says “donate to [Seairu’s] patreon” but again, it CANNOT be called a donation because the doujins and comics are behind a paywall and money is demanded first. Most doujin artists charge 400-1200 YEN ($4-12) per doujin to primarily cover production costs IN ADDITION TO little comics they post for FREE on twitter and pixiv. Seairu has been charging people much more than the ORIGINAL CONTENT CREATORS and profiting off of that.

(In case people are unaware, Patreon works like a subscription sort of platform - you pledge a certain amount of money that corresponds to a tier, and you get content according to the tier you paid for. Effectively, you get multiple people paying for the same translation done by Seairu.)

4) “... but I’ve already taken down everything I could at the moment, and I sincerely apologize for my ignorance”

Ignorance seems unlikely since people have reached out to Seairu regarding this problem. They reached out to her in DMs to ask her politely to take them down, and she refused to acknowledge her wrongdoings, instead choosing to point fingers at other unrelated translators.

If this still doesn’t seem like a problem, below are screenshots of artists that Seairu’s profited off saying they’re not okay with their works being used for profit:

Hibarihiro: Original and Translated Conversation

Evidence of Seairu reselling the same translation multiple times through her ko-fi account.

Seairu has since deleted her translation posts for these artists’ works, but -

Shibaya:

Silverstar and Yutah:

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a response from silverstar, but their bio says no reposts are allowed, and it’s even in English.

Yutah believed that people were just giving gifticons to Seairu as thanks for her translations; Yutah did not know that Seairu actually opened a Patreon to profit off of her works.

5) “... to support my translation work since [it’s] a hard job that takes up many hours of my day…”

Yes, translation does take a long time, so it really doesn’t make sense to implicate other translators who are doing this for fun or to get by. As stated in Seairu’s patreon, she hoped to make this a “full time job,” profiting off of the works of artists who are unhappy with her doing so.

Many of these artists are against reposting at all, and some allow it with permission but ONLY IF the reposters do not profit from them. Artists who don’t want people to repost their art, much less demand money for it, WILL NOT HESITATE to lock or delete their accounts, their art, and start mass blocking English speaking fans. It’s happened before. Some artists have already done this and will continue to do so. They will NOT hesitate to stop sharing their beautiful art and ideas with us because some people just can’t respect their wishes. There’s a reason why the western fandom has such a bad reputation amongst eastern artists and what Seairu is doing is just aggravating the situation. Not only that, but upon being faced with upset artists and facts, she decided to point fingers at unrelated translators, people who do such for a one time commission and later make it available for free, as well as translators who do it for free and have ko-fis as SUGGESTIONS only. Her “donations” are TRANSACTIONS for something that is not hers, and this is illegal.

Below is a link that talks deeper about translated commissions versus a paywall: http://dmmegsie.tumblr.com/post/171857295019/clarifying-commissionspaywalls-versus-donations

Overall commissioned translation for one person privately is fine. But when you create a paywall for multiple people to pay that's when damage is being done.

If possible, Seairu should refund the money or share profits with the artists. She has responded to messages on tumblr saying that she has apologized to the artists in question and it would be well received for her to post screenshots of these conversations.

None of the original posters used Seairu’s name, but many knew of these illegal actions. This is not a “witch hunt”, but note that no other translators were mentioned until Seairu herself brought them up with her own post (which is titled as an apology, but does not feel like one since she doesn’t post her apology to the artists). She continued to reblog posts mentioning the other translators while none of them have reblogged the post that contains Seairu’s name.

Please do not support these kinds of actions, whether that be illegally mass profiting off of other’s work or attempting to shift the blame onto others.

[plotbunny-bundle]

261 fan scanlations: What the Fuck are Nomu?

Read the fan scan for yourself here https://ww5.readmha.com/chapter/boku-no-hero-academia-chapter-261/ and freak out with me 

Are they modified people? Tricked up Zombies? Sliced together clones?

I got no clue but I’m leaning together clones thanks to this chapter.

Why? Because of Mocha chan.  

Mocha chan. The little Nomu with noses for ears. Nicknamed Nose-Ear-Chan and Nen-chan by the Villain Stan Club has a name: Mocha chan!

(I used to have a rabbit named Mocha ironically)

Mocha Chan is revealed to a quirk. The same quirk as Twice. But Twice is still alive and fine. We can argue that Ujiko got a sample of his quirk somehow. Knowing Twice Ujiko just could have asked.

But what makes Mocha chan stand out is its actions. Mocha chan tries to Save Ujiko. It throws itself at Miruko and gets kicked in the face buying Ujiko enough time to save himself. Who does that sounds like? A guy who fought through his trauma to clone himself for his friends? Twice is so loving and deeply cares about the League. Each of his clones think like him yet they are willing to use themselves as human shields for their friends.

I don’t think don’t think Mocha chan is just a clone of Twice’s quirk. I think Mocha chan is a jumbled-up clone of Twice!

Look at Mocha chan

You can see the human parts. I’ve heard Mocha chan theorized to be made out of a child but that looks like an adult sized spine. What child has two noses?

What if Nomu are messed up clones of people? Nomu could be made without death! The cops have identified people who’s are said to be the nomu by DNA but have they checked that these people are dead? Even so corpses have DNA.  

Which leads me the Ujiko-Dabi theory. Skip this part if you’re sick of it. I like a lot of fans think Dabi and Touya Todoroki are the same person. But what if they aren’t? Ujiko seems to know Dabi somehow. And we are all wonder how Touya could have lived but his pro hero father thinks he’s dead. Well if Nomu are clones and Ujiko has been experimenting with cloning, What if Dabi isn’t Touya but a clone of him?

 There is evidence to contrary to this idea. Kurogiri is built around a dead teenager. But compared to the Nomu, Kurogiri seems more advanced. He’s more human sized and shaped, much smarter and capable of planning and questioning orders. His quirks are fused into one. What if Kurogiri isn’t a nomu but another project? Oboro’s death was 15 years ago. Nomu could be a new project that isn’t as far along.

 More evidence against the clone theory comes from this chapter. When the High Ends get out they start talking To Each other! I’ve never seen Nomu interact with each other before. Some of the are talking in complete sentences. They’re agreeing with each other. One of them has very clear eyes. They may have a leader. But what’s freaking me out is the stuff the High Ends are saying.  

I’ll need the official translation to the check but one of them says “It’s been a while”. Two others says “We can go wild” “Let’s kill them all and go berserk”  

The latter two remind me of what Shigaraki said to the MLA “Go wild/nuts”

But the first thing. “It’s been a while” How is that possible? When has that Nomu been out to fight? How can it have met heroes before? Is it recalling memories of its former life? Two Nomu were said to be made from criminals. If Nomu are made from people who were criminals they could remember fighting heroes?

 So now we have 5 unstabilized High End without orders verse the 5th and 6th ranked heroes. This will be a cool fight. I hope we get to see why Crust is #6 next chapter. Miruko is my favorite hero but for some reason I’m rooting for the Nomu.

