#the others had *maybe* a word wrong or used a different kanji but that's it

[jenndubya]

Me: I'm gonna chill out and time the next two Geats MVs tomorrow.

Also me: What is chill? I accidently timed another one before bed.

[asarigg]

About: Part 3

DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP. PATH TO HEALING: part 3

Overall, I think they’ve dealt with the process and development of Koujaku’s trauma and healing in a pretty decent, kind and nice way, which is exactly what he needed. Koujaku kept everything to himself, locked in a cage where he was alone, immersed in agony and loneliness, without counting on anyone and simply ignoring his fears and traumas hoping that with time they would heal. But the path to healing is not achieved with time alone. Facing his traumas is not comfortable, it doesn’t feel secure, it doesn’t give him peace, he can only see his still bleeding wounds, and a reflection in the mirror of a body marked for life. He acts as if they’re not there, maybe thinking that the wounds will scar by hiding them under a layer of optimism, he gets used to living with the pain and makes it stand in the background, but it doesn’t disappear.

The healing process is complex, continuous, and nonlinear. When you think you’re getting better, in a few seconds you can fall back into that pit of darkness and pessimism. The solution is neither simple nor immediate. Being honest about your struggle and your vulnerabilities is important, so is the support you give and receive from others, facing and working through your pain instead of resigning yourself to living with open wounds. The shield that Koujaku used when interacting with his family no longer works because he’s no longer in the same situation, but that is how he has become accustomed to living and he continues to use the same cover, without breaking the cycle.

It’s only once Koujaku opens up, maybe not completely but it’s a first step, about his past and the reasons why he was so distant that things start to go better. Aoba could have forced it out with Scrap, yeah, but that’s not how he wants to do things, he wants it to truly be Koujaku’s will. When Aoba scraps him, it’s impossible to fail if you don’t do it on purpose because it’s so simple, because it’s when he’s letting Aoba into his world that he feels confident about what he has to say to help him. If he doesn’t let himself be loved, supported by other people and continues to insist on doing things alone, pushing Aoba away from him believing it was the best choice, that’s when Aoba feels so distant from him that he doesn’t know if he really knows him, he doesn’t know what to say anymore. Only then you can fail.

It’s probably more confusing in Japanese considering kanji and that they can be read very differently, specially if it’s mixed with a bunch of other kanji like it happens when you choose the “wrong” options, but still. If you payed attention, you know what you have to say.

What’s great about this is that things don’t get better just like that, things aren’t fixed with magic or quick and simple solutions, and they show you, they don’t skip that and pretend it happens off screen. Scrap almost feels like it doesn’t really do anything, we’ve already seen that it doesn’t affect that much whether Koujaku turns into a beast or not, that’s up to him. The only thing Scrap does is somehow carve Aoba’s words into his mind so that he never forgets that Aoba will be there for him, whenever he needs to talk, giving him the security he didn’t have before. (Althought this is partial, and you’ll see why. The thing is that, obviously, what Aoba says is important for everyone’s scrap, but they’re very different interactions, and the moment you can choose good or bad ending varies with each character. And with Koujaku it’s literally just words, words that Aoba had already said to him five seconds before that. So these two things, it being something he already says, and something that only solves the problem partially, is why it gives this sensation of that you’re really not doing anything, it’s nothing that only Scrap can solve, I don’t know if I’m making myself clear) It “destroys” the Koujaku who held himself back, who was caged and afraid to face his tattoos. He doesn’t even try to convince him that it was not his fault, because he knows that Koujaku won’t accept that because of the way he is and would probably not be helpful, he’ll never stop blaming himself. It’s an idea so rooted into the depths of his mind that maybe not even Scrap can change that, so instead he changes his speech to something that encourages Koujaku to think about the people around him that care about him, about making up for the lives he forcefully took instead of making everyone around him suffer with his death and live a meaningful life, by Aoba’s side. In Buddhism, in order to help someone it’s believed it’s better to have a flexible mind and change your approach depending on what suits the other person’s needs. Many times Buddha statues take different forms than the classic and original, they’re adapting to the needs of the person they’re guiding.

In Re:connect when Aoba wants to wash Koujaku’s back is when he gets uncomfortable, because he’s hyper-aware of his tattoo. Of course, Aoba is aware too. He doesn’t know how much he should push on his wounds to help him vent and face them because he understands that’s something that ultimately has to come out of Koujaku, he knows that forcing things or insisting would have a rather negative result. He only pushes a little, enough for Koujaku to notice he’s there, but not so much to suffocate him, risking him closing the doors again. He wishes he could erase them by washing them, if he keeps going maybe it would work, but of course that’s just a fantasy.

Aoba mentions that if Koujaku wants to act like those scars aren’t there, he’ll do that too, but his feelings are overwhelming and bloom, and without giving it a second thought he can’t help but impulsively kiss his tattoo and scars, acknowledging them as a part of Koujaku and a sign of his persistence and his strength to stay alive and trying to give them a positive meaning, so that when Koujaku remembers them, he thinks of his kisses and his caresses rather than the pain they’ve brought him. He whispers “I love you”, but he doesn’t seem to be even saying that for Koujaku to hear, maybe a whisper to himself, as if his demonstration of love, told directly over his tattoo, could penetrate his skin, like the ink once did, and erase it. 

And for now it seems that all Koujaku wants to do is comfort Aoba when he’s about to cry, but not acknowledge his tattoos and scars himself.

But it’s later in bed when they are relaxed and Koujaku is reflecting that he finally decides to talk about his tattoos and express what he feels, out of his own free will. And how those tattoos represent his guilt, his shame, his greatest vulnerability, it’s extremely difficult and he feels that a part of him doesn’t want Aoba to touch them because it would be like dirtying him, but another part of him, the one that is recovering, does want him to touch them, because it’s part of the process, he wants to be open with Aoba, he wants him to know the truth and he wants to let himself be vulnerable in front of him. He wants to feel the affection he was neglected of, he wants to heal, he wants to change, he wants to hope.

When the haircut happens, and the cherry blossom symbolism accompanies them, such a major change in their life for me that is representative of a much bigger life commitment, tied to marriage. Aoba is practically living with Koujaku, so for me this day also symbolically marks an engagement, or even the marriage itself. It’s funny that they have such a direct confession scene, because a lot of these things happen without really saying anything, but rather showing them. Saying or making gestures that could be literally referring to something different but are constructed in a way that seems like a marriage proposal, or promising to each other.

Btw I love Koujaku’s obsession with his visible neck. Apparently women started to pull the neck of their kimono back in order to experiment with some glue on their hairstyles and it has stayed a thing ever since, especially noticeable with Geisha/Geiko. There’s always a hint of eroticism and beauty to it and of course it’s Koujaku’s brainrot, bet he salivates wanting to bite it.

[knaveumineko]

Umineko Episode 3 Blog: Glass Slippers

When I watch Rosa abuse a kid, I call her a monster. When I watch Eva abuse a kid, I just think she's iconic.

Episode 3 spent a long time exploring the lore behind witches. The whole ceremony offered me even more of that peak Eva content, and the question of what exactly a witch is on a mundane level is interesting to me.

Being a witch is obviously a pretty childish endeavour, in the sense that becoming an adult means accepting things as they are and not believing in miracles, which is why Eva and EVA are different people in the magic narrative, with only one of them ascending, but witches also have that self-centeredness that comes with immaturity. Every witch we've ever met seems hyperfocused on some obsession of theirs, with no regard for others nor interest in mortal affairs. Most of the witches we've seen were literal children.

Umineko has enjoyed exploring the gap between the mature front the siblings put on for the kids and the weakness that's really inside them. Eva's endless taunting of Natsuhi is on some level the same impulse that had her killing spiders as a child, and the same impulse that has EVA killing over and over. The traits that make for a good witch are the same ones that make for a good culprit, it seems. Is there some insight I could get by applying this to the Sayo theory? If nothing else, she outwardly appears to have held on to her superstitions for quite a long time, and she's stagnated in her role as a servant for years after most people leave. Does she just have no interest in the outside world?

There's a neat callback in Ange's big scene, where her fellow classmates scapegoat her for anything that goes wrong the same way the servants do with Beatrice (is that even true, actually? It would be pretty messed up if Kumasawa is just going around spreading ghost stories about the dead kid she helped raise.)

For Ange and Eva, being a witch is at least partially something extrinsic. It's more about the way other people perceive you. If we put it together, being a witch is being a hated scapegoat, isolated from your peers, failing to mature as a result, and becoming consumed by spite, self-interest, and your niche fixations. It's pretty worrying that Maria wants to be one. Seems like she's already most of the way there, albeit less deliberately cruel and more oblivious to the feelings of others.

