Is it wrong that I look forward to making these images the most when I’m scanlating?
Chapter 1 of one of the manga series (the other being “Bungaku Shoujo to Oishii Recipe” in Beans Ace) based on the light novel I reviewed here. The manga is drawn by Kousaka Rito, and serialised in the bi-monthly magazine Gan Gan Powered since August 2008. There are currently 3 chapters available. Work on the second chapter will start whenever it starts.
Download mirrors after the jump.
MediaFire
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Rapidshare
Special thanks to NovaJinx and RunningKid for their proof-reading. Ruki, you’re fired!
Let’s talk a little about translations.
I translate from Chinese, because that is the non-English language that I’m most proficient in. You can even see in these scans the watermark of the Chinese scanlation on which this English scanlation is based. There a few problems with making English scanlations this way, mainly that I have no way of ascertaining whether the Chinese translation is correct, short of getting the Japanese raw and painstakingly translating THAT with a dictionary. Most of the time it’s not worth the effort, because Chinese scans are, in my experience, fairly reliable.
Secondly, sometimes sentences that fit happily in a given bubble in Chinese might not do so in English. Other times a sentence might be split up between multiple bubbles, but because of the difference in sentence structure between the two language, doing the same would result in a very clunky English sentence. It’s more of an issue in wordy manga, and Bungaku Shoujo is nothing if not wordy. I encounterd both of these in this chapter, and they gave me quite a bit of trouble.
Thirdly, Japanese words (and their Chinese equivalent) that have no obvious English equivalents give me trouble. Whenever possible, I’d like to do a complete English translation, without having to resort to using any Japanese words at all. Leaving aside honorifics like “-sempai”, the one issue in this chapter is “youkai“. I initially wanted to use the word monster, but that has a negative connotation, while (I don’t think) youkai does, as it encompasses benevolent and neutral creatures as well. I will leave it to you to decide if that was the right choice.
Finally, does anyone still remember that mascot deal? I sure hope not, I don’t want anyone having strange expectations. Either way, I promise I will have it done before the end of the year. THE YEAR 2009 HAHA!
7 Comments
While it’s true that the word “youkai” can be neutral or benevolent, what’s important is that Konoha tends to use it as a negative word (though fondly at times, if that makes sense). Hence I think that monster is fine, but if you want something a bit less harsh, than “demon” is also a good choice, seeing as it carries less negative connotations and for the fact “book demon” is a phrase used to describe someone who reads a lot of books anyway.
Baka-Tsuki has this light novel as a “teaser project” right now.. Would you like to translate the novels? (*_*?)
thank you
Hey thnx for replying to my previous question!
as for ‘youkai’, no matter what wording you use its going to be in a negative context. I mean meven in chinese your either a ‘yiu’ or ‘sin’ if you know what i mean.
i think its better to just translate it as it is rather than thinking of a better way to replace the word.
Please translate!
I really like this series so far…
When’s the next chapter gonna be here??