 Other comments

How many Nomu are there? There are so many tanks and rooms.

Why did the nomu break the tanks? Surely there is a way to get them out without breaking the glass.

It seems heroes are still using the Aizawa test to see if villains are real. Breaking arms to see if someone is real is a pretty bad way to test. Also Miruko I get heroes do the saving people thing but right now your not saving people. You’re attacking someone. Don’t smile when talking about beating someone up and breaking their limbs. It doesn’t look heroic, it looks sadistic.

I’m no longer in denial. Johnny chan is dead. May he rest in peace if he was ever alive.

It was intersting to see AFO manipulating Ujiko. I had a moment of feeling for him while his life’s work was being destroyed. He’s really attached to his Nomu. 

Last nitpick. Why does the female nomu have hair? No other nomu has hair. And why does it have boobs?

Bnha will be on break next week. Which is good for me because I have stuff to do next weekend but this will be cliff hanger for sure.

[chilly-territory]

With lexbenedetto's kind permission, a scanlation of the long awaited chapter 43! Now I can say with certainty that Gangsta resuming isn’t just a dream!

The whole of vol8 (with extras): here

Some thoughts:

Well, first of all, it's back and now we won't have to stew in unanswered questions for an undetermined period of time! Yay!

I don't really know what I hoped to see in this chapter... I probably expected it to be... well, not really a breather but definitely less intense than what I got. My body wasn't ready, if I'm honest. Kohske doesn't pull her punches from the very first page, making the previous chapter seem almost trifle. Almost. In any case, the chapter conveys very well that what's going on with Marco and Constance is but a small part of much much bigger shit that's currently hitting the fan.

We get very valuable insight into Worick's soul, and I'll be honest, I've been waiting for it ever since I had confirmed that he's not quite who he projects himself to be.

So Wallace stayed idealistic even after witnessing Nicolas murder his family, and tried to become a sort of justice champion wannabe, a Robin Hood who fought fire with fire for the sake of Twilights. And then, at some point later, when he saw that he couldn't make a difference despite his efforts, he broke inside a little, deciding to go with the flow as long as the equilibrium of the city held instead of trying to change the system. It echoes what is stated in the novel nicely (so I'm now sure that when writing the novel, Kawabata Junichi had a lot of input from Kohske herself, in order to keep the main duo in character).

A heartbreaking story, made all the more painful by the fact that Worick obviously respected Monroe and I may go as far as to say that Monroe's being the person with a certain sense of justice he was (or rather, the person he projected until recently) was probably what helped young Wallace come to terms with the situation and stop going against the system, switching to supporting it as a member of the Monroe family instead. But he was betrayed by Monroe in the worst way possible, and it started a chain reaction, forcing him to betray Nicolas, Twilights as a whole and, to a degree, even himself. Miles, who Worick was rather close with, paid for the betrayal, but as they say, revenge is empty, and Worick is very much an empty shell when he thanks Georgiana.

Speaking of Georgiana, it was a pleasant surprise that her tough exterior hides a compassionate heart. Though the fact immediately makes me wonder why she's with the Corsica family when she doesn't seem to be prejudiced against Twilights and even keeps the dying Veronica in her brothel... Oh, and I even had this wild thought that what if she's Wallace's mother who he knows to be a prostitute. But no, upon closer consideration, probably no, she's probably just a compassionate woman he met along the way.

With Nicolas... ouch, it's painful to even watch him. The expression he wears is not much better than when his father abandoned him, only now he's not surprised and appears to have even waited for it to happen. That downer outlook on the value of his life he evidently had adopted after his father's abandonment and kept for decades since shows itself again, both in Chad's recollection and in Nicolas' own when he stares at his sword - and I'll be damned if he's not thinking about taking his own life on those pages, like he tried to after slaughtering Wallace' entire family. And that kind of hopeless despair is just... literally painful to watch.

On a side note, I wonder what those orders he's talking about are. Worick once told him that they had to keep the Monroe family unscathed no matter what... I hope that's not what Nic's referring to though.

Another thing to consider in that scene is Theo. He's kinda... unfathomable, to me. We know he can be ruthless (examining dying people, Twilights in particular, on a regular basis and not being able to help can harden anyone, I'm sure), and he's not above using opportunities to experiment on people without a second thought. But at the same time... he takes care of Nina, he runs a clinic that treats Twilights which can't be for profit because he barely makes the ends meet... and that expression on his face when Nicolas, in terrible pain from his seizure, intentionally knocked the downer injector out of his hands, wordlessly requesting him not to administer the downer and to continue Yang's surgery instead, was genuine as genuine gets.

So the question is, why did he say what he said to Nicolas about making a contract with him and basically using him as a guinea pig for his drugs? I have a feeling that while he does want Nic as his lab rat, that wasn't the whole reason. Maybe he also tried to give Nicolas something of a place to return (which would echo what Alex thinks about in this chapter), now that Nic lost it. Nina tried to prevent Nic from thinking about committing suicide by offering her presence, while Theo essentially tried to do the same, in his own rather crude way, but it's the thought that counts..

Now, Alex. The universal suffering happening in Gangsta didn't spare Alex either. From the wording of it, in front of the door she was about to make up her mind to never return to the Benriya again. Only to find what she found inside. Yeah. But Alex is a strong girl, she's not your wussy who'd run away with a tail between her legs from that. In fact, I think that Worick's note and the dead body of Miles he left behind will have an opposite effect on Alex. A normal girl would take the money and run, but I want to believe that Alex would cry it all out and then get up again, with new found determination to fight for her place to belong and the people she wants to belong with against all odds.

Who else is left... Ah, Chad and Gina. Our resident dirty cop is like Georgiana - tough exterior but a soft heart. It's not just the people he knows he worries about but all the Twilights, and I wish Ergastulum had more folks like him, but such people are few and far between, that's why those protests and Twilight hunts are happening in the first place. Gina's words to him, about not pushing what he wants to protect on others, sure were harsh. There's some truth in them, but then, what exactly could he do to prevent this whole shit? The ones at fault are clearly Daniel Monroe and Uranos Corsica. Especially Monroe. it's not like Chad could do anything about that.

I can see Gina's point about not opening the gate to her Colony. Yes, I can see it, but it makes it clear (if you still doubted it) that she's not the secretly compassionate, emphatic type, like Georgiana, Chad and even Theo to a degree. Ironically, she's more similar to Nicolas in having a certain beastly thirst for fighting, for violence, for cruelty. I'm hoping to see more of her to get a better feel of how much she may care for the guild, for the people she knows and for her kind in general. Oh, and seeing her in action as a fighter wouldn't hurt either!

Anyway, this was long, for which I apologize, but the story is so intriguing that the next chapter can't happen fast enough!

[idiosyncreant]

Reasons You Should Try Reading Skip-Beat! (Even If You’re Not Big Into Manga)

In the interest of sanity, I recently found myself re-reading the whole run of Skip-Beat! and remembering that I still haven’t managed to fully express to the Internet how great this manga is.