It was pretty rude of Ryukishi to write Umineko in Japanese just to stop me from solving the epitaph. Eva had to use an atlas, so there's some kind of place name involved, and there's something about reading a word with a different number of characters to how you normally would. The "gouge the X and kill" being a clue involving removing certain characters from a string of text was kind of clever. Didn't I say something back in Episode 1 about how the murders seem like someone is trying to retrofit them to the riddle without always understanding what those parts of the poem was supposed to be about? I'm probably not going to think about it much. The atlas thing made me think maybe we're doing a twist where we have to read Kanji as if it was Hanzi or vice versa, or maybe taking the Kanji in a place name and looking at one of its alternative meanings, but that's more just me applying the one thing that I know about Kanji than an actual theory. Hopefully the game just tells me the answer at some point.

Besides the direct clues as to the solution to the epitaph, it doesn't escape my attention that Eva only solved the epitaph because she got hints from Kyrie and Rosa. Even with the hint, she beat Rosa by only a few minutes. We know gold was taken to the chapel in Episode 2, but not why. Did Rosa figure out the epitaph in that timeline, and use the gold to lure people to the chapel to get them killed? Seems like she would have gotten a witch in that case, so maybe she was just in the know on the real culprits' plans, rather than doing it herself. Seeing Kyrie make progress so fast makes me think the theory about her and Rudolph starting the killings off in Episode 1 could be plausible. I just like seeing more of Battler's parents in general. Unfortunately they keep having to die because Kyrie is too competent. Maybe next episode she'll be an accomplice instead so we'll get to see her gaslighting Battler.

I'd like to wrap this episode up fast so I can keep reading, so I'll talk a bit about the murder mysteries here. It's clear that there was to be a killer separate from Eva, since people die in contexts where Eva wouldn't or couldn't kill them.

Sayo had to be a bit clever about carrying out the murders this time. Since the servants who would usually help her out all got selected for the initial 6 sacrifices and she was up against all the siblings working together, she had to operate indirectly. That's why she went out of her way to underline the importance of the epitaph in her letters this time: it was absolutely vital that at least one person solves the epitaph and finds the gold, so that Sayo can play on their greed to get them to carry out the murders on their own.

At least one of Shannon or Kanon faked their deaths, with Nanjo providing fake autopsies as usual. This is sufficient to explain the loop of 6 closed rooms. Everyone else was killed by Eva as Battler described, except for George and Nanjo (and maybe Jessica, since we didn't see how she died). George was killed because he snuck out to check on the bodies in the mansion and discovered that one of them was faked (probably Shannon). Nanjo being killed by Sayo explains how Eva, Battler and Jessica didn't kill him.

The obvious objection to this is EVA's red truths, which seem to paradoxically state that Nanjo was killed by no-one, since everyone still alive was innocent. However, this trick was already used in Episode 2, when Kanon-but-not-Kanon killed a bunch of people and then vanished. My speculation was that Beatrice is being creative with her definition of "dead" in her red truths. My guess is that Kanon "died" in Episode 2 in the sense that he abandoned his identity as Kanon. I think the same thing has happened in Episode 3, which is how Kanon or Shannon can kill Nanjo despite being "dead".

After seeing the depths they'd stoop to in Episode 3, I'm thinking Eva and Hideyoshi were probably accomplices in Episode 1. The only testimony backing up that they left the conference early that night is Genji, who was definitely in on it. They can fake Shannon's death since she's in an out of the way spot and only Hideyoshi and Kanon can vouch for the state of the corpse, which explains why she's alive at the end. They holed themselves up in their room because they were planning on meeting with Sayo, so the mystery of why they let the killer in is solved.

Eva is a terrible liar. Why did she even do the receipt thing? It literally makes no sense unless she already knows murders are happening. She just can't help but lord any advantage she has over others, no matter how suspicious it makes her look. That's why we love her.

Anyway, that's going to be it for 3. I've heard Episode 4 is really slow, but I'm intrigued by Ange's deal. Her misfortune is amusing in a way, and I'm really curious about how she's going to tie into the plot when she's so far in the future.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Didn't think this mattered when I reviewed the concept art a while back, but I talked to multiple people who mentioned that someone out there seemed to have theorised that rough draft Judge was going to be a Tenryuubito/Celestial Dragon, so I'm reviewing this again.

The handwritten note says: "The Count of Mechanics (Karakuri Danshaku からくり男爵), Saint Germain サンジェルマン. Sanji's dad, 56 years old". The printed note talks about how there's no raid suit and spear yet, and this is a rough draft of him "back when he was a [great man]". I presume this means "in his prime".

I'm assuming the Tenryuubito claim comes from the "Saint" of Saint Germain. It's actually completely different, though, so I think whoever made that claim either had a misunderstanding or was just extrapolating data to make theories. I'm open to that having been the case, but the straightforward reading of this says that's not the case.

The "Saint" used for the Tenryuubito is written in kanji: 聖 (sei), and used as a suffix. For example, what is translated as "Saint Mjosgard" would be written "Mjosgard-聖" in the raw.

Saint Germain is just a single name, based on Comte de Saint Germain of history and legends, and written as "San Jeruman" in katakana. That's why he's titled a "Count" (or Earl) after the real Saint Germain, and it's completely different from the Tenryuubito's "saint".

We know that sensei likes puns, so maybe it was meant to be an allusion. Comte de Saint Germain in real life is someone associated with legends involving immortality (or at least living for hundreds of years), and a hell lot of mysticism, so it's not impossible that this name was meant to allude to something really suspect. It's just that unless sensei says anything else, nothing about this name as it is says "he was originally meant to be a Tenryuubito".

All this note tells us (for now) is that while the Vinsmokes were always meant to be of noble lineage, they seem to be originally not royal before (just a count/earl). However, they were always meant to be related to technology (からくり karakuri is originally mechanics along the lines of clockwork, but can be applied to other types of machinery too).

Besides, "San Jeruman" seems more like a Sanji pun. In Japanese "je" is formed by combining a "ji" ジ and a "small e" ェ. So the name "Saint Germain" contains "Sanji" as part of the spelling.

I mean, I sometimes write my theories in a word vomit post and forget some facts while I was writing, so I might say something that's wrong. It happens. But, you know, this is just not true.

[cherryys]

Hii, this is the anon ^^ thank you for answering!

Before saying anything I wanted to say that your reasons are pretty solid, and Yuuji's detention center death thing is one of the reasons that make my own waver a lot lol. I didn't even consider that Kenjaku's words could still apply despite them being technically separated (for now). And also that second-to-last paragraph made me tear up a little ngl.

Maybe my reasonings are tainted by me being an itafushi fan too lmao, but these are mainly the reasons that make me think they'll have the same fate:

Their cog mentality. Yuuji's is more prominent and repeated, but we see Megumi present it too in chapter 9 (a little fun fact is that Gege uses slightly different kanji for them, Megumi's 歯車 being more like a literal cog and Yuuji's 部品 more like "part/component"). Maybe this is more of a meta read from a reader's point of view, but imo having Gege give them such similar, low views of themselves and their roles in the story makes me believe they'll both end up looking in the same direction and come to the same conclusion (especially after that narration post-Choso's death and everything that's been building up for Megumi, with his own role and purpose being obliterated).

They're also taking each other's roles as the plot progresses. If Yuuji literally dooms himself for Megumi's sake (ch.1) and sacrifices himself for Megumi (ch.1/9), then it's Megumi's turn to put himself in danger for Yuuji's sake (ch.143-212). If Yuuji has to go through his own personal hell (Shibuya) by Sukuna's hands, then Megumi has to go through his own personal hell (Tsumiki) by Sukuna's hands. I also think it's important that it's been made a point to show this "whose turn it is to sacrifice himself to Sukuna" thing through the title of the chapters being the same in ch.9/212, when even Megumi himself had said in the detention center that "it seems our roles have been switched" (from who's going to die - Megumi thought it would be him this time).

Like, I don't really know how to express it better, but they've spent the entire story sacrificing themselves for the other, so I think the conclusion will be them putting an end to it by finding their own value through the other. There must be a reason Gege has been having them mirror each other's paths throughout the story. I just can't see one's conclusion without the other's, since this story started with them both. I don't see Wasuke's "curse" as the ending but more chapter 1 as a whole, which is about Megumi and Yuuji making sacrifices for the other until both of them have to bear the burden that is Sukuna.

Maybe "taking the burden together" means they'll both die with the King of Curses but the cycle will just repeat again years later as is humanity's nature, maybe it means they both will have to find a way to live after all this devastation in their lives, despite it all. And yes Yuuji is the MC so his own, personal curse from the start of the manga should take priority, but Megumi (and Sukuna) is so tied to him that I think they will have to either die or live together. What would it mean to Megumi if the one person he has decided to save dies for his sake? Or what would it mean for Yuuji that he has to follow the cruel fate he's decided/been given instead of managing to pull through and finding a reason to want to stay alive, selfishly (since saving Megumi is definitely not the sanest choice here)?