So, if you’re someone into seeing female characters own their lives and destinies, accepting both their dark and light sides, and learn to excel in their chosen career-- READ ON, MY FRIEND

Introducing “Skip-Beat!”

This comic opens with a familiar scenario--our heroine, plain and hard-working, discovers that her childhood friend she has always loved is taking advantage of her...and has never thought of her as more than The Help.

It so happens she’s been supporting him, skipping high school, so he can become a rock star in Tokyo.

It’s how she reacts to this devastating blow that makes Kyoko A Heroine For The People:

she becomes consumed with hatred, embodied in little spirits she can weaponize, laughing maniacally as she promises revenge.

And is thrown out of the TV station where she had gone to give him food, while he laughs at her and declares, “Want revenge? First get on my level in show business!”

Thus the most unlikely of vengeance plots begins.

1) Dark Power Kyoko

Kyoko’s unleashing of her inner demons is both metaphorical and practical. Up until this point, she has been the mild-mannered self-effacing girl the adults in her life wanted her to be. There is something so satisfying about watching a girl become literally powerful when she owns her own darkness.

Not that it’s all good. Kyoko also swears off love with the single-minded zeal only possible with someone who had first single-mindedly adored one (unworthy) person. This causes her problems getting into the agency she’s chosen, and hampers some of her development. We understand from fairly early on that though her blind love was ill-chosen, she is going to have to come back to a balance where she can love again, or she will never truly be a fully-developed person (or actress).

2) Self-Development Kyoko

Actress? Kyoko starts off in the “assorted talent” division, because she has no idea what she wants to do as a celebrity, just that she needs to be one to defeat her now-nemesis.

But along her journey, she falls in love with acting--and perhaps because of the way she feels intensely, she is also uniquely gifted for it.

I love that this is the way she discovers her passion. It takes a huge set-back, and is something she comes to almost by accident--as is the way with a lot of us. Not often reflected in art, however.

3) Girl Posse Kyoko

When Kyoko swears off love forever, she means romantic love. It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that however much she hates being emotionally vulnerable in that area, she’s absolutely loyal and desires connection. Her very first actress acquaintance seems to hate her guts--and when they have the change to be comrades, Kyoko’s occult powers come out to make the nicknamed “Moko” join her.

She makes friends and wins people over (often against harsh rejection!) wherever she goes. And she starts to gather girls as friends in an industry that wants to pit them against each other.

4) Enemies to Frenemies to Lovers (?)

There’s a lot of this dynamic. One of amazing things about this writer is how she understands that relationship are not static, and that no matter the relationship (be it with a boss or a lover) it’s going to shift and change.

The main loveline is an example of Kyoko being at odds with someone, then realizing she has a lot to learn from him, and slowly growing because of it.

Now. Both of these characters have issues. And so their relationship gets to develop at a snail’s pace. ^_^ Great for the mangaka, and also great for the type of story this is--in a way, it IS about love. An absence of love has brought Kyoko to the worst day of her life...and she’s building her way out of that pit.

It’s not just her childhood friend who betrayed her--he was really just the person she attached to because she was already hurting and abandoned. And this isn’t played lightly, as something that can be healed by kissing the right guy.

Though our main pair DO heal each other, they aren’t doing it intentionally or by pretty words.

5) Side Character Development

This is the kind of manga that excels because of attention to detail and humanity, rather than being groundbreaking in art style or plotline. One of the ways this shows is in how there are bit-players, but none of them are cliches. Some of them are types, but they have suggestions of nuance, even if they come and go within a few chapters.

And this manga writer uses that incredible long-form to her advantage by bringing back characters to do new things in the story. Even the seemingly one-note privileged rich-girl. #mildspoilersyou’llforgetonceyoustart

In summary, Skip-Beat! has some of the most excellent, nuanced character development and emotionally true story-writing not just of manga, but of any long-form story I’ve encountered.

YOU NEED TO TRY IT

especially if you are: a k-drama fan, enjoy stories about show-biz that are not about the glitz of show-biz but about learning a craft, cheering for a heroine who is sometimes unpleasant, and/or finishing scanlation chapters only to go “how will I survive until the next chapter is out?!”

(I own the whole run in 3-in-1 volumes, as many as have been released. The scanlations aren’t great, and I’m thinking of quitting them but the WAIT GUYS)

[I only own 2 total series’ of manga, so it’s kinda a big deal.]

Potential Stumbling Blocks (from what I know of my audience)

but really you’ll like it so why read these bits? They’re, like, spoilery. It’s not content/trigger-warning kinds of stuff.

age-gap romance: Kyoko is 16 at the beginning of the story. Her counterpart is 20. While it’s dealt with NOT as if it were no big deal (and the age gap is more a gap in career development, after a certain point, than of maturity) it may not feel as earned to you as it does to me. While we’re on Volume 39, and there’s no actual declared relationship some of the situations (because of acting) are ones with sensuality.

withheld identity information: Kyoko and her counterpart are both hiding things about their past, but he knows they met when they were kids, and she thinks....well. She thinks that his kid self is fairy prince. Who still exists separately from him. I believe he is going to seriously pay for continuing to lie to her. But if that makes you hurl a book, you might?

jerk ex-friend continues as presence in her life: at no point is the guy who used her made out to be a poor misunderstood good person. But he does have nuance that makes you sorry for him. And he does force a kiss and humiliate her. So. Forewarned is forearmed?

[fencer-x]

Hi fencer! I wanna start off by saying thank you for all the work you put into the fandoms you're passionate about (both by scanlating stuff and by sharing your thoughts and views on the shows). I loved coming to your blog after each new ep of yoi and reading what you thought about it. ^_^ I see you're a fellow fan of drarry, and that you (like me) read a lot of fanfics. Do you have any favourite authors or fics? Also, I agree 100%, Ron and Hermione being together is a must for me as well. :)

I’ve been reading a lot of great ones lately, though I’m wondering if most haven’t already been read by you and/or others hoping for good reccs XD I’ll include some of my favorites here anyway! A “warning” that I pretty much only recommend really long and really porny stuff, so all of this is mostly novel-length fics or longer with boys touching one another :3

Any Instrument by dicta_contrion [NC17] | “Draco Malfoy wouldn't go back to England for anything less than an exceptional case. Being asked to figure out why Harry Potter can't control his magic might be exceptional enough to qualify.” -- [my thoughts: really long, really a great bit of lore, especially if you’re interested in expansions on how wands work and interact with wizards. Draco lives in France after the war and specializes in how magic interacts with human biology, and he gets called in as an expert to treat Harry when his magic starts going haywire. There’s a very good reason for the haywire magic, and it’s a doozy. Slow build, just like I like it]

Helix by Saras_Girl [NC17] | “Seven months after the end of the war, Harry is feeling lost. Fortunately, he is about to be offered an unexpected and sparkling chance to find himself again.” -- [my thoughts: this is a fic with a really weird and quirky premise because how can a fic about Harry and Draco babysitting mating snails be all that good?? But???? IT IS??? It’s really quite adorable, and I guarantee you won’t regret investing your time in it.]

At Your Service by Faith Wood [NC17] | “Hogwarts students are in danger; Harry is determined to save them all. There's only one thing he knows for certain: Draco Malfoy is somehow involved.” -- [my thoughts: I LOVE “eighth-year” fics, and this one was really good and quite a head-scratcher (so if you like plot in your fic, here it be!) It gets particularly intense near the end, but I implore you to stick with it!]

Lumos by birsofshore [NC17] | “Harry never expected to spend eighth year listening to Draco Malfoy wanking.” -- [my thoughts: this one gets pretty porny pretty early on, and probably banks more on that for being a good read than in-character-ness. Nevertheless, I did enjoy it and expect others would too. Also, it’s rare to see Ron react so casually to the idea of Harry and Draco together outside of fics set well into adulthood, but you get that here! How IC or otherwise you find that, I leave to your discretion, but at least it was one less bit of drama to address. Lots of fun with wandless magic and intense bickering :D]

All Our Secrets Laid Bare by firethesound [NC17] | “Over the six years Draco Malfoy has been an Auror, four of his partners have turned up dead. Harry Potter is assigned as his newest partner to investigate just what is going on.” -- [my thoughts: My two favorite setups in H/D fic are ‘eighth-year shenanigans’ and ‘auror partners’, so here we have the latter beautifully done! But GOD is the build-up nigh-torture at times.]

The Shape of the World by bixgirl1 [NC17] | “Five years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco's life is finally getting back in order. Until, that is, he sees a familiar face that has been missing since that last awful morning of the war. When has knowing Potter done anything other than complicate his life? Although, for two people such as Potter and Malfoy, how can they fall in love except to put aside their preconceived notions about one another?” -- [my thoughts: the summary doesn’t tell you much, so a better short summary is ‘Harry went missing years ago, Draco happens upon him in California where Harry has been, suffering from apparent amnesia, and has to help him get back to the Wizarding World, whether he wants to rejoin it or not’. There’s some discussion of dubious consent, and it’s addressed in the story, so hopefully that allays some worries about the idea of ‘draco knows who harry is but harry doesn’t know who draco is and therefore cannot give informed consent to a relationship with him’]

Tea and No Sympathy by who_la_hoop [NC17] | “It's Potter's fault, of course, that Draco finds himself trapped in the same twenty-four-hour period, repeating itself over and over again. It's been nearly a year since the unpleasant business at Hogwarts, and Draco's getting on with his life quite nicely, thank you, until Harry sodding Potter steps in and ruins it all, just like always. At first, though, the time loop seems liberating. For the first time in his life, he can do anything, say anything, be anything, without consequence. But the more Draco repeats the day, the more he realises the uncomfortable truth: he's falling head over heels for the speccy git. And suddenly, the time loop feels like a trap. For how can he ever get Harry to love him back when time is, quite literally, against him?" [my thoughts: GOSH this has definitely been one of my FAVORITES of these recent ones I’ve been binging. It’s got kind of a ‘Fifty First Dates” feel to it, which I love, and just seeing Draco lose himself as he gets deeper and deeper into Harry is really...heartbreaking, but also so lovely. Definitely a must-read]

What We Pretend We Can’t See by gyzym [NC17] | “Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.” [my thoughts: another terrible summary, lol; the premise of this one is that Harry decides to sell Grimmauld Place in order to put the terrible memories of it behind him, and unbeknownst to him, Draco buys it and turns it into a sort of museum. It becomes...KNOWNST to him when there’s a break-in at the museum, and they have to work together to figure out who’s behind it and what they want. This is one of my absolute favorite Dracos; he’s very mouthy and snarky and unapologetic but also worried about how much of that Harry will be able to put up with and therefore tries to keep him at arms’ length. This thing is packed with hurt/comfort too, so if you’re a sucker for that, click immediately!]

I’ve still got lots more in my to-read list that look good, so I may make another recommendation post later. I hope maybe there are some here that my followers who are into the ship haven’t read and are about to have their day made :3 Enjoy, and let me know your thoughts!!

[hisazuki]

Toshokan Sensou Love & War Bessatsu Hen - Index 19

Toshokan Sensou Love & War Bessatsu Hen - Index 19 raws

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ENGLISH

*Each of the three has her own way of dealing with this event for “ladies in love”...?!*

Toshokan Sensou Love & War Bessatsuhen - Index 19

FRANÇAIS

*Chacune d’elles a sa propre façon de gérer cet événement pour “jeunes filles amoureuses”... ?!*

Toshokan Sensou Love & War Bessatsuhen - Index 19

*Jin Kijima... He doesn’t have a profile in his books. He writes violence-oriented novels.*

*And...*

*Just like Shibasaki said, his books flaunt extreme discrimination and serious contents while never using any prohibited words.*

*I see… He’s some sort of teacher who uses Human rights as bean seeds, is that it? I was wrong.* (T/N: I think it means he’s giving people a lesson on human rights and what censorship entails through the way he writes?)

*He’s like a guide for highly educated people.*

*…*

*Jin Kijima... Il n’a pas de page de profil dans ses livres. Il écrit des romans dont le thème tourne autour de la violence.*

*Et...*

*Comme Shibasaki me l’avait dit, ses livres font l’étalage de discours haineux et de contenus intenses, et cela sans jamais utiliser de mots prohibés.*

*Je vois… C’est une sorte de professeur qui abreuve les masses de Droits de l’Homme ? Je m’étais fait une mauvaise opinion.* (NDT: je crois que la phrase sous-entend qu’il manie les droits de l’homme dans sa façon d’écrire pour éduquer les lecteurs sur les conséquences de la censure)

*C’est un peu comme un guide pour les gens hautement instruits.*

*…*

Iku: Aaah… Even though I read it and I don’t like it,

Iku: I have to admit he’s pretty great, that Jin Kijima…

Iku: Without ever using any prohibited word, his work conveys such venom…

*He’s dead set on it…*

*Tired*

Shibasaki: You’re right. Read the afterword, it’s only there in his debut work.

*This book marks my debut as a writer. However, I have no intention of solely earning my keep as a writer, and even if it ends up not paying enough to eat, it’s nothing to worry about.*

Iku: Aaah… Bien que je l’aie lu et que je n’aie pas vraiment apprécié,

Iku: je dois admettre qu’il est plutôt génial, ce Jin Kijima…

Iku: Son livre transpire le venin sans jamais utiliser ne serait-ce qu’un seul mot interdit…

*Il est à fond dedans…*

*Crevée*

Shibasaki: N’est-ce pas ? Lis la postface, il n’y en a que dans sa toute première œuvre.