I yapped a lot sorry if this doesn't make much sense, but overall I think I just have a more optimistic(?) point of view, and of course I could just be very wrong. After all, jjk has tragedy in every of its corners and who better than the protagonist to put a nice, final bow to it lol. But tragedy can take many forms so I guess I just want to believe that jjk also wants to say that unwavering love/humanity CAN break even the biggest of curses and to keep on moving forward no matter how bleak everything is, and there's no one better to do that than the two guys who have been pulling through for each other from the very start (Megumi finding a reason to get stronger in Yuuji, Yuuji finding a reason to live in Megumi during the CG, etc).

(p.s.: here's my translation of Wasuke's last words from the og jp text, but i'm leaving the jp too in case you want to translate yourself ^^:

オマエは強いから - you're strong, so

人を助けろ - save people

手の届く範囲でいい - it's fine if it's those within your hand's reach

救える奴は救っとけ - save those who can be saved

迷っても感謝されなくても - even if you waver, even if you aren't thanked

とにかく助けてやれ - even then, save (people)

オマエは大勢に囲まれて死ね - die surrounded by many people

俺みたいにはなるなよ - don't end up like me)

You bring up very valid points! Yuuji and Megumi's fates are very intertwined so it's hard to see any conclusion of either character without the other intrinsically embedded in it.

An ending where they both die, effectively ridding the world of the King Of Curses since it's a burden they both shared would be pretty tragic in its own right imo but them both surviving and helping each other heal while trying to fix their mistakes would be a much more hopeful ending and would especially work with the theme of the younger generation breaking the cycle of the older generation, where Gojo & Geto made disasterous decisions and died before they could truly bear the consequences of it (Shibuya and Culling Games), Yuuji and Megumi will live on to bear the consequences, but this time together, where the burden will be much more easier on their shoulders.

Yes JJK is a tragedy, but it shouldn't be a depressing one all the way through. We see scenes of hope that things would turn out better this time (Megumi telling Yuuji to share the burden after Shibuya, unlike Gojo who told Geto that he alone should bear the burden of failing to protect Riko, thus driving them away from each other) (Jujutsu Sorcerers fighting together to stop Sukuna instead of the classic mentality of "Jujutsu Sorcerers die alone so they should fight alone) stuff like that.

I do think it would also be unnecessarily cruel if Yuuji were to die right after Megumi (assuming he gets up because of Yuuji eventually) starts believing in a person again right after he drowned in despair because he lost all the people he believed in lol but Gege is known for just putting Megumi through the wringer so it would unfortunately fall in line with what he's doing. Like that guy can never catch a break, holy shit. (People kept saying he hates Gojo, but look at what he's doing to Megumi 😭)

i'm not too hopeful that one won't bite the curb prematurely, but i would like it if they do live on

(Also thank you so much for the translation!!! Official translations can be so wacky and the original meaning always gets lost in translation(

[nickelstudy]

I passed N1!

Yep, as the title suggested. I took JLPT N1 exam this July and the here's my result!

I didn't have time to write about how the exam was, so I'm using this as a good opportunity to write about it. Though, it won't be as clear as that very day.

Reading

I started off with my usual way, doing the 読解 very early. This time I tried to apply some tricks I learned from Sou-matome hoping it would help me which is

Skimming the first time -> Read again while making different symbols for different types of keyword including conjunctions too. I didn't have time to summarize each paragraph of course. I could only underline some phrases I think were important.

Knowing that I won't have enough time to do all of them, my time management was a little better. I skipped to finish the last reading problem first, the one with an information/table/graph.

In the end I couldn't finish only one big mondai which is fine. I did my best. And looking at my reading score, I was 1 point from failing which is really scary. If I take a test again, this is what I need to improve on.

Also the girl sat next to me finished it with 45 mintues left and took a nap. I wonder who she is...

Vocabs/Kanji/Grammar

Grammar part was actually the first section I do. This time I must say it was harder than I thought especially the star one. It was surprisingly confusing. There were a lot of problems I marked to do it later because I couldn't figure out the answer at all. Despite that, the format is the same as the last round. There was one polite language, and this time I didn't let it catch me off guard again because I was well prepared. Other than that, I kinda forgot...

Vocabs and Kanji, I did these when I had 10 minutes left. Kanji was so easy that I could speedrun through it. There were some that I wasn't so sure like 粘膜 or 誓約書 but in the end I correctly answered all 6 oft them. For choosing the right vocab, I'm okay with some. There are some that I felt stupid choosing, trusting my gut rather of my brain like when I choose 低迷 instead of 返上. I know the first one isn't that close but I chose it anyway...

Choosing the same words were almost all correct if it wasn't for the word ぞんざい. I've seen this word TOO MANY TIMES in the textbook or Anki but yet I could choose the right counterpart of it because it has too many meanings and I guess I wasn't so precise.

Lastly, the context usage. We have this 風潮 which I didn't even know how to pronounce it. It was hard deciding whter it litereally means as the kanjis show or is it something more figurative like a trend. (I chose the wrong one). There was 補填 and other words that mean a similar thing. I still couldn't figure out the differences lmao. And the last one, which was コンスタント. Should it be a constant (like a math) or constantly? or always or stable action? It was hard to choose but I made the right choice YIPPEE. I only 5 mintues but I had to read every single sentences so I was shaking a little bit but gladly, some are easy that I could tell from a glance like もたらす or how to use 撤回する -> 宣言撤回 from 籠り唄 by 悒うつぼ really helped me TT

Listening

There was no guarantee that I will pass the listening test. That's the scariest part. But I think I did pretty decent. Every time there is a listening mondai where they explain 4 things, could be 4 courses, 4 items, 4 rooms. And there will be a couple talking. Then you have to answer what each of them choose BUT THIS TIME THEY DIDNT DO THAT they go with what the girl choose first and what did both two have done I thought I could understand all of the 4 activities and I was going to be fine but nah. (maybe I really did)

Overall I'm just happy that I pass regardless of the score. All of the effort really paid off! The learning journey will continue despite reaching this level and I hope I can learn more and more from now on.

[windor-truffle]

is this a pun??? (aka Dolphin doesn't know how to read japanese)

ok i'm going to reveal myself now as an absolute monolingual ignoramus on a site full of people who fluently speak japanese but i think i might have accidentally taught myself something whilst translating the graces perfect guide and it's making me weirdly happy so allow me to be a language-acquiring toddler for a moment and overexplain what happened tonight:

so from the beginning of this translation project i was noticing some inconsistencies in how Google Translate approached the word used to describe Ephinea in relation to Fodra. "Star" is the english word it goes for the most, but sometimes satellite which seems more correct, and this bothered me because, well, Ephinea's not a star?? Not by scientific definitions anyway, I know this is a fantasy world but you can't live on a star, it's gas. But I chalked it up to odd translation quirks and moved on, until I accidentally got a few different translated lines thanks to part of the text being cut off the first time: "A satellite of the planet Fódlan" vs "Mamoru of Planet Fódlan" vs. "guard of the planet Fodlan." The original text is, I believe, エフィネア 【[ 文 明 ・ 文 化 】 惑星 フォ ドラの衛. Anyone who can read this probably can tell exactly where I'm going but I had to learn this so please be nice to me ;_;

The romaji caught my attention here because even with my limited knowledge I was like. wait a minute mamoru I know that word. A certain dumbass won't stop saying it. Is it possible that mamoru is somehow related to the word used to define Ephinea?? Is this a pun???? And upon some isolating of characters and a reference to JapanDict I learned 3 things:

The character 星 is the one google translate likes to define as "star."

The character 衛 is the one google translate told me was mamoru, and wouldn't translate it into "guard" until I allowed it to detect Chinese, so I assume that means it's kanji? (I'm sorry I know fuck all about reading in Japanese). By itself it didn't show up in JapanDict.

But you know what DID show up? 衛星, translated to satellite or moon. It seems the characters for "mamoru" and "star," when put together, become the word for the world of Ephinea, "satellite." The themes of the game are baked into the world itself ;_;

I had to stop myself here for a minute though because like I've said so much already, I don't know the first thing about how character based languages work. Maybe this isn't a big deal at all, maybe this is just equivalent to an ESL learner getting worked up about the morpheme "cat" existing inside the word "catastrophe" when the actual root and definition of that word has nothing to do with cats.

But the thing is, context matters??? If there was a story in which feline-based disasters were happening and it was being described as a catastrophe, that would almost certainly be intentional by the writers and immediately understood as a pun by fluent speakers, probably to their chagrin. But maybe to the ESL learner with juuuust enough knowledge to understand that there is a pun, it becomes immediately delightful.