*Ce livre marque mes débuts en tant qu’écrivain. Néanmoins, je ne compte pas gagner ma vie uniquement par ce biais, et même si l’écriture ne me rapporte pas de quoi manger, il n’y a absolument pas lieu de s’inquiéter.*

*I’m simply fed up with the current situation. That’s the reason why I became a writer.*

*From now on, every book I write and how long I’m able to keep being a writer are a challenge thrown against this current state of things.*

Iku: I can see why this would appeal to the younger generation…

*This is basically how it goes…*

*Jin Kijima (image)*

Jin: I’m pouring the discrimination you hate so much into my works, but I’m not violating any law by doing this!

Jin: Try and hunt down my books if you dare!

*Betterment Committee*

*Young generation*

Youth: Jin! You’re so cool, Jiiin!

Shibasaki: Exactly.

Shibasaki: I also don’t like his novels, but I appreciate his using those methods to fight them.

Shibasaki: Discrimination wasn’t born from the country deciding what words to prohibit or not, it was born from the back and forth situation from before that. Simply put, hunting down mere words is foolish.

Shibasaki: This is what Jin Kijima is complaining about… Well the contents of the book are reason enough for the Media Betterment Committee and the PTA to hate him… *They’re really loud about enforcing restrictions on library loans.*

*Je suis tout simplement exaspéré par la situation actuelle. C’est la raison pour laquelle je suis devenu écrivain.*

*Dorénavant, chaque livre que j’écrirai et la durée pendant laquelle je pourrai continuer d’écrire seront autant de challenges envers l’état actuel des choses.*

Iku: Je crois que je vois pourquoi il plaît tant aux jeunes…

*C’est à peu près comme ça que ça se passe…*

*Jin Kijima (représentation imagée)*

Jin: Je dépeins dans mes livres cette discrimination que vous haïssez tant, mais je n’enfreins aucune loi !

Jin: Essayez de vous en prendre à mes livres si vous l’osez !

*Comité d’amélioration*

*Les jeunes*

Jeunes: Jin ! T’es trop cool, Jiiin !

Shibasaki: Exactement.

Shibasaki: Moi non plus je ne suis pas fan de ses romans, mais j’apprécie les méthodes qu’il emploie pour les combattre.

Shibasaki: La discrimination n’est pas née de la décision du pays d’interdire certains mots. Elle résulte d’une situation de va-et-vient perpétuel qui date d’avant cela. En clair, mener une chasse aux sorcières contre de simples mots est idiot.

Shibasaki: C’est ce dont se plaint Jin Kijima… Enfin, il faut dire que le contenu de ses livres suffit à lui seul à s’attirer les foudres du Comité d’Amélioration des Médias et des associations de parents d’élèves… *Ils militent beaucoup pour augmenter les restrictions sur les prêts de livres dans les bibliothèques.*

Shibasaki: The superficial greatness of Jin Kijima’s misplaced expressions has a big influence on adolescents.

*Shut up, civil servant!*

Iku: I see.

Iku: In fact, this is the reason why Jin Kijima’s works don’t qualify for censorship. How frustrating for the Media Betterment Committee!

Shibasaki: Indeed.

Shibasaki: …

Shibasaki: It’s true Jin Kijima’s books are unimpeachable, but…

Shibasaki: Maybe… there’s a loophole.

*That “loophole” …*

Shibasaki: Le bien-fondé superficiel des expressions détournées de Jin Kijima a beaucoup d’influence sur les adolescents.

*Ta gueule, fonctionnaire !*

Iku: Je vois.

Iku: En fait, c’est aussi la raison pour laquelle les œuvres de Jin Kijima ne sont pas éligibles à la censure. Cela doit être frustrant pour le Comité d’Amélioration des Médias !

Shibasaki: En effet.

Shibasaki: …

Shibasaki: C’est vrai que les livres de Jin Kijima sont inattaquables, mais…

Shibasaki: Il y a peut-être… une faille.

*Cette “faille” …*

*…ended up affecting the library troops.*

*Beep beep beep beep*

*…a fini par impliquer le corps de défense de la bibliothèque.*

*Bip bip bip bip*

Voice: MBC agents are currently deploying around the perimeter! All hands, stand on alert!

Voice: Non-combatants are requested not to leave the base! I repeat!

Voice: MBC agents are currently deploying…

Iku: I’m going!

Shibasaki: Be careful!

Iku: I will!

*Women’s changing room*

Voix: Des agents du Comité d’Amélioration sont en train de se déployer autour du périmètre ! À toutes les unités, tenez-vous prêts !

Voix: Les non-combattants sont priés de ne pas quitter la base ! Je répète !

Voix: Des agents du Comité d’Amélioration sont en train de se déployer…

Iku: J’y vais !

Shibasaki: Sois prudente !

Iku: Oui !

*Vestiaire des femmes*

*Library Task Force, dispatching!*

*Corps des bibliothécaires, en marche !*

Doujou: Today’s equipment is a Sig Sauer, a submachine gun, and a rifle.

*Clac*

Iku: A rifle…

*The heavy artillery.*

Doujou: A night raid when there are no patrons around makes it easier to use bigger weapons. We expect the enemy will have brought some as well.

Komaki: We’ve learned how to use them during training. It’ll be fine.

Iku: Roger!

*I won’t drag our personal quarrel on the battlefield.*

Doujou: L’équipement d’aujourd’hui se compose d’un Sig Sauer, d’une mitraillette et d’un fusil.

*Clac*

Iku: Un fusil…

*L’artillerie lourde.*

Doujou: Un raid nocturne lorsqu’il n’y a plus de visiteurs nous permet d’utiliser de plus grandes armes. Nous nous attendons à ce que l’ennemi en ait apporté également.

Komaki: Nous avons appris à les utiliser pendant l’entraînement. Tout va bien se passer.

Iku: Compris !

*Je n’emporterai pas nos querelles personnelles avec moi sur le champ de bataille.*

*That’s what I would like…*

*…to tell you.*

Doujou: Alright! Tezuka, head over Library Supervisor Third Class Shindou’s sniper battalion.

Tezuka: Roger!

Doujou: Everyone else will regroup with Aoki’s squad and enter the building through the reading room’s service door. Before entering, strengthen your position!

*C’est ce que…*

*…j’aimerais vous dire.*

Doujou: Bon ! Tezuka, tu rejoins le bataillon de snipers du Capitaine 3ème classe Shindou.

Tezuka: À vos ordres !

Doujou: Les autres rejoindront l’escouade d’Aoki et entreront dans le bâtiment par l’entrée de service de la salle de lecture. Avant d’entrer, renforcez bien vos positions !

Doujou: Let’s go!

Doujou: This place is still clear.

Doujou: Kasahara, go to the Operations Department’s floor and check the fax machine! It’s possible we received a subrogation declaration from the Media Betterment Committee.

Iku: Yes!

Shibasaki: *It’ll be on the test!*

*The MBC agents can only enforce censorship after they’ve informed the library through a document called a “censorship subrogation declaration notice”.*

Doujou: C’est parti !

Doujou: Rien à signaler ici pour l’instant.

Doujou: Kasahara, va à l’étage de la Direction des Opérations et vérifie le fax ! Nous avons peut-être reçu une déclaration de subrogation de la part du Comité d’Amélioration.

Iku: Compris !

Shibasaki: *Ça va tomber à l’examen !*

*Les agents du Comité d’Amélioration ne peuvent procéder à une censure qu’après avoir informé la bibliothèque au moyen d’un document appelé “Notification de déclaration de subrogation à visée de censure”.*

Iku: We did receive a fax.

Iku: There’s two of them? The first one is the subrogation declaration.

Iku: The second one is…

Iku: Instructor Doujou! Here…

*Today’s censorship will target Jin Kijima’s books. Both the Board of Education and the PTA have sent a request for confiscation to the Media Betterment Committee.*

Iku: Nous avons bien reçu un fax.

Iku: Il y en a deux ? Le premier est la déclaration de subrogation.

Iku: Le second est…

Iku: Instructeur Doujou ! Tenez…

*La censure d’aujourd’hui aura pour cible les œuvres de Jin Kijima. Le rectorat et l’association de parents d’élèves ont tous deux envoyé une injonction de confiscation au Comité d’Amélioration des Médias.*

Doujou: This is…

Komaki: Who would send such a thing…?

Iku: The Media Betterment Act did have a clause like this, right?

*Upon request from an appropriate institution, the Media Betterment Committee is entitled to crack down on works that do not specifically infringe the Media Betterment Act. <Media Betterment Act, article 4>*

Iku: What’s with that look, you two?!

Iku: Even I have been studying and learning, you know…

Iku: …

Iku: *Kh!*

Iku: …and Shibasaki and I happen to have talked about it recently…

Doujou & Komaki: I see.

Doujou: C’est…

Komaki: Qui peut bien nous avoir envoyé ça… ?

Iku: La Loi d’Amélioration des Médias contient bien une telle clause, n’est-ce pas ?

*À la demande d’une institution qualifiée, le Comité d’Amélioration des Médias est habilité à se saisir d’œuvres n’enfreignant pas directement la Loi d’Amélioration des Médias. <Loi d’Amélioration des Médias, article 4>*

Iku: C’est quoi cette tête, vous deux ?!

Iku: Même moi j’ai buché et retenu des choses, vous savez…

Iku: …

Iku: *Kh !*

Iku: …et il se trouve que Shibasaki et moi avons discuté de ce sujet récemment…

Doujou & Komaki: Tout s’éclaire.

Genda: I don’t know how trustworthy this tip is, but it seems to match with the time and censorship inspection… It seems to be from someone who has inside knowledge.

Genda: Just to be sure, move every Jin Kijima book down to the archives and lock them up! Team Doujou will be in charge!

Doujou: Roger!

Doujou: I’ll go with Komaki and send the books down with the elevator. Kasahara, go to the archives and recover them!

Iku: Roger!

Komaki: An attack within the rules of the Media Betterment Act, huh… Jin Kijima must’ve annoyed them greatly.

Komaki: The Board of Education of course, but also the Media Betterment Committee.

Genda: J’ignore si ce tuyau est fiable, mais il semble correspondre à l’heure de l’inspection de censure… Il provient manifestement de quelqu’un ayant accès à des informations confidentielles.

Genda: Au cas où, descendez tous les livres de Jin Kijima aux archives et verrouillez-les ! Je confie cela à l’équipe Doujou !

Doujou: Bien reçu !

Doujou: Je vais avec Komaki récupérer les livres et les faire descendre par l’ascenseur. Kasahara, tu vas aux archives et tu les récupères !

Iku: Compris !

Komaki: Une attaque en règle, dans le respect de la Loi d’Amélioration des Médias… Jin Kijima doit être une sacrée gêne pour eux.

Komaki: Pour le rectorat bien sûr, mais aussi pour le Comité d’Amélioration des Médias.

Doujou: This “request for confiscation” is suspicious as well. We don’t really know who prompted it in the first place.

Doujou: However…

Komaki: Right.

Komaki: It’s pointless to investigate that now.

*All we have to do…*

*…is protect…*

Doujou: Cette “demande de confiscation” est suspecte, elle aussi. On ne sait pas vraiment de qui elle vient.

Doujou: Cependant…

Komaki: Oui.

Komaki: Ça ne sert à rien d’enquêter là-dessus pour le moment.

*Tout ce que nous avons à faire…*

*…c’est protéger…*

*…the books in front of us…*

Iku: The archives are locked.

Iku: Alright, time to regroup with the other teams again!

*…les livres qui sont devant nous…*

Iku: Les archives sont verrouillées.

Iku: Bon, il est temps rejoindre les autres équipes !

*Our first battle in a long time was scary as usual.*

*And it made me realize…*

*Notre première bataille depuis longtemps était effrayante, comme toujours.*

*Et elle m’a fait comprendre…*

*…that being so obstinate…*

*…is such a waste.*

Genda: They couldn’t get in. It’s a pretty good achievement for an unforeseen nightly raid.

*…que c’est vraiment du gâchis…*

*…de se montrer si obstinée.*

Genda: Ils n’ont pas réussi à entrer. C’est une belle prouesse pour un raid de nuit imprévu.

Genda: You did well, guys! Fall out!

Genda: I leave the rest to the team leaders!

Men: Roger!

Doujou: You can all go now. You’re expected to report for work at 1PM. We will patrol the building.

Doujou: Rest well. Fall out!

Tezuka & Iku: Roger!

Komaki: I’m so tired!

*Women’s changing room*

Genda: C’était du bon travail, les gars ! Rompez !

Genda: Je laisse les chefs d’équipe s’occuper du reste !

Hommes: Compris !

Doujou: Vous pouvez y aller. Vous êtes priés de reprendre le travail à 13h. Nous patrouillerons dans le bâtiment.

Doujou: Reposez-vous bien. Rompez !

Tezuka & Iku: À vos ordres !

Komaki: Je suis crevé !

*Vestiaires des femmes*

Iku: The shower… There are more men so I guess it takes longer for them.

*Men’s changing room*

*I’ll wait for him…*

Man: Hey! Good job, Kasahara.

Iku: You too!

Man: Good job.

Man: Yo!

*Starting to feel weird for being a lone woman standing close to the men’s changing room.*

Iku: Let’s just go back.

Iku: La douche… Les hommes sont plus nombreux, je suppose que ça leur prend plus de temps.

*Vestiaires des hommes*

*Je vais l’attendre…*

Homme: Hé ! Bon boulot, Kasahara.

Iku: Vous aussi !

Homme: Bon travail.

Homme: Yo !

*Commence à se sentir mal à l’aise d’être une femme seule en train d’attendre devant les vestiaires des hommes.*

Iku: Rentrons.

Shibasaki: Welcome back… How did it go?

Iku: Ah, sorry, did I wake you up?

Iku: It went well. We’re all unharmed. But I think there were a few injured people among the security team.