Anyway, for now I'm gonna assume that this is intentional because it seems like there are many other words for "moon" or "satellite" in Japanese and they chose the one that uses 衛. Someone who actually knows anything feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'd really rather have my bubble burst but learn something than go around with false conclusions I made up because of confirmation bias and a foolish attempt at teaching myself a foreign language without any actual speakers around to consult.

But in conclusion,

[werchezdeeno]

duolingo is bad (and why busuu is better)

fyi, this is from the perspective of an english speaker doing japanese self-study

a few years ago, i believe 2020, I started doing japanese on duolingo. My friend and i decided we would tackle the language together, finding it cool and fun. I did the lessons, but then I got to a point where they started using hiragana (the japanese writing system) without any build up at all. I had no idea what anything meant, and I was not introduced to them.

I clicked around, and found there was a section where you study the writing systems hiragana and katakana (writing system for borrowed words) separate from the main lessons. I spent maybe a month going through the characters. I went back to the lessons and finally understood what they were asking.

The lessons themselves were very repetitive, and used the same sentence but replaced the nouns or verbs and the like. Multiple stages were basically the same. Then they started using kanji.

The importance of kanji in japanese in my perspective is even more than capital letters in english (which I realize I'm not even using properly rn but wtv). I looked to the characters section, but found there was no kanji practices. Despite this, most lessons past the point I was in had kanji. It was either kanji or romaji (romanized japanese which does not help at all, matter of fact, it can hinder your learning).

At this point I was done trying to guess what kanjis meant and stopped doing duolingo. I tried some other kanji learning apps, some of which are really good, but without any application I quickly forgot them.

After about of year long break, that same friend reccomended me busuu. She said she started using it because the incorporated the writing systems in the lessons, including kanji. The lessons include audio, videos, and instead of giving you a sentence to say, they teach you phrases and how to connect them. This creates a nore natural flow of speaking.

Using duolingo, if you didn't remember the exact sentence it would be counted wrong, and more importantly in a real life situation you wouldn't know what to say. Busuu has a community section. How this functions is when you have to personally input something, it gets sent to the community.

In your profile, you can set what language you speak. For example, I selected english, and so I get reccomended english corrections to help out. I find this better, since language is used to communicate with other people, and there are many different ways to say the same thing.

All of this is to tell you, if you're learning japanese, don't use duolingo.

If you have any other language learning tools (not just japanese!) Id love to know!

[swallowerofdharma]

Stat rosa luna pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus

Fuck me I wanted to analyze “the symbolism of the moon” in Berserk… because it was an image so often associated with Griffith but also Guts. How naive of me to think that it would be a simple matter of looking into it a bit.

I was wrong because the whole topic of “the symbolism of the moon” turned out to be pretty much huge and a big part of the whole world building, or the cosmogony behind it, obviously. It is far for superficial, far from be only a lyrical motif or one half of the key elements of the eclipse.

While I am still researching the subject and organizing my thoughts - I wanted to share something minor that has been on my mind for a long time now.

A while ago I asked a friend who knows a little Japanese if they thought that Guts name would make them think of the moon. Because I had this image saved, from the end of one of my favorite chapters, chapter 250, that made me think of it. I think it was a beautiful representation of Griffith’s isolation - isolation or alienation is a theme in the chapter itself explored through the characters of Sonia and Irvine. And I also thought that it was a reminder of the calling of Moonlight Boy: the approaching of the full moon* when Griffith would indulge his inner child and reunite with Casca and Guts. (*In the panel the phase represented is a waxing gibbous moon, between a half moon and a full moon).

The reason I asked is because I was thinking of the kanji there in the page, overlaid with it, because it was a very easy association to do, with thinking about the representation of the passing of the time through the lunar calendar:

“Please note that the original Japanese calendar, like some others in Asia, was the lunar calendar, based on the moon’s movement, so the moon’s kanji 月 also means month. The pronunciation of the kanji 月 is “tsuki” (つき) in its kun’yomi (Japanese reading) and “gatsu” (ガツ) or “getsu” (ゲツ) in its on’yomi (Chinese reading). The shape of this kanji is rather simple, and its shape has a clear origin”. (source)

This is what I was seeing basically 👆

And I thought it is easy enough if you have studied the kanji to see it in the moon that Miura depicted above Griffith. And it is also maybe not so strange to wonder what’s on his mind at the end of that chapter. There are no words or sound effects in that page, it’s like a full page illustration. My mind kind of conjured the words and at the same time the fact that Griffith here might as well be thinking about Guts/the time passing=gatsu until he would go see him.

I know that Miura writes Guts’s name in katakana ガッツ gattsu, as if it’s supposed to sound and be read as a foreign name, but I believe it is also used as a term borrowed from English and used for example in the expression ガッツポーズ (gattsupōzu) meaning “triumphant pose assumed by an athlete”. The English word has several different implications or figurative meanings (and Japanese thinking is very often spontaneously figurative because of the writing system). It means bowels first, but it also refers to inner workings that happen in our entrails, internal organs and the figurative meaning of courage, nerve, determination also is commonly associated with the expression having the guts (=possessing the inner workings in order to do something hard successfully). But it also indicates something or someone reactive or reacting without thinking: guts instincts. And all this makes sense to the type of character Guts is: his physicality, his stance, his personality. I’ll also add it here how it could also be a name for someone who doesn’t use his head much, but this isn’t intended as an insult, but as an anticipation of another part of the analysis about “the symbolism of the moon” that will follow.

Of course my friend answered negatively, they didn’t think it was common to associate the image of the moon with the sound gatsu. And I also thought that maybe I was simply misguided because for a long time I had the Italian version of Berserk where the name was transliterated “faithfully” as Gatsu instead of Guts (the friend I asked is an American). But then again, the names of the months in contemporary Japanese are formed by numbers (1 through 12) + gatsu=month=one moon circle approximately and the kanji used is still 月. For example 一月 ichigatsu is the first month January, 二月 nigatsu is February.

So 月 is also commonly written or read gatsu as a very common occurrence, for example when you write down dates. It is probably a stretch, but let me know what you think!

In conclusion, you see now where I was going with this lol?

Count this image as Griffith/Guts too! (You thought this was very serious, didn’t you?). Griffith is looking forward for the full moon to go see Guts in particular, while the Moonlight Boy is the part that is tied to Casca. And chapter 250 is just exceptionally good. Maybe this will inspire someone to revisit it.

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Atonement Chapter 2

This chapter gives us more backstory on Rena than all the previous arcs combined.

I just wanted to figure out if the "i"cky comment regarding why she changed her name from Reina to Rena was a translation liberty or not and I ended up falling down a rabbit hole of all sorts of Higurashi lore.

First thing I want to mention is Rena's name is in katakana while her original name is in kanji. For anyone who doesn't know the difference, kanji is a logographic writing style where each symbol is its own conceptual word. Meanwhile katakana is a syllabary where every symbol represents a specific sound.

When I looked up Rena's original name, I found 礼奈. According to jiisho.org, the 礼 means "salute, bow, ceremony, thanks, remuneration". I'm not sure what the 奈 is supposed to mean because the site just gave me "Nara, what?"

Meanwhile, Rena's name is レナ which literally reads as "Re-na" with no deeper meaning.

I'll add more about what I found in that rabbit hole as I continue, but for now, the conclusion I found is "i"cky was indeed an accurate translation.

I was originally not going to comment on Rena's mother divorcing her father and leaving for another man. We only got the perspective of a small child who wasn't aware that anything was going on. But I ended up finding out a lot during my digging so I'll include that as well.

She divorced him because she managed to be a very successful designer while he struggled to hold down a job and became a homemaker but struggled to do even that.

They had originally met in Okinomiya working at a clothing manufacturing company. When the company started to have financial problems, Rena's mother decided to become an independent designer which led to her getting the job that caused them to move to Ibaraki.

So she divorced her husband because she didn't like how he was dependent on her. Honestly, it's her loss.

Look at this guy. All the dilf-hunters should be pining for this man.

Also, when Rena's mom's business goes bankrupt in the 90s, Akihito straight up abandons her and their daughter. So yeah.

It's very much not Rena's fault that her mother abandoned her and her father. She would have done it regardless of if Rena accepted Akihito or not. If Rena didn't accept Akihito, the only thing that would have changed is her mother wouldn't have asked her to come live with her and Akihito.

Another thing I discovered in my digging is Rena's mother is name Reiko. And her name uses the same kanji 礼 as in Reina. So part of the ick that Rena had with her old name might be that it shared a kanji with her mother. She probably could have kept a full kanji alternate name for "Rena", but she wanted to utterly destroy every bit of her old name so she changed it to katakana spelling.