Shibasaki: I see.

Iku: But then, a weird fax came in.

Shibasaki: *Hm…* A tip, you say…?

Iku: We believe it was from an insider. I was thinking maybe Tezuka’s brother was involved…

Shibasaki: I wonder… If it were him, I’d expect him to phone directly either Tezuka or me.

Iku: I… guess… *Fwaaah*

Author notes: I’m happy I was able to draw a lot of manga again this year. It’s thanks to all of my readers… I’m really grateful! I’m counting on you for next year. Wishing you all the best for this new year!

Shibasaki: Te revoilà... Comment ça s’est passé ?

Iku: Ah, désolée, je t’ai réveillée ?

Iku: Ça a été. Tout le monde va bien. Mais je crois qu’il y a quelques blessés parmi les guardes de sécurité.

Shibasaki: D’accord.

Iku: Mais on a reçu un fax étrange.

Shibasaki: *Hm…* Un tuyau, tu dis… ?

Iku: Nous pensons que cela vient d’un initié. Je me disais que c’était peut-être le grand frère de Tezuka…

Shibasaki: Je me le demande… De sa part, je m’attendrais plutôt à un appel directement sur mon portable ou sur celui de Tezuka.

Iku: Sans… doute… *Fwaaah*

Mot de l’auteur: Je suis heureuse d’avoir pu dessiner plein de mangas cette année encore. C’est grâce à vous tous, chers lecteurs… Je vous en suis très reconnaissante ! Je compte sur vous l’an prochain. Que cette nouvelle année soit la meilleure possible !

Shibasaki: Go back to sleep. I’ll take care of the morning roll-call for you.

Iku: M‘kay… Thank… you…

*Zzz*

Iku: Ah!

*Tap tap tap*

*With the last of her energy*

*Send*

*Good job tonight. Iku.*

Shibasaki: Retourne te coucher. Je gèrerai l’appel du matin pour toi.

Iku: K… Mer... ci…

*Zzz*

Iku: Ah !

*Tap tap tap*

*Avec ses dernières réserves d’énergie*

*Envoyer*

*Bonne nuit. Iku.* (NDT: en vo elle dit quelque chose comme “vous avez bien travaillé” (otsukaresama), mais comme il n’y a pas vraiment d’équivalent j’ai remplacé par bonne nuit)

*I tried…*

*…signing with my first name.*

*I hope he’ll notice this step towards reconciliation.*

*Zzz*

*Good job. Sleep well. Atsushi.*

*J’ai essayé…*

*…de signer par mon prénom.*

*J’espère qu’il comprendra que c’est un premier pas vers la réconciliation.*

*Zzz*

*Bonne nuit. Dors bien. Atsushi.*

*Badump*

*Sleep well. Atsushi.*

*What is that?!*

*It’s the first time he signed with his first name.*

*This suddenly…*

*Todom*

*Dors bien. Atsushi.*

*Qu’est-ce qui lui prend ?!*

*C’est la première fois qu’il signe de son prénom.*

*Subitement…*

*…feels like the distance between us has shrunk.*

Iku: Well, we’ve already gone all the way,

Iku: so it’s a bit late talking about distance, right?!

Shibasaki: *She’s not sleeping…*

*Afterwards,*

*…on dirait que la distance entre nous s’est réduite.*

Iku: Enfin bon, niveau intimité, on a tout fait,

Iku: alors c’est un peu tard pour parler de distance, non ?!

Shibasaki: *Elle ne dort pas…*

*Après cela,*

*two more “mysterious tip faxes” came in.*

*All three faxes contained details on the successive censorship raids.*

*In a single sentence, they confirmed the target was indeed Jin Kijima’s novels.*

*We still hadn’t discovered who the mysterious sender was.*

Satoshi Tezuka: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it wasn’t me.

*deux autres “faxes aux tuyaux mystérieux” sont arrivés.*

*Au total, les trois faxes donnaient des détails sur plusieurs raids de censure successifs.*

*En une seule phrase, ils confirmèrent que la cible était bel et bien les romans de Jin Kijima.*

*Et nous n’avions toujours pas découvert l’identité de l’expéditeur mystère.*

Satoshi Tezuka: Navré de vous décevoir, mais ce n’est pas moi.

Satoshi: I don’t see the need for such sub-organizational behavior. But I’m not saying I won’t agree to help if you want me to investigate this matter.

Shibasaki: No, it’s fine. It’s not something of high importance to us either.

Satoshi: Did my younger brother take part in the battle too? He hasn’t contacted me even once since he became Library Officer Third Class.

Shibasaki: He’s fine. He’s very reliable as a sniper.

Shibasaki: Seems like it’s still a while before the ice melts.

Satoshi: Can’t I ask you to help with the ice melting?

Shibasaki: I’m afraid we don’t have that kind of relationship. Please work hard on your own.

Satoshi: You’re so cold…

*In the end, the tips were right.*

Satoshi: Je ne vois pas l’intérêt d’un comportement de sous-organisation comme celui-ci. Mais cela ne veut pas dire que je refuse de vous aider si vous me demandez d’enquêter sur le sujet.

Shibasaki: Non, ça ira. Ce n’est pas d’une grande importance pour nous non plus.

Satoshi: Mon petit-frère a-t-il pris part à la bataille lui aussi ? Il ne m’a pas contacté une seule fois depuis qu’il a été promu lieutenant 3ème classe.

Shibasaki: Il va bien. Il se montre très performant en tant que sniper.

Shibasaki: On dirait qu’il va falloir encore du temps avant que la glace ne fonde.

Satoshi: Pourrais-je vous demander d’intervenir en ma faveur ?

Shibasaki: J’ai bien peur que nous n’ayons pas ce genre de relation. Faites de votre mieux tout seul.

Satoshi: Vous êtes bien froide…

*Au final, les tuyaux étaient vrais.*

Genda: Library Task Force, dispatch!

All: Yes sir!

Genda: Corps des bibliothécaires, en avant !

Tous: Oui !

*And then…*

*Women’s changing room*

Iku: As expected…

Iku: It’s such a waste.

Iku: Because…

Iku: We aren’t hurt for once, we’re safe…

Iku: We could be together…

*Puis…*

*Vestiaires des femmes*

Iku: Effectivement…

Iku: C’est vraiment du gâchis.

Iku: Parce que…

Iku: Pour une fois, nous ne sommes pas blessés, nous sommes sains et saufs…

Iku: Nous pourrions être ensemble…

*…but I’m squandering our precious time.*

*Good job. Could we meet on our next leave?*

*Send*

*…mais je gaspille notre précieux temps.*

*Bonne nuit. Pourra-t-on se voir à l’occasion de notre prochaine permission ?*

*Envoyer*

Hisa’s thoughts on the chapter: 

First of all I would like to apologize for the awkward sentences and translation. This chapter had a lot to deal with law and complicated vocabulary, and I’m not sure I was able to make all this intelligible ^^; So I’ll try to describe what happens in the chapter with my own words. Do feel free to send asks or submissions with improvements to the above translation. I also realize I keep switching between Media Improvement Committee or Media Betterment Committee, among other things... sorry for that T_T

Basically Iku and Shibasaki agree that Jin Kijima’s books are cleverly written. His characters are violent, probably both in their actions and their words, and yet the author never uses prohibited words in the dialogues or to describe what they do. We can assume insults are among prohibited words, so try imagining what portraying someone very angry at another person would be like without using insults. It doesn’t mean Kijima himself is advocating violence or discrimination. From what I gather, only his characters are.