That image of the maggots is another amazing instance of the manga using its format to amazing effect.

The previous page has a panel in the bottom-left corner. I'd assume most people would turn their eyes toward the top-right as they're turning the page.

The maggots are on the bottom-left of the page, where your unfocused gaze will likely start when you're turning the page. They are far enough toward the center that they don't overlap with the final panel of the previous page. But they are directly in the path a person's gaze would move as they prepare to read the next page.

So you turn the page, move your eyes toward the top right corner, and along the way, your brain says it saw something wrong. And you turn back and see maggots crawling out of Rena's body.

In Abducted by Demons, it was mentioned Rena has dysautonomia and I wonder if it might have something to do with the sensations she felt. Some symptoms of dysautonomia include dizziness, clammy skin, and irregular heart rates. Maybe some of the effects of her symptoms mixed in with the sensory hallucinations other people suffering from the curse experience.

In a reversal from Abducted by Demons, Keiichi sees something is wrong with Rena and is trying to help, but she rejects it.

The big reveal that Rina works as a loan shark etontionist with Teppei came faster than I thought it would.

Also, one last thing I discovered in my digging. Rina's name is also in katakana but her real name Ritsuko is written in kanji. And one of the kanji in her name is 子 which happens to be the other kanji in Rena's mother's name.

So there's a double overlap in meaning over her name. Rina and Rena both use katakana for their chosen names but Rina kept the i while Rena discarded it. So Rina is the ickiness Rena wants to discard.

And Ritsuko shares a kanji with Rena's mother. And Rena sees the part of her mother that she hates pouring out of Rina.

If the source I used is correct, 50 million yen in 1983 was roughly equivalent to 208,420 USD which is roughly 653,577 USD when adjusting for inflation.

back

[archivalofsins]

Oh, in French subtitles, she refers to Kazui with a term that is a well-known colloquial homophopbic slur. (At least that's what I've heard.) I was referencing that.

Kazui, from the viewpoint of the audience and many in the world, has failed at masculinity. He did not live up to his masculine role. From not being able to find a partner as early as his peers as from implications made here

20/08/05 (Kazui’s Birthday)

Haruka: ……Kazui-san…… um…… Are you, happy…… on your birthday……?

Kazui: Hm? If I’m being honest, at this age I don’t really think much about birthdays any more. But…… it can be nice to have as a means to start something. Like, for a friend you haven’t seen in a long while, it’s a good excuse to suddenly start up a conversation, you know? Being able to hear from a bunch of people like that makes it fun.

Haruka: I-is that, so…… That’s… nice…… I’m, kind of… jealous. But, I’d also, want to hear from people…… e-even if, there isn’t a reason……

Kazui: Haha, but it can’t always be like that. You know, for us adults…… we always want a reason or an excuse for everything. ……hm? Wait, is today my birthday? So is that why you went out of your way to talk to me yourself for once, Haruka?

Q.04 Are your family proud of you?

Kazui: Nope. They probably don’t consider me anything more than an embarrassment.

From being the first son in his family but in his words being considered nothing more than an embarrassment by said family.

Q.04 What’s the origin of your name?

Kazui: I’m the firstborn son. I suppose my father also wanted me to grow up to be a strong man, too [TN: Name made from the kanji 一 (kazu) meaning one and 威 (i) meaning power/authority.]

Q.10 What was your father’s job?

Kazui: He was a policeman. It seems he’d always wanted me to be one too.

He's in his forties hasn't had kids and doesn't even have a wife anymore.

Q.08 If you could have one of the other prisoners as your family, who would you pick?

Kazui: Maybe Amane. Having children was the furthest thing imaginable in our family.

It's to the point that the biggest upside to marriage he can think of is the credibility it gives. The acceptance from society and respect from peers it allows.

Q.15 What do you think of marriage?

Kazui: A big benefit is the credibility you get in society. I also thought maybe it would make something change for me.

So by all means he's failed at what is traditionally expected of a man by his age and having the song be subbed in that way showcases that Kotoko recognizes that. Plus holds disdain for Kazui for it. With Futa and Mikoto well Kotoko has admitted she and Futa are the most alike but different and so had he until her stunt.

And his relationship with gender is...

Q.19 Are you happy with your gender?

Futa: Well, relatively speaking. There’s a kind of expectation that if you’re a man you have to work though, which is a pain.

20/08/03

Mikoto: By the way, Koto-chan. Who’s stronger between you and Kazu-san? You both know martial arts, right?

Kotoko: ……if it was a fair one-on-one fight, probably Kazui.

Futa: Isn’t that obvious? What a stupid question. There’s no way a girl could win in a fight against a man. This is real life, not a manga. There’s too big a difference in body size. And that’s what determines the weight of your attacks.

Kotoko: ……Futa’s not entirely wrong there. In a lot of martial arts, they specifically split up divisions based on body weight for that reason. I’m bantam, and he’d probably be either cruiser or heavy. Well, I’d still break an arm or two though.

For all the conflict they've had Futa and Kotoko have very similar views when it comes to gender and fighting. They both are unlikely to give a fair head on fight if it disadvantages them. They wait for an opportunity then strike. Notice Kotoko's emphasis on if it's a fair one-on-one fight insinuating what Kazui straight up says in his second voice drama if Mikoto and Kotoko jump him he's done.

Meanwhile Mikoto is the inverse of this he wants to seem honest, humble, talkative and helpful. Someone that others can rely on and come to instead of being hard to approach. All things that are mirrored in Mahiru's portrayal of femininity. If Mahiru is the sweet older sister Mikoto is trying to be the dependable older brother. Because that's what an honest man is. Honest men can get on well with anyone they don't have social issues they don't get angry that's unbecoming-

Q.10 Do you ever get angry at other people?

Mikoto: I don’t really. Don’t you think it’s kinda shameful, getting mad.

You need to hold those masculine urges those more unacceptable urges in and crush them down. You want to be a good man right. Mikoto pushes away from himself everything Kotoko revels in about masculinity. Everything that makes her say,

"This feels so good."

Because if he doesn't he won't be able to follow his dreams..none of his hard work will pay off. Everything he's worked for would be destroyed.

"AAAHHHH! DESTROY EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING!"

Because the only thing that makes Motoko so comfortable with masculinity is the fact that she can take it off whenever she pleases. Yet for Mikoto one mess up one mistake will change how those around him view him for the rest of his life.

20/07/08

Yuno: Hey, Mikoto-san. Don’t you get tired being so conscious of others all the time? I mean, you’re free to do what you want though.

Mikoto: Eh…… Aha, what are you talking about?I’m not being conscious or anything. It’s normal to make sure to get along with everyone, right? I mean, when you put it like that, aren’t you the same, Yun-chan? You’re always smiling and getting on with everyone too.

Yuno: I don’t smile unless I actually want to. But with you, when you’re talking with other people it’s more like you only smile deliberately. So I kept thinking, don’t your cheeks get tired?Ah, is this just what happens when you become a working adult? ……you see people like that sometimes.

Mikoto: Haha, you don’t mince your words do you. …….that was never my intention, but now that you mention it, yeah, I guess I do. This might’ve been since I started my job too…… But like, if I was rude to everyone I met, all my efforts would come to nothing, right?

Because when people already view you as a threat you don't want to give them more of a reason to think that. Don't want to prove them right and this is something Kotoko's seems to learn first hand in Deep Cover. As she's portrayed as barbaric in the news openly to thousands if nkt millions of people and one more incident could very well prove they're point.

Seariii, I have been emboldened by my mutuals to tell all the Kotoko thirsters that

You've all drawn the thumbnail wrong. I think Kotoko is flat-chested.

When I tell you this made me chuckle...

The other day I was looking at my art and I do think it's probably a little exaggerated, but I chose to go easy on myself because I never draw chests like that

ALSO IM NOT GONNA COUNTERARGUE THAT HSHSHSJJSJAJAJ I DONT EVEN KNKW WHAT TO ANSWER

BUT IM GONNA SAY this is what got stolen from us, but the milgram team did it for a good reason! They knew that the sapphics wouldn't have survived, and they need to keep their revenue and their fandom alive /j

[joyce-stick]

The Beef Stroganoff Song! (arbitrary subtitle discourse edition)

So, you may have noticed here that the subtitles in this clip (from Symphogear GX episode 3) are fairly different from what you're used to seeing when people post this video, and the phrasing in the subtitles is fairly different from what the associated memes often say

For those who don't know, Symphogear got itself released on blu-ray by Discotek, and with that came with a new translation authored by Noelle (@ulsairi on twitter ) who is notable for being the only trans lesbian anime translator I know of off the top of my head.

Her translation appears, in my opinion, really rather polished and very good, and I strongly appreciate the way it's written and how much character it adds to the dialogue by giving everyone distinct voices and adapting things into more natural English. It's also a fair bit gayer. I haven't encountered many people who've seen these subs, but I think most fans of the series would consider these a net positive change. There are some people who are mad about these subtitles, and they can die mad.

Anyway, let's talk about the different phrasing of the beef stroganoff song. I'm mostly going to compare to Crunchyroll's subtitles for reference since that seems to be what most others go off of. Here's a link to that version.

So right off the bat we can see here that while CR's translation appears to be a lot more, for lack of a better word, functional, Noelle's translation tries to apply more dialectal force "it's beef stroganoff/Yes! It's THAT beef stroganoff!" And generally communicate through the tone how excited the girls are to get started. Additionally you'll see throughout that the latter is a fair bit more lyrical, there's a lot more punctuation and verbal tics and filler phrases written into the dialogue to express that they are singing, which makes sense since Japanese tends to omit a lot of the sorts of prepositions that Noelle threw in here,

Like, Yumi (yes I went and looked up her name on the wiki) just says "beef stroganoffu" because it's obvious from context that it is beef stroganoff, she doesn't need to spell it out, at least, not in Japanese

(We know like maybe ten hiragana and 1 kanji do not trust us on Japanese this is all just basic shit we learned from online guides)

So this probably leads to a rushed translator from Crunchyroll (they are notoriously crunched for time) who's just trying to Get It Done probably not really bothering to throw in extra additional connecting letters to express the tone of the character, only doing so when it's required to make basic grammatical sense in the target language. So they likely didn't think to make the subtitles have flourishes like this that aren't explicitly in the original Japanese. Noelle meanwhile had the time to consider things like this and take such liberties in order to attempt to convey the same tone that was arguably implied by the Japanese, even if not explicitly put forth

And that's about all the things I should not repeat I guess, TL;DR, these subtitles are more fun to read because the translator had more time to think about the best way to make them more fun while still being accurate to the spirit of the original dialogue, who'd have thought!

(In case you're wondering, the Commie subtitles say kind of the same thing here, and y'know, it doesn't seem like a wrong translation, but also I really dislike this subtitle styling, orange on pink with that font and that drop shadow is just kinda bad. I appreciate the effort but like. Come on. Please fansubbers, please think about if the font and colors you chose actually work with the image you're putting them on)

Moving on!

horizontal and middle rhyme with each other so you can almost actually sing this, actually let me take a moment to try it right now- never mind, I can't sing. Hahaha. I don't actually think it lines up that well with the melody But I thought it did! Didn't I? That's significant, that this actually reads like plausible lyrics to a silly song someone made up instead of a literal translation of a Japanese song

Anyway, here comes the first major difference!

So in the Crunchyroll subtitles, Yumi says "it doesn't have to be beef" which in English (in my estimation) sounds a tad scatterbrained, like, "oh yeah sure beef but whatever really it doesn't actually matter," while Noelle's subtitles rather say "Got no beef? Don't you worry!" Which implies something different.

"It is recommended to use beef, but you may substitute something else if you are sorely lacking in beef" as opposed to "Oh the beef doesn't actually matter, zoinks lol!" CR's translation is kind of a bit funnier in how it sorta comes from nowhere without this qualification, which probably lead to this phrase's memeticness, but Noelle's translation seems more reasonable to me so yeah again, tada, yay for sensicalness.

Now here's another interesting change:

Again, the flat manner in which the CR subtitles say "finish with salt" with rendezvous only being included because that's literally what they said, is sort of absent any stronger emotional implication,

Noelle's translation meanwhile going with "don't forget them, they need it" imparts personhood upon the salt and pepper. The implication being that the girls are saying, "the salt and pepper are in love, please reunite them, they must be in gay love together." Or maybe you think the salt and pepper cannot be forgotten and must be reunited because they are Only Friends.

Whether you choose to believe that this is the salt and pepper getting married, or merely subtext, or an interpretation, or salt and pepper shipping bait, this is a deeply important tonal indicator because it reminds you that these girls are ultimately playing with their food!

"And there, now you're in for a treat!" I don't think I need to explain this one.

Now, here's an interesting one!

In the Crunchyroll subtitles, it just says the memetic "boys don't know this." With no context, no elaboration, no clarity, no qualifiers. Boys don't know. Did the boys magically get their brains wiped? Are the boys biologically incapable? Who knows. Nothing is said but that.

Noelle's subtitles, on the other hand, qualify this statement by saying "Boys aren't taught to cook, so they may not know" (And note again how, it says "kno-ow" to emphasize, once more, that they're singing, and also this lines up with the long "ooooo" sound they make at the end of this lyric, so cool)

There is now context! Boys aren't taught to cook! Anime and Japan's culture in general still pigeonholes people into gender roles! And an anime translator just wrote you a hidden translation note about it! You might be a boy, you might know how to cook, but certain boys in another part of the world aren't traditionally taught cooking, so they may not know

They may not, but they could!

Trust a trans person to express gender facts with subtle nuances like this in anime translations.

And with that lovely bit of good translation and good writing and good localization of a thing to make it make sense to people

Mew!

[righteousdelusions]

A (very interesting) Chainsaw Man focused Japanese language learning journey that may or may not have been useless. But it was taxing.

I was telling @aki-47 that I reread Yoshida's coffee date chapter (103) and the first Makima chapter (1) in (my very limited) Japanese, and I realized both used kimi to refer to Denji, specifically in katakana (キミ). That seemed interesting to me. I was trying to make a list with some facts about Yoshida's speech pattern, as one does when one currently has no boyfriend and hyper-fixates on the octopus boy.

But this kimi thing, specially because it was in katakana, took over my brain. According to google, using kimi in katakana might make it look particularly more boyish, rough, informal or friendly, but also condescending and fake. In contrast with kanji (君), which is the regular usage. Or hiragana (きみ), that makes words seem more feminine / cute / elegant.

I've come around and read more chapters, and actually, kimi in katakana is most likely just a Fujimoto aesthetic choice*, because it's everywhere and so many characters use it (or… eeeeeveryone is shady/trying to be doubly condescending. Which.........). Reze too.

It's also not that uncommon in shonen to use more katakana just because it looks cool, and I searched around in some different manga and kimi in katakana is not that uncommon as I was initially lead to believe by the internet. Once again, probably because katakana looks cool/with emphasis. But I didn't know that because this is the first time I've tried to do this sort of stuff.

Another thing is that Kimi and Kun have the same kanji (君). So maybe, Fujimoto just wants to use both kimi and kun for Denji and tries to give contrast to the speech bubble so it's not confusing. And that's it, not much to think about.

However. Even if the whole katakana usage is pure aesthetic.

Kimi on its own is a very interesting pronoun. It's an informal you. It can read as affectionate, but rude or assuming if you use it with strangers. It's a pronoun you can use with close people or with subordinates.

IRL it's a word that's almost never used, except in very specific contexts; because bosses use it and Japanese people tend to omit pronouns regardless. It's mostly used by males. It already can be read as condescending (more so in katakana, then). You have to be confident that the other person is OK with you calling them that. Male characters might use it with other boys to denote friendliness.

It's not common, however, according to google, that women use kimi. Even in fiction. Women use it in songs, but it's not that often that a girl calls her boyfriend kimi, even in a story (though i don't watch too much shojo, do girls ever call guys kimi?). Again, more often than not, it's used by men to women.

A wife calls her husband anata, the husband calls his wife kimi. That's apparently a famous context for this word. Correct me if I'm wrong.

To summarize: In the right context, it's romantic/friendly; it denotes a deep bond. In the wrong context, it's condescending; it denotes a feeling of superiority.

The fact both Makima and Reze use it for Denji then (both in katakana, too), it's a bit of a subversion, when it comes to a heterosexual romantic relationship. Then, supposedly, they are taking the lead in the relationship.** But we all know that they had hidden agendas, and in one way or another, were above Denji.

Makima was his boss so she was on the clear by calling him that, though Makima is not particularly polite with her subordinates in general (haha). Reze only uses it a handful of times, she mostly calls him Denji-kun; which is a more polite and cute way to call him. Yoshida is sort of whatever using kimi, because Yoshida is male and he's a fujobait character. Both Makima and Yoshida use Denji-kun and kimi alternatingly.

(I haven't re read all the manga in Japanese, and I probably won't. But Angel and the Future Devil both call Aki kimi too, in a way that feels more on the condescending route, of course. Also in katakana. It wouldn't surprise me if more devils called humans キミ.

Yoru calls Asa omae (お前), which is rude because of how direct it sounds. She also used it with Yoshida, along side calling him "hey, man". Fami refers to Asa by name, as Asa-chan).