The “subrogation declaration” -or whatever the correct term is- is, I think, a document stating that the MBC is acting as a proxy for another institution and was tasked by said institution to retrieve problematic books and enforce censorship. I admit I just went with what the jap->eng dictionary gave me.

Now to talk about the chapter. The MBC is back, yay! Let’s not forget that although things improved a lot after Touma’s case and Satoshi Tezuka’s alliance with the libraries, the Media Betterment Act is still there. It’s nice seeing writers trying to find a way around it, even if in the end they are still eligible to censorship because of that stupid article 4.

After realizing it’s foolish to keep distancing herself from Doujou, Iku finally makes a step towards reconciliation. Should we worry that Doujou might refuse to compromise? I think we all know the answer to that~

[aterriblethought]

Trials and errors of translating Japanese

Happy new year! あけましておめでとうございます！ I’m working on a number of longer posts, but in the meantime, I thought I’d talk a little bit about some of the challenges of translating Japanese manga - in particular, how sometimes poor or liberal translations can have unintended consequences in how the story or a character is perceived.

There’s a number of different issues when it comes to translating Japanese to English. One of those is that Japanese is a highly contextual language; especially in the colloquial speech often used in manga, much is left unsaid or implied. It’s up to the reader to figure out who or what is being referred to, because Japanese sentences can leave out a subject altogether (it’s possible to make a sentence using only a verb; the word 食べる/taberu can mean anything from “I’m eating” to “She’s eating it” to “He’ll eat it”). 

Another issue particular to manga is translating dialects or colloquialisms. There’s a lot of variety to how Japanese is spoken by different people in different places, and most English students of Japanese tend to start with the most common one (polite Tokyo dialect, typically). Another issue unique to Acid Town is the liberal use of harsh sort of gangster language and terms that are specific to the yakuza. If you’re unfamiliar with what those terms mean and how they relate to the yakuza, they can be difficult to translate.

Finally, in translating Japanese, there’s a lot of editing necessary to keep the dialogue sounding natural. If the translations are left too literal they can sound kind of wooden or too polite. Sometimes this necessitates changing what was written in the original Japanese to something more familiar to English speakers, or retaining the meaning while changing the words used. 

One of the reasons I bring this up is Acid Town. The previous scanlation group did an awesome job, and for the most part, I’m just imitating their style and methods. However, when I had the chance to look at the original Japanese manga myself, and compare it to their translations, I sometimes found myself a bit taken aback at how liberal some of the translations were, and the subtle ways this alters the perception of the characters and their stories.

For example, in chapter 1, there’s a scene where Yuki and Tetsu are confronted by a gang of teens. Yuki manages to dodge Ken’s attack and knees him in the stomach, and fire off a little quip:

For the most part this is pretty close to what Yuki said in the Japanese. His original lines were: 「あ，ワリつい。。。足が勝手に」Which comes out to something like “Oh, sorry, my bad... my leg moved on its own”. The part about the leg is written as an aside and doesn’t even include a verb, the verb is just left implied. I can see how that might be translated to “Old habits die hard”, a common English idiom... but I guess what’s always bugged me is that this implies something about Yuki and his past that has never been mentioned in the story: that he’s been in fights before, and is used to responding with violence. Yuki is obviously taunting Ken here; it’s not like his leg really did move on its own. But I guess what I’m trying to say is there’s a difference between making a cute retort about something that happened once, and implying that this has happened often before. We do know that Ken and his gang are familiar with Yuki from before he met Tetsu, but it’s unclear if they ever had any violent run-ins. I think the ease with which Yuki and Tetsu defend themselves shows that they’re more than capable of handling a situation like this, which implies experience; but again, it’s a liberal interpretation of the line.

Edits like this are done to give characters more personality than a literal translation of the Japanese might, and the early scanlations for Acid Town especially take this to a bit of an extreme. This is the very next panel:

It maybe goes without saying, but the word “fuck” doesn’t exist in Japanese. The translation here is just meant to make Yuki sound more like a punk kid. The original Japanese comes out to something more benign like “Well, snakes or swine or whatever, we don’t care”. Japanese has curse words, but often it’s the way that a line is said that implies an insult more than the words used. The way Yuki is speaking is so flippant and insulting that it’s appropriate to go ahead and translate it this way, even if it’s kind of pushing things a bit. It retains the intention of the line better than a literal translation might.

Last one I want to bring up as an example is a panel from chapter 5, where Doumoto has announced his intentions to have his son take over the group, with Hyoudou as his right-hand man. Hyoudou kneels in front of Doumoto and says:

I’ve always been intrigued by the first line. What were his “wild ways” and what did Doumoto do particularly to save Hyoudou? In a later chapter we see Ryuu treating a young Hyoudou’s injuries, but it’s unclear exactly how Hyoudou got them. It wasn’t until I checked this line against the original Japanese that I started to get a sense that something fell out in translation. Here’s the original line: 「。。。使い捨ての鉄砲玉だった俺を拾って下さったご恩、今でも忘れたつもりはありません」which might translate literally as “Even now I’ve never intended to forget my debt to you for picking me up as a discarded bullet”. Haha, obviously this sounds incredibly awkward, but also this line has nothing to do with real bullets.  使い捨て means “disposable”, and  鉄砲玉 in yakuza terms actually refers to an assassin or hitman, particularly one who is meant to take out an executive of a hostile group. It’s a matter of course that this assassin is usually killed in the process. This actually says a lot now about who Hyoudou was and what happened and also, I think, why Hyoudou might be incredibly loyal to Doumoto. Possibly Hyoudou became a part of a rival group at a young age out of a sense of recklessness; being young and, probably, fairly useless, he was thrown at Doumoto (or possibly another Seidoukai executive) in an attempt on his life with the understanding he probably wouldn’t succeed. Who knows what really happened but Doumoto obviously took pity on Hyoudou and spared him, and now Hyoudou owes his life to Doumoto. I’m not entirely sure why the line was translated this way, if maybe the original translators were not familiar with the yakuza term, but it definitely omitted a very important detail about Hyoudou and his past and his relationship to Doumoto.

Anyway, thought some fans might find that interesting. :) Whenever I do translations I’m highly aware of all the ways things can go wrong with translating and editing, so if I’m unsure, I try to get help as best as I can. I’m painfully aware that once a mistake is out there, it’s kind of out there for good.