But anyway. The fact Denji's (female) love interests call him that specific pronoun.... Welp. Look Denji, no worries, you'll get a better Dom sooner or later.

And I think in general, devils calling humans キミ is telling.

Funny language stuff.

Asa calls Denji anta (アンタ, informal/rude, shortened version of anata).

*There's some interesting usage with Denji's first person pronoun, Ore (俺,オレ) in the case of Denji/Asa and Denji/Yoshida. It's always in katakana with Yoshida, probably because it's an informal male context, (and Denji doesn't like him that much). In the rooftop meeting, Denji used ore in kanji, till Asa pissed him off, and he revealed he was chainsaw man with ore in katakana (which also works as a Japanese ALL CAPS). Just before Asa asked him out on a date, ore was in katakana when he spoke. In the aquarium date, ore was in kanji. Katakana=rough, Kanji=polite.

**Himeno also called Aki キミ. At least in the Easy Revenge flashback in chap 34. I don't remember from the anime if she does it regularly, and she probably used it with Denji too, but I didn't reread any other chapters with Himeno. If my memory serves, she calls him Denji-kun more often than not.

This was supposed to be about Yoshida who is in like, ten chapters top. Why did I do this? Help.

[linalilia]

[meet the prisoners!] prisoner 001: miyagawa akio

oh god we're really doing this.

so yeah, remember when i said that i actually have milgram ocs? i'll start posting them now!

here's our first prisoner! his design looks a bit boring, i know, but i think it fits him well! sorry for making him look like mikoto's long lost brother i wanted him to have that "basic anime protag" vibe, if you know what i mean. though his personality is not like that at all, haha. also i'm sorry if the symbols on his prisoner uniform look weird, i'm still trying to figure out how to make them look good and i can't see them that well even though i use references 😔

also, some notes: this story happens before the events of canon milgram project + novel (yes, i know the plot of the novel but i'm not sure where to read it in english, i'm sorry!), so es isn't the guard yet. this time milgram prison has not one, but TWO guards and both of them are polar opposites of each other. one of them wants to vote everyone innocent and believes that they're actually good people, but the other one thinks all prisoners should be voted guilty and all of them deserve to die for their sins.

this time the prisoners are much less sympathetic than the canon ones because if the canon prisoners are kind of "morally gray".. well, maybe these guys' cute designs will be enough to make people vote them innocent :') i will write their mv descriptions, voice dramas and interrogations as well, though honestly, i feel like i actually could try writing songs for them because i like composing and writing lyrics.. but i'm too lazy for that right now djsjsksk.

also almost forgot to mention, don't take their mv descriptions too seriously (or do take them seriously. i'm not your mom), like, for example, if i mention a character being treated badly by someone in the mv, it doesn't necessarily mean that this thing actually happened. it doesn't mean that my characters are able to lie through their mvs, it's more about how they personally saw their crimes. and considering that a lot of my ocs are very dramatic and they believe that they've done nothing wrong.. yeah, trusting their every word is not a good idea.

and if you guys find my ocs interesting, maybe i'll actually do polls where you can vote them innocent or guilty! and if not, that's okay, i already have canon verdicts for them in mind, so :'D it would be fun to see people choosing something completely different from what i expected though

anyway, you can read this boy's profile under the cut!

General info:

Name: Miyagawa Akio (宮川 昭雄) (kanjis in his last name stand for "temple, shrine, palace" and "river" and kanjis in his first name mean "bright" and "hero")

Age: 16 y/o

Gender: Male

Status: Prisoner 001

Birthday: September 4 (Virgo)

Height: 166 cm

Blood type: A

Image Color: #D5C7E5

Occupation: High school student (first year)

Personality: Akio is a very prideful and arrogant boy who has an extremely high self-esteem. He believes he's innocent and refuses to admit that he really did something bad. Whenever his crime is mentioned, he claims that it wasn't his fault and his victim deserved it anyway. However, he's actually very smart and it's easy for him to fool people and make them believe that he really is a good guy. He claims that he was the best student in his class and he's been getting perfect grades since elementary school. He says that he never had any rivals because he was so perfect, however, it doesn't look like he had any friends either. He also doesn't believe that Milgram is an actual prison and thinks that it's all just for show and even if it's real, he's sure that he will never get executed or anything like that.

MV info:

Which canon Milgram song he would cover: It's Not My Fault

Which DECO*27 song he would cover: Reversible Campaign (i wish i could say that i have a deep reason for giving him this song, but.. i don't have one actually! i just like this song a lot and it's very special to me because if i'm not wrong, it's the first deco*27 song i ever listened to (or at least i have many good memories associated with it) so i thought that it would be a good idea to give it to the first prisoner!)

If he could cover a song by a different Vocaloid producer, which one would it be: Abnormality Dancin' Girl by Guchiry (i do have a reason this time, but i think you'll be able to figure it out yourself :))

His MV description: His MV would have this royal theme/aesthetic, similar to Muu's INMF MV with its whole queen bee thing, however, his video would still feel and look completely different. His MV would mostly have dark/dull colors.. until one specific scene.

His video starts with a crowd of people sitting in a room that looks like some kind of a concert hall and even though it looks beautiful and detailed, it's mostly gray and black. All people look like black silhouettes and don't have any defining features, however, judging from their poses, you can tell that they feel awkward or even anxious. And then, suddenly, Akio appears on the stage while dressed like a king. Even though he's supposed to look unique compared to the silhouettes, his colors are still just as dull as the room's. He smiles and starts singing and while he does so, he appears not just as a king, but as other important figures, for example, a movie star, a popular singer, a president and even a god. The lyrics mention Akio being the only person here who's actually interesting, unique, skilled and talented. The silhouettes follow him around all the time and you can actually see them having bright green eyes, but they show them only when Akio does something cool, for example, defeats an enemy, executes a criminal, etc. Everything goes well until Akio notices that the colors of the MV start becoming brighter and he sees that the silhouettes are not really interested in him anymore and they're following a very bright figure that looks like it's literally made out of light. He starts getting more and more nervous as he sees his loyal followers leaving him. There's a shot of him standing with a glass case full of all kinds of prizes and trophies in the background and the glass suddenly breaks right when he sees that figure again. The glass hurts Akio in the process and one of the silhouettes notices it and decides to check if he's okay. Akio sees that this silhouette's eyes are different and they're not green, but pink instead. He smiles and the MV ends with the "more popular student" being executed by Akio, who got his crown back and right when Akio looks at the pink-eyed silhouette and nods, the colors turn dark again and the lights go off.

His Trailer 1 Voicelines:

"My name is Miyagawa Akio. You two.. You two are not much older than me, right? So why the hell do you even have a right to judge us for our crimes? Honestly, I'm the one who deserves this right more than anyone else here."

"He really doesn't know his place, does he? So annoying.. Hey, can you help me out with something? Come on, I know you like me."

Trivia.

He sees himself as innocent and hopes to get a verdict like that as well.

He didn't commit any other crimes except murder and he claims that he had only one victim.

He's secretly embarrassed of his height and wants to grow taller.

He's very proud of being popular with both guys and girls from his school.

He's not really close with any prisoners except Prisoner 009, who's only one year older than him and was quite a popular student as well. Prisoner 002 wants to become friends with him too, but he keeps ignoring her and finds her annoying.

You can think of him as Haruka's "foil" or simply his opposite because of them both being the first prisoners, but having completely different personalities. Haruka constantly apologizes, believes that he brings misfortune to other people and he's not the smartest guy here, meanwhile Akio really was the best student in his class, he never apologizes and takes his words back and he believes that he's better than everyone else. They're also almost the same age, though Akio is one year younger than Haruka.

Even though Akio and Muu's videos (we're talking about the second one) have a similar theme, they feel very different. No matter how much Muu claims that everything is not her fault, she still appears as a monster in her MV and she constantly says how pitiable she is (i am NOT going with the official eng translation) and even if she's a "bad girl", she still asks to forgive her. Akio doesn't feel like that at all and he really does believe that he's innocent and he also doesn't see himself as a monster or any other scary creature, HE LITERALLY SEES HIMSELF AS A GOD. He never asks to forgive him because he thinks that people will do it even if he doesn't ask.

His crime is pretty easy to solve compared to the other prisoners. I wanted to make it more complicated at first, but then I thought that it makes sense for a first prisoner to have a crime that's not as mysterious or difficult to solve as other characters' murders.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

some thoughts on twst en unique magic/signature spell localization

***Spoilers for chapter 4 of the main story + Trey’s UM!***

I can excuse Trey’s UM being changed from “Doodle Suit” in JP to “Paint the Roses” in EN; the Kanji for Trey’s UM name in the original read as “Paint the Roses”, so it makes sense why EN might go with that name over “Doodle Suit”. The term “Paint the Roses” also has a more obvious and direct reference to Alice in Wonderland, which fits with the vibes of TWST EN (it has a lot more added Disney movie references than what was originally in the JP version). However, I will say that it is slightly jarring to read different words than what the character is speaking (and therefore what I am hearing).

Meanwhile, I cannot say that I completely understand the decision to change Jamil’s “Snake Whisper” to “Snake Charmer” for EN. “Snake Whisper” made so much sense. Jamil is often characterized as a snake (the popular JP fandom emoji to represent him even IS a snake), so when he speaks his UM, he is literally becoming the snake whispering in Kalim’s ear to influence his words and his actions. This is similar, of course, to how Jafar used his snake staff to manipulate the Sultan into doing his bidding in the Aladdin movie.

Personally, I think the localized name, “Snake Charmer”, robs us of a lot of the nuance that “Snake Whisper” had. At first glance, the name seems to make sense, especially considering the effect his magic has on others... but then think back to how Jamil has been characterized so far and it suddenly makes less sense. If Jamil is shown to be the “snake in the grass”, why is he “charming” other people??? Doesn’t that imply that other people, including Kalim, are the snakes, not him? If I’m being generous, maybe this could be excused because, in Jamil’s eyes, the world is his enemy, the place full of snakes that has robbed him of his rightful place. Maybe to him, he isn’t a snake. But honestly? I’m pretty sure Jamil knows he is being underhanded and that he has to be—why else would be work in secret to dethrone Kalim? The same goes for Jafar in the original movie (he worked in secret because he was aware what he was doing would be frowned on by others), which means the new name commits the act of actually obscuring a Disney reference in a UM name.

Going back to the original UM, “Snake Whisper” works well because it better alludes to his personality. As the JP term implies, a “unique” magic is just that: unique to each person, a power formed and cultivated in part by one’s personality and individual traits. In this case, the “whisper” part of “Snake Whisper” may refer not only refer to Jamil’s ability, but also the type of person he is. He works quietly, secretively.

“Snake Charmer”, by comparison, kind of gives the wrong impression of Jamil. Most people associate being a “charmer” with being flirtatious which Jamil definitely is not. He’s nice, sure, but nice is not always a synonym for charming. In fact, the game makes it a point to tell us that Jamil doesn’t stand out and is seen as very “average” by his peers, so he isn’t seen as “charming”, amicable, or even persuasive (another definition for the word “charming”) by most. If we consider the full phrase, “Snake Charmer”, that somehow makes things worse because it can come off as orientalist (not that Aladdin was free of problems, but this just adds to them). Like... do you think the EN audience won’t understand the concept of Jamil’s UM unless you dumb it down to a stereotype? Disney already has a poor track record when it comes to representing other cultures, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised but... we all expect that they do better.

It’s just a baffling and confusing move overall, and I don’t get it 😞

[youkaigakkou-tl]

The Kyoto Arc Analysis Post (Part 3)

This part covers a look at the magic circles used, more manga geoguessr, and what exactly soul-Haruaki's plan was

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

Magic Circles

A lot of magic circles came up this arc, so this is a good chance as any to look at them.

The one that shows up most frequently is this one Byakko uses.

I believe this is based off a luopan, a chinese compass used in fengshui divination. The words match, as well as the compass degree markings in the outer ring.

If it’s an existing asset online, then I haven’t found it, but it’s probably a custom design.

While it doesn’t often have the yin-yang symbol in the center (that’s where the compass goes) there are some designs that do feature it in the center.

Haruaki has actually had 2 versions of his pentagram, from vol 1 to 8 there was a pentagon inside the circle, and from vol 9 onwards it’s just the star.

However, the star has gotten more detailed this arc! Specifically, you can now see where the lines cross over. (Idk how to explain this just look at it)

(When used by white haired Haruaki. You can also see the principal’s kuji-kiri in his barrier.)

Interestingly, the star doesn’t show up at all when Haruaki was summoning the four gods, instead it’s just the luopan design.

Double interestingly, Seimei has a totally different circle!

(Note the big dipper design in the middle. Or maybe little dipper? The handle is bent the wrong way again! Tanamai sensei do you know the two dippers are different….)

Also, this cloud pattern also shows up on the mark on principal's face.

But when Douman uses it, it’s the star overlaid over the luopan design?? What does this all mean?? Don’t get me started on the rest of that scene. Rest assured that comes later in this essay.

I think this panel in ch 22 is the clearest we get to see Sano’s magic circle. I think the letters are siddham script, used in buddhist scriptures, but I’m not sure what the letters are exactly. This combined with the lotus imagery on the ch 43 cover page means… idk??

There’s also this variant, which is just wacky circles I think.

And then there’s the ones from this arc. (They’re ever so slightly different, I think)

That one in ch 90 actually seems to be the same one as ch 80.5.

What are the words at the top of this color spread?

This is a good time as any to talk about this. The characters over the four gods’ are just the directions they represent, in order, east, west, south and north.

Albeit, they don’t look like typical kanji, because these are in fact the chinese pictograph versions of them, which eventually developed into the chinese characters now as well as kanji. Specifically, they’re the jiaguwen versions.

Geoguessr part 2

You see, there was a 3 day gap between the JP raws for ch 90 releasing and the chinese tl to come out, during which time I was bored as hell but also couldn’t do anything else because I was busy refreshing the chinese tl site every 5 seconds.

Clearly, the sane thing to do in this situation is to look at every street near Kinkaku-ji to find where this panel happens.

(Although, this is after I cleaned all the sfx from the JP chapter, but then I had to do it all over again for the CN pages anyway since it’s higher quality and I can’t just paste in the JP blurry raws)

I was originally going to also try to find the previous panel, where Rintarou and Ebisu are hiding under a fan, beside a vending machine, but I couldn’t find where that is.

Anyway, by god did I find this goddamn street.

But you see, dear reader, there’s a twist. This is not one street. This is two sides of the same estate, in other words, the left and right halves of the image are two different streets.

Here’s the link to google maps street view, if this is hard to visualize.

Look at this. What the hell is this. geoguessr impossible difficulty

(Thank god I don’t live in Japan I would have gone there on foot just to check every street)

What Was Soul-Haruaki’s Plan?

If you think about it for one second, his plan doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Why is he using his power if it doesn’t work on his body? He’s not stupid so what is it?

But if you think about it for two seconds it actually makes sense. Without powers (and even with powers), Haruaki is Just Some Guy. If 1/5 of him starts trying to kill him, what’s he going to do? Run about it? This guy can run just as fast!

The real goal of this maneuver, besides getting Haruaki here, was also to gather the youkai who could possibly help him in one place and knock all of them out. The only reason that didn’t happen was because the principal was there, and Haruaki didn’t know about him before all this anyway.

Also, a translation note/explanation for the term “anti-youkai power”. This is just what the official translation chose to use since the start, since it worked in the moment (and most of the time really). But the japanese word doesn’t actually specifically say it’s “anti” “youkai”. The word is “退魔の力” (taima no chikara), and a more conventional translation is probably “exorcism power” which you may have noticed I use sometimes. The “力 chikara” part is without a doubt “power”, so this is about what “退魔 taima” means. If you were to take the meanings of the two kanji separately, it would be “dispel magic”. The word “魔 ma” is also often used as a prefix for magical beings, so maybe that’s where “anti-youkai” comes from. Anyway, with the “dispel magic” definition, it should be pretty clear why his power works on both youkai and gods, given they’re both magic-based.

Also, as for why this power works on the four gods both times (when Douman stole it from Seimei, and then when soul-Haruaki used it) when it’s never affected Sano very much may be because the four gods bodies are magical constructs summoned into a piece of paper, whereas Sano’s physical body is just here.

(Or maybe also because both soul-aki and Douman were gunning for the kill, and Haruaki is never gunning for the kill ever. could be multiple factors.)

Where is Mount Ooe?

In case you forgot, Mount Ooe has the youkai town where Miki’s family lives. You’d think this is pretty close by, considering it’s repeatedly mentioned that it’s “in Kyoto”, and also Haruaki went there as a kid somehow.

The thing is, (maybe you knew this already and I’m just stupid) Kyoto PREFECTURE is fuckoff massive and Kyoto city is only a tiny tiny part of it.

So Mount Ooe is on the other side of Kyoto from where the city is. This is in the mountains, nearly 80km from the city! My new question is what the hell was 10 year old Haruaki doing there??? How did he get there?? Who let him do this?? Mamaaki and Papaaki watch your goddamn son!! Is this what kids in Japan do?? Fuck off 80km into the mountains??

Image limit again, part 4 will be the last! (Finally!)